Chelsea Discussion

[Spike]

You know I feel bad for Marco van Ginkel, every time it looks like his career is getting back on track his knees explode. I get the feeling the only reason that Chelsea keep him around is out of some pity that they don't want to release a player that needs knee surgery.

[SchalkeUK]

Is Frank going to surprise us all - watch the Arena!

[The Liquidator]

On the face of it the past few months for us Chelsea fans has been exciting as we waited patiently as the medias forever lengthening Chelsea shopping list slowly burned down to the truths.

I don't have any complaints on the arrivals for the loss of Pedro & Willian. The little lady with the biggest office at Stamford Bridge has again lived up to her reputation for being a cut above all others wheeling n dealing in the transfer market. It will be interesting how much she manages to bring back in once a few of the no longer needed find new homes.

I was already a huge fan of Hakim Ziyech, so I have a special interest in hoping he performs well, but truth be known I cant fault any of the signings, other being completely wrong footed on Silva. Didnt see that one coming & sure would love to have been present when Luiz n Willian found out he was coming.

The two Germans are both top notch signings who have left us all with no doubt how important conversations between themselves & our young manager was to get them to London. There is alot to be said having former world greats in important positions at your club when recruiting talent who not long ago were watch them on TV. Petr & Frank are proving quite the double act and “Agent” Rudiger is chiseling out a lucrative career after playing by the sound of things.

All the extra bodies, obviously chosen by Frank, will fuel the opposing fans numpties claiming he is now under pressure to win this season. I really dont see it as that. As long as there is obvious evidence come the end of the season that we are gelling into the winning team he is building for the long term future, then all is well. Sort the fucking defense out & we are 3/4 there.

What is wrong with Leicester? I thought the idea of employing Rodgers was to stop players thinking there is better elsewhere. They are having real problems keeping hold of anybody who shows an ounce of form. You have to wonder if Brendon has struck a deal of earning a commission of any player he manages to sell for more than whatever book value have on their squad! Must be hard being a Leicester fan during the windows. Chilwell started at the same price as they got for slaphead Maguire, yet we get him for around the same price as Man City paid out for each of their 4 full backs. I am sure you are all aware, Ashley on returning to Chelsea was asked to evaluate a number of left full backs. While Chilwell did not come out as top, Ashley said he has the most potential of all he was asked to run his eye over. We shall see if his eye is any good.

I see Tottenham Hotspur drew Lokomotiv Plovdiv in the Qualifying second round of the Europa league.

For those of you who are not sure who they are, Tottenham are a little club situated in North London. 

[Cicero]

Ziyech, Chilwell, and Kovacic out for Brighton.

Pulisic may feature along with Silva

 

[Stan]

11 minutes ago, Cicero said:

Pulisic may feature along with Silva

 

Wow, Lampard really doesn't rate any other CB does he?!

[Stan]

@Cicero

Ignore the childish lettering (to an extent) but are these wages for real?! 

I'm not sure other clubs would be so ready and forthcoming to offer those kind of wages (barring Man City probably). No wonder Liverpool steered clear of Havertz and Werner! 

[Bluewolf]

3 minutes ago, Stan said:

@Cicero

Ignore the childish lettering (to an extent) but are these wages for real?! 

I'm not sure other clubs would be so ready and forthcoming to offer those kind of wages (barring Man City probably). No wonder Liverpool steered clear of Havertz and Werner! 

Do you think Cicero works in the accounts department or something??? 

[Bluewolf]

25 minutes ago, Cicero said:

Pulisic may feature along with Silva

Thought Pulisic was a major doubt??? 

[Stan]

5 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

Do you think Cicero works in the accounts department or something??? 

He is Marina.

Heard it here first. 

[Cicero]

All coming from a Twitter member who constantly bashes Chelsea and says he got the figures from his dad who apparently works for us. . If there was any hint of truth to that, his father would be out of a job considering the confidentially clause in players contracts. 

Bonuses are guesswork but hold some element of truth. The only one I would call reliable is what Bild reported for Werner, given they covered every aspect of it. I would imagine including bonuses, Havertz is close to Werner's figure of £260-290

7 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

Thought Pulisic was a major doubt??? 

Reports saying he may feature. Waiting on confirmation from Lampard on Friday. 

 

[Stan]

12 minutes ago, Cicero said:

All coming from a Twitter member who constantly bashes Chelsea and says he got the figures from his dad who apparently works for us.

Haha I did not know that  

[Bluewolf]

3 minutes ago, Stan said:

Haha I did not know that  

Probably an account held by @LFCMadLad

[Bluewolf]

https://9gag.com/gag/aEPDY5x

@DeadLinesman... 

[DeadLinesman]

59 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

https://9gag.com/gag/aEPDY5x

@DeadLinesman... 

Is that all your loan signings in the left pocket 

[El Profesor]

Chelsea fans, I´m curious, what do you think the objectives should be for this new season? What would you guys consider as a success or a failure?

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by El Profesor

[LFCMadLad]

1 minute ago, El Profesor said:

Chelsea fans, I´m curious, what do you think the objectives should be for this new season? What would you guys consider as a success or a failure?

 

I think if they could manage to spunk another £150m by the end of this week, it would be considered a success by most Chelsea fans 

[Cicero]

11 minutes ago, El Profesor said:

Chelsea fans, I´m curious, what do you think the objectives should be for this new season? What would you guys consider as a success or a failure?

1. Finish comfortably in the Top 4.
2. Night and day improvement in killing games off.
3. Better defensive structure and defending set pieces.
4. Better in game management.
5. Win a domestic trophy. 

 

[The Liquidator]

31 minutes ago, El Profesor said:

Chelsea fans, I´m curious, what do you think the objectives should be for this new season? What would you guys consider as a success or a failure?

 

As long as there is obvious evidence come the end of the season that we are gelling into the winning team he is building for our long term future, then all is well.

 

[Bluewolf]

26 minutes ago, El Profesor said:

Chelsea fans, I´m curious, what do you think the objectives should be for this new season? What would you guys consider as a success or a failure?

 

Being realistic.. although the side is a very good one on paper it may take a little while to gel to be getting the best out of them so I don't expect us to be getting into any decent form for about the first 6-10 games... Anything earlier than that will be a bonus. Given the end of last season and the start to this one with zero pre-season under our belts we have no idea who might hit the ground running and who might need a bit more time.. Players will either be a bit rusty, not fully match fit etc... but this applies to all clubs and players not just ourselves obviously... 

Given all the recent additions I think we will have the biggest adjustments to make compared to say Liverpool who have stayed pretty much with last seasons line up for example and players will need to get to know each others playing styles, Having said that I am hopeful that we can turn all that possession we had last season into an end product which we often failed to do previously, Hopefully Werner will continue his good form and be hitting the back of the net on a regular basis and with Harvertz, Ziyech and Pulisic we can be far more creative unlocking sides.. 

A top 4 finish would be realistic but we are still a way of Liverpool and City points wise so if we could be in the chase and reduce that points gap by not throwing away silly points and pick up a Trophy along the way then I would be happy with that... so talking of throwing away silly points our achilles heel last season was obviously our defensive frailty which I am also hopeful will improve, If it doesn't then it could be more rocky results ahead and a ton of extra pressure on Lampard... 

Although we are in the Champions League I don't know if it would be better for us to go out in the group stages but still qualify for the Europa... We stand a far better chance with a fresh squad of players in making headway in that then we are probably going to do if we get to the knockout stages of the CL especially this season.. 

Exciting times ahead though whatever happens... 

[The Liquidator]

 Brighton Away.

Wasn’t a very high standard of play by our lot for most of the game. Occasionally there was small signs of what might become, but on the whole there was little change to how we finished last season.

I guess it was to be expected and to be fair I wasn’t putting much on them to perform to the levels we all hope they reach. We should be thankful Brighton were no better than we have seen before and the extra two points from this fixture we managed to winkle out.

When I saw our line-up my first thought was Frank using the game to put players in the shop window, although I am fairly certain Ruben has played himself into stay with us as nobody can be daft enough to want to sign him, be it sold or loan. Since his return from injury he has been very poor & we sure missed a trick no moving him on when his stock was high.

James was outstanding for the most part, but I wouldn’t trust his defending over 38 games. Truth be told the same can be said about all four starting defenders.

In Baseball they have a term “He has a hole in his swing” describing a batter who always misses the ball when pitched too in a certain area. I think we have been left with no doubt now, Kepa has holes all over his body.

Timo is a player Pulisic is made of Chocolate Frank still a novice

Drab performance, 3 points. That will do nicely.

[The Liquidator]

Liverpool Home.

For somebody who is as well educated as our young manager, he sure is fucking slow at understanding the fucking basics or remembering what hasn’t worked before.

Kante is wasted anywhere on the pitch other than holding. Jorginho is a passenger & huge liability against any team half decent. Giroud knits our forward play together and saved our managers ass at the back end of last season. At the very end of that season we all thought the decision on Kepa had been made with Willy taking over. Yet somehow, for a reason that escapes me, he has risen back to number one and continued to be at fault for a couple of goals.

I wrongly thought we were passed all this, the Penny had finally dropped. Frank isn’t grasping pure basic management decisions & while we looked safe with 11 players on the pitch, the team looked disjointed going forward & safe isn’t going to cause this Liverpool any problems.

As much as I want Frank to succeed he is making it very difficult for me not to think what a more experienced manager might do with this group of players. For example, he isn’t doing Havertz any favours. The boy hasn’t been in the country 5 mins, started two games in different positions & pretty much looks like a fish out of water. Maybe a more experienced manager would have sat him on the sidelines early on getting a feel of PL football?

Ok, its early. Lotta ball game left. Need to take it on the chin & wonder where the two Forlough clubs have got the money for their new players? The Lepers of the football world ~ they know who they are.

[SchalkeUK]

I have watched Timo for years and said when the signing was likely that it would be a great error to put him in the PL - too nice, too soft and too often in dreamland on the pitch.  You were warned!

[Batard]

The overwhelming sense I get as a neutral is that Lampard does not know what to do with all the players that have been brought in. The system he's operating makes no sense whatsoever. I disagree with Jorginho being a passenger, he's one of the best passers and calm in possession, the problem as I see it is that playing him at the base of the midfield with Kante pushed to the right fundamentally does not work. Play Kante centrally and use Jorginho as a floating 2nd pivot. Until Pulisic is back it may even be wiser to play a more narrow system rather than playing attacking midfielders on the flanks where the game bypasses them. 

[Cicero]

Keeps chopping and changing. Needs to go back to the football we played at the start of last season. We actually had an identity then. 

Now, we change formation and tactics every other game. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

5 hours ago, Batard said:

The overwhelming sense I get as a neutral is that Lampard does not know what to do with all the players that have been brought in. The system he's operating makes no sense whatsoever. I disagree with Jorginho being a passenger, he's one of the best passers and calm in possession, the problem as I see it is that playing him at the base of the midfield with Kante pushed to the right fundamentally does not work. Play Kante centrally and use Jorginho as a floating 2nd pivot. Until Pulisic is back it may even be wiser to play a more narrow system rather than playing attacking midfielders on the flanks where the game bypasses them. 

His system against us over the weekend was very strange. I'm not quite sure what the plan was for Havertz, but it looks like he's not even really sure on how to use his club's brand new record signing. With Werner it looked like they knew how to play to his strengths... but weirdly, that kind of striker leading the line against Fabinho sort of played right into our makeshift defender's defensive style.

And I thought their midfield was... pretty shit tbh. And it's weird because on paper they're good players, but yeah the way they set up just doesn't get the most out of those players.

But trying to counter through him sort of just led to a stalemate where they were succeeding in limiting our chances, but they also weren't really getting chances of their own. Maybe that was the plan, hold out for a point? Red card + Thiago's introduction sort of fucked that up for them though.

5 hours ago, Cicero said:

Keeps chopping and changing. Needs to go back to the football we played at the start of last season. We actually had an identity then. 

Now, we change formation and tactics every other game. 

Yeah last season when we played you early on, his side looked like it had far more identity. When we faced you around the end of the last season, you were better in terms of scoring goals (Pulisic was brilliant that match) but that match was a bit weird on the Chelsea side of things because Chelsea would go in between looking really good and really bad all in the same match. I guess that match was sort of a microcosm of Chelsea's season though.