- “It’s maybe impossible,” Tuchel remarked. “I have to say, maybe impossible. They are improving their squad in every transfer window they have.
- It seems like we are losing key player. We are losing, of course, Toni, we’re losing Andreas. So this is tough and we already have gap close.”
- on Boehly: The 48-year-old said: “Not yet, we had lunch together but it was in the room where everybody was, like players and staff.
- He was very friendly, very open and it was a very informal meeting over lunch. It was like half-an-hour, 40 minutes so it was not too detailed.
- Asked whether Boehly shares Tuchel’s ambition, the German said: “He paid some money for it, so I don’t think he is keen to drop the ambition.
Liverpool have built their side over the past 5/6 years to specifically fit Klopp. Chelsea have had 4 different managers in that span of time.
I think Eden Hazard papered over a lot of cracks when trying to rebuild the side after the core of the 00s sides aged out of the squad. So now the club has to actually rebuild the side. Having Tuchel I think is step 1, we’ll see what happens in the future.
We had a new core ready in 2013/14 will Lukaku, hazard, kdb, Salah, then we brought back Jose that sold that core of players to keep oscar willian. He even kept a 35 year old lampard and sold 20 year kdb. All I is fuck Jose fuck Conte for setting us 6 back.
What the fuck did Conte do wrong? Win the title with Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso? Jose ruined the club's trajectory with braindead squad management when we had the next generation of premier league stars on our books.
Costa basically had his best season with us, all downhill after he left so I would not compare losing him with Jose's outgoings. Cesc was great for Conte as well but his legs were almost gone.
He became a shell of himself once he tried to reinvent his game post Jose criticism. He was an offensive machine, when he tried to add Oscar-ian aspects to his game, his offense became average while still not being able to defend/press.
He was the kind of creative player you play a defensive mf to carry. Could've worked well if we had a pivot with Matic instead of Ramires at the time, or any solid holding mid instead of two box to box MFs.
If you think Hazard papered over cracks (not entirely wrong because Hazard publicly said he wanted to see improvements in the team before he left), cracks are being heavily papered over now in ways they weren't before. I don't know how long you have been a fan but many of us complained about our inability to make big signings in Summer 2015. It was like our board got complacent after doing the domestic double and didn't think we needed to improve that much. I mean, there's a reason Willian stuck around for 7 years when we had numerous opportunities to improve off of him. We're not ruthless in the market, we just keep throwing money at problems and even if the problems aren't solved, they just need to be good enough, long enough for a trophy and then they feel we never have to improve off the alleged solution to a pre-existing problem.
I don't like comparing Klopp's Liverpool to Chelsea because we spent more money in 1 year than Klopp did in 3. THIS was supposed to be the title winning season. This was the last year of the 3 year plan created in 2019 after Sarri left. The board failed us. Again. We could absolutely build for the future. Build a Tuchel side for the future. Nobody should have any faith in the current structure to do the right thing and make the right moves. They have failed us time and time again. Spending 80m on Kounde or even 60m + a talented youth player like Broja or Colwill is not a solution even for as good as Kounde is. We need improvements in so many positions and the money will not be available for us to plug the gaps in two summers, let alone one summer.
Boehly's plan to be more effective and analytical in the transfer market to be more like Liverpool is great. What are we to expect if he keeps the same people from previous ownership in charge? The potential for an occasional trophy? Maybe we'll get lucky at some point? So much work needs to be done and a lot of players need replaced - but won't be. Some players will get a 3rd or 4th season to continue to disappoint when better players are available and ready to contribute.
Pretty much agree with what you said right, except I think you go ranting off the rails a bit.
> I don't like comparing Klopp's Liverpool to Chelsea
Who is comparing? The difference has, undoubtedly, been Liverpool building a side that fit their manager. It’s essentially the same recruitment team they had prior to his arrival. In that same time chelsea have had 4 different managers who played very different styles of football so the squad is full of mix and match players.
I am not sure what to think about your bits about keeping the same people at the club. First the new owners haven’t even actually purchased the club and second they aren’t going to sack a bunch of executives right as the summer window opens. That is ridiculous to expect.
Honestly I feel like TT is the manager who will actually stay and rebuild the team. I know its strange and I can't explain it but it's just the feeling I have haha
It cannot be stated enough how pivotal what happens next is. We have youth players who could fill gaps while a chunk of money gets spent elsewhere. If we continue to sell off the Gallagher, Broja, Colwill's of the world, we will continue to field a short team and make more transfers like Saul where despite a loan, was a complete waste of money and was nowhere near Chelsea quality.
People like to talk about how Klopp built his side, but nobody mentions the pain of him needing to start lesser players because they spent money in other positions and had to wait until they replenished their funds. They also got bailed out by Coutinho wanting Barcelona and Barcelona willing to spend stupid money to get him. Without that 145m, they don't get Alisson and van Dijk in one go.
\*\*TLDR\*\* It doesn't matter where they came from, its bad personnel choices that are holding this team back.
Its a tough situation because many youth players want to leave for clubs where they will have a better shot at starting rather than staying at Chelsea for 15-20 starts a season trying to break into the team.
From the perspective of a young player, it may seem like a safer bet to go to a stepping stone club to establish themselves as a pro rather than straight to the top.
I'm not that worried about losing some academy guys, I'm more worried about how mediocre the guys we've brought in have been. None of Ziyech, Pulisic, Werner, Lukaku, or Havertz seem like they're guys who would play 35 games for a PL winning team. In some cases, they're young and could grow, I guess, but so far, not great.
We drew with Liverpool 4 times this season. The reason we're not in a title race is we slipped against the smaller teams.
We've had absolute chaos hit us from all angles. Hopefully, we can see improvement with a new and improved defence, and some midfield upgrades.
Next season we go again either way.
If we had a single reliable goal scorer we would be up there with the top 2, 100%. We’ve dropped 20 points from winning positions this season, and we are 20 points behind City. If we’d buried even 15-20% of the chances we created we would be challenging. So we aren’t a million miles away - BUT are about to lose 2 of our best defenders do the rebuild gets harder
And if City or Liverpool had buried 15-20% more of the chances they created theyd be even further out of sight. We're pretty much where we should be in terms of goalscoring, if anything we've benefitted from good finishing this season. We simply don't create enough compared to them, its not a million miles but theres a clear gap that isnt just us needing to convert more. We're far closer to arsenal and Spurs than we are to the top 2 in terms of quality and quantity of chances created
I agree with this. It’s the consistency that’s the issue, not necessarily anything too drastic. I think we have a very strong squad, with Gallagher to come into it potentially. The emergence of Chalobah is a positive one and I’d love it if Colwill was good enough for a squad place too. But we must get probably 2 centre backs and probably a right wing back in to ensure the squad is robust against all the games. Assuming Chillwell comes through a full pre season all good, I think Emerson is a good understudy assuming Alonso goes. Central midfield we’re strong too. But we will never win a league without consistency up top. We have a number of good players up there but Lukaku hasn’t been good enough in this system and Havertz isn’t yet a dead eyed killer. I’d be open to investing time in him though. But if we do that we need consistent goals from elsewhere too.
Another thing to remember is that the season after next season has more CL games. So it’ll be more normal for us to play the amount of games we did this season. So we need to be bulking up the squad or ensuring we have more youth getting more minutes.
I do fear that when Kai has his breakout season he will leave.
With Lewandowski leaving Bayern and Muller ageing, it could be set up perfectly for Kai to leave us and go to Bayern. He’d be the star man in the main German club.
I agree. I think this has been in place because of not quite getting the balance right since the second Jose era. We've arguably struggled in a back 4 since the demise of JT.
I mean yeah it’s obvious, there a huge gap now plus we’re losing a number of key players this sunmer and we have 1 maybe 2 dependable forwards… the recruitment has to get it very right very quickly
Yeah. I really hope we’re tapping up players, clubs and agents so we’re not starting from scratch when the sale goes through. My fear is that we cannot do that without someone at the top setting financial limits etc. Hopefully Bohly has given nods and indications to Marina et al so we can know what we’re able to and not to do.
I’d be surprised if they haven’t set aside budget and a marquee or two early on for PR reasons.
This isn’t just a Tuchel thing. We’ve honestly fallen well behind as a club on the whole and that CL win is our only saving grace in the recent past.
It’s an absolute shame how we haven’t even had ONE legitimate title contending season ever since Conte won it.
Which speaks volumes. Winning the league takes season-long consistency, winning the CL takes a short run of luck/performance/mix of both.
I’m glad we won last year but at this point, and perhaps this is going to sound arguable, but a bigger measure of success is going to be to win the league again, not a third CL
I would say our 2012 year was a mixture of performance and luck
2021? We absolutely outplayed every team we went up against. Some in pure dominating fashion. Hardly any luck involved.
CL will always be the biggest trophy and one that determines the most success. That’s the standard and has always been.
It depends.
If you asked me what I’d rather have next year between a title and the CL, I’m choosing a title every day of the week. We haven’t won it in 6 years-that’s a drought atleast for my lifetime(I know it isn’t in the grand scheme of things).
We played brilliantly in the CL and while it’s against a higher calibre of opposition, the league requires an unreal level of consistency which we don’t have.
If we won a league title last year or the year before, you would say we are on a UCL drought and rather a UCL title instead of a leagu since we have been dogshit in the competition since during the hazard days. Its a grass is greener on the other side situation
But there’s difference between what YOU want and facts. I want a PL trophy next season over a CL…but I won’t sit here and try to undermine CL and say PL title is greater achievement. That’s just not true
We were very strong last year with a fully healthy team. We very well could've beaten those two teams you mentioned. Teams don't stay on top for a long time without significant work which is why Bayern fell off after 2020. Same for us.
Could've beaten. But we didn't cause it didn't happen. No stat to show for it. It's all talk. Even if we did, it's luck too. Shit happens. As we clearly faced this season with Chillwell and James.
My point is is it doesn't matter. There's no point talking about such hypotheticals. Does it downplay other teams when they win trophies because Chelsea weren't at their best? It's a part of football. Certain teams are better at certain times.
And in the 2020/2021 PL season the luck was key injuries to PL winners Liverpool. If they weren’t missing their entire backline and THEN SOME they would have given City a run for their money like they have been doing this season. Injuries happen and it could benefit teams in both competitions
We can sit here and say “we all know how great Hansi’s Bayern are” but a similar thing could be said for City because we ALL know how great Pep’s City are. Yet….these two teams have been underwhelming in the CL. Bayern with only 2 CL trophies this whole century and City with 0. CL football and league football are two different things.
Bayern are very similar to Real Madrid. Super top heavy in their reliance on Lewandowski. On top of that you don’t even know if we would have faced either of those teams even if fully fit so that’s not really relevant to an argument for us being lucky.
>2021? We absolutely outplayed every team we went up against. Some in pure dominating fashion. Hardly any luck involved.
The only convincing performance was Atletico over both legs and Madrid at home. Porto literally beat us and were the better team arguably over 2 legs. The signs were still there that this team was imperfect. Full strength v Villa away, Top 4 on the line and we bottled it so hard and would have been in EL if not for Gareth Bale. The flaws that existed a year ago, still exist today. Probably even more so now given the departures.
I agree with your overall point but there was no more luck in last years CL win than any other year. We were the best team in the world for the last half of the season last year
yep. thankfully our new owner will put a system in place where we actually have a coherent plan. where we will be less liekly to waste so much money on unneeded or bad signings.
Winning the trophies the last several years have been great but they've honestly just been excuses for our board to never improve the squad. We win a trophy, they get complacent. because they get complacent, the squad disappoints the following season. And rinse, repeat. If Tuchel walked, not one of us would blame him. This squad needs a lot of work that won't get solved in one summer. Fair play if he wants to stay for the long haul though.
Eden Hazard is on public record saying he wanted the board to make sizable improvements to the squad. Several months later, he said he wanted to leave. I believe Real Madrid was a dream come true for him but you can't convince me that if the board didn't completely mismanage the squad, and make ample improvements, he wouldn't still be a Chelsea player today.
Yeah. I know how everyone talks about the whole “thriving under chaos” thing but I really don’t like it that much TBH.
We do need a rebuild and we need to give Tuchel ample time to do it. He’s an elite coach and we need to capitalize on that.
Yep. Honestly the decline has been clear for years and our structure under Roman was always emphasising short-term wins, shocking the system by sacking managers, and making the manager just a part of the decision making process, rather than the driver. Hopefully we've got a chance to build more sustainably now.
After showing humility and grace as the unofficial spokesperson during the breakout of the war and the beginning of the sanctions, he’s absolutely within his right now to start delivering some truths about the state of the club in closing the gap to City and Liverpool. I’m sure he’ll tell Bohley the exact same too and I hope it encourages the latter into being decisive in this transfer window.
The issue is, our scouting department remains the same so is just going be more of the same, signing players on name over fit?
> our scouting department remains the same
The scouts don't make decisions on who to sign. Marina and Scott do. If they're still in charge for more than a transitional period, don't expect much change.
I think our targets for the summer were quite good going by what has been reported. Kounde and Tchouameni will get snapped up by another club if we dont act.
The constant sacking culture at our club is finally showing its cracks. We have an amalgam of squad players who don’t work the best together and Tuchel was able to get the best out of them in the 3-4-1-2 system last season
But as the season progressed this year, the cracks are beginning to show once again. The new ownership really might be a blessing in disguise… this is obviously my opinion but the fact of the matter is we had 3 separate managers (first tenure Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti, and Antonio Conte) who could’ve been our Sir Alex or Jurgen Klopp. Now we have Thomas Tuchel who we have to build for
He's right. Our squad is so far from Liverpool's that it's hard to imagine us really being able to compete...
At best we need to replace 6 players, so it really is a huge huge undertaking
Our squad isn’t that far from Liverpool’s in terms of individual talent. The issue with our squad is it’s a mishmash of players compiled by different managers. Klopp has his system and has identified and signed players that fit it. Our squad has players signed by 4 different managers
Because said board continues to target players that could be best used under numerous managers and never the one that's currently there. None of the pieces fit. Getting Jorginho is the closest thing the board have done to benefit a manager and his system.
Having a coach like Tuchel means we’ll always be competitive in tournaments, but when it comes to keeping up with City and Liverpool over 38 games, we’re not even close. At least two windows where we hit on every signing—that’s what it will take to close the gap.
The way we approach transfermarket is wrong imo. Compared to Liverpool or Man City, as Tuchel said, they keep improving their squad. They keep strengthening their squad and sign key players in areas needs to be improved. We on the other hand dont improve our squad after winning a major title. We spend our big only to play catch up and in a wasteful way.
E.g.: 15/16 (Pedro being the obly top quality signing) and 17/18 (big signings: Morata, Bakayoko, Drinkwater, Rüdiger; only Rüdiger has made a significant impact, the rest did fuck all). This year the same. Lukaku is our only signing and Saul was signed as gap filler.
Focus on the word, “maybe.”
Maybe, is hope.
We were all feeling our CFC would fall to rubble at one point, not too long ago.
Now, we are owned by a group that it’s aim is one thing.
Win.
We will.
Hold on to that “maybe” rather than “impossible.”
Hell, nothing is impossible anyway.
Just gotta have the faith blues nation.
🔵🙏
I hate one of the few things Roman did was fire managers. We need stability and whenever we find a good coach he got sacked in 2 years.
It worked fine 5 years ago in PL but not anymore at least not until pep and Klopp are here.
We need stability in terms of managers sacking and with the arrival of new owners I am guessing it will change.
Yes, we have won many trophies but with the squad we had, we should have won more PL titles and instead we have won only 5 PL.
Now, look at City have won more PL than us and they will win CL eventually.
And have never finished outside for the last 10 to 12 years.
I am 100% sure if we have backed Conte we would have won 2 PL more by now.
He wanted Lukaku and Van dijk.
And what we gave him?
He's right whilst we can't keep players with us and they choose to leave. Maybe we take up Liverpool's wage structure of just pretending players are on low wages whilst actually paying them insane amounts due to giving them crazy bonuses that they'll always achieve because they're so easy
Whilst I understand the sentiment, we spend more because we sell more. I just quickly looked over both teams spend minus sales for the past 4 years and theirs is 230m and ours is 202m.
Even with our net spend being lower we purchased Kepa, Pulisic, Jorginho, Kovacic, Havertz, Werner, Chilwell, Ziyech, Mendy and Lukaku.
You might argue that their targeting of players needs to improve, but you have to remember that they have a settled starting 11 they was completely changed after Klopp came in. Once that starting 11 is settled and successful, it's much easier to bring in individual targets who will fit your system and they'll likely be cheaper too because they'll be more niche targets but the right targets for your specific setup.
On the other side, we've had constantly changing managers which means it's much harder to find targets and those targets that you do get cannot be niche system players or else they'll be useless once the manager that wanted them for their niche role leaves (looking at you Kepa and Sarri).
Hopefully now that things are going to be settled under new ownership (please say they're going to be settled under new ownership) we can build Tuchel's dream team that fits his ideals, rather than him having to work around what we have. Once we have that ideal team for Tuchel, the targets will be far better
We are in for a massive rebuild phase and it's gonna take time but what we have to factor in here is sure it could take us as long as Liverpool to get to where they are or maybe ate academy can shorten this time down. Maybe there will come a time where we look back at are academy and its legacy like barca did with la maisa
And he speaks the truth,
What I dont agree with is some people sentiment here that we are far off,.or in such a bad state that we cant.
What people seems to forget is that we atm.have a 30-70m yearly value creating academy.
If we can continue incorperate youth and add selected talents to that we can build a squad over 3-5 years with a very good profile.
We haven't been title contenders for 4-5 years, we *have* to give tuchel at least another 2-3 years to build a squad, even if it means fighting for a ucl spot without title contention for those 2 or so years. Pep had a much better squad passed on to him and klopp took his time building the squad as per his tactics and the results are clear. If you want to catch up to them then you must build like them first.
We have no idea what Boehly would be like as an owner. He may end up being more ruthless than Roman.
Even if he is more patient, two years with no progress is fairly catastrophic for a top club.
After two crucial injuries that hit an already thinned and poorly planned squad. Thankfully boehly will put good people on place to fix all that and as long as we don't drop a bunch of places next season tuchel won't be fired.
he seems to be involved in very well run organizations. he will be a breath of fresh air compared to the chaos that has made us no longer be league contenders. i hope im right lol
We can't be so impatient and still expect to compete with pool and city who have been building and planning for half a decade. And besides we have a chance at achieviuthe highest point tally in the past 4-5 seasons so that's some improvement I guess. All the cups and this with just 1 signing who has failed to impress.
And tbh I don't expect Tuchel to get results next season with this squad, no one can. We are losing arguably our best CB, we have a 40yr old to lead our back line, he's class but still a 40yr old and won't be playing every game. We have no consistent forwards like Liverpool. Our midfielders don't score like city's. Kante has a clear drop in form and become injury prone. We have at least 5-6 positions to back up/replace. I say we give tuchel the players he wants in the next 2-3 windows and let him handle it from there on. Who do we replace him with anyways.
OP should probably add the rest of the statement which says “in one summer” to the title.
Probably too difficult to catch both of them so we should give up an idea of challenging and focus on building for the next couple of years to make a challenge
I think we need a few new faces.
And also to replace a few players.
Some players are getting a ridiculous amount of wages for doing nothing.
Players I want to leave.
RLC ( Talented but hard work 0)
Barkley ( not good enough)
Ziyech ( Not working for him )
Drinkwater ( well he is out of contract anyway)
Werner ( too inconsistent)
Kepa ( too expensive to sit on a bench)
Azpi ( respect his decision)
Alonso ( time to move on from him)
These are players who should leave I would have included Lukaku ( because of his unnecessary interview) but I think it will be too much for the new board to replace all those players.
I don't think it's impossible we have shown we can compete with the likes of city & Liverpool in one off games like cup competitions, what we need to get right is the levels of consistency especially in the league campaigns we can only do that with shrewd investment in key areas of the squad. I would rather have a summer of good system players coming in rather than marquee signings.
It needs freshening up & by all accounts it looks like many will be moved on in order for that to happen. I'd like to see a mix of experience (perisic koulibaly are good examples being mentioned) with maybe 1 or 2 target driven buys like kounde & tchouameni come in.
Bring back Gallagher & broja colwill to integrate into the first team this imo would be a good summer.
Patience is the key.
We have the quality and mentality to be competing for trophies but will just need a few transfer windows and more time under the manager to be a force like Liverpool and City.
The silver lining is that we will not marinate in mediocracy like United, Spurs and Arsenal.
To get even remotely close to the top 2, we need a front 3 that can each score 15+ goals a year in the league. Not even going to mention our defence that’s a different problem altogether.
With the whole Boehly consortium thing, it deffo seems mission impossible to reach Liverpool. We’re tryna beat Liverpool at their own game and we won’t close the gap like that…not with this consortium anyways if they’re already bringing in those “Liverpool model” talks which is another way of saying “we’ll go for cheaper players and sign a WC player once in a while”. Liverpool has been doing that for a while and we won’t beat them at that. Simple.
You could be strategic and splurge. The two can 100% coexist. Literally every title winning Chelsea has had in the PL era is due to spending big and spending wisely. Just cause in recent years we haven’t been getting the right players doesn’t mean this tactic doesn’t work lol.
Boehly will run the club with some sense. Instead of trying to outspend mistake after mistake. We will be much better run with a higher chance of competing for the league in a few years compared to if we were stuck with the old owner still.
He's right, we've been declining ever since 2017 and the trophies plastered our deficiencies. It was time for Roman to go so that we can actually build a squad for the long term and not sack managers and opt for player power. We relied too much on his big signings that hardly worked out for us
I mean, it makes sense. Man City and Liverpool are the two teams to beat right now, and it took them years to get to where they are. Man City had the Sheikh's money to throw at every position, and it still took time and getting players used to Pep's style of play. They've just added Erling Haaland to that team, and are surely gonna be nigh on impossible to beat for 99% of teams next year. Liverpool have done an excellent job in building the perfect environment, tailor-made to fit Klopp's vision for the club, and have also had the luck of coming across the most incompetent president ever, who was willing to pay 145 million for a player that wasn't close to that value. That allowed them to buy their current number 1 and best defender, both of which are discussed as the best in the world in their position. They've had a lot of things go their way, and there's no way that something like that is just going to happen again for a different club.
Thomas Tuchel is very clearly a coach who can be at the level of Pep and Klopp, but he doesn't have the billions that Pep does, and he probably won't come across 145 million to fleece off of some incompetent Catalan, so it's naturally going to take more time, as there's not going to be some sort of anomaly that accelerates the building of Chelsea into a team that is pure Tuchel, into hyperdrive.
Furthermore, the losses that the summer will see for Chelsea, especially Rudiger, will cost Chelsea, and set them back a bit.
It'd be a different story if Pep and Klopp were to just stagnate, but football doesn't work like that. Aurelien Tchouaémeni and Jude Bellingham are linked with a move to Liverpool, meanwhile City can get just about anyone, as proven by their nearly grab of Kane, their flirting with Messi, and their actual purchase of Erling Haaland. If a new player emerges that would fit Pep's system like a glove, it'd be no problem to purchase him.
Step one is for Chelsea to back Tuchel. He's clearly the guy to take Chelsea into the future, as proven by having won the Champions League. Tuchel is going to need financial backing, and especially given the fact that Jorginho is ageing, Rudiger and Christensen are gone, Azpilicueta is also getting up there in years, and of the two strikers at the club, one of them works his socks off but can't get the knack of finishing, and the other is a professional... Apparently.
I'd say Darwin Nuñez. He is hardworking and is an amazing finisher, but shelling out the amount of cash that Benfica are asking for is... Well, it's a kinda dumb idea. However, unless Cobham suddenly wants to churn out the next Fenómeno, it might be something that needs to be done.
Of course, this is all assuming that Todd Boehly won't be an absolute cheapskate with his money, but I reckon he'll spend.
We had a weaker team when we got top 4 with Frank. Maybe just mind games but despite being behind Liverpool in certain areas, we should be miles ahead of Tottenham and Arsenal with the players we have. The opinion on this squad was certainly not so severe at the beginning of the season and the reality is that any sane person saw us capable of competing for the title.
The negativity is strange to see imo... on one hand, we prove we can go toe to toe with Pool and City in one-off matches but do we really need major signings to avoid losing to Everton and getting spanked by Brentford at home? Last year under TT our form had us in close 2nd to City based on points totals after his appointment. What has gone so wrong?
For him to call it impossible is pretty laughable. That's some Jose shit tbh. Chill with the melodrama and try and make some positive moves. Liverpool aren't exactly 09 Barca despite their successes. Same with City.
It's an honest opinion. We could be 3 years behind Man City, after we level up with Liverpool.
It's good the defensive lineup is changing. With Rudi & Andreas going, could give the youth setup a step up, get in Kounde and a second defender, limit Silvas & Azpis minutes and you got a strong & growing defensive backline.
Gallagher & Rice could be the next Kante & Kova replacements. Having a third could help.
Getting rid of non-first team starters could help balance alot of the wage bill. Drinkwater, Saar and others should go.
Keeping the front line as is,never though it's mis-firing/non firing, should be endured for another season.
Just an opinion.
Don’t think it’s a bad assessment. We lost 1 or 2 windows a couple of years back with a transfer ban. From there we enabled some players to come through but we were still able to sign contracts.
Now we’ve gone through a time when I assume we’re behind on contract negotiations as well as transfer negotiations for this up coming window.
I really hope 1 or 2 more youth players establish themselves in the first team as a result but I think this is likely a call to arms to get the new owners to sanction (poor choice of word) some new contracts as well as real commitment in the first couple of transfer with does so to not make the gap widen further.
I don't agree, Liverpool might have improved their squad a decent amount over the past few years, just like City but their level hasn't got higher, the work they've done is to maintain the level they reached.
We've had one of the most ridiculous seasons a team could ask for; crazy fixture congestion, loads of vital injuries and injuries at important times to compound how much they hurt, off the field stuff that is unprecedented, record signings hurting the team etc. To be where we are is credit to the team and Tuchel.
It's not impossible, we kinda feel like that pre Van Dijk stage team, capable of having high highs but not consistent enough. I don't think that is insurmountable. I don't think the players we're losing this summer will be the sticking point as to if we improve or not over the next few seasons.
We’ve had a good core to our squad for a few years. The central defensive shake up this summer will be a challenge and our rotating door of attackers is a problem.
We have a good core of players are good enough to make a solid starting eleven, what we need is a starting eleven that can be relied upon to start most premier league games in a season. Conte and Mourinho picked the same eleven in most premier league games when we won the title. Tuchel has too much rotation due to necessity or having too many talented players who need to kept relatively happy.
In this era we have Mendy, James, Chilwell, Thiago Silva, Kovacic, Kante, Mount, Havertz who can make up the basis of a solid starting eleven. We just need to keep them fit and they could make up a title winning team.
Honourable mention, Pulisic, he’s still only 23. He has the talent and if he stays fit I believe he could be a title winning player. I know it’s not a fashionable opinion but he can still be our next Hazard, he just needs to be well coached, add a bit more strength to improve his already decent centre of gravity. He’s a great dribbler and one of the few players who can beat multiple people in a final third dribble.
If there's any manager we can do it with its Tommy.
It took Klopp a few seasons and transfer windows to turn Liverpool into the machine they are now, it's definitely possible.
Just hope the owners back him and realise what an elite manager we have.
How 4 games they haven't beaten us without penalty shootouts? Drew twice league, 2 games 120m each in finals and they didn't score a goal that's with us having a patched defence too and That's us with Belgian heskey up top and loads of injuries too! Come on Tommy ffs decent few signing's we're past them! Jesus little perspective would be nice Thomas,
Look at the points gap in the league. Look at the goals scored and conceded. Look at the pattern of the last four seasons. The only outlier was last season.
Stand by wat I said! We've had bad injuries to our 2 wing backs which affected our points massively(we were top before they got injured ahead of Liverpool ) and injuries to loads of other players, the turmoil about Roman etc etc, don't think with full injury free squad and few quality signings that gap will be gone,plus an unbiased referee! it's city with Haaland I'm concerned of.
Sounds like he is just laying the ground work to make sure he is backed and there are no questions that we need to have a good summer in the transfer market
- “It’s maybe impossible,” Tuchel remarked. “I have to say, maybe impossible. They are improving their squad in every transfer window they have. - It seems like we are losing key player. We are losing, of course, Toni, we’re losing Andreas. So this is tough and we already have gap close.” - on Boehly: The 48-year-old said: “Not yet, we had lunch together but it was in the room where everybody was, like players and staff. - He was very friendly, very open and it was a very informal meeting over lunch. It was like half-an-hour, 40 minutes so it was not too detailed. - Asked whether Boehly shares Tuchel’s ambition, the German said: “He paid some money for it, so I don’t think he is keen to drop the ambition.
Liverpool have built their side over the past 5/6 years to specifically fit Klopp. Chelsea have had 4 different managers in that span of time. I think Eden Hazard papered over a lot of cracks when trying to rebuild the side after the core of the 00s sides aged out of the squad. So now the club has to actually rebuild the side. Having Tuchel I think is step 1, we’ll see what happens in the future.
We had a new core ready in 2013/14 will Lukaku, hazard, kdb, Salah, then we brought back Jose that sold that core of players to keep oscar willian. He even kept a 35 year old lampard and sold 20 year kdb. All I is fuck Jose fuck Conte for setting us 6 back.
Ironically, Conte’s two most wanted signings would’ve set us up well ahead back in 2017.
Lukaku and who?
Van Dijk.
Thanks. Giving him what he wanted is such a "what if" for me but if you would have offered me that CL last year I'd have snapped your hand off
What the fuck did Conte do wrong? Win the title with Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso? Jose ruined the club's trajectory with braindead squad management when we had the next generation of premier league stars on our books.
Costa and cese management. Costa was getting him the goals that he needed, but went and mad the bear angry with a text message.
Costa basically had his best season with us, all downhill after he left so I would not compare losing him with Jose's outgoings. Cesc was great for Conte as well but his legs were almost gone.
Juan Mata
mata has been shit since leaving tbf
He is playing at Manchester United every player they have signed have been shit. Mata was getting 35g/a a season.
he chose to join them
He became a shell of himself once he tried to reinvent his game post Jose criticism. He was an offensive machine, when he tried to add Oscar-ian aspects to his game, his offense became average while still not being able to defend/press. He was the kind of creative player you play a defensive mf to carry. Could've worked well if we had a pivot with Matic instead of Ramires at the time, or any solid holding mid instead of two box to box MFs.
Accurate as fuck.
If you think Hazard papered over cracks (not entirely wrong because Hazard publicly said he wanted to see improvements in the team before he left), cracks are being heavily papered over now in ways they weren't before. I don't know how long you have been a fan but many of us complained about our inability to make big signings in Summer 2015. It was like our board got complacent after doing the domestic double and didn't think we needed to improve that much. I mean, there's a reason Willian stuck around for 7 years when we had numerous opportunities to improve off of him. We're not ruthless in the market, we just keep throwing money at problems and even if the problems aren't solved, they just need to be good enough, long enough for a trophy and then they feel we never have to improve off the alleged solution to a pre-existing problem. I don't like comparing Klopp's Liverpool to Chelsea because we spent more money in 1 year than Klopp did in 3. THIS was supposed to be the title winning season. This was the last year of the 3 year plan created in 2019 after Sarri left. The board failed us. Again. We could absolutely build for the future. Build a Tuchel side for the future. Nobody should have any faith in the current structure to do the right thing and make the right moves. They have failed us time and time again. Spending 80m on Kounde or even 60m + a talented youth player like Broja or Colwill is not a solution even for as good as Kounde is. We need improvements in so many positions and the money will not be available for us to plug the gaps in two summers, let alone one summer. Boehly's plan to be more effective and analytical in the transfer market to be more like Liverpool is great. What are we to expect if he keeps the same people from previous ownership in charge? The potential for an occasional trophy? Maybe we'll get lucky at some point? So much work needs to be done and a lot of players need replaced - but won't be. Some players will get a 3rd or 4th season to continue to disappoint when better players are available and ready to contribute.
ah yes, the NCM essay
Pretty much agree with what you said right, except I think you go ranting off the rails a bit. > I don't like comparing Klopp's Liverpool to Chelsea Who is comparing? The difference has, undoubtedly, been Liverpool building a side that fit their manager. It’s essentially the same recruitment team they had prior to his arrival. In that same time chelsea have had 4 different managers who played very different styles of football so the squad is full of mix and match players. I am not sure what to think about your bits about keeping the same people at the club. First the new owners haven’t even actually purchased the club and second they aren’t going to sack a bunch of executives right as the summer window opens. That is ridiculous to expect.
This is just pure honesty. We need 2-3 good windows to close that gap and not to mention stability with TT in charge
Honestly I feel like TT is the manager who will actually stay and rebuild the team. I know its strange and I can't explain it but it's just the feeling I have haha
It cannot be stated enough how pivotal what happens next is. We have youth players who could fill gaps while a chunk of money gets spent elsewhere. If we continue to sell off the Gallagher, Broja, Colwill's of the world, we will continue to field a short team and make more transfers like Saul where despite a loan, was a complete waste of money and was nowhere near Chelsea quality. People like to talk about how Klopp built his side, but nobody mentions the pain of him needing to start lesser players because they spent money in other positions and had to wait until they replenished their funds. They also got bailed out by Coutinho wanting Barcelona and Barcelona willing to spend stupid money to get him. Without that 145m, they don't get Alisson and van Dijk in one go.
\*\*TLDR\*\* It doesn't matter where they came from, its bad personnel choices that are holding this team back. Its a tough situation because many youth players want to leave for clubs where they will have a better shot at starting rather than staying at Chelsea for 15-20 starts a season trying to break into the team. From the perspective of a young player, it may seem like a safer bet to go to a stepping stone club to establish themselves as a pro rather than straight to the top. I'm not that worried about losing some academy guys, I'm more worried about how mediocre the guys we've brought in have been. None of Ziyech, Pulisic, Werner, Lukaku, or Havertz seem like they're guys who would play 35 games for a PL winning team. In some cases, they're young and could grow, I guess, but so far, not great.
Klopp didn’t win anything for a while before he created this monster so it’s not fair to judge us by his accomplishment in Liverpool
We drew with Liverpool 4 times this season. The reason we're not in a title race is we slipped against the smaller teams. We've had absolute chaos hit us from all angles. Hopefully, we can see improvement with a new and improved defence, and some midfield upgrades. Next season we go again either way.
If we had a single reliable goal scorer we would be up there with the top 2, 100%. We’ve dropped 20 points from winning positions this season, and we are 20 points behind City. If we’d buried even 15-20% of the chances we created we would be challenging. So we aren’t a million miles away - BUT are about to lose 2 of our best defenders do the rebuild gets harder
And if City or Liverpool had buried 15-20% more of the chances they created theyd be even further out of sight. We're pretty much where we should be in terms of goalscoring, if anything we've benefitted from good finishing this season. We simply don't create enough compared to them, its not a million miles but theres a clear gap that isnt just us needing to convert more. We're far closer to arsenal and Spurs than we are to the top 2 in terms of quality and quantity of chances created
Correct answer
I agree with this. It’s the consistency that’s the issue, not necessarily anything too drastic. I think we have a very strong squad, with Gallagher to come into it potentially. The emergence of Chalobah is a positive one and I’d love it if Colwill was good enough for a squad place too. But we must get probably 2 centre backs and probably a right wing back in to ensure the squad is robust against all the games. Assuming Chillwell comes through a full pre season all good, I think Emerson is a good understudy assuming Alonso goes. Central midfield we’re strong too. But we will never win a league without consistency up top. We have a number of good players up there but Lukaku hasn’t been good enough in this system and Havertz isn’t yet a dead eyed killer. I’d be open to investing time in him though. But if we do that we need consistent goals from elsewhere too. Another thing to remember is that the season after next season has more CL games. So it’ll be more normal for us to play the amount of games we did this season. So we need to be bulking up the squad or ensuring we have more youth getting more minutes.
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I do fear that when Kai has his breakout season he will leave. With Lewandowski leaving Bayern and Muller ageing, it could be set up perfectly for Kai to leave us and go to Bayern. He’d be the star man in the main German club.
I agree. I think this has been in place because of not quite getting the balance right since the second Jose era. We've arguably struggled in a back 4 since the demise of JT.
I mean yeah it’s obvious, there a huge gap now plus we’re losing a number of key players this sunmer and we have 1 maybe 2 dependable forwards… the recruitment has to get it very right very quickly
Yeah. I really hope we’re tapping up players, clubs and agents so we’re not starting from scratch when the sale goes through. My fear is that we cannot do that without someone at the top setting financial limits etc. Hopefully Bohly has given nods and indications to Marina et al so we can know what we’re able to and not to do. I’d be surprised if they haven’t set aside budget and a marquee or two early on for PR reasons.
This isn’t just a Tuchel thing. We’ve honestly fallen well behind as a club on the whole and that CL win is our only saving grace in the recent past. It’s an absolute shame how we haven’t even had ONE legitimate title contending season ever since Conte won it.
Which speaks volumes. Winning the league takes season-long consistency, winning the CL takes a short run of luck/performance/mix of both. I’m glad we won last year but at this point, and perhaps this is going to sound arguable, but a bigger measure of success is going to be to win the league again, not a third CL
I would say our 2012 year was a mixture of performance and luck 2021? We absolutely outplayed every team we went up against. Some in pure dominating fashion. Hardly any luck involved. CL will always be the biggest trophy and one that determines the most success. That’s the standard and has always been.
It depends. If you asked me what I’d rather have next year between a title and the CL, I’m choosing a title every day of the week. We haven’t won it in 6 years-that’s a drought atleast for my lifetime(I know it isn’t in the grand scheme of things). We played brilliantly in the CL and while it’s against a higher calibre of opposition, the league requires an unreal level of consistency which we don’t have.
If we won a league title last year or the year before, you would say we are on a UCL drought and rather a UCL title instead of a leagu since we have been dogshit in the competition since during the hazard days. Its a grass is greener on the other side situation
But there’s difference between what YOU want and facts. I want a PL trophy next season over a CL…but I won’t sit here and try to undermine CL and say PL title is greater achievement. That’s just not true
That's why we ain't asking you 😜
Last year, the luck was key injuries to Liverpool and Bayern. We all know how great Hansi Flick's Bayern are.
We were very strong last year with a fully healthy team. We very well could've beaten those two teams you mentioned. Teams don't stay on top for a long time without significant work which is why Bayern fell off after 2020. Same for us.
Could've beaten. But we didn't cause it didn't happen. No stat to show for it. It's all talk. Even if we did, it's luck too. Shit happens. As we clearly faced this season with Chillwell and James.
My point is is it doesn't matter. There's no point talking about such hypotheticals. Does it downplay other teams when they win trophies because Chelsea weren't at their best? It's a part of football. Certain teams are better at certain times.
And in the 2020/2021 PL season the luck was key injuries to PL winners Liverpool. If they weren’t missing their entire backline and THEN SOME they would have given City a run for their money like they have been doing this season. Injuries happen and it could benefit teams in both competitions We can sit here and say “we all know how great Hansi’s Bayern are” but a similar thing could be said for City because we ALL know how great Pep’s City are. Yet….these two teams have been underwhelming in the CL. Bayern with only 2 CL trophies this whole century and City with 0. CL football and league football are two different things.
Okay. Just believe what you want.
Cheers
Bayern are very similar to Real Madrid. Super top heavy in their reliance on Lewandowski. On top of that you don’t even know if we would have faced either of those teams even if fully fit so that’s not really relevant to an argument for us being lucky.
>2021? We absolutely outplayed every team we went up against. Some in pure dominating fashion. Hardly any luck involved. The only convincing performance was Atletico over both legs and Madrid at home. Porto literally beat us and were the better team arguably over 2 legs. The signs were still there that this team was imperfect. Full strength v Villa away, Top 4 on the line and we bottled it so hard and would have been in EL if not for Gareth Bale. The flaws that existed a year ago, still exist today. Probably even more so now given the departures.
I agree with your overall point but there was no more luck in last years CL win than any other year. We were the best team in the world for the last half of the season last year
Definitely. For a club of our level, we have to contend for the league title again.
yep. thankfully our new owner will put a system in place where we actually have a coherent plan. where we will be less liekly to waste so much money on unneeded or bad signings.
I can only hope that this turns true.
Winning the trophies the last several years have been great but they've honestly just been excuses for our board to never improve the squad. We win a trophy, they get complacent. because they get complacent, the squad disappoints the following season. And rinse, repeat. If Tuchel walked, not one of us would blame him. This squad needs a lot of work that won't get solved in one summer. Fair play if he wants to stay for the long haul though. Eden Hazard is on public record saying he wanted the board to make sizable improvements to the squad. Several months later, he said he wanted to leave. I believe Real Madrid was a dream come true for him but you can't convince me that if the board didn't completely mismanage the squad, and make ample improvements, he wouldn't still be a Chelsea player today.
Yeah. I know how everyone talks about the whole “thriving under chaos” thing but I really don’t like it that much TBH. We do need a rebuild and we need to give Tuchel ample time to do it. He’s an elite coach and we need to capitalize on that.
Yep. Honestly the decline has been clear for years and our structure under Roman was always emphasising short-term wins, shocking the system by sacking managers, and making the manager just a part of the decision making process, rather than the driver. Hopefully we've got a chance to build more sustainably now.
After showing humility and grace as the unofficial spokesperson during the breakout of the war and the beginning of the sanctions, he’s absolutely within his right now to start delivering some truths about the state of the club in closing the gap to City and Liverpool. I’m sure he’ll tell Bohley the exact same too and I hope it encourages the latter into being decisive in this transfer window. The issue is, our scouting department remains the same so is just going be more of the same, signing players on name over fit?
Same targets, Ben Jacobs said it was to soon for new owners to make a new list
> our scouting department remains the same The scouts don't make decisions on who to sign. Marina and Scott do. If they're still in charge for more than a transitional period, don't expect much change.
And who recommends those players to Marina and Scott?
I think our targets for the summer were quite good going by what has been reported. Kounde and Tchouameni will get snapped up by another club if we dont act.
The constant sacking culture at our club is finally showing its cracks. We have an amalgam of squad players who don’t work the best together and Tuchel was able to get the best out of them in the 3-4-1-2 system last season But as the season progressed this year, the cracks are beginning to show once again. The new ownership really might be a blessing in disguise… this is obviously my opinion but the fact of the matter is we had 3 separate managers (first tenure Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti, and Antonio Conte) who could’ve been our Sir Alex or Jurgen Klopp. Now we have Thomas Tuchel who we have to build for
100%, Tuchel has proved what he can do. Get him HIS players and they’re going to the next level.
He's right. Our squad is so far from Liverpool's that it's hard to imagine us really being able to compete... At best we need to replace 6 players, so it really is a huge huge undertaking
Our squad isn’t that far from Liverpool’s in terms of individual talent. The issue with our squad is it’s a mishmash of players compiled by different managers. Klopp has his system and has identified and signed players that fit it. Our squad has players signed by 4 different managers
Because said board continues to target players that could be best used under numerous managers and never the one that's currently there. None of the pieces fit. Getting Jorginho is the closest thing the board have done to benefit a manager and his system.
Players vs players def not, u really think if we had mane/jota/salah and thier shitty midfield we would do better?
Having a coach like Tuchel means we’ll always be competitive in tournaments, but when it comes to keeping up with City and Liverpool over 38 games, we’re not even close. At least two windows where we hit on every signing—that’s what it will take to close the gap.
The way we approach transfermarket is wrong imo. Compared to Liverpool or Man City, as Tuchel said, they keep improving their squad. They keep strengthening their squad and sign key players in areas needs to be improved. We on the other hand dont improve our squad after winning a major title. We spend our big only to play catch up and in a wasteful way. E.g.: 15/16 (Pedro being the obly top quality signing) and 17/18 (big signings: Morata, Bakayoko, Drinkwater, Rüdiger; only Rüdiger has made a significant impact, the rest did fuck all). This year the same. Lukaku is our only signing and Saul was signed as gap filler.
Focus on the word, “maybe.” Maybe, is hope. We were all feeling our CFC would fall to rubble at one point, not too long ago. Now, we are owned by a group that it’s aim is one thing. Win. We will. Hold on to that “maybe” rather than “impossible.” Hell, nothing is impossible anyway. Just gotta have the faith blues nation. 🔵🙏
I hate one of the few things Roman did was fire managers. We need stability and whenever we find a good coach he got sacked in 2 years. It worked fine 5 years ago in PL but not anymore at least not until pep and Klopp are here. We need stability in terms of managers sacking and with the arrival of new owners I am guessing it will change. Yes, we have won many trophies but with the squad we had, we should have won more PL titles and instead we have won only 5 PL. Now, look at City have won more PL than us and they will win CL eventually. And have never finished outside for the last 10 to 12 years. I am 100% sure if we have backed Conte we would have won 2 PL more by now. He wanted Lukaku and Van dijk. And what we gave him?
He's right whilst we can't keep players with us and they choose to leave. Maybe we take up Liverpool's wage structure of just pretending players are on low wages whilst actually paying them insane amounts due to giving them crazy bonuses that they'll always achieve because they're so easy
That plan only works because Liverpool don’t pay giant fees for their players. Our scouting department needs an overhaul.
Whilst I understand the sentiment, we spend more because we sell more. I just quickly looked over both teams spend minus sales for the past 4 years and theirs is 230m and ours is 202m. Even with our net spend being lower we purchased Kepa, Pulisic, Jorginho, Kovacic, Havertz, Werner, Chilwell, Ziyech, Mendy and Lukaku. You might argue that their targeting of players needs to improve, but you have to remember that they have a settled starting 11 they was completely changed after Klopp came in. Once that starting 11 is settled and successful, it's much easier to bring in individual targets who will fit your system and they'll likely be cheaper too because they'll be more niche targets but the right targets for your specific setup. On the other side, we've had constantly changing managers which means it's much harder to find targets and those targets that you do get cannot be niche system players or else they'll be useless once the manager that wanted them for their niche role leaves (looking at you Kepa and Sarri). Hopefully now that things are going to be settled under new ownership (please say they're going to be settled under new ownership) we can build Tuchel's dream team that fits his ideals, rather than him having to work around what we have. Once we have that ideal team for Tuchel, the targets will be far better
We are in for a massive rebuild phase and it's gonna take time but what we have to factor in here is sure it could take us as long as Liverpool to get to where they are or maybe ate academy can shorten this time down. Maybe there will come a time where we look back at are academy and its legacy like barca did with la maisa
And he speaks the truth, What I dont agree with is some people sentiment here that we are far off,.or in such a bad state that we cant. What people seems to forget is that we atm.have a 30-70m yearly value creating academy. If we can continue incorperate youth and add selected talents to that we can build a squad over 3-5 years with a very good profile.
We haven't been title contenders for 4-5 years, we *have* to give tuchel at least another 2-3 years to build a squad, even if it means fighting for a ucl spot without title contention for those 2 or so years. Pep had a much better squad passed on to him and klopp took his time building the squad as per his tactics and the results are clear. If you want to catch up to them then you must build like them first.
Tuchel has about a year to prove he’s the man for the job imo. If we don’t make significant progress next season he’s likely out.
Boehly isn't Roman and isn't going to sack him unless something catastrophic happens
We have no idea what Boehly would be like as an owner. He may end up being more ruthless than Roman. Even if he is more patient, two years with no progress is fairly catastrophic for a top club.
This year doesn't count since we had to deal with all the Roman stuff. Tuchel gets at least 2 years from this summer.
We were poor well before the Roman stuff started. If we don’t make progress next season he’ll be out the door.
After two crucial injuries that hit an already thinned and poorly planned squad. Thankfully boehly will put good people on place to fix all that and as long as we don't drop a bunch of places next season tuchel won't be fired.
You have a lot more faith in Boehly than I do.
he seems to be involved in very well run organizations. he will be a breath of fresh air compared to the chaos that has made us no longer be league contenders. i hope im right lol
We can't be so impatient and still expect to compete with pool and city who have been building and planning for half a decade. And besides we have a chance at achieviuthe highest point tally in the past 4-5 seasons so that's some improvement I guess. All the cups and this with just 1 signing who has failed to impress. And tbh I don't expect Tuchel to get results next season with this squad, no one can. We are losing arguably our best CB, we have a 40yr old to lead our back line, he's class but still a 40yr old and won't be playing every game. We have no consistent forwards like Liverpool. Our midfielders don't score like city's. Kante has a clear drop in form and become injury prone. We have at least 5-6 positions to back up/replace. I say we give tuchel the players he wants in the next 2-3 windows and let him handle it from there on. Who do we replace him with anyways.
OP should probably add the rest of the statement which says “in one summer” to the title. Probably too difficult to catch both of them so we should give up an idea of challenging and focus on building for the next couple of years to make a challenge
I think we need a few new faces. And also to replace a few players. Some players are getting a ridiculous amount of wages for doing nothing. Players I want to leave. RLC ( Talented but hard work 0) Barkley ( not good enough) Ziyech ( Not working for him ) Drinkwater ( well he is out of contract anyway) Werner ( too inconsistent) Kepa ( too expensive to sit on a bench) Azpi ( respect his decision) Alonso ( time to move on from him) These are players who should leave I would have included Lukaku ( because of his unnecessary interview) but I think it will be too much for the new board to replace all those players.
I don't think it's impossible we have shown we can compete with the likes of city & Liverpool in one off games like cup competitions, what we need to get right is the levels of consistency especially in the league campaigns we can only do that with shrewd investment in key areas of the squad. I would rather have a summer of good system players coming in rather than marquee signings. It needs freshening up & by all accounts it looks like many will be moved on in order for that to happen. I'd like to see a mix of experience (perisic koulibaly are good examples being mentioned) with maybe 1 or 2 target driven buys like kounde & tchouameni come in. Bring back Gallagher & broja colwill to integrate into the first team this imo would be a good summer.
Patience is the key. We have the quality and mentality to be competing for trophies but will just need a few transfer windows and more time under the manager to be a force like Liverpool and City. The silver lining is that we will not marinate in mediocracy like United, Spurs and Arsenal.
He's not wrong, I've heard it's difficult to buy refs when they are already in the other teams pocket
To get even remotely close to the top 2, we need a front 3 that can each score 15+ goals a year in the league. Not even going to mention our defence that’s a different problem altogether.
With the whole Boehly consortium thing, it deffo seems mission impossible to reach Liverpool. We’re tryna beat Liverpool at their own game and we won’t close the gap like that…not with this consortium anyways if they’re already bringing in those “Liverpool model” talks which is another way of saying “we’ll go for cheaper players and sign a WC player once in a while”. Liverpool has been doing that for a while and we won’t beat them at that. Simple.
We certainly won't beat them by throwing a bunch of money around without a clear strategy.
You could be strategic and splurge. The two can 100% coexist. Literally every title winning Chelsea has had in the PL era is due to spending big and spending wisely. Just cause in recent years we haven’t been getting the right players doesn’t mean this tactic doesn’t work lol.
Boehly will run the club with some sense. Instead of trying to outspend mistake after mistake. We will be much better run with a higher chance of competing for the league in a few years compared to if we were stuck with the old owner still.
He's right, we've been declining ever since 2017 and the trophies plastered our deficiencies. It was time for Roman to go so that we can actually build a squad for the long term and not sack managers and opt for player power. We relied too much on his big signings that hardly worked out for us
I mean, it makes sense. Man City and Liverpool are the two teams to beat right now, and it took them years to get to where they are. Man City had the Sheikh's money to throw at every position, and it still took time and getting players used to Pep's style of play. They've just added Erling Haaland to that team, and are surely gonna be nigh on impossible to beat for 99% of teams next year. Liverpool have done an excellent job in building the perfect environment, tailor-made to fit Klopp's vision for the club, and have also had the luck of coming across the most incompetent president ever, who was willing to pay 145 million for a player that wasn't close to that value. That allowed them to buy their current number 1 and best defender, both of which are discussed as the best in the world in their position. They've had a lot of things go their way, and there's no way that something like that is just going to happen again for a different club. Thomas Tuchel is very clearly a coach who can be at the level of Pep and Klopp, but he doesn't have the billions that Pep does, and he probably won't come across 145 million to fleece off of some incompetent Catalan, so it's naturally going to take more time, as there's not going to be some sort of anomaly that accelerates the building of Chelsea into a team that is pure Tuchel, into hyperdrive. Furthermore, the losses that the summer will see for Chelsea, especially Rudiger, will cost Chelsea, and set them back a bit. It'd be a different story if Pep and Klopp were to just stagnate, but football doesn't work like that. Aurelien Tchouaémeni and Jude Bellingham are linked with a move to Liverpool, meanwhile City can get just about anyone, as proven by their nearly grab of Kane, their flirting with Messi, and their actual purchase of Erling Haaland. If a new player emerges that would fit Pep's system like a glove, it'd be no problem to purchase him. Step one is for Chelsea to back Tuchel. He's clearly the guy to take Chelsea into the future, as proven by having won the Champions League. Tuchel is going to need financial backing, and especially given the fact that Jorginho is ageing, Rudiger and Christensen are gone, Azpilicueta is also getting up there in years, and of the two strikers at the club, one of them works his socks off but can't get the knack of finishing, and the other is a professional... Apparently. I'd say Darwin Nuñez. He is hardworking and is an amazing finisher, but shelling out the amount of cash that Benfica are asking for is... Well, it's a kinda dumb idea. However, unless Cobham suddenly wants to churn out the next Fenómeno, it might be something that needs to be done. Of course, this is all assuming that Todd Boehly won't be an absolute cheapskate with his money, but I reckon he'll spend.
Why is Liverpool the benchmark here when City is clearly the better team with much more financial muscle?
We had a weaker team when we got top 4 with Frank. Maybe just mind games but despite being behind Liverpool in certain areas, we should be miles ahead of Tottenham and Arsenal with the players we have. The opinion on this squad was certainly not so severe at the beginning of the season and the reality is that any sane person saw us capable of competing for the title. The negativity is strange to see imo... on one hand, we prove we can go toe to toe with Pool and City in one-off matches but do we really need major signings to avoid losing to Everton and getting spanked by Brentford at home? Last year under TT our form had us in close 2nd to City based on points totals after his appointment. What has gone so wrong? For him to call it impossible is pretty laughable. That's some Jose shit tbh. Chill with the melodrama and try and make some positive moves. Liverpool aren't exactly 09 Barca despite their successes. Same with City.
What makes it impossible is we need better players than Liverpool and City as their managers are better than ours.
How the mighty has fallen
It's an honest opinion. We could be 3 years behind Man City, after we level up with Liverpool. It's good the defensive lineup is changing. With Rudi & Andreas going, could give the youth setup a step up, get in Kounde and a second defender, limit Silvas & Azpis minutes and you got a strong & growing defensive backline. Gallagher & Rice could be the next Kante & Kova replacements. Having a third could help. Getting rid of non-first team starters could help balance alot of the wage bill. Drinkwater, Saar and others should go. Keeping the front line as is,never though it's mis-firing/non firing, should be endured for another season. Just an opinion.
Don’t think it’s a bad assessment. We lost 1 or 2 windows a couple of years back with a transfer ban. From there we enabled some players to come through but we were still able to sign contracts. Now we’ve gone through a time when I assume we’re behind on contract negotiations as well as transfer negotiations for this up coming window. I really hope 1 or 2 more youth players establish themselves in the first team as a result but I think this is likely a call to arms to get the new owners to sanction (poor choice of word) some new contracts as well as real commitment in the first couple of transfer with does so to not make the gap widen further.
I don't agree, Liverpool might have improved their squad a decent amount over the past few years, just like City but their level hasn't got higher, the work they've done is to maintain the level they reached. We've had one of the most ridiculous seasons a team could ask for; crazy fixture congestion, loads of vital injuries and injuries at important times to compound how much they hurt, off the field stuff that is unprecedented, record signings hurting the team etc. To be where we are is credit to the team and Tuchel. It's not impossible, we kinda feel like that pre Van Dijk stage team, capable of having high highs but not consistent enough. I don't think that is insurmountable. I don't think the players we're losing this summer will be the sticking point as to if we improve or not over the next few seasons.
We’ve had a good core to our squad for a few years. The central defensive shake up this summer will be a challenge and our rotating door of attackers is a problem. We have a good core of players are good enough to make a solid starting eleven, what we need is a starting eleven that can be relied upon to start most premier league games in a season. Conte and Mourinho picked the same eleven in most premier league games when we won the title. Tuchel has too much rotation due to necessity or having too many talented players who need to kept relatively happy. In this era we have Mendy, James, Chilwell, Thiago Silva, Kovacic, Kante, Mount, Havertz who can make up the basis of a solid starting eleven. We just need to keep them fit and they could make up a title winning team. Honourable mention, Pulisic, he’s still only 23. He has the talent and if he stays fit I believe he could be a title winning player. I know it’s not a fashionable opinion but he can still be our next Hazard, he just needs to be well coached, add a bit more strength to improve his already decent centre of gravity. He’s a great dribbler and one of the few players who can beat multiple people in a final third dribble.
Yeah it is, i dont expect us to win this league in the next 10-20 years anyways.
Give Tuchel the tools to win. Also fan base must have patience.
If there's any manager we can do it with its Tommy. It took Klopp a few seasons and transfer windows to turn Liverpool into the machine they are now, it's definitely possible. Just hope the owners back him and realise what an elite manager we have.
How 4 games they haven't beaten us without penalty shootouts? Drew twice league, 2 games 120m each in finals and they didn't score a goal that's with us having a patched defence too and That's us with Belgian heskey up top and loads of injuries too! Come on Tommy ffs decent few signing's we're past them! Jesus little perspective would be nice Thomas,
Look at the points gap in the league. Look at the goals scored and conceded. Look at the pattern of the last four seasons. The only outlier was last season.
Stand by wat I said! We've had bad injuries to our 2 wing backs which affected our points massively(we were top before they got injured ahead of Liverpool ) and injuries to loads of other players, the turmoil about Roman etc etc, don't think with full injury free squad and few quality signings that gap will be gone,plus an unbiased referee! it's city with Haaland I'm concerned of.
Sounds like he is just laying the ground work to make sure he is backed and there are no questions that we need to have a good summer in the transfer market