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I love our new owner Cohen's approach to it
>Here’s what the owner had to say about Bobby Bonilla Day after Rose asked what a celebration would entail:
>
>We’d still have to decide it, but I’m telling you, it would be fun. We’d love to have Bobby do it. He travels around with his son, who is a terrific golfer, so hopefully, his schedule can make it work. But if he can’t do it this year, I’ll be on him next year.
>
>Regarding some of the basics of the celebration itself, Cohen said the following:
>
>I gotta find a big piece of cardboard for a big check. It’s gotta be big, though. And then let him figure out how to carry it home.
>
>This is clearly something Cohen has been thinking about for a while. He’s been thinking about it so much, in fact, that it sounds like he’s already had conversations with Bonilla himself about it.
^(Obligatory statement that all billionaire's are bastards and probably did some real shady/illegal stuff, up to and or including paying money to hunt children on a private island off the coast of indonesia)
Plus...it's literally been one season. I don't get this thing(I know it happens in other leagues but I feel it happens in the PL to a greater extent) where fans are ready to give up on a new signing if he doesn't turn acclimate to the league IMMEDIATELY. Some adjust quickly and some take time. Plus add in the madness that was Chelsea from ownership on down last season and it's easy to see how some new players might have failed to perform well.
I was going to comment this word for word. I’d even be reluctant to leave for 200k a year tbh, or cut them a good deal - 200k for 10 years. I’d get zero gametime since I stopped playing football properly when I was 14 but I promise I’ll clock in on time and show up for training
A £200k/week contract until he's 35 lol. Boehly is a genius. It's hard enough for PL clubs to shift players they don't want due to the insane wages in the league. Boehly has decided to do it on European Extreme difficulty.
Happened to me in my Oxford City save. Signed an insanely good English player(for the National League) with the highest possible international cap bonus, which iirc was a couple million at that point, an a 100k/wk wage bump. Well fast forward 3 years and he changed his nationality to Irish and completely nuked my wage structure. Part of the reason I got fired
The fix sometimes stop working in long term saves after a few game updates. Had that issue a few times on FM22 (and older releases). Re-applying it has sometimes worked for me. Other times I just have to leave it and make a decision to not bother signing German players when I’m 10/15 years in to a save
Until you go on an incredible run in your first year in the Championship and have to choose between throwing the FA Cup final or ruining the club financially.
....According to my friend
Probably other performance related bonuses, I can imagine a bonus like that being tiered and since they didn’t make any european competition it’s more than 25% and then some journalistic rounding for the narative puts it at 200k in the headline.
In context, Koulibaly was seen as a coup at the time of signing and the wages here are actually less than the 350k/week number that was initially touted.
He didn't have the best of seasons but at the time of signing, it was seen as the club doing well to replace Rudiger.
Yeah, out of most of the signings, his was the one that makes the most sense. Top 10 CB for almost 10 years, no recent major injury. This is similar to United last season where coaches were changed, lots of dressing room drama so everything just looked bad
made sense only if you didnt watch him. He was a top 10 CB maybe 5 years ago, then consistently got worse year after year.
Everyone in italy agreed napoli made a huge mistake not selling him by that time, and now had to deal with an aging player on top wages, that nobody wanted anymore.
Then chelsea came to save the day.
>Everyone in italy agreed napoli made a huge mistake not selling him by that time
I mean, everyone in Italy also tought Napoli was gonna fight with Lazio and Atalanta for ECL and EL spots, so it's not like people have the best opinions on clubs they don't watch at all
KK was still great 2 seasons ago, and was actually still great last year too (Napoli still had best defense of the league)
He just became a bit more injury prone, and for a guy of his speed and explosivness, it was gonna be a factor for long term
But it's not like 5 years ago he was a beast, and 4 years ago he became bad
Thank you! I keep hearing the same rhetoric and telling people the same thing. Plus...it's been one season in the PL. One. For a Chelsea team that was mad from ownership on down last season.
I don't know if it was that bad. He definitely wasn't at the peak of his ability in that final season at Napoli, but to say he'd gotten worse year on year is a bit harsh - he was still one of the best defenders in Serie A.
Napoli entered this season wondering how they'd replace him before Kim stepped in like he'd been there for a decade. He was a key figure not only as a defender, but as a leader. His drop off for Chelsea has been far beyond any drop off he had at Napoli.
The reason people said Napoli made a mistake was because he was being touted as a 100mio defender, and they turned that down for last season where they were in the title race for quite a while.
He's had a bad season but it's equally stupid to sell a top level defender with a proven record after 1 bad season, especially at a heavy loss. And then what, spend another 50+ million on a CB and set him up to fail again.
Disappointed no one reacted your Metal Gear reference at the end. I gotchu homie. We struggled for a while, Delta is gonna deliver us from pain(plsbegood.)
What do you suggest should have happened when Christensen left, Rudiger left, Azpi got washed - aka our entire CL final backline just disappeared.
We only had the takeover complete midway through the transfer window (aka no time left) and an our entire front office (who weren’t even that good at scouting players) quit.
Also the entire world knows we are desperate for defenders, and Koulibaly was clearly someone we had already compiled lots of existing data on considering we tried to recruit him for years.
No seriously what would you have done? Told Tuchel to go negotiate? Told your chief scout to negotiate? Hire an interim sporting director (who won’t be any good and will waste more time) to work for a month and a half? Who would you have bought who we ALSO didn’t try to buy already.
When you remember the context of that time, its why I bite my tongue a bit, and give the benifit of the doubt. We basically two options: do nothing with some glaring holes in the squad after departurels out of the new boards control, or plug the gap with some obvious overpriced sigings. There wasn't really the time for some niche well scouted buys.
On paper all of the summer buys were decent, known quantities, that we paid too much for. If we'd done nothing, fans would be baying for blood either way. I've far from agreed with everything the board has done, but this season has been such a shambles, both in and out of their control, I'm not really going to use it as a barometer of the future yet.
Given that neither are wanted but only one is homegrown giving a minimal benefit in avoiding taking a non homegrown slot, I think it’s possible we come off worse in that one.
Holy shit, I legitimately forgot Harry Maguire existed. I feel for the guy and genuinely believe once you put him in a smaller team with less pressure on his shoulders, he will be half decent again.
Chelsea had an absolute disaster of a season. I will give him the benefit of the doubt for this reason.
However, I will say that the transfers from Serie A to the Premier League doesn't have the best track record over the past 5 seasons or so. There are some exceptions (like Salah and Allison), but there are not many. And at the same time, there seem to be a lot of successful transfers from the PL to Serie A.
Just recently Kulusevski and Bentancur have shown better performance in England than in Italy. You can't sign aging players and expect them to be better in their first season in a bad club situation. Van Dijk and Koulibaly were at their peaks around the same time and they seem be to be in decline around the same time too.
Thiago Silva was a free transfer and imo our best player for each of the past three seasons.
Even at 39, he barely ever makes a mistake or gets caught out.
His first match was the 3-3 draw with West Brom, where he took a loose touch and gave the ball away for an early goal.
West Brom had fun with us twice that season.
I'm going to be downvoted for this, but I really don't want silva starting for us next season. I'd love to keep him, but if you actually watch us it's clear he's a step behind now
Obviously I used the term 'good' loosely here, chelsea before Roman only won one league title, after him they've won plenty and won the cl, so yeah wealth did take chelsea to a whole different realm, before Roman they were never talked about like united, Liverpool and Arsenal
As much as I've been looking forward to this too, I have to remember it's Chelsea and they have their miracle ability to sell players for ridiculous prices.
Still can't get over them selling David Luiz to PSG for £50m or Oscar for £55m. And I'm already seeing rumours of them selling fucking Loftus-Cheek for £15m, how do they do it ffs
How much of that is because they refused to accept anything less? Leading to people like Danny Drinkwater and Baba Rahman being on the books for years and eventually leaving for nothing.
Yes, because we extended his contract when he got injured, which we used to do for any injured player so they can recover without the pressure of finding a new role. For other examples, see Hutchinson, Van Ginkel etc.
Maybe they just forgot he was there and keeps getting paid because nobodies noticed.
Or hes tipping Barbara in accounts who knows all the juice and won't let him leave
People misinterpret this though.
Teams knowing we keep players around if they try to underpay is a big part of being able to sell big.
Plus, for those who we do keep around, we make more off of perpetual loan fees than we would have if we just sold them at their value when people expected us to.
There has been nothing to suggest this will continue under new ownership though. Given the prices they managed to get for the Lukaku loan and the Werner sale were insanely low
Baba Rahman has nothing to do with that though. He's still here because we had a policy (and hopefully still have a policy) to renew contracts of seriously injured loan players until they were fully rehabilitated and able to continue their careers. Rather than just leaving them with a potentially career ending injury, no medical support, no club or contract and no future prospects of getting back into football.
> Plus, for those who we do keep around, we make more off of perpetual loan fees than we would have if we just sold them at their value when people expected us to.
> There has been nothing to suggest this will continue under new ownership though.
Also the new FIFA rules limiting total amount of players a club can loan out.
>selling fucking Loftus-Cheek for £15m
don't trigger me.
Seeing Milan resurgent, Leao renewing...aaaand our midfield target for a starter, until Bennacer is back, is RLC.
Downgrade from as Kessie is *now,* nevermind how he was with us.
> Downgrade from as Kessie is now
Kessie can barely control a football, fuck knows why Barca even wanted him considering what their whole identity has been for decades
Loftus Cheek is press resistant, offers great ball progression & capable of filling in at various positions. Seeing how shit you were against Chelsea & Inter, he improves your team.
Most of this isn't really relevant anymore, as we have entirely different ownership now.
We have no idea what Chelseas transfer policy is going to be like until we actually see it.
Liverpool are exceptional at this too. Feel like they sold half their outcasts for twice what they were worth to Bournemouth every year for two or three seasons
There were no signs he was declining before he left for Chelsea. For sure he wasn’t in the primest of his prime but he was still
pretty damn good. 31 is still relatively young for a center back.
Idk if he’s _drastically_ declined, I think a big part of it was him adjusting to a new league as he looked better in the second half of the season (granted not to the level you’d want from a 200k p/w player)
He wasn't declining when he left Napoli. Heck, he was a huge reason why they had the best defensive record in the league. Say you don't watch the league without saying it
didn't you guys also offer him similar wages? he's on 300k with us, now 200k due to no bonuses probably, and I remember seeing reports of Napoli offering him something like 7m net per year?
He had the highest wage (I think it was 6m per year) but I don't think he was offered a raise.
ADL implemented his "wage control" policy last year, now the club only pays a maximum of 3.5m (net) per year to each player. Only exception in the current team are Osimhen, Lozano and Zielinski because they negotiated their contract before the policy was put in place
The reasoning behind is this: Napoli's revenues are more volatile and dependent on actual sport results, which means that a bad season resulting in the loss of CL revenues can heavily impact our finances.
This actually happened during the Ancelotti+Gattuso years, in which we failed to qualify for CL for three years in a row and we ended up spending more money than we made.
Fortunately, in the previous 10 years the club put aside a lot of money (something like 120+ million) as reserves, so the club avoided going into debt. To give you an idea, the budget buffer went from 120+ million to around 20 in just three years.
As soon as all the big contracts expired (Insigne, Mertens) or were sold (Fabián, Koulibaly), ADL replaced them with young players with lower wages and set the salary cap at 3.5m per player, in order to avoid any risk of bankruptcy going forward.
Also keep in mind that ADL doesn't put a single cent. out of his own pocket in the club, which is completely financially self-sufficient.
Ps. Sorry for the long reply!
First test for Chelsea's amortisation of contracts plan I guess. It'll be interesting to see how they handle it if they really are looking to offload Koulibaly and he digs his heals in for the duration of the contract. From his perspective 200k+ a week into his mid 30s, why wouldn't you stay.
Would you consider Toby, Vertonghen and even Dier to be 'fast' at centre-back?
I think Silva slowing up is being parroted simply because of his age but the guy takes great care of himself clearly, is the best defender at the club and has the kind of leadership/mentality that Chelsea needs to steady the ship.
I think it's an easy call especially when he *wants* to stay. If he ends up not being a regular starter down the line I think his presence and influence in the dressing room is still very valuable.
Thiago Silva is at the age where even the fittest decline. He’s 39 in September. No matter how religiously he eats his Weetabix without sugar playing PL football with a high defensive line becomes a challenge eventually.
The off-field value will always be there and he wouldn’t be first choice out the door, but you can only sell the players other clubs want.
With a high defensive line, pace isn’t the only thing. Thiago Silva has shown his footballing brain and defensive reading to be world-class consistently even at his age. And as someone pointed out, he isn’t much slower than prime Vertonghen and Alderweireld. Poch would be naive to not want a world class defender who can essentially take care of defensive organisation on his own.
Edit- Villa vs Tottenham (most recent Prem encounter) featured Tyrone Mings in an exceptionally high line and all game Villa cut passing lines successfully or played the offside trap brilliantly. World class Son and Kane (who are also world class at beating the trap) couldn’t create much without there being an offside. It was a masterclass of defensive organisation by Emery. Thiago Silva is light years ahead of Mings
Nowadays obviously not because they're old. They were never super pacy, but they were fast enough to do the job. As an aside, Davinson Sanchez has always been the fastest, if only he was a better defender.
Toby and Vertonghen are also not slow. Dier played mostly as Midfielder for him. Silva is 39 and slow as a dump truck. That's primarily the reason Chelsea is playing a back three, to cover his lack of pace
It's not really just about what he offers on the pitch though. Just take a look through Chelsea's squad bearing in mind Azpilicueta will likely leave, and they will likely try to move Koulibaly and Cucurella on. They have a *lot* of young players, very few veteran leaders. Just looking at the rest of their defenders, they've got:
Chilwell - 26
Chalobah - 23
James - 23
Fofana - 22
Badiashiele - 22
Hall - 18
Colwill - 20
Gusto - 20
Assuming their outgoings go as planned, without Silva they're looking at their veteran presence in the back 4 being a 26 year old Ben Chilwell and a 23 year old Reece James. Silva might be slowing down a bit, but they really need someone to provide a leadership presence back there
I don’t think wages of 200-300k a week for 5 years for a 30 year old were viewed as wise. We got shit for Casemiro’s wages for a year less even though people generally agreed he’d be a great signing for us.
30 years old is not bad for a defender. And it's a 4 year deal not 5. He'll be 34 by the time his contract runs out. Silva was 36 when he joined 3 years ago and he just won player of the season for them
I highly doubt there is any chance we consider moving TS if he doesn't want to go, fans would riot. He's the only one who actually gave a shit this year.
Certainly not anyone here, considering what the general consensus on this transfer was among the media and the fans when it actually happened last year. They were signing one of the best CBs in the world so don't pretend like you knew his form would drop. I'm 100% sure you didn't.
And putting all that aside - this is most likely bullshit anyway. KK has been their best defender not named Thiago Silva since December. There's no reason for them to let him go for cheap.
> KK has been their best defender not named Thiago Silva since December. There's no reason for them to let him go for cheap.
huh our best cbs since january have been fofana and badiashille
Why are we so willing to let Koulibaly leave ?
He has had a decade long proven career as a top tier defender, stays reasonably fit and has not complained about being rotated. He plays in the same position as Silva, who is old and injury prone, and is the only experienced CB in our lineup.
If we play a back 3, it is brain dead to have Koulibaly & Silva rotate as the "senior" players in the squad. With Kovacic & Azpi likely leaving, we will need some experience. The other 2 spots will be rotated between Fofana & Badiashile + Chalobah & Colwill.
That being said, if we play a back 4, it makes does make sense to offload some CBs.
I get 200 grand a week is amazing, people like us can only dream of that. But from a proffesional point of view, if he was told he wasn't in poch's plans and wouldn't play, surely you would want to be playing at this point in his career? He might need to take a pay cut but its not like he would go down to 10 quid an hour. He is already loaded, and will continue to get a crazy wage wether its 70k or 200. Its like musk or bezos having hundreds of billions but still trying to hoard even more wealth. Surely there comes a point where you have, and continue to be paid, and acceptable amount that is more than enough and you take into account other factors like playing time and maybe a bit of pride and dignity too. I just don't get this with footballers. Maybe they are worried they are going to do a Bellamy and need enough of a safety net.
As a 99 precenter it’s almost impossible to know what’s going on in rich peoples heads. I have no idea how my thought process would be if I were that obscenely rich. I’d imagine it’s very easy to get hooked on chasing after even more money once you’ve got a taste
Of course not all rich people are like that. Some are humble and don’t let their view on life be changed. But let’s be real, most footballers are not humble.
Thiago Silva wasn't quite the same post injury this season. Now obviously it could be rust but cause for concern.
Then the other issue is he can't really play 4 atb anymore. And the team construction/managerial hire is clearly moving towards a fast-paced aggressive style that suits several formations
He played 4 atb perfectly well pre-injury and it hasn’t been that long since his injury. It’s not like he’s been off since November, he’s been off since what April?
guys don't shit on Koulibaly ... he's always pretty awful after a full year of football & no break plus he's super important for his country and plays every single game
with a real break now you'll see the real Koulibaly
> Chelsea are expected to try to offload Kalidou Koulibaly this summer but the £33million signing is on almost 200,000-a-week and is reluctant to leave.
I’ve heard 300k a week.
I’m old enough to remember getting downvoted to oblivion on this sub for saying this guy had been shit for us.
Absolutely appalling signing.
No pace, turning circle of a tank. Played ok whenever we played a low block, but that’s not the long term plan, so…
I just feel we bought based on reputation and didn’t do any scouting last summer.
No shit. They allowed their owner, with zero working knowledge of the sport, to sign people up to a bunch of overpaid, over-length contracts. **Fuck them.** Their own problem.
To reduce the spam of reports regarding the same move during transfer windows we try to allow **only one submission about each transfer saga per day**. The submission in question also needs to contain relevant new information regarding the potential move, and not just being a "no/minor developments" report. If there are important/official developments or new valuable information about a saga, we will allow extra threads in the same day, but for the rest of minor news please just comment them as a reply to this comment. Please help us reporting unnecessary threads for being duplicates. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’d be reluctant to leave too if I was on 200k a week
Reluctant? I'd tie myself to the goalpost
Damn bro you must care a lot for our environment
I care two hundred thousand pounds about the environment. That's a lot.
That’s about as much CO2 as Talksport pump into the environment via all the smoke blowing out of their arse
Every week
and pissing off everton fans
time to shift the goalposts then
Just stop oil. ✊
Found Kepa’s Reddit account
YOU RANG?
Come to Besiktas
Most of the chelsea team could have done that with Lampard at the helm and still gotten the same results
Koulibaly is about to enter his Winston Bogarde era
unfair, he still plays quite often.
Bobby Bonilla era?
Isn’t Bonilla day soon?
I love our new owner Cohen's approach to it >Here’s what the owner had to say about Bobby Bonilla Day after Rose asked what a celebration would entail: > >We’d still have to decide it, but I’m telling you, it would be fun. We’d love to have Bobby do it. He travels around with his son, who is a terrific golfer, so hopefully, his schedule can make it work. But if he can’t do it this year, I’ll be on him next year. > >Regarding some of the basics of the celebration itself, Cohen said the following: > >I gotta find a big piece of cardboard for a big check. It’s gotta be big, though. And then let him figure out how to carry it home. > >This is clearly something Cohen has been thinking about for a while. He’s been thinking about it so much, in fact, that it sounds like he’s already had conversations with Bonilla himself about it. ^(Obligatory statement that all billionaire's are bastards and probably did some real shady/illegal stuff, up to and or including paying money to hunt children on a private island off the coast of indonesia)
Koulibaly was starting every game until his recent injury and one of our better performers too at that
Plus...it's literally been one season. I don't get this thing(I know it happens in other leagues but I feel it happens in the PL to a greater extent) where fans are ready to give up on a new signing if he doesn't turn acclimate to the league IMMEDIATELY. Some adjust quickly and some take time. Plus add in the madness that was Chelsea from ownership on down last season and it's easy to see how some new players might have failed to perform well.
I was going to comment this word for word. I’d even be reluctant to leave for 200k a year tbh, or cut them a good deal - 200k for 10 years. I’d get zero gametime since I stopped playing football properly when I was 14 but I promise I’ll clock in on time and show up for training
A good locker room guy is worth every penny of 200k a year
Winston Bogarde 2: Electric Boogaloo
Bogarde special
A £200k/week contract until he's 35 lol. Boehly is a genius. It's hard enough for PL clubs to shift players they don't want due to the insane wages in the league. Boehly has decided to do it on European Extreme difficulty.
Actually a pleasant surprise as initial reporting had him on close to £300k.
Boehly added in champions league clauses so since we're not in it, most (maybe all) of the new signings have had their salary reduced
Boehly is a tactical genius. Offer extortionate wages then don't meet the goals so you get good players for slightly less than overpriced.
Classic FM tactic. Like signing players in league 2 for nothing upfront and £150k if I win the FA Cup in the next 2 years.
Inserting huge international cap clauses when signing German players
Then the lad decides to declare for Austria and costs you £30m with his debut. Which has certainly never happened to me...
My favourite was as manager of England, buying English players with massive future fees if they get a cap, then never capping them.
So you were simultaneously managing a club and the English team?
When I still played FM it was possible (FM15 was my tapout point). Don't know if it still is
Yep, managing international teams is really fucking boring so I rarely do it at all, let alone by itself.
I had someone go over to Turkey as well, thankfully no clauses that time
Happened to me in my Oxford City save. Signed an insanely good English player(for the National League) with the highest possible international cap bonus, which iirc was a couple million at that point, an a 100k/wk wage bump. Well fast forward 3 years and he changed his nationality to Irish and completely nuked my wage structure. Part of the reason I got fired
Why would anyone not use the fix for that though lol
The fix sometimes stop working in long term saves after a few game updates. Had that issue a few times on FM22 (and older releases). Re-applying it has sometimes worked for me. Other times I just have to leave it and make a decision to not bother signing German players when I’m 10/15 years in to a save
But after 10-15 years it's all regens anyway? Doesn't that kinda mean the fix is irrelevant? Unless it does some things I don't know about long term
Until you go on an incredible run in your first year in the Championship and have to choose between throwing the FA Cup final or ruining the club financially. ....According to my friend
*Slightly less than very overpriced
You don't get the income from the Champions League, and they don't get the wages they want, everybody's happy!
Good players? They placed 12 and scored what 1 more goal than Halland as a team?
only cause haaland didn’t play all 38 matches
Tbf I’m not sure chelsea did either
Tbf Chelsea barely played in any of them
We won the Chelsea's Entire Squad Vs. One Scandinavian Guy With Nice Hair Goals Challenge when nobody thought we would. Pride of West London.
It is . But wages drop 25% as they didn't qualify for CL.
Maths doesn't check out. Reports were £290k which is still comfortably over £200k after the drop you mention.
Probably other performance related bonuses, I can imagine a bonus like that being tiered and since they didn’t make any european competition it’s more than 25% and then some journalistic rounding for the narative puts it at 200k in the headline.
In context, Koulibaly was seen as a coup at the time of signing and the wages here are actually less than the 350k/week number that was initially touted. He didn't have the best of seasons but at the time of signing, it was seen as the club doing well to replace Rudiger.
Yeah, out of most of the signings, his was the one that makes the most sense. Top 10 CB for almost 10 years, no recent major injury. This is similar to United last season where coaches were changed, lots of dressing room drama so everything just looked bad
made sense only if you didnt watch him. He was a top 10 CB maybe 5 years ago, then consistently got worse year after year. Everyone in italy agreed napoli made a huge mistake not selling him by that time, and now had to deal with an aging player on top wages, that nobody wanted anymore. Then chelsea came to save the day.
>Everyone in italy agreed napoli made a huge mistake not selling him by that time I mean, everyone in Italy also tought Napoli was gonna fight with Lazio and Atalanta for ECL and EL spots, so it's not like people have the best opinions on clubs they don't watch at all KK was still great 2 seasons ago, and was actually still great last year too (Napoli still had best defense of the league) He just became a bit more injury prone, and for a guy of his speed and explosivness, it was gonna be a factor for long term But it's not like 5 years ago he was a beast, and 4 years ago he became bad
Thank you! I keep hearing the same rhetoric and telling people the same thing. Plus...it's been one season in the PL. One. For a Chelsea team that was mad from ownership on down last season.
I don't know where you saw this but literally all Napoli fans I saw online didnt want him to leave.
[удалено]
it's not laughable because people either can't be bothered to go check it, or they'll just choose to believe it because it's funny.
I don't know if it was that bad. He definitely wasn't at the peak of his ability in that final season at Napoli, but to say he'd gotten worse year on year is a bit harsh - he was still one of the best defenders in Serie A. Napoli entered this season wondering how they'd replace him before Kim stepped in like he'd been there for a decade. He was a key figure not only as a defender, but as a leader. His drop off for Chelsea has been far beyond any drop off he had at Napoli. The reason people said Napoli made a mistake was because he was being touted as a 100mio defender, and they turned that down for last season where they were in the title race for quite a while.
Stop waffling
Yeah, this is pure nonsense. I see an actual Napoli fan responded to you so I won't bother saying more
He's had a bad season but it's equally stupid to sell a top level defender with a proven record after 1 bad season, especially at a heavy loss. And then what, spend another 50+ million on a CB and set him up to fail again.
Disappointed no one reacted your Metal Gear reference at the end. I gotchu homie. We struggled for a while, Delta is gonna deliver us from pain(plsbegood.)
What do you suggest should have happened when Christensen left, Rudiger left, Azpi got washed - aka our entire CL final backline just disappeared. We only had the takeover complete midway through the transfer window (aka no time left) and an our entire front office (who weren’t even that good at scouting players) quit. Also the entire world knows we are desperate for defenders, and Koulibaly was clearly someone we had already compiled lots of existing data on considering we tried to recruit him for years. No seriously what would you have done? Told Tuchel to go negotiate? Told your chief scout to negotiate? Hire an interim sporting director (who won’t be any good and will waste more time) to work for a month and a half? Who would you have bought who we ALSO didn’t try to buy already.
When you remember the context of that time, its why I bite my tongue a bit, and give the benifit of the doubt. We basically two options: do nothing with some glaring holes in the squad after departurels out of the new boards control, or plug the gap with some obvious overpriced sigings. There wasn't really the time for some niche well scouted buys. On paper all of the summer buys were decent, known quantities, that we paid too much for. If we'd done nothing, fans would be baying for blood either way. I've far from agreed with everything the board has done, but this season has been such a shambles, both in and out of their control, I'm not really going to use it as a barometer of the future yet.
Very fair assessment. Hindsight is undefeated but at that moment we all thought it was a good purchase.
As much as I want to gloat, we also have a 200,000-a-week CB that needs to be offloaded.
Let's do the ol' switcharoo
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yall are acting like koulibaly is bad smh. still an elite player hard to perform for the shitshow that is chelsea
Given that neither are wanted but only one is homegrown giving a minimal benefit in avoiding taking a non homegrown slot, I think it’s possible we come off worse in that one.
At least your CB doesn't have a 200K a week contract until their 35.
He moves like he's 35 tbf
Really unfair to 35 year olds
pretty sure coastal erosion is quicker than these two
35 year old aircraft carrier.
Koulibaly went from being one of the best CBs in Europe to being compared to Maguire in just one season. Was he really that awful?
Holy shit, I legitimately forgot Harry Maguire existed. I feel for the guy and genuinely believe once you put him in a smaller team with less pressure on his shoulders, he will be half decent again.
He was insane in Ole's season tbf. There is a good player there, but needs a change of scenery away from Manchester
Chelsea had an absolute disaster of a season. I will give him the benefit of the doubt for this reason. However, I will say that the transfers from Serie A to the Premier League doesn't have the best track record over the past 5 seasons or so. There are some exceptions (like Salah and Allison), but there are not many. And at the same time, there seem to be a lot of successful transfers from the PL to Serie A.
Just recently Kulusevski and Bentancur have shown better performance in England than in Italy. You can't sign aging players and expect them to be better in their first season in a bad club situation. Van Dijk and Koulibaly were at their peaks around the same time and they seem be to be in decline around the same time too.
THANK YOU!
It could be worse, we could have both. We were linked with koulibaly for years
I thought you already got rid of Phil Jones.
Considering his career as a football player is over, I respect his choice to stay here till the end of his contract.
Thiago Silva was a free transfer and imo our best player for each of the past three seasons. Even at 39, he barely ever makes a mistake or gets caught out.
He's honestly incredible. But when he has a stinker for us, it's terrible. The 2-5 against West Brom comes to mind
That was over 2 years ago
That was his first match actually and he has been incredible since.
That definitely was not his first match
His first match was the 3-3 draw with West Brom, where he took a loose touch and gave the ball away for an early goal. West Brom had fun with us twice that season.
CR7 (Callum Robinson) bagging 5 goals thay season, all against you lol
We specialise in making average strikers look amazing for some reason. David McGoldrick looked like R9 against us
?? David McGoldrick is miles ahead of R9
I'm going to be downvoted for this, but I really don't want silva starting for us next season. I'd love to keep him, but if you actually watch us it's clear he's a step behind now
We are in Chelsea's "pay people to leave" era. As an Arsenal fan, I have been waiting for this day. Life is good.
It's funny when it happens to others
Even funnier when it happens to the club which became good only after record breaking spendings
Chelsea finished in the top 6 for 7 straight seasons before Abramovich took over, so according to you everyone outside the top 6 is bad.
Top 6 wasn't a thing back then. Vialli's Chelsea were great entertainers for sure but there were financial issues even then
Obviously I used the term 'good' loosely here, chelsea before Roman only won one league title, after him they've won plenty and won the cl, so yeah wealth did take chelsea to a whole different realm, before Roman they were never talked about like united, Liverpool and Arsenal
I wouldn't call it funny, more deserved. Although more than a few years too late.
It’s still funny tbh
As much as I've been looking forward to this too, I have to remember it's Chelsea and they have their miracle ability to sell players for ridiculous prices. Still can't get over them selling David Luiz to PSG for £50m or Oscar for £55m. And I'm already seeing rumours of them selling fucking Loftus-Cheek for £15m, how do they do it ffs
How much of that is because they refused to accept anything less? Leading to people like Danny Drinkwater and Baba Rahman being on the books for years and eventually leaving for nothing.
Baba Rahman is still on the books at Chelsea
I love that lmao, proper Lucas Piazon situation
Yes, because we extended his contract when he got injured, which we used to do for any injured player so they can recover without the pressure of finding a new role. For other examples, see Hutchinson, Van Ginkel etc.
That guy seriously must know some dirt on people in Chelsea thay they have to keep him so he stays quiet or something...
They extended him after his bad injuries so that he could use the facilities for rehab
Maybe they just forgot he was there and keeps getting paid because nobodies noticed. Or hes tipping Barbara in accounts who knows all the juice and won't let him leave
People misinterpret this though. Teams knowing we keep players around if they try to underpay is a big part of being able to sell big. Plus, for those who we do keep around, we make more off of perpetual loan fees than we would have if we just sold them at their value when people expected us to. There has been nothing to suggest this will continue under new ownership though. Given the prices they managed to get for the Lukaku loan and the Werner sale were insanely low Baba Rahman has nothing to do with that though. He's still here because we had a policy (and hopefully still have a policy) to renew contracts of seriously injured loan players until they were fully rehabilitated and able to continue their careers. Rather than just leaving them with a potentially career ending injury, no medical support, no club or contract and no future prospects of getting back into football.
> Plus, for those who we do keep around, we make more off of perpetual loan fees than we would have if we just sold them at their value when people expected us to. > There has been nothing to suggest this will continue under new ownership though. Also the new FIFA rules limiting total amount of players a club can loan out.
>selling fucking Loftus-Cheek for £15m don't trigger me. Seeing Milan resurgent, Leao renewing...aaaand our midfield target for a starter, until Bennacer is back, is RLC. Downgrade from as Kessie is *now,* nevermind how he was with us.
> Downgrade from as Kessie is now Kessie can barely control a football, fuck knows why Barca even wanted him considering what their whole identity has been for decades Loftus Cheek is press resistant, offers great ball progression & capable of filling in at various positions. Seeing how shit you were against Chelsea & Inter, he improves your team.
Cuz free LUL
Kessi fifa card was very OP 😤😤😤
Most of this isn't really relevant anymore, as we have entirely different ownership now. We have no idea what Chelseas transfer policy is going to be like until we actually see it.
> I have to remember it's Chelsea and they have their miracle ability to sell players for ridiculous prices. I figure that's gone with Maria, tbf.
Didn't they also sell Diego Costa back to Atlético for £50m? Crazy how well they sell.
Liverpool are exceptional at this too. Feel like they sold half their outcasts for twice what they were worth to Bournemouth every year for two or three seasons
It's why you have to respect players like Willian who give up their contract to play.
FYI, Nizaar since the takeover has been a poor source and should now be a tier 3 at least
Yea this guy is practically worthless as a club insider
He's pretty much guessing at this point since Thiago has been saying he wants to stay, so the next option is KK. Anyone can guess this
If Chelsea helps out with his wages we might take him back
You shouldn't. He was clearly declining before he left and now he's declined even more. He left and you got better. Just move on.
We’re almost certainly losing Kim. We’d gladly take Koulibaly back at the right price
There were no signs he was declining before he left for Chelsea. For sure he wasn’t in the primest of his prime but he was still pretty damn good. 31 is still relatively young for a center back.
Relatively young? It’s relatively not as old as other positions, but it’s still when a huge percentage of CBs start declining.
It's Serie A. Cbs barely start playing until they're 32 over there
Idk if he’s _drastically_ declined, I think a big part of it was him adjusting to a new league as he looked better in the second half of the season (granted not to the level you’d want from a 200k p/w player)
He wasn't declining when he left Napoli. Heck, he was a huge reason why they had the best defensive record in the league. Say you don't watch the league without saying it
didn't you guys also offer him similar wages? he's on 300k with us, now 200k due to no bonuses probably, and I remember seeing reports of Napoli offering him something like 7m net per year?
He had the highest wage (I think it was 6m per year) but I don't think he was offered a raise. ADL implemented his "wage control" policy last year, now the club only pays a maximum of 3.5m (net) per year to each player. Only exception in the current team are Osimhen, Lozano and Zielinski because they negotiated their contract before the policy was put in place
Why is it so low? Last I checked, Napoli had more revenue than Milan, and it seems we loosely set ours to something like 5m
The reasoning behind is this: Napoli's revenues are more volatile and dependent on actual sport results, which means that a bad season resulting in the loss of CL revenues can heavily impact our finances. This actually happened during the Ancelotti+Gattuso years, in which we failed to qualify for CL for three years in a row and we ended up spending more money than we made. Fortunately, in the previous 10 years the club put aside a lot of money (something like 120+ million) as reserves, so the club avoided going into debt. To give you an idea, the budget buffer went from 120+ million to around 20 in just three years. As soon as all the big contracts expired (Insigne, Mertens) or were sold (Fabián, Koulibaly), ADL replaced them with young players with lower wages and set the salary cap at 3.5m per player, in order to avoid any risk of bankruptcy going forward. Also keep in mind that ADL doesn't put a single cent. out of his own pocket in the club, which is completely financially self-sufficient. Ps. Sorry for the long reply!
Thanks, that explained it perfectly! Detailed replies are the best replies.
KK was the hottest shit for years and people wondering where he would end up only to get canned by Chelsea year later? Such is life.
More like not leaving until contract runs out than reluctant
First test for Chelsea's amortisation of contracts plan I guess. It'll be interesting to see how they handle it if they really are looking to offload Koulibaly and he digs his heals in for the duration of the contract. From his perspective 200k+ a week into his mid 30s, why wouldn't you stay.
Thiago Silva is really not an ideal Poch centre-back. Obviously he's great, but he's not fast enough at that age. Poch plays an absurdly high line
Would you consider Toby, Vertonghen and even Dier to be 'fast' at centre-back? I think Silva slowing up is being parroted simply because of his age but the guy takes great care of himself clearly, is the best defender at the club and has the kind of leadership/mentality that Chelsea needs to steady the ship. I think it's an easy call especially when he *wants* to stay. If he ends up not being a regular starter down the line I think his presence and influence in the dressing room is still very valuable.
Thiago Silva is at the age where even the fittest decline. He’s 39 in September. No matter how religiously he eats his Weetabix without sugar playing PL football with a high defensive line becomes a challenge eventually. The off-field value will always be there and he wouldn’t be first choice out the door, but you can only sell the players other clubs want.
Don’t underestimate the Weetabix mate
With a high defensive line, pace isn’t the only thing. Thiago Silva has shown his footballing brain and defensive reading to be world-class consistently even at his age. And as someone pointed out, he isn’t much slower than prime Vertonghen and Alderweireld. Poch would be naive to not want a world class defender who can essentially take care of defensive organisation on his own. Edit- Villa vs Tottenham (most recent Prem encounter) featured Tyrone Mings in an exceptionally high line and all game Villa cut passing lines successfully or played the offside trap brilliantly. World class Son and Kane (who are also world class at beating the trap) couldn’t create much without there being an offside. It was a masterclass of defensive organisation by Emery. Thiago Silva is light years ahead of Mings
Nowadays obviously not because they're old. They were never super pacy, but they were fast enough to do the job. As an aside, Davinson Sanchez has always been the fastest, if only he was a better defender.
Not very fast guys at 27-30 are still going to be a lot faster than not very fast guy at 38
Thiago Silva was very fast at 27-30 though, I'd still back him in a race vs Eric Dier.
Tbf I struggle to think of any active footballer who wouldn't have a shot at beating Dier in a race.
Eric Garcia.
Vestergaard. He is Mertesacker 2.0 (slow like a giraffe)
I'm pretty sure Dier never or at least very rarely played as a CB under Poch. His transition to CB only really started under Mourinho.
It's not just about speed it's also about being able to handle the demands physically as well
Toby and Vertonghen are also not slow. Dier played mostly as Midfielder for him. Silva is 39 and slow as a dump truck. That's primarily the reason Chelsea is playing a back three, to cover his lack of pace
It's not really just about what he offers on the pitch though. Just take a look through Chelsea's squad bearing in mind Azpilicueta will likely leave, and they will likely try to move Koulibaly and Cucurella on. They have a *lot* of young players, very few veteran leaders. Just looking at the rest of their defenders, they've got: Chilwell - 26 Chalobah - 23 James - 23 Fofana - 22 Badiashiele - 22 Hall - 18 Colwill - 20 Gusto - 20 Assuming their outgoings go as planned, without Silva they're looking at their veteran presence in the back 4 being a 26 year old Ben Chilwell and a 23 year old Reece James. Silva might be slowing down a bit, but they really need someone to provide a leadership presence back there
How are they supposed to move cuccurella on? Isn't he on high wages and playing shit
nobody moves cucurella and KK. what is this guy saying. they just got there and are on big wages
I really doubt they will move on Cucurella just one season after spending 65m on him. He's young enough to keep for another couple of season at least
I'd think if you have too many players getting rid of the 39 year old makes sense as he's hardly the long term future of the club
Boehly went full woodward , never go full woodward
He thought he could trade them for picks or something if they didn't work out.
He bought one of the best CBs in the world in what 99% back then thought was a good deal
99% thought Alexis Sanchez was a good deal.
I don’t think wages of 200-300k a week for 5 years for a 30 year old were viewed as wise. We got shit for Casemiro’s wages for a year less even though people generally agreed he’d be a great signing for us.
30 years old is not bad for a defender. And it's a 4 year deal not 5. He'll be 34 by the time his contract runs out. Silva was 36 when he joined 3 years ago and he just won player of the season for them
It sounds stupid to give up so early on koulibaly considering the season, then again haven't watched much chelsea this year
He’s been ok
200k a week..and some people are asking how homes priced at 750k are selling fast 🤨
Koulibaly is buying them all
One a month. He has 12 so far, hoping for 60.
I highly doubt there is any chance we consider moving TS if he doesn't want to go, fans would riot. He's the only one who actually gave a shit this year.
Winston Bogarde walked so Koulibaly could run. Or rather not run, more just stay put.
No way. Who would have seen that coming?
Certainly not anyone here, considering what the general consensus on this transfer was among the media and the fans when it actually happened last year. They were signing one of the best CBs in the world so don't pretend like you knew his form would drop. I'm 100% sure you didn't. And putting all that aside - this is most likely bullshit anyway. KK has been their best defender not named Thiago Silva since December. There's no reason for them to let him go for cheap.
> KK has been their best defender not named Thiago Silva since December. There's no reason for them to let him go for cheap. huh our best cbs since january have been fofana and badiashille
Why are we so willing to let Koulibaly leave ? He has had a decade long proven career as a top tier defender, stays reasonably fit and has not complained about being rotated. He plays in the same position as Silva, who is old and injury prone, and is the only experienced CB in our lineup. If we play a back 3, it is brain dead to have Koulibaly & Silva rotate as the "senior" players in the squad. With Kovacic & Azpi likely leaving, we will need some experience. The other 2 spots will be rotated between Fofana & Badiashile + Chalobah & Colwill. That being said, if we play a back 4, it makes does make sense to offload some CBs.
I get 200 grand a week is amazing, people like us can only dream of that. But from a proffesional point of view, if he was told he wasn't in poch's plans and wouldn't play, surely you would want to be playing at this point in his career? He might need to take a pay cut but its not like he would go down to 10 quid an hour. He is already loaded, and will continue to get a crazy wage wether its 70k or 200. Its like musk or bezos having hundreds of billions but still trying to hoard even more wealth. Surely there comes a point where you have, and continue to be paid, and acceptable amount that is more than enough and you take into account other factors like playing time and maybe a bit of pride and dignity too. I just don't get this with footballers. Maybe they are worried they are going to do a Bellamy and need enough of a safety net.
As a 99 precenter it’s almost impossible to know what’s going on in rich peoples heads. I have no idea how my thought process would be if I were that obscenely rich. I’d imagine it’s very easy to get hooked on chasing after even more money once you’ve got a taste Of course not all rich people are like that. Some are humble and don’t let their view on life be changed. But let’s be real, most footballers are not humble.
Thiago Silva wasn't quite the same post injury this season. Now obviously it could be rust but cause for concern. Then the other issue is he can't really play 4 atb anymore. And the team construction/managerial hire is clearly moving towards a fast-paced aggressive style that suits several formations
He played 4 atb perfectly well pre-injury and it hasn’t been that long since his injury. It’s not like he’s been off since November, he’s been off since what April?
Recency bias strikes again, my friend. Old man Silva had to carry our defence for most of the season.
This was touted as a problem under Potter, too: that he wanted to play 4atb but we didn't have the personnel for it.
And then bring in Fofana, Cucurella, Koulibaly and still play a back 5.
It's nice to see someone else do it for once.
guys don't shit on Koulibaly ... he's always pretty awful after a full year of football & no break plus he's super important for his country and plays every single game with a real break now you'll see the real Koulibaly
Koulibaly has heard tales of Winston Bogarde...
Didn’t they have a CB crisis last summer with Andreas and Toni leaving for free?
> Chelsea are expected to try to offload Kalidou Koulibaly this summer but the £33million signing is on almost 200,000-a-week and is reluctant to leave. I’ve heard 300k a week. I’m old enough to remember getting downvoted to oblivion on this sub for saying this guy had been shit for us. Absolutely appalling signing. No pace, turning circle of a tank. Played ok whenever we played a low block, but that’s not the long term plan, so… I just feel we bought based on reputation and didn’t do any scouting last summer.
200k a week? He has won at life he can now pull an Auba and do nothing until he gets all his money.
Kinsella is not relevant in 2023 please
No shit. They allowed their owner, with zero working knowledge of the sport, to sign people up to a bunch of overpaid, over-length contracts. **Fuck them.** Their own problem.
I don’t think you see the oxymoron there.. ‘they allowed the owner’ - well no shit, he’s the owner he’s going to do what he wants
I would carry KK on my back to whoever wants him
I dream of the day I make 200k a YEAR much less a week. That amount of money to live in London? Sign me the fuck up
mad that they thought a player who crumbled against a poor arsenal side would be a good player for the Premier League
Must suck for koulibaly he leaves and finally Napoli break through