Swith Morata for Drogba and Costa for Hasselbaink and those were the posts floating around in 2005, bar the top line. Morata has been disapointing since Christmas granted, but he was very good upto November. Furthermore, even if he was a flop to the level you are suggesting, that doesn't mean we'd be pining after Lukaku, two wrongs don't make a right.
How do Chelsea fans feel about losing KdB, Salah and Lukaku?
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Swith Morata for Drogba and Costa for Hasselbaink and those were the posts floating around in 2005, bar the top line. Morata has been disapointing since Christmas granted, but he was very good upto November. Furthermore, even if he was a flop to the level you are suggesting, that doesn't mean we'd be pining after Lukaku, two wrongs don't make a right.
@Dancfc
I don't understand your point? If we're judging Salah by todays standards then the same should be said of Lukaku.
You sold KDB but won 2 league titles since. You sold Lukaku to sign Costa.
Both had their benefits at the time but as we sit here today, looking forward, you are poorer for both decisions.
I applaud the confidence in your recruitment policy that you wouldn't have Lukaku because you want someone better but are you forgetting the absolute lack of top strikers on the market?
I wouldn't be happy with Lingard if he were still an important player for us in 3 seasons but feck me I'd be livid if we sold him tomorrow.
Morata really is a flop. You're very generous setting the bad form bar at November, most would even say October was iffy.
Just the near 6 months of bad form then so.
I don't understand your point? If we're judging Salah by todays standards then the same should be said of Lukaku.
You sold KDB but won 2 league titles since. You sold Lukaku to sign Costa.
Both had their benefits at the time but as we sit here today, looking forward, you are poorer for both decisions.
I applaud the confidence in your recruitment policy that you wouldn't have Lukaku because you want someone better but are you forgetting the absolute lack of top strikers on the market?
I wouldn't be happy with Lingard if he were still an important player for us in 3 seasons but feck me I'd be livid if we sold him tomorrow.
Morata really is a flop. You're very generous setting the bad form bar at November, most would even say October was iffy.
Just the near 6 months of bad form then so.
Not really.
More bitter towards Mourinho because of how he treated Eva Carneiro and fell out with Hazard and most of the rest of the squad. That and the dire attritional football after losing 5-2 to Spurs, even though we won the title that was the beginning of the end.
He doesn't work well with youth players, so selling those players who were unproven at the time wasn't surprising at all. Lukaku got shipped out straight after missing a penalty in the super cup (big game choker?), Salah and de Bruyne never really even played. Can't blame him for selling.
He also sold Robben in his first spell, whilst he was injured a lot he was our best pacy attacking player in 04/05. We replaced him with Malouda iirc!
Main thing that bothers me about the club is we’re seemingly incapable of developing any world class home developed youth players, since Terry, regardless of the manager.
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Up until November he was good (ironically at the same time Lukaku was being crap) and he was linking up really well with Eden, was at the time the main reason Conte was happy to go 352 a lot even vs rubbish teams. For the record Morata wasn't my first choice either (i wanted Auba or Bellotti) but an admittedly bad few months since new year has seemed to paint a picture he's been average from the get go, which isn't true.
Re the line about our recruitment policy, are you referring to when we sold him in 2014? I would have been happy for him to have stayed on as part of the squad but he wanted it all handed to him which doesn't happen at top clubs, Drogba had to fight Gudjohnsen, Crespo, Sheva and Anelka to earn his place and as a consequence his legend status.
Were you expecting Chelsea fans to say they were be happy selling them ?
IMO, KDB was the blatant mistake here, since it was clear he has the potential and will be a top player. I can't say the same for the other 2.
I'm Egyptian so I know Salah better than anyone. I really never expected him to become as world class as he's now any day. I thought he'll become a very good player but to be the top goalscorer of the league I guess no one ever, ever saw it let's be honest.
Lukaku was replaced by Costa who's better and helped them win the league 2 times in the 3 years he played for them, and selling him actually was in our benefit since we got him.
So KDB is the blatant and obvious mistake here imo.
Its more about your modern day transfer policy. You're going to have to pull a rabbit out of a hat to sign a player better than Roman but if you somehow kept Lukaku that need wouldn't be as great.
Its not as if you would need to spend 75m, you already had him. Imagine a Lukaku up front with the Morata money spent elsewhere.
Nobody is saying he has to end up being a club legend for you to miss him.
Difficult not to turn this into a Mourinho thread.
Remember seeing De Bruyne on one of his 9 appearances under Mourinho and thought he looked the part. I've no doubt he was a fantastic player even then, after coming back from a loan spell at Werder Bremen where he'd excelled. Must have been something that Mourinho didn't like about the player. It cannot have been for his playing qualities, that's for sure. Hard to think it was because of low work rate either looking at his performances for City.
He probably let Salah go because he didn't do the required defensive duties. Seems as though, no matter how good an attacking player you are, if you don't contribute defensively, you end up in the doghouse.
Letting both these players go is a massive mistake imo.
Lukaku, on the other hand, didn't come good until his Everton days. So losing him is understandable imo.
Cuadrado, who has become a key player for Juve, didn't stay long at Chelsea and one wonders if they shouldn't have got more out of him.
Remember seeing De Bruyne on one of his 9 appearances under Mourinho and thought he looked the part. I've no doubt he was a fantastic player even then, after coming back from a loan spell at Werder Bremen where he'd excelled. Must have been something that Mourinho didn't like about the player. It cannot have been for his playing qualities, that's for sure. Hard to think it was because of low work rate either looking at his performances for City.
He probably let Salah go because he didn't do the required defensive duties. Seems as though, no matter how good an attacking player you are, if you don't contribute defensively, you end up in the doghouse.
Letting both these players go is a massive mistake imo.
Lukaku, on the other hand, didn't come good until his Everton days. So losing him is understandable imo.
Cuadrado, who has become a key player for Juve, didn't stay long at Chelsea and one wonders if they shouldn't have got more out of him.
But on the flip side, had we choose to keep Lukaku and abandon the Costa transfer (that's the only way he would have stayed he made that abundantly clear) there's every chance we wouldn't have won the two titles we won. If for example you had the chance to sign Neymar and Rashford came up and said "don't sign him, give me that role or sell me" homegrown lad or not it would take a total lunatic to abandon a Neymar signing to appease a young player who is far far from his level.
But using that argument you could say you can't be upset at all due to winning 2 titles in 3 years.
I like Costa but he regularly fell off for 50 percent of the season, thats more than enough opportunity to keep Lukaku happy.
I like Costa but he regularly fell off for 50 percent of the season, thats more than enough opportunity to keep Lukaku happy.
I actually respect Chelsea for this. Any players or managers they have had enough of....they get rid AND still manage to win the league. They even sold Mata to us and didn't blink. Yes some players will go on to be great but then the flip side is us hanging on to players like Anderson etc for years in the hope they will reach thier potential.
Spot on. It's about the right fit with the club, following a plan or model. And they have a couple extra titles to show for it. Worry less about the similars issues and ensure the big picture is in place.
Chelsea sold - De Bruyne & Lukaku in 13/14 , and bought Matic, Willian & Schurrle ( depending on who you want to see was their replacement)
Sold Salah and bought Pedro in 15/16.
After 2013, Chelsea won title in 14/15 and 16/17. I do not see any reason why Chelsea fans should be too concerned on recent transfers. ( except for Conte's second season). In general, they have shown excellent eye for good young talents, and not hesistant to sell top young players, and still manage to replace them well and win few titles.
I feel Chelsea fans are/should be grateful to the board and Jose for making them one of the top sides.
Well the people aren't paid millions by the club to judge a players futures, the coaches on the other hand....
... depending on the ambitions of the club, have to achieve certain goals. For Chelsea it was/is/will be winning titles/cups and Mourinho has done exactly that.
There was a shift in our transfer policy to change the style of play in the long run, even Benitez wavered from his usual solid shape first philosophy to accommodate it. In Jose's defense i do believe he returned to Chelsea with the intention of following the new structure in place, he even went as far as saying he was happier with the defeat through a good performance at Everton than he would have been had we instead been total shite and sneaked a 1-0. The issue was, as the season was progressing it was becoming increasingly evident he was out of his depth with that way of football so he reverted back to his default ways and the second half of the season was back to the Jose we knew, solid defense and grinding out the wins, in terms of results for the season it was the right thing to do but in terms of what the club spent the last few years building towards it was a gigantic step back.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Back in 2014 it was Sturridge and Matic in similar discussions. We've been far too successful recently to have these kinds of regrets.
Salah was bought on the back of some very good performances against us for Basel but sadly never got a run in the side, never took his opportunities either and Schurrle was a better fit in the system.
Lukaku suffered mostly due to the Drogba comparisons, and truth be told despite his growth over the past few years he's still not good enough. I'm quite confident Utd will end up buying a replacment when they realise he's not going to fire them to title glory.
De Bruyne was entirely Jose's fault. He did everything right on loan at Werder Bremen, looked to continue that in pre-season but Jose refused to play him. The arrival of Willian in the summer further diminished his first team involvement. I would rather we kept him, but the timing just wasn't right.
The only player we've let go over the last 15 years that's irked me was Robben. Guess who sold him too...
Salah was bought on the back of some very good performances against us for Basel but sadly never got a run in the side, never took his opportunities either and Schurrle was a better fit in the system.
Lukaku suffered mostly due to the Drogba comparisons, and truth be told despite his growth over the past few years he's still not good enough. I'm quite confident Utd will end up buying a replacment when they realise he's not going to fire them to title glory.
De Bruyne was entirely Jose's fault. He did everything right on loan at Werder Bremen, looked to continue that in pre-season but Jose refused to play him. The arrival of Willian in the summer further diminished his first team involvement. I would rather we kept him, but the timing just wasn't right.
The only player we've let go over the last 15 years that's irked me was Robben. Guess who sold him too...
Based on the current attitude of Pogba I think Ferguson was right. He rarely got it wrong.
Fergie: Pogba showed us no respect (joining Juventus the way he did). They (he and his agent) can keep away if they want to carry on that way. His comments specifically pertained to the handling of the transfer not Pogba's general behaviour.
Possibly the same as we do losing Pogba ince pique and Ronaldo
I really think people underestimate how reliant De Bruyne is on the exceptional movement of this City side. I am not saying this as a criticism as I think this doesn't make him any less brilliant. But remove that constant moving and how Pep's teams are so good at creating passing options and you would be left with a very good player like he was before this season and like he is for Belgium and not the great one he is today. Salah is a bit of a question mark for me, When you look at Suarez or Coutinho, they kept progressing gradually with each season that the level they reached was simply the natural next step. With Salah however, the difference between this season and his previous ones are too big which indicates that there is a chance it might be a one off. As for Lukaku, I am not sure what has ever done to suggest he is significantly better than they had/have. He is a good player with great physical attributes but he simply does not possess the technical skill to be at the level of the very best.
To be fair, SAF might have been right. Pogba has been great in patches for United, but has hardly paid his dues as a £90m player. The jury is still out as to whether he does indeed have the right hard working focused mentality. That's not to say he doesn't have a solid career ahead of him, much like people saying Rooney didn't reach his potential.
The difference is no one could question the heart of Rooney.
Shaw I worry will find his confidence. Pogba seems too much about profile and as with Beckham sometimes that profile is a distraction no matter how good. If we get the right money there might be better more balanced ways to spend it.
Martial is the one I really worry about. He clearly has bags of talent and is a calm guy. He is someone you want to nurture.
I do worry that this is where Mourinho could cost us. Possibly short term success, but maybe miss the longer term stability. That said winning often breads winning so sometimes you have to take some high profile casualties. SAF did it with RVN, Beckham, Stam, Heinze, even Keane to a lesser extent.
SAF spent a lot of focus on mentality. It's the reason for me people like Fletcher and Park Ji Sung could be your alternative world class players. They were world class in mentality and focus and that sets a tone. Keane similarly was maybe more talented, but that drive was there as well.
Is not like Wolfsburg had great movement.
He was great at West Brom, and was sold 1 year into his Everton days after being on loan there
Was he as good as people say?
Would you say he was as good as he is today at Wolfsburg? He was a very good player but nowhere near the top 10 performers in the world he is today.
To be fair to Chelsea; at the time each of those players where sold, the players had not reached the form that we see today (out of these players), so from that perspective one can somewhat see why they were unaware that the sales of all 3 would end up being the cock-up that it has ended up becoming.
That being said Chelsea only have themselves to blame for allowing such talented players leave the club and doing wonders for other clubs (1). Instead what they should have done with all 3 of those players (2) is do exactly same thing they did with Courtois (3), which is give them long-term loans to clubs which provide them with the right enviroment and more importantly the time to develop their potential. Thus if by chance they still ended up becoming World Class players, Chelsea would have ended up recalling those players and do wonders for them rather than watch other clubs (4).
Likewise lets also not forget the stupidity of selling Mata, Matic, Costa, Cuadrado and Filipe Luis as well, in fact had all 7 of those players not been sold in the first players then this is how the 1st/2nd teams would have ended up:
So overall yes one can blame for Mourinho for mishandling the 3 players in question while he was at the club, but the real blame for not given those 3 players the chance to develop (under their watch) and for selling those 5 other players as well ultimately has to go to the board (more specifically Tenenbaum, Granovskaia and Emenalo) and of course Abramovich. The same people who are also responsible for being completely unable to build into their title wins in 2014-2015 and 2016-2017 (unlike lets say Man United under Fergie) and for sigining players such as Bakayoko, Morata, Drinkwater, Rahman, Djilobodji, Falcao and Pato (5), players who where/are simply not good enough to play for Chelsea.
So if the club are going to get out of the mess (for a big club anyway) they yet again find themsevles in and thus be able to take on the likes of City and United in the Premier League (let alone Real, Barcelona and Bayern in the Champions League), the least Abramovich could do is sack Tenenbaum and Granovskaia (Emenalo having already left) above all else, simply because their repeated mistakes have cost the club dear...
Notes
(1) Say what you want about Lukaku, he has been reasonabally well considering the circumstances he is playing under.
(2) Because lets face it, the Chelsea first team is a pretty poor enviroment for developing young players. Simply because of the amount of pressure from the top on managers to win trophies, which in turn reduces the likelyhood of such managers gambing on unproven talent.
(3) While of course advising them to avoid having long-term relationships with other people living in the local areas of the club, to prevent the sort of siutations that Courtois has ended up in, siutations which more than anything will be the reason why he ended up leaving Chelsea for Real Madrid.
(4) Especially clubs (Man United, Man City and Liverpool in this case) which compete against you for the Title/Top 4 or who challenge you in the Champions League.
(5) Although to be fair to Falcao, the injury issues he had at the time did not help during his time at both Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge.
That being said Chelsea only have themselves to blame for allowing such talented players leave the club and doing wonders for other clubs (1). Instead what they should have done with all 3 of those players (2) is do exactly same thing they did with Courtois (3), which is give them long-term loans to clubs which provide them with the right enviroment and more importantly the time to develop their potential. Thus if by chance they still ended up becoming World Class players, Chelsea would have ended up recalling those players and do wonders for them rather than watch other clubs (4).
Likewise lets also not forget the stupidity of selling Mata, Matic, Costa, Cuadrado and Filipe Luis as well, in fact had all 7 of those players not been sold in the first players then this is how the 1st/2nd teams would have ended up:
Courtious/Caballero
Azpilicueta/Zoma - Christiensen/Luiz - Rudiger/Cahill
Cuadrado/Moses - Kante/Matic - KDB/Fàbregas/Mata - Luis/Alonso
Salah/Willian - Costa/Lukaku - Hazard/Pedro
In othr words a squad which is only a GK, a Top Class CM and a few CB's away from being the best in the Premier League. Certainly this squad would be giving City/United more of a serious title challenge (and be serious Champions League contenders) rather than fighting to stay in the Top 4.Azpilicueta/Zoma - Christiensen/Luiz - Rudiger/Cahill
Cuadrado/Moses - Kante/Matic - KDB/Fàbregas/Mata - Luis/Alonso
Salah/Willian - Costa/Lukaku - Hazard/Pedro
So overall yes one can blame for Mourinho for mishandling the 3 players in question while he was at the club, but the real blame for not given those 3 players the chance to develop (under their watch) and for selling those 5 other players as well ultimately has to go to the board (more specifically Tenenbaum, Granovskaia and Emenalo) and of course Abramovich. The same people who are also responsible for being completely unable to build into their title wins in 2014-2015 and 2016-2017 (unlike lets say Man United under Fergie) and for sigining players such as Bakayoko, Morata, Drinkwater, Rahman, Djilobodji, Falcao and Pato (5), players who where/are simply not good enough to play for Chelsea.
So if the club are going to get out of the mess (for a big club anyway) they yet again find themsevles in and thus be able to take on the likes of City and United in the Premier League (let alone Real, Barcelona and Bayern in the Champions League), the least Abramovich could do is sack Tenenbaum and Granovskaia (Emenalo having already left) above all else, simply because their repeated mistakes have cost the club dear...
Notes
(1) Say what you want about Lukaku, he has been reasonabally well considering the circumstances he is playing under.
(2) Because lets face it, the Chelsea first team is a pretty poor enviroment for developing young players. Simply because of the amount of pressure from the top on managers to win trophies, which in turn reduces the likelyhood of such managers gambing on unproven talent.
(3) While of course advising them to avoid having long-term relationships with other people living in the local areas of the club, to prevent the sort of siutations that Courtois has ended up in, siutations which more than anything will be the reason why he ended up leaving Chelsea for Real Madrid.
(4) Especially clubs (Man United, Man City and Liverpool in this case) which compete against you for the Title/Top 4 or who challenge you in the Champions League.
(5) Although to be fair to Falcao, the injury issues he had at the time did not help during his time at both Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge.
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We've won 2 of the last 3 league titles. Hard to moan too much.
For a club of Chelsea's stature, one should not be content with that. Especially when Chelsea blew a chance of being the first club (other than United) of winning 3 Premier League titles in a row (with their car crash of a 2015-2016), winning only 1 Domestic Cup in 3 years (and blewing the FA Cup final against a declining Arsenal side) and for failing to get past the Last 16 in the last 4 seasons.
In other words sure you have done well compared to most English clubs at that time, what I am trying to say is that your club would have done even better had the right decisions been made when it came to the 8 players I talked about in my previous post.
Would I prefer to win 3/3 instead of 2/3? Of course but I'm a realist, the squad you posted is totally unrealistic, there's about £200 million worth of transfer income in the players you have included.
Even if FFP was not a thing and Roman was spunking his dosh like it was 10 years ago, Lukaku was never going to be happy as Costa's backup (or vice-versa). Luis wanted to do back to Spain, Salah would not have developed the way he did making the odd sub appearance for us, Cuadrado was dogshit when he was at Chelsea and Matic requested a move away.
QFT
Hindsight is 20/20 on current form if Salah & KDB maybe even Lukaku where up for sale Real Madrid,PSG,Bayern Munich,Barcelona,City & us would have been fighting to sign them.
Instead they signed for Everton,Roma & Wolfsburg all stepping stone clubs,that if you proved yourself at,can't refuse too sell to the big clubs.
Noone is bigger than the club. It's been a big mantra of our club for a long long time. This has to include the manager!
Mourinho is about himself, as good as he is, It's all about him. He is an egocentric megalomaniac. Am I the only one that sees this? He is more concerned about his record than the clubs.
He shipped out arguably 3 of the best players on earth right now because what?
Because they don't suit his boring defensive counter attack style he saw no future in wonderful attacking individual players. He needs a team of workhorse robots. I don't want this Mr Mournhio, no one does. I would sooner lose and attack.
Mourinho is about himself, as good as he is, It's all about him. He is an egocentric megalomaniac. Am I the only one that sees this? He is more concerned about his record than the clubs.
He shipped out arguably 3 of the best players on earth right now because what?
Because they don't suit his boring defensive counter attack style he saw no future in wonderful attacking individual players. He needs a team of workhorse robots. I don't want this Mr Mournhio, no one does. I would sooner lose and attack.
I still believe Shaw has talent but doesn't fit Jose's style because he likes to attack! hence vulnerabilities in defence. (Screw defence it's boring) No place for Herrera, Perriera, Gomes, Chong the type of football we ache to see?
Man Utd all my life and my folks before me since 1979 I don't see our style anymore, Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho have killed what I loved. Christ I preferred Ron Atkinson and that's saying something,
KDB, Salah, Lukaku could walk into any team the world over right now and all would hit record stats
Man Utd all my life and my folks before me since 1979 I don't see our style anymore, Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho have killed what I loved. Christ I preferred Ron Atkinson and that's saying something,
KDB, Salah, Lukaku could walk into any team the world over right now and all would hit record stats
Not when Chelsea had all those players on their books at one point, a lot of them at the time same.
£200 million more in transfer spending (which seems very little considering what transfers fees are today, I mean that is only enough to get either Neymar or Kane and no more) was certainly within Chelsea's/Roman's means in those days. Likewise if they felt otherwise then they should have recruited addtional investors into the club instead of allowing the club to underperform.
Lets not forget that Chelsea were one of the clubs to be pushing for it, now I would understand if they where on Barcelona's level at that stage but the fact is that they were not at that stage and are still not at that stage, now matter how demanding Roman like's to be when it comes to managers despite the circumstances they work under.
He should have realised that there are 60+ games in a whole season (if the club does well enough in the Cup competitions and the Champions League) and the fact Costa was not going to be available for every single game (due to suspensions). So if he felt 30-35 games per season was "not enough", then one does wonder what he was thinking...
Then Chelsea should have either loaned him out rather than sell him or simply rotate Ivanović and Azpilicueta a lot more on in RB (and himself and Azpilicueta in LB). I mean lets forget that Ashley Cole was already out of the picture during the 2014-2015 season so it was not like they were bursting with Full Backs.
Agreed, hence why you should have given him 3 years on long-term loans to clubs that would help his development (before deciding to sell him or not) rather than sell him to Roma after just one season of improved performance.
To be fair, he hardly had a chance to prove himself at the Bridge, even Mourinho admitted this at the time. Likewise when he was proving to be excellent for Juve, Chelsea should have recalled him back, especially when Conte adopted 3-4-3 and when Ivanović was being phased out.
And for reasons did he want to leave? I am just asking that is all.
Did Jose buy all three players?
His only full season at Wolfsburg was as good as Robben's or Ribery's best seasons in the Bundesliga. It was easily on the same level as what we've seen from him this season under Pep.
I think an essential part of proving that you are on the same level as the likes of Robben and Ribéry is to perform high in the high intensity game like big league clashes and CL knockouts. This is why I think anybody not playing for a big club challenging on those fonts automatically eliminates them from such comparisons. They can of course perform to a level that suggests they can do it like De Bruyne did but I don't think their season can compare to players who performed at the highest level.
I'm not going to multi quote but I'll answer your points in order.
We bought a lot of the players with the money we got from selling others in your dream squad. If we didn't sell we couldn't buy.
Recruit additional investors? Not sure how that would work. Even if Roman got his rich mates involved, we're only just on the right side of FFP as it is. We've got very healthy sponsor deals in place. We're in the process of sorting out the ground size.
I know the club wanted FFP. I've got no complaints about it.
Top players want to be first choice. Lukaku would not have signed as a backup (and nor should he) regardless of how many games you think Costa might miss through suspension.
Luis didn't settle in England and wanted to go home. We got our money back for an unhappy player. Not sure how a loan would've benefited anyone when the player didn't want to stay. I
Salah should've been loaned again, sure.
Cuadrado was shit for us. Not at all suited to a wingback role in the prem. I'm not in the slightest bit bothered he was sold.
Why did Matic want to join a manager who trusts him at the biggest club in the country for a pay increase? Hmmm, I wonder.
KDB and Salah yes, but Lukaku? He would right now get in our team at present due to Morata's form but he certainly isn't better than the other strikers in the top 6 and that's before we go abroad, he wouldn't sniff any action competing with Suarez, Lewa, Higuain, Mertens, Cavani, Diego Costa.......
He was not in charge when Chelsea signed Lukaku or De Bruyne. He did sell them all.
He took a pretty meh Wolfsburg side to second, helped them win the German Cup scoring in the final, broke the Bundesliga record for assists in a season and won German Footballer of the year(and the actual award not the fan vote award Mkhi and Kagawa won).