My stance on the penny pinching bit is as per what you posted namely insisting on a set minimum bid and upping the bids in tiny derisory amounts which inevitable leads to the selling club cancelling the deal. The money is there and has certainly been sanctioned by Roman but Marina has been a right tit in screwing up all those deals by her obsession with getting value for money.
Chelsea 2017/18 thread - FA Cup Champs, League chumps
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
I just don't get these Barkley rumours. The guy's been injured for the past 6 months and has been kept out of the team by 18-year old Davies. We've got RLC and probably need more dynamic wingers up front who can score goals rather than a brainless footballerNeither will happen. Get ready for Ross Barkley instead.
Signing him will be idiotic if all things considered.
Stop wumming. Nearly 80% of the sales fees were from the first team squad. Making stuff up doesn't help any argument you put through.
Have to be some idiot with some moneyball bs in there. We seem to go after a lot of failures with the hopes of turning them around. Pato, Falcao even Luiz. This shit doesn't work.
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No i don't absolve blame from the board, i am however sick of them getting the blame every time our manager's do a stupid thing. Conte makes Cahill captain over a superior alternative in Azpi and gets outsmarted by Roy and Arsene is apparently the boards fault, Mou picking Ivanovic is the boards fault, Carlo getting spanked by Mick McCarthy and Kenny Dalglish sides is the boards fault.
And i think the sackings run a lot deeper than mere failure to win trophies, i would go through all of them individually to explain why but really can't be arsed.
Out of the players we sold last summer, only Matic, Costa and Begovic have made real contributions to the first team squad. Ake, Cuadrado, Traore, Atsu and Chalobah were out on loan for the most part of the time we owned them we fetched £60m combined for those four players.
We picked up £110m for Matic, Costa and Begovic. Not quite close to 80%.
Wrong. Ake was a first team player despite whatever your opinion is. Also, @singabiru mentioned 2017, which includes Oscar sale for £60m too. £180m+ from the £220m sales were first teamers.
The fact of the matter is you don't blame the board and you heap all the blame onto Mourinho or whoever the coach is.
Sick of it? Did the board appoint you as their spokesperson or what?
The sacking were all due to one thing and that is not delivering what the Board demands i.e. trophies. The facts show that hence there is no need for any pseudo explanations from you based on your opinions alone.
My point is not so much as to which players were sold but rather it begets the question as to why the squad was DELIBERATELY weakened by the Board and having an absolutely meager net spend of 3 million pounds when the Board demands titles and trophies and Conte pleaded for more players and better quality. Case in point being Conte asking for Matic to be retained so as to bed in Bakayoko yet the Board still went ahead and sold Matic.
It all boils down to that woman financial negotiator now pseudo football director who insists on driving "value for money" even at the expense of the club's success on the pitch.
After Conte leaves, no quality coach would bother to step foot into stamford bridge to avoid having to deal with such garbage backing especially from that woman.
The reason is because he's English and he's cheaper that other options (6 months from a contract expiry).
To the Board, those are more important considerations than getting quality players for weaker positions.
Why don’t we just promote more youth like Ampadu who just made his debut for the Welsh team at 17 might I add !!
And Kyle Scott is already in the mix. We’ve got some good young British players coming through, Barkley even on a free transfer would be a hindrance
Pato played for Chelsea?
In Arabic I believe 'Hakuna Morata' means 'We are entitled to Morata.'
In the language it's written in, it means there's no Morata.
I almost forgot that too.
I never said i didn't blame the board in anyway, stop twisting my words, what i am fed up of people lmaking the manager's out to be totally innocent victims who done nothing wrong. Even factoring out that i support the club i would love the Chelsea job if i was a high level manager, all off the credit and none of the blame? yes please.
Ofcorse they would, Chelsea manager's job is the definition of a no lose situation. The media and the average Chelsea fan has created this stigma that the manager is totally blameless when thing's go wrong, look at the difference between us and United. Moyes and LVG feck up at United and there reputation's are damaged beyond repair, AVB and Jose feck up at Chelsea and they walk into another top job within month's.
Ok, ill put this another way, if we finished the season 2nd with 89 points playing well for the most part and get narrowly beaten by Real in the Champions League despite more than matching them for the most part, you think Conte or any manager would be sacked then ? The reason Scolari, AVB, Carlo and especially Jose got sacked is because we were quite evidently in a downward spiral that showed zero signs of averting. Grant's the only one you could argue was sacked with the team in a good place performance wise, but he was a wierd one and all the circumstantial evidence pointed to Ten Cate being the gaffer in all but name.
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Tbf it is wales not germany. But it would be very very disappointing if Barkley was signed instead of giving a chance to the likes of Brown/Baker.
I hope Chelsea gets Barkley so I can laugh for the next century 
None of your postings have blamed the board in any specific manner so I take it you absolve the board of any wrongdoing.
The notion that Chelsea coaches is in a no lose situation is a figment of your imagination and is supported by zero facts. Reputation damaged? Where’s Di Matteo now?
Also, your supposition regarding coaches being sacked is just that, it’s your opinion and nothing more. The facts support what has happened which is all the sacked coaches failed to win trophies or reached the lofty demands of the Board.
You are wasting your time on a crusade to defend the Board and probably spamming them in multiple forums looking at your zealot like behaviour. Opinions don’t hold a candle to facts and more so when forums are a bunch of anonymous posters.
Could you explain the implied damage to Di Matteo's reputation?
Which is my point. The notion that "damage" has been done to coaches is all conjecture and has no real basis in fact.
They would be good as bench options and in the case Ampadu he already is one.
I agree that Barkley joining the club is nothing more than a hindrance to the progress of promising young players as he isn't first team starter material but that's the modus operandi of the Board which is to buy mediocre players at cheap prices because they are cheap. Buying the likes of Sandro is not even in their minds after looking at their price tags and making half-hearted bids.
I don't know that Draxler would contribute much more than Willian or Pedro do overall. He's technically good but often hurt and can drift through games. Not the finisher Pedro is either.
I think Mahrez would make a lot of sense if Conte likes him. I could see him really causing problems for teams on the right wing with Kante getting him the ball and Morata as a target and also playmaker for him. And when Hazard is out, he could provide 80% of what he does, which you can't really say about Pedro or Willian.
Because all my critisism towards the board is covered by other fans, so i don't feel the need to as much compared to this subject. As in for example i highly rate Bakayoko and Christensen, but i voice my opinion about the former more as he divides opinion, whereas every Chelsea fan is on board with how good the latter is.
Got a job at Schalke off the back of being Chelsea manager, which is a damn sight higher than he would have got otherwise. It was only after messing up there that his managerial career went down the pan.
Yep, as is your view on it. I see how you avoided the question i asked however. Maybe i just struggle to see Roman thinking as simplistically as what was won and what wasn't without looking at the bigger picture, ala the performances, progress and evolution of the team. Jose's job was safe as houses in 2014 despite the fact he won feck all and according to numerous reliable sources the decision to sack Ancelotti was made while we were still mathematically in with a chance of the title.
I see where you are trying to go on this, because i don't subscribe that our managers never do anything wrong you are trying to twist this into something completely different, let me guess you spent the corresponding days after Jose's sacking in the 15/16 season claiming Hazard was a snake?
Ill try and sum this up quickly in a way to make you and the rest of the manager's can do no wrong crew understand. Yes the board deserve there fair share of stick, but did they make Cahill captain and then pick him over an in form £30m signing? Constantly pick Ivanovic? Ignore a young, hungry Sturridge for Stagnant Kaloudanelka?
For the record i am actually really happy with the way Conte has dealt with what could have escalated into a huge crisis (and that in itself sets him apart from Carlo 10/11 and Jose 15/16), but he still has made some truly bizarre decisions this season that can't be excused because 'the board', unless you are telling me Granovskaia set the tactics that Roy Hodgson off all people picked apart with ease?
There is definitely some validity in what your saying and more than people are giving you credit for. I do agree when you look at it some of the decisions the managers have made have dumbfounded us as fans. Especially when every man and there dog can see the decisons are poor e.g Ivanovic RB, Cesc in a 2 man midfield.
And I am so happy that Conte has bucked the trend and shown he can adapt and not continue to make those mistakes (The United Game).
The only place where I feel the validity is questioned is due to the relationship with the board, managers are just like players they need the right environment to do there job and as we all know are board are an absolute nightmare for any manager to have to regularly deal with. Ultimately our board are appalling with transfers and as people say they either underbid for players that we actually need and have the money for.
Or the targets are very questionable and once again we leave them late. Conte has made his mistakes this year and is at fault in some respects but the board barely even qualify for completing there job each summer, the amount of cheaper options available this summer or good options that we didnt go for, and why we leave it so late every year is literally mind blowing!
FWIW I think the blame lies somewhere in the middle.
It's definitely something that needs to be factored to a point i agree, but he's not the first and won't be the last manager at Chelsea or elsewhere that got "screwed over" by the board or has an uneasy relationship with them. For example, do you think Pochettino thought of transfer plans in May and envisioned he wouldn't get a single, solitary, signing until deadline day? He probably wanted to get the new signings in straight away, but did you see him constantly digging at Levy and acting like a schoolkid in the media? I saw a few days before the United game a piece by i think Dan Levene (who's got close contacts with Chelsea) said that the sheer rumours of Conte's future were driven in part due to him getting annoyed and turning his phone off without warning for two weeks, if that is true then that is totally unprofessional behaviour. I work as a joiner and if i walked out for two weeks unannounced i'd be fired, even if they didn't provide me with the super glue i needed to make the table.
I think the issue with the underbidding is the fact we have the new stadium in mind plus the desire to run a profitable and stable football club. Which of course leaves us open to some embarrassing failures, ala Koulibaly and Stones, and yes the board have done some pretty mind blowing things over the years (my big grudge was how we let the grass grow so badly under our feet circa 2008-2012), but when we look at the bigger picture since about this time last decade (when Roman started insisting we live within our means, if the sudden halt in transfer outlay is anything to go by, who can forget the summer 2007 incomings
), we have balanced running a sustainable, profitable business with competing for trophies quite well on the whole. Infact none of the other top 6 has balanced both quite like we have. Spurs are yet to start winning trophies, the Manchester clubs have thrown obscene amounts yet we have walked two titles since either have sniffed one, Arsenal and Liverpool are, well Arsenal and Liverpool Your last line is spot on, can't disagree with that.
Coaches find other jobs after they have been sacked. Nothing unusual about it except that you make it like only Chelsea coaches get jobs and the rest don't. Last I read David Moyes got a gig at West Ham.
The so-called bigger picture regarding Roman only exists in your mind. You have no evidence whatsoever to prove your point. Managers keep their jobs based on results and it happens that the Chelsea board or Roman has extremely high standards when it comes to that.
Now you are jumping into making assumptions of an anonymous poster with your comment on Hazard. This tells me that you like to form conclusions based on assumptions and convoluted stances based on your defending the board at all costs view.
Conte won the title in his first season at Chelsea despite being hamstrung by the Board with its transfer policies. And here you are bitching about Cahill being captain and Roy Hodgson. Do you expect him to win every single match and turn in flawless performances everytime? What hogwash! Turn it around and ask the Board why they didn't land Alex Sandro and consistently buy last minute mediocre players.
Bottomline is that you go around trawling football forums preaching about how innocent the Board is and that itself is laughable.
Apparently Chelsea are looking to bring in Luis Campos as DoF as per Castles. Now being reported by multiple sources. - http://metro.co.uk/2017/11/14/chels...is-campos-to-replace-michael-emenalo-7077215/
While some of Emenalos's early acquisitions like Oscar, KdB etc. were simply brilliant, this could be the next level stuff.
While some of Emenalos's early acquisitions like Oscar, KdB etc. were simply brilliant, this could be the next level stuff.
We should be glad that Conte is the coach at Chelsea. After him, there won't be anyone remotely as capable as him wanting to join a football club where the Board expects him to win trophies while having a net spend less than mid-table clubs and this is where I see Chelsea slipping into the same position as Liverpool or maybe worse. Since the signings of Fabregas and Costa, the Board has screwed up big time with its penny pinching ways and the irony is that the money is there as seen by the Stones, Koulibally and Sandro bids yet the way that Marina goes about trying to close transfer deals is appalling as you rightly say. Might as well don't bid if she or the Board wants to be tight wads. Also, leaving the squad unbalanced is another huge crime of the Board e.g. Alonso being the only left wing back in a starter position when he should actually be a back-up to a better player!
That is if Marina or the Board allows Campos to work like he did at Monaco without hamstringing him in anyway.
Believe me I am glad Conte is our manager, for me I want him to stay for as long as possible and would love to see him do 5/6 years here. Hopefully it will change and the restructuring will help a bit, also if Campos did come in that would be a great change.
The good thing about our current squad is its young, we don't have to worry about replacing many/any positions and if we do we already have back ups coming through and jelling with the squad. We do need some depth in January and for me ST & LWB are still the most important with CM just behind.
My hugest worry (and this is most definitely with the board) is that we need to be signing Tibo & Hazard down to new deals and giving them massive increases! I'm so sick of hearing every week that were working on an extension.... the fact there inability to close deals runs parallel through transfers and contracts worries me. (Marina im looking at you)
Don't think Marina cares for much except money so there shouldn't be many issues there. His philosophy is also well aligned with Conte's which is a big plus.
Biggest question is whether he will come to Chelsea with so many clubs interested in him.
Courtois leaving shouldn't be a problem as his fees (even with one year left on his deal) would be more than enough to secure a replacement. Infact, I would love for the club to sell Courtois and buy Oblak instead. Hazard might be an issue but again the money we get for him would be so obscene that it might not be an issue at all.
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Coaches find other jobs after they have been sacked. Nothing unusual about it except that you make it like only Chelsea coaches get jobs and the rest don't. Last I read David Moyes got a gig at West Ham.
The so-called bigger picture regarding Roman only exists in your mind. You have no evidence whatsoever to prove your point. Managers keep their jobs based on results and it happens that the Chelsea board or Roman has extremely high standards when it comes to that.
Now you are jumping into making assumptions of an anonymous poster with your comment on Hazard. This tells me that you like to form conclusions based on assumptions and convoluted stances based on your defending the board at all costs view.
Conte won the title in his first season at Chelsea despite being hamstrung by the Board with its transfer policies. And here you are bitching about Cahill being captain and Roy Hodgson. Do you expect him to win every single match and turn in flawless performances everytime? What hogwash! Turn it around and ask the Board why they didn't land Alex Sandro and consistently buy last minute mediocre players.
Bottomline is that you go around trawling football forums preaching about how innocent the Board is and that itself is laughable.
So basically you have addressed literally none of my points, picked out tiny little snippets and twisted it to suit your own agenda during your extremely bizarre rant
. I am not quite sure why you are on an internet forum as you quite clearly can't handle other's having different opinions to yours and you end up throwing your toys out of the pram in a way i wouldn't expect my 1 year old goddaughter too.And as you can clearly see in my point to Don Conte, i don't think the board are totally innocent and even cited examples i haven't been happy with them so you pretending otherwise is just making you look even more childish and petty than you are already making yourself look like.
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The only one who is throwing his toys out of his pram is you with your "defend the board at all" costs. And portray your opinions as facts. Absolutely nothing to do with my agenda or my stance on others' opinions. Speaking of bizarreness, I find you bizarre that you are emotionally worked up over what anonymous posters think about the Board which aren't synchronous to your thoughts. If that's the way you operate, you are going to be upset for a long time to come.....So basically you have addressed literally none of my points, picked out tiny little snippets and twisted it to suit your own agenda during your extremely bizarre rant
And as you can clearly see in my point to Don Conte, i don't think the board are totally innocent and even cited examples i haven't been happy with them so you pretending otherwise is just making you look even more childish and petty than you are already making yourself look like.
Especially in a non-Chelsea football forum where group think doesn't exist unlike You state that you aren't happy with the Chelsea board yet you hammer Conte on a couple of tactical moves and for grumbling about transfers like he committed cardinal sins and this is the coach that WON the premiership at his first attempt. To top it off, you take Pochettino as what Conte should emulate to be!! A coach who has won zilch with Spurs is your idea of a perfect coach that Conte should strive to be.
You have no appreciation of Conte and his more successful predecessors and would rather nitpick on their mistakes than see what they have done for the club which is to win trophies under intense pressure and patchy support from the Board.
The only one who is throwing his toys out of his pram is you with your "defend the board at all" costs. And portray your opinions as facts. Absolutely nothing to do with my agenda or my stance on others' opinions. Speaking of bizarreness, I find you bizarre that you are emotionally worked up over what anonymous posters think about the Board which aren't synchronous to your thoughts. If that's the way you operate, you are going to be upset for a long time to come.....
You state that you aren't happy with the Chelsea board yet you hammer Conte on a couple of tactical moves and for grumbling about transfers like he committed cardinal sins and this is the coach that WON the premiership at his first attempt. To top it off, you take Pochettino as what Conte should emulate to be!! A coach who has won zilch with Spurs is your idea of a perfect coach that Conte should strive to be.
You have no appreciation of Conte and his more successful predecessors and would rather nitpick on their mistakes than see what they have done for the club which is to win trophies under intense pressure and patchy support from the Board.
My word you are wierd, you are still peddling the same rubbish i have adressed you on numerous times now, i even criticised board actions a few post's ago and you are still claiming i defend them at all cost's, truly bizarre
if you want to adress my points properly feel free and ill give a respectfull reply, if you are going to carry on misquoting me and twisting my word's i politely suggest you should get out more.And the sheer irony of you off all people claiming someone "portays their opinions as facts", my god
Anyway that's enough of that from me. Apologies to the other members who had to read that but that strange man/women is now firmly on ignore, i strongly recommend the other's take the same action because he'll likely target you the moment your opinion sharply differs from his/hers.
That's what you do to suit your agenda of defending the Board. Look at your postings regarding transfers, Chelsea coaches being sacked and them being in a no-lose situation while coaches of other clubs are ruined by sackings.My word you are wierd, you are still peddling the same rubbish i have adressed you on numerous times now, i even criticised board actions a few post's ago and you are still claiming i defend them at all cost's, truly bizarre
And the sheer irony of you off all people claiming someone "portays their opinions as facts", my god
No need to bring others into your personal dispute with me just because you can't take the heat. That's a sure sign of defeatism in you. Also, it was you who targeted me first when I whacked the Board and you got your own feathers ruffled because you can't stand what I posted. I will continue to lambast the Chelsea Board especially Marina for failing Conte and his predecessors time and again. Deal with that.
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Ake was a first team player (20mil), Chalobah was a first team player (5mil).
Cuadrado apparently "wanted" a loan.
I think defending the "board at all costs" is a wrong approach, as would be "bashing them at all costs too".
FWIW, this season we got:
Rudiger - Conte's first choice CB in his 1st season. I remember the only reason we moved to Koulibaly was because of a long term injury to Rudiger
Morata - 1st/2nd choice before/after lukaku. Depending on how you see it.
Drinkwater - Yes we left it very very very late, but the drinkwater rumors were present for a long time. I would say that he was a planned buy rather than just a panic one.
bakayoko - Considering the rumors, conte's 1st choice in the summer
Costa - Conte did not want him, we got rid of him for 60mil.
Yes the board has its issues, but lets not act as if its done a terrible job. They honestly have not. I am not sure of what happened with Barkley. But if the player "apparently" rejected us and still we are looking to get him in the winter, there will be more to it than "he is cheap".
Rudiger is a board purchase through and through. We have been strongly linked with him each of the last 3 summers. Koulibaly was Conte's second choice (first being Bonucci). I really doubt if Conte rates Rudiger that much.
Bakayoko is a good player but I highly doubt that he was Conte's first choice. Again a board buy since there were articles mentioning how Emenalo and Granovskia are huge fans. Simillarly, Drinkwater may have been a planned buy but largely because the board wouldn't stump up the cash for a better player.