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I'm curious what are you basing this on? I think there's every chance we regress under Poch. Even the best case scenario under Poch was that he is holding the role to provide some stability before we can bring in a top manager. I think Poch should continue because I don't see a standout manager available right now.

I think we've had good players - Rudiger, Kante. But no one consistent in the attacking positions that usually win POTM

Inter have deal all but done to secure Simone Inzaghi future https://thedailybriefing.io/i/144496734/inter-have-deal-all-but-done-to-secure-simone-inzaghi-future Inter Milan coach Simone Inzaghi has agreed to stay at the Giuseppe Meazza this summer. Undoubtedly he has shown himself to be one of the best managers in Europe over the last couple of years, but he is happy to commit to Inter. Negotiations with Inter have reached a conclusion more or less, the one detail that is missing is how long the deal will be, but it will be a minimum of two more years, three years is also in the discussion. Once that is sorted, then the next step will be to make the announcement. They want to continue together, they have an agreement.

Chelsea’s Reece James returns to training after five-month injury absence https://theathletic.com/5484013/2024/05/10/reece-james-injury-return-Chelsea-training/ Chelsea captain Reece James has returned to training after five months out with a hamstring injury. James, 24, has been out of action since being withdrawn 27 minutes into Chelsea’s 2-0 defeat at Everton on December 10. The England international underwent surgery on the injury in December having previously missed nine matches earlier in the season after being substituted off in the opening-day Premier League draw against Liverpool. “We need today to see but maybe tomorrow he can be available in the squad,” Chelsea head coach Mauricio Pochettino said of the possibility of James being part of his squad that plays Nottingham Forest on Saturday. “The most important thing is that he is going to be there with us. To have your captain is always a massive boost for any team. “We have an amazing relationship, of course he is an amazing player. I know it is not always easy when you come from a long-term injury. But the most important thing is that he can be available and be part of the squad. “Then if he can play five or 10 or 15 minutes, half an hour I think it would be amazing. But of course it is unlucky that it (he is back) only for the last week when we have three games (to go). “But it is important we finish with good feelings and for him it will be amazing to be involved.” James has suffered multiple injury absences in recent seasons; the wing-back missed the final month of the 2022-23 campaign with a hamstring injury and has made just 24 Premier League appearances across the past two seasons. James also missed the 2022 World Cup for England due to a knee injury and suffered a recurrence of that problem following the tournament when he returned to club action.

Chelsea have enquired about starlet but Real Madrid lead race https://thedailybriefing.io/i/144496734/Chelsea-have-enquired-about-starlet-but-real-madrid-lead-race Many teams have enquired, and are enquiring about River Plate's 16-year-old Franco Mastantuono, Chelsea are one of them, but what I'm told is that Mastantuono only has Real Madrid on his mind - he sees it as the top option. Negotiations are in their initial stages though, and there have been contacts between Real Madrid and Mastantuono, but nothing is advanced, so there's still a lot to be decided. The key thing is that Real Madrid want him, his intention is to go there, even if things have to progress. Regarding reports from other outlets that Real Madrid do not want to pay his release clause, there's a chance that other clubs come in and pay it (reported at €45m, €50m in the final 10 days of the transfer window), but they would have to convince Mastantuono too. He will speak with his club, and if necessary, work out the terms. Maybe Real Madrid will try to pay part of the fee on a fixed basis, and the rest in variables, as they have done with a number of other players.

Estevao Chelsea agreement, plus latest on Omari Hutchinson’s future https://thedailybriefing.io/i/144460272/estevao-Chelsea-agreement-plus-latest-on-omari-hutchinsons-future Chelsea have reached an agreement with Willian Estevao and his agents on the contract - everything is ready between Chelsea and the player, and now the Blues want to close the deal with Palmeiras. The interest has been there for a long time, with concrete contacts starting a few months ago, and now they’re making progress on signing this exciting young talent, considered one of the best prospects in the world, not just South America. Conversations are ongoing between Chelsea and Palmeiras, and my understanding as we wait for an official bid is that Chelsea’s first proposal will be around €32m plus add-ons. What I’m hearing is that the structure of the add-ons would take the bid over the value of Estevao’s release clause. It could be €32m now and a further €25m over multiple payments - not guaranteed money, but depending on performances they could pay that over the course of multiple years. Now it depends on Palmeiras, but for sure Chelsea are working hard to sign Estevao, who was also previously a target for Paris Saint-Germain. You may remember that PSG tried to sign him as well as Endrick, making a bid of €90m to Palmeiras for both players, but the Brazilian club said no. They sold Endrick to Real Madrid and now Estevao is close to joining Chelsea. We’re likely to see departures at Chelsea this summer, particularly with the players who are currently out on loan. As previously reported, the plan is for Armando Broja to be sold once he comes back from his loan at Fulham, and Hakim Ziyech can already be considered to have played his last game for Chelsea. I also expect Romelu Lukaku and Ian Maatsen to leave Chelsea, but for the others we have to wait and see what happens. Omari Hutchinson, for instance, will be an interesting one to follow after his fine form on loan at Ipswich Town. There will be a meeting between Omari’s camp and Chelsea to discuss his future. There are clubs in Eredivisie, Bundesliga and Premier League keen on signing him on loan. Another loan solution for next season is the most likely, as I’m hearing that Chelsea want him to play on regular basis, while Ipswich also hope to keep him.

Mauricio Pochettino suggests he could decide to leave Chelsea: ‘Maybe we are not happy’ https://theathletic.com/5484061/2024/05/10/mauricio-pochettino-Chelsea-future/ Mauricio Pochettino has suggested that he could leave Chelsea of his own accord this summer rather than the club deciding to sack him. The future of Pochettino, 52, has been the source of increasing scrutiny with the head coach admitting recently that he has not spoken to the co-owners for a few months. The Argentine has just one year left on his contract with the option for another 12 months. This week, Chelsea chairman Todd Boehly appeared to back him publicly by talking about ‘beautiful football’ and the project coming together in recent weeks. Pochettino has also revealed he has started working on plans for pre-season and the next campaign. However, when pushed by The Athletic to confirm this was a sign he was definitely going to be at Stamford Bridge for the 2024-25 season, he refused to do so. GO DEEPER Mauricio Pochettino - should the Chelsea head coach stay or go? He said: “Look, it is not important. The most important thing is to keep going working if we are all happy, not only the owners happy with us, the sporting directors with us, or us with the organisation the club is building here because then we are all under assessment. “If we are happy, perfect. But it is not only if the owner are happy or the sporting directors are happy. If we are happy, you need to ask also because we said ‘look maybe we are not happy with certain situations and maybe we are not happy and we need to split.’ It is not going to be the first time that a coaching staff decide at the end of the season not to keep going. “There are two parts who can take a decision. It is not only because Chelsea are not happy, the owners are not happy, the sporting directors are not happy, maybe we are not happy because we arrived here with some job to do but in the end it has not happened what we expect. Maybe we are not happy. “I don’t say that I am not happy but always it is lacking one side. Maybe the other side say ‘OK, maybe until here’ and we split. It is not a problem. It is not going to be the end of the world.” Chelsea go into their match at Nottingham Forest on Saturday sitting in seventh place in the Premier League, their highest position this term. GO DEEPER Chelsea may have spent £1bn - but how much of that have they seen on the pitch?

Fluminense hoping to create Chelsea link after Thiago Silva transfer https://theathletic.com/5481911/2024/05/09/Chelsea-fluminense-thiago-silva-transfer/ Fluminense president Mario Bittencourt wants to create a link between the Brazilian club and Chelsea following their agreement to sign Thiago Silva. Silva, 39, is rejoining the Rio de Janiero club after 15 years when his contract at Chelsea expires at the end of the season. Bittencourt has praised Chelsea’s role in the negotiations process for the central defender’s transfer and has spoken of his desire for a link to be created between the two clubs, which he hopes will include playing friendlies at both team’s stadiums. “We have a huge affection for Chelsea,” Bittencourt — who highlighted Fluminense’s English origins — said, as quoted by O Globo. GO DEEPER Portugal, Belgium and... Brazil? Assessing Chelsea's multi-club options “They treated us with respect and from this moment and now, for English football, I am a Chelsea fan. “I hope that our calendars allow us to play a friendly match against them in England for us to invite them to the Maracana (Fluminense’s stadium, which is also home to the Brazil national team). “It would be incredible to create a link between the two clubs.” GO DEEPER Chelsea, Strasbourg, BlueCo and a multi-club model yet to convince a sceptical fanbase Fluminense’s domestic honours include four Brazilian national league titles, one Copa do Brasil and 33 victories in the Campeonato Carioca — the Rio state championship. They won their first Copa Libertadores — the South American version of the Champions League — title last year, defeating Argentine club Boca Juniors in the final. Silva previously spent three years with Fluminense before moving to AC Milan in 2009. The defender has signed a two-year contract with the club and will be allowed to train with them before his move officially goes through on July 1.

Can Chelsea afford to qualify for the Europa League? https://theathletic.com/5479118/2024/05/09/Chelsea-europa-league-psr-fsr/ In the final weeks of a Premier League season that appeared doomed to end in mid-table mediocrity, Chelsea have a real shot at qualifying for Europe. Currently in seventh, level on points with Manchester United but boasting a far superior goal difference, Mauricio Pochettino’s young team sit two points behind Newcastle United with three matches remaining. Sixth place — which would secure Europa League football next season, provided Erik ten Hag’s side do not beat Manchester City in the FA Cup final — remains firmly in play. That outcome would feel like success and represent tangible, positive progress for a relatively inexperienced squad that has been on a painful learning curve in the most competitive league in the world. It would also introduce new financial challenges for Chelsea’s owners, some of which were detailed by The Athletic ahead of the Carabao Cup final in February. UEFA’s club licensing and financial sustainability regulations (FSR) will only allow losses up to €80million (£68.5m; $86m) for the 2024-25 monitoring period — which encompasses the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons — provided the club in question is deemed to be in good health and not subject to existing UEFA sanctions. This is significantly more restrictive than the £105m loss over a three-year period permitted by the Premier League’s profit and sustainability regulations (PSR). Chelsea’s official financial results for 2022-23, published on Companies House in March, revealed a £90.1m pre-tax loss and painted a worrying overall picture that indicated the club only narrowly remained PSR compliant by banking £76.5m profit from the sale of the two hotels at Stamford Bridge to a sister company owned by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital. Ominously, this deal is still awaiting formal approval from the Premier League as being of “fair market value” almost a year after it was agreed. In any case, it cannot help Chelsea comply with FSR. “Under UEFA rules, real estate profits are excluded from the calculation,” football finance expert Kieran Maguire tells The Athletic. “You can do it under PSR, but you can’t do it in the EFL and you can’t do it under UEFA.” The margin for financial error is further reduced by UEFA’s decision to cap player amortisation at a maximum of five years regardless of the length of their contract from the summer of 2023. Premier League clubs voted to follow suit but the rule change did not come into effect domestically until January 2024, making Chelsea’s signings last summer more expensive for the purposes of FSR compliance than for PSR. “In the case of Moises Caicedo (who signed an eight-year contract with Chelsea after joining from Brighton & Hove Albion), his £100m transfer fee counts as £12.5m annually for PSR but, in UEFA’s calculations, it will need to be £100m divided by five (years),” Maguire explains. “So it will count as £20m per year.” The Athletic projected in February that UEFA’s five-year amortisation cap would raise the yearly cost of Chelsea’s summer signings for FSR purposes from £59.4m to £80.9m. This, however, was based on the total transfer fee commitment for the summer of 2023 being £404.8m; in their accounts the club disclosed transfer spending of £454m after June 30, 2023, suggesting the fees paid for the 11 players who arrived at Stamford Bridge in that window may be even higher than initially reported — thereby making the amortised cost greater. In such financial circumstances, it is legitimately questionable whether the benefits of qualifying for the third-tier Europa Conference League — Chelsea’s likely outcome if they finish seventh rather than sixth — outweigh the financial drawbacks. West Ham only earned around £16m for winning the entire competition in 2022-23. The good news is the Europa League is a different matter. Lifting the trophy for a third time in 2024-25 would net Chelsea around £30m in prize money. That best-case scenario would also guarantee seven additional matches at Stamford Bridge, which brought in an average of £3.1m in match-day revenue in 2022-23, with tickets and hospitality packages more likely to sell out against a slightly higher standard of European opposition. Add that up and a successful Europa League campaign could be worth in excess of £50m. It may not be the £82m that Chelsea earned for reaching the Champions League round of 16 in 2022-23 but it is a significant revenue boost, even factoring in the bonuses for European participation written into first-team player contracts. There are other benefits. Qualifying for the Europa League would improve Chelsea’s chances of securing a lucrative new primary shirt sponsorship, which is yet to be finalised for the 2024-25 season. Finally and most enticingly of all, winning it offers an alternative route — and arguably an easier one — back into the Champions League. Chelsea’s most recent published financial results reinforced the outside perception, played down by senior figures within the club, that significant player sales are required before June 30 in order to remain PSR compliant for 2023-24. This artificial deadline could put additional pressure on an important summer and weaken the club’s negotiating position when attempting to sell the players considered expendable at Stamford Bridge. In his analysis of Chelsea’s financial results, respected football finance analyst Swiss Ramble concluded that the club will have to generate a PSR profit of £36m for 2023-24 to remain within the Premier League’s three-year loss limit of £105m, effectively breaking even in the accounts before allowable deductions are applied. Selling players — particularly academy graduates who represent pure profit in the books — before June 30 is the most feasible way to achieve that. When it comes to FSR, Chelsea have more time to get their books in order. UEFA’s monitoring period runs from January 1 to December 31, meaning even player sales registered after June 30 are factored into their calculation. The fact that no new signings arrived at Stamford Bridge in the most recent January transfer window will be helpful. UEFA have also introduced squad cost control measures that tie player wages, transfer and agent fees to club revenue and profit on player sales. The ratio stands at 80 per cent for 2024 before dropping to 70 per cent in 2025; Swiss Ramble estimates Chelsea were at 86 per cent in 2022-23, but this is tied to a gargantuan £404m wage bill that club officials insist has been drastically reduced with the departures of a large number of high earners last summer. Many in football are waiting, or even hoping, for Chelsea to be found in breach of the sport’s financial regulations. Qualifying for the Europa League or Europa Conference League might well increase the chances of this happening, though the club’s owners have so far proven creative (or cynical, depending on your point of view) enough to stay just within the permitted limits. Pochettino and his team have no choice but to finish the Premier League season as strongly as possible, bring European football back to Stamford Bridge and let others worry about the rest. GO DEEPER Chelsea accounts explained: A big loss, sponsor worry and an FFP headache (Top photo: Chelsea celebrate winning the 2019 Europa League, Etsuo Hara/Getty Images)

We will win 3-1.

Luton will visit West Ham 2 hours earlier. If they lost, they are relegated, so by the time our match kicks off Forest might be safe already. Either way, we must win, hope CHO will be as silent as during his carreer here.

They are one of the difficult teams to play now. Still fighting to stay in the league. Teams from 9th to 16th place are already on holiday. Liverpool and Villa also. And last two.

Depends though. Radcliffe isn’t actually hugely successful in football with his team in France. Man United haven’t been particularly successful the past 11 years and I think if the appointments INEOS have made/makes and any manager were on the right page, it wouldn’t be as difficult as some may imagine, even if it were Tuchel, Conte or a Mourinho. I think with it being a fresh impetus at Man United so to speak - with the ethos seeming to be Jim Radcliffe & INEOS know they need to get back to where they were, with a hugely competent operator with the NUFC sporting director also going to be in place, most managers would see that as as interesting job. As long as they are on the same page with expectations. I think Tuchel’s spells at Dortmund and PSG have been much more about falling out with people than his spell at Bayern. Bayern are maybe more similar to us in the fact over the past 2/3 years they’ve been a mess on and off the pitch and need a regeneration. Whilst here, I think Boehly put too much responsibility on Tuchel with involvement with the transfer side of things like the frequency of dealings/meetings with players/agents as opposed to letting him just come in at a later stage. That certainly had a huge effect on that relationship deteriorating. But I think they were still naive in pulling the plug and believe that they would undo the decision if they had the chance again.

yes, I have posted on him multiple times he regressed last season, rebounded this one not sold on him atm

Both brilliant and tacky, with its infrared visuals, skull-faced assassin, and women shooting fireworks out of crotches, Harmony Kornie’s latest is like nothing you’ve ever seen. https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/harmony-korine-aggro-dr1ft-review-grand-theft-auto-on-acid Like nothing you’ve ever seen, Aggro Dr1ft strives to create not simply something new, but The New, delivering a barrage of sound and image that amalgamates the old and familiar into a fresh, hallucinatory cinematic vision. It’s brilliant. It’s tacky. It’s exhilarating. It’s wearisome. There’s no middle ground with this boundary-pushing whatsit, which will earn reactions as diverse and heated as the various elements that comprise its wholly unique 80 minutes. Destined to be passionately adored and despised, it’s a provocation, a stunt, a dare, and an experiment—as well as a bold one-of-a-kind experience that, following its polarizing debut at numerous 2023 festivals, shouldn’t be missed when it arrives in domestic theaters beginning May 10. 'Aggro Dr1ft is the beastly offspring of many mothers and fathers, playing like the bastard progeny of Grand Theft Auto, Scarface, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and kindred action and crime sagas, all of it fashioned with terrifying and trashy gangland and strip-club aesthetics. Korine shoots his film in eye-searing infrared (via thermal NASA cameras) that makes everything pulsate in blazing reds, yellows, purples, pinks, and blacks, such that it approximates what it might be like to see the world after staring for too long at a solar eclipse. Gliding along and rotating about as if in a dream, the director’s cinematography is at once entrancing and off-putting, and that conflict is further exacerbated by visuals that throb with unholy X-ray malevolence. Faces and bodies flash bio-mechanical veins and tendrils that resemble modernized versions of H.R. Giger’s iconic designs, suggesting a marriage of man and machine, not to mention the mortal and the holy—all of which is embodied by the story’s protagonist. Bo (Jordi Mollà) is “the world’s greatest assassin,” and as he dispatches a target in a pool at film’s outset, an enormous demon—its skull face adorned with colossal horns—materializes behind him, at once fueling his ferocity and mimicking his physical movements. Wearing a mask that often exhibits a skeletal visage, Bo is a death dealer who ruminates in melancholic voiceover about his place in this fundamentally chaotic and debased reality. “The old world is no more,” he muses after completing his mission. Upon visiting his wife and children, whom he loves with a passion that matches his fondness for ending lives, he announces, “The next generation will reign supreme.” Such comments speak to Korine’s belief in Aggro Dr1ft’s claim to cinema’s future, and there’s something thrilling about the lengths to which the director pushes things into extremity. An abstract venture that’s nihilistic to its core, it feels at once groundbreaking and reductive, mature and childish, and those contradictions are the fuel that propel it into ever bleaker and more bonkers territory. There’s a story lurking inside Aggro Dr1ft, but it matters less than the poses struck, the vibe conjured, and the attitude expressed. Bo works for a rich man who lives in one of the countless mansions spied in this Floridian hellscape of scorching colors and screeching bird noises, the latter punctuating an AraabMuzik score that’s as avant-garde as Korine’s imagery. Scuzzy, pounding, and dialed to 11 so that half the dialogue (much of it narrated) is difficult to discern, the film’s soundscape is part and parcel of this proto-kitschy marvel. So too is the barely existent narrative, which concerns Bo being hired to take out a growling overlord named Toto (Joshua Tilley) who walks around in shorts and boots, boasts a featureless face and giant wings, carries an enormous sword, and is surrounded by scantily clad women whom he habitually refers to as “bitches,” including when he locks them in hanging cages. “Dropping souls, dropping bodies, dropping souls,” intones Bo, who believes that “there is a magic in the brutality” and declares that “I am a hero. I am a solitary hero.” What’s said is spacy and hackneyed, and articulated with a wooden sincerity that seems modeled after the way characters talk in video game cutscenes. Korine distills everything to a self-conscious cliché, be it Bo’s contemplations, his adversaries’ threats, or the many sights of dangling crucifixes, bouncing female behinds, and guns that create lens flares when aimed at the screen. A Corvette drives down a South Beach boulevard, one tire so yellow it appears to be on fire. A cadre of blade-wielding hooded minions surround Toto (“We are the children with devil faces”), and it’s not clear—nor does it really matter—if they’re dwarves or children. Two strippers perform on stage, their crotches emitting sparks like it was the Fourth of July. On and on the nuttiness comes, and as with repeated lines of dialogue, the monotony turns the proceedings into a nightmare acid trip of murder, longing, and badass affectation. Aggro Dr1ft resembles the sort of hypnotic movie that would play at a house party thrown by James Franco’s Alien from Spring Breakers, and its demented dynamism mesmerizes far more than it grates. Eschewing convention with every crashing, clashing note, it’s a work which demands that viewers succumb to its wild instincts and attune themselves to its phantasmagoric wavelength. The film’s pointlessness is its point, as Korine dives headfirst off the deep end into a stew of agony and ecstasy. On a luxury yacht filled with armed henchmen and hot tub-crowding strippers, Bo tells a beloved comrade named Zion (Travis Scott) that he should read Julius Caesar, after which he asks Zion to look after his son and daughter should he perish on one of his assignments. Greed, power, tragedy, and damnation are omnipresent. So too is bracing madness, which crescendos once Bo finishes what he’s set out to do, and leaves his gruesome handiwork for the robed devils and S&M-outfitted women who populate this unreal land. “An assassin’s work is never finished… until the world is clean. And then we sleep the eternal sleep,” says Bo at the end of Aggro Dr1ft. Yet such pessimism is offset by his hopeful belief that “God is love. Forever.” Make of it what you will, but the light and the dark of Korine’s latest burn equally, unforgettably bright. Harmony Korine / EDGLRD | Boiler Room Miami: EDGLRD

Anyone seen 24yo Porto striker Evanilson play? just saw that he got called up for Brazil.

I never posted this: Why are you altering my replies? The only two posts ever on the board that mentioned Franco Mastantuono (at least in searchable text) were my 2 here: https://forum.talkchelsea.net/search/?q=Mastantuono&quick=1

Tuchel vs Ratcliffe. What could go wrong.

You are going to the wrong clubs m8! lololol

That's harsh on Tuchel. He is by no means perfect but he did not do an awful lot wrong here or at Bayern apart from his style of football which might not be everyone's cup of tea. Both Bayern and our team have been dysfunctional units for the past 2 years with a lot of disarray in the club hierachies as well. He showed character steadying the ship during the war turmoil in 2022 here as well as at Bayern when they switched the entire C-level and even after they harshly terminated him. While Boehly was stupid to fire him prematurely which cost us last season, TT is probably not the right coach for us at the moment. This immature team needs to grow. I can not see them learning to express themselves on the pitch and build leadership structures under a control freak like him. Just as I can not see us winning anything signficant under Poch but you can not deny most players have progressed. In 2 or 3 years when most of them will hit their prime years we need a proven winner as coach to get the maximum out of the squad. If TT is still going strong by then, he should be considered. Many fans still adore him, and TT still speaks highly about our club and the appreciation he recieved in England. Back then it was a good fit bc he represented a lot of he club's core values. He will be back coaching in the PL very soon and will be an absolute pain for us if he indeed takes the ManUre job.

Knowing what you usually get for giving brighton money, they will probably play the b-team, get spanked 5-0, then quote Todd another 100m for Evan Ferguson's wrecked ankle joint.

There is a decent chance they will be safe already before kick off. In this case I expect them to roll over as soon as we get the first goal and us winning at least 2-0. If we concede first it will probably be an eyesore affair cos then we have all the pressure and they none.