OhForAGreavsie

I'm not pretending to know but this seems a realistic assessment to me. It also fits with the claim that we have a good chance of getting him, whereas I see no hope that we might get players such as Havertz or Lautaro.

I think this is the key comment in all you have said. If what you believe is true then Marina's job might indeed have come under pressure. Instead she clearly enjoys Roman's confidence and Frank speaks convincingly about enjoying a good relationship with her. I ask you to consider if this might mean that the people who actually know the facts know something you don't? Far from being sacked, Marina has been promoted more than once. Just how stupid would everyone involved in those decisions need to be to miss the gross incompetence you think Marina is guilty of? The facts do not support your opinion. I really believe you should think again about this.

hello BL, If Marina was responsible for selecting the players targeted then yes, she would deserve whichever of credit or criticism was going around. I've never seen anything that suggests that she is in fact responsible for decisions about footballing merit however. Not one word outside of what seems to have become a received opinion on here. I can see a multitude of reasons why Roman might reserve the final say on transfers to himself, but I see absolutely no reason at all why he would delegate that responsibility to Marina. If he was to allow someone other than himself to make those decisions, no way he's going to conclude that Marina is the woman for the job, Makes absolutely ZERO sense, and I just do not believe it. Marina's responsibilities are financial and administrative. Marina signs the cheques, authorises the budgets, negotiates contracts, and makes the call on whether a particular deal is affordable or fits within the club's approach. She probably signs off on the FFP accounts and has board responsibility for ensuring the football operation runs smoothly. No doubt all the people who do the day to day management tasks, report to her. She does not select the players however. The notion that Frank is sitting outside her office while Marina watches videos and studies scouting reports is too stupid to be believed. People have issues with Roman, but I don't think anyone believes he's an idiot. Which he would have to be to have Marina selecting players.

They say it takes your friends and your enemies working together to hurt you. Your enemies to say stuff you wouldn't like, and your friends to tell you about it. 🙂 I'm not interested in Twitter or Instagram so comments made in those platforms would never darken my door... if it wasn't for those kind souls on here who collect them from there and put them here. That's how I came to read @blue_footy's tweet. As far as I know that's the only thing I've ever read from him but I'm out of patience with him already. 🙁🙁

And I'm losing patience with people who rush to make judgements when they have few facts, if any. If it's true that the club refused to pursue a deal for Frasier, then it's about why they did that. If you don't know why then you can't form an opinion. At least not one that people should take seriously.

If it's true that Werner wants Liverpool, and only Liverpool then the Reds are showing that Bayern aren't the only club which knows how to be smart about recruitment. In that situation, there is no market and Liverpool, who can field a powerful line up with or without Werner, have no need to hurry. As long as the player remains determined not to go anywhere else, each day that passes makes Liverpool's position stronger. They need only bide their time and they'll get their man sooner or later, even if it means they have to wait a season. Bayern would be impressed.

I like the sound of CFCW winning the league whichever way it's calculated. Indeed, we'll be champions by a bigger margin if the FA goes for a weighted points method. One of the more interesting remaining decisions awaiting concerns whether to relegate any teams. This will impact Liverpool in particular. The WSL is firmly in a development phase and, as such, the more sides which are backed by big clubs, the better. Problem is, Liverpool FC are not really getting behind their women's team. Since the end of 2017/2018 they have drastically reduced the support for their women's team, with the result that their better players left and turned them into relegation candidates. If Liverpool undertake to back their team in the way Chelsea, Arsenal, City and United do, then I'd like to find a way to keep them up. If not, send them down and hope for a fan backlash to once again shame them into doing the right thing.

I reckon it'll be a new golf club. Either one with greens, fairways and bunkers, or one that fits in a bag.

Agreed.

To be frank I think he'd be out of his depth in midfield but, again, I'll be happy if you are right and I am wrong.

That's fair enough. Let's hope you are right, and I am wrong.

Well, it's just opinion of course, but I'm afraid I don't rate Ethan highly enough, no. For me, he's a competent footballer, not a special one. This has been my take since before Ethan went on loan, so it hasn't been influenced by the way things panned out in Germany. A chief concern is his passing. I think it's short of the required level. I've no idea whether or not Ethan's stats support my claim, but I firmly believe that pass completion stats don't tell even half the story. I prefer to examine a performance and ask how well each involvement was performed. Were control, touch, decision making and execution as good as could be reasonably expected in any given situation. On that basis, Ethan does not score well enough in my opinion.

I don't believe that Ethan is good enough in either position.

Agreed.

I think people know my thoughts on this so it will surprise no one that I would go for such a deal. I'm less certain that Marcin would however. The fact that he was given zero minutes, at any level, in the season before he left suggests a big falling out with the club. Maybe he threw his toys out of the pram after the signing of Kepa, maybe the club quarantined him because he refused an offer of an extension and a loan*. Either way, seventy-one million unnecessarily spent pounds later, there would be some repair work to be done before a return can happen. *I don't know that such a deal was offered but it's a more than reasonable guess that it was.

This implies that Marina makes football decisions. I have never believed that, and never will unless I see undeniable evidence. The charge that she picks the players makes absolutely zero sense to me.

I really wish that the fanbase as a whole would wake up to the danger of our stadium situation and the threat hanging over us if we fail to remedy it. The fans have got to stop being so selfish in insisting that the club must remain at Stamford Bridge. Misplaced nostalgia for a location is, in my unsentimental opinion, just stupid. You may like the house you live in, but you still move when you need to, and even sometimes when you just want to. Home is where your family is, not where the bricks stand. Wherever Chelsea fans turnup, that's where Chelsea are. Blues fans without Stamford Bridge still equals Chelsea, but Stamford Bridge without Chelsea fans can never be anything more than a pointless shell. What matters is getting the right stadium, with the right facilities to serve the future of the club. Rebuilding in Fulham Broadway will be the most expensive option, the most disruptive option, and the one which will result in the worst, most compromised stadium. Ok, it proved tough to find a good location within the radius the fans might have accepted, so spread the net wider. Stamford Bridge can only be the option of last resort, not the cling-on-to-at-all-costs obsession. As I say, it is plain selfish of people like me, a percentage of whom will be dead inside the next ten years, to demand that the club throws away all of the better alternatives for securing its future just to satisfy their misplaced feelings.

How many around here are old enough to remember one time Wimbledon owner Sam Hammam? He injected a little cash into the team, and a lot of PR into selling the idea that The Dons would move to Dublin, capture the huge fanbase there, perform week after week in a packed 70,000 seater, and become a superpower. In reality Hammam knew that resistance to the scheme in Ireland, at The FA and among fans made it a non-starter. He also knew however that the wealthy Nordic crew he was wooing as potential buyers for his club were not as clued up as he was. He sold them the dream and collected his unrealistically inflated cheque. Naturally, I have no idea if its true but the rumour is out there that Roman was pulling the same stunt. That the planning permission was only ever intended to be used to aid his negotiating position for a profitable sale. Football fans, myself included, always want things to be better than they are but, on the whole, Roman has done well for the club. He has almost always acted honourably and sought to do the right thing, so I choose to believe Bruce Buck when he says Roman does not intend to sell. Either way that additional revenue you talk about is now a long, long way off.

When I first watched Dembele at Rennes he annoyed me because I would tune in to watch Boga and he was keeping our loan man out of the side. I quickly became a fan however and was really disappointed when his agent stated than Dembele had already turned Chelsea down the previous summer. I understand the fitness and attitude concerns but, if he is signed, it would be reasonable to assume that the club had looked into those and decided they were not obstacles. I like Pulli, but if we get Dembele too I think it makes us stronger.

My own view is not that he's finished, but that he never actually was what he is widely considered to have been. I watched a lot of German football in the season KDB was at Bremen, and of course that meant a lot of BVB, Gotze always looked less than special to me.

Never rated him I must say, but whatever he may once have been, I agree with you that he's not one to consider these days.

Thank you. Maybe we should now delete the original comment, along with your replies and mine. Feels like we need to disinfect the place.

FB, Has the person who posted the ignorant, inhuman and offensive comment to which you replied above been banned? He should be.

There's only one appropriate response to this; wait for full and accurate information before forming any opinion(s).

I can't say that I agree because I don't know what all the others have, or have not, done. I am proud though of how our club has behaved, and without any unnecessary virtue signalling either. As to the players I'm a bit less sure. The full details of their discussions with the club are not public so maybe there is a positive slant that I'm unaware of. On the face of it however, their actions are capable of being interpreted as meaning that they have no sympathy for the club and are not willing to help it. They don't have to help if they don't want to, but It'd be a positive sign if they demonstrated some feeling for the club. Contrast that with Charlie Webster's interview where he was beaming about how much he and his teammates care about the Chelsea academy. Again, I know first teamers don't have to love the club they work for, but it would still be nice to know that they do. Taken with the stories of the cold welcome given to Christian, the situation at Cobham is not coming across well.