OhForAGreavsie

Some friends treated me to hospitality at this game. I thought the mince pies were a part of the package. Little did I know. 🙂

Enjoyable afternoon. Thought we played way better than last two outings. Felt Sjoke was good, ditto Ashley Lawrence, Ezza also. Really liked Hannah Hampton today too. Lived up to the billing as being the best around with her feet. Apart from the error which almost gifted them a goal thought she looked pretty competent. Hope to see her given more chances. Hats off to Bristol City. They are really getting right with building support. I was at Guro's first game for us at Bristol a few years back. It was played at Stoke Gifford in what was basically a university athletics track. There were maybe 150 Chelsea fans there and even fewer Robins' followers. Today they attracted well over 9000. Nice stadium, good fans lots of positive steps being taken. And they competed better than any Bristol team I've seen.

I won't be going to Stamford Bridge today so my ticket for the the Chelsea women vs Liverpool women game is available. I am essentially offering the ticket for free but only on condition that it is actually used. I will ask anyone requesting the ticket to send me £10 via PayPal but, if you later send me a photo of the game taken from my seat, I will refund the tenner. I paid £21.25 for it but, as a one-off general sale ticket, it would cost £25. It is an e-ticket for the Matthew Harding lower. If anyone is interested just let me know. I will give priority to anyone who has never attended a CFCW game previously.

I was not saying that he was overrated before he joined because I didn't watch him enough to have an opinion. Since he got here the doubts have been creeping in however. I'm looking forward to Poch having Lavia as an option then we'll see what the competition can do to keep both players at their best level. It would be nice if those two can keep that slot in the team under control while we sharpen the squad in other areas, before we have to come back and think if we need to look at DM again.

No, no, no, no, no.

Really interesting press conference from Emma today. Not said directly of course but it seems clear that the stories of difficulties in her contract negotiations with Chelsea are true, and that this played some part in her decision to go. There was also a slight slip in one reply which suggests that at least one of her staff will be leaving with her. Since there is already a claim circulating that defensive coach Denise Reddy, a Yank, will be going with Emma, that rumour only get stronger now.

You prefer Badi over Levi? (Not commenting on your opinion, just hoping to hear more.)

Ellis was really unpopular with the players when she managed the USA team. I wonder if her time as a top level manager is done.

When Conor was an under 18s player, he was the favourite of then manager Jody Morris. I was never convinced however, and was very clear that I did not see a Chelsea future for the young man. I have been challenged on that from time to time over the years and have always promised that, if I proved to be wrong, I would remind people what I said, and acknowledge my error. So, is it time for me to fess up?

You must be an only child, else your sibling(s) must be the sweetest, loveliest, person/people imaginable. Nothing else could explain how you survived after putting them through that god knows how many times a day. 🤣

Battersea is not, I think, a royal park so it is not necessarily a special protected area. Nevertheless, it's a great open air space enjoyed by millions of Londoners every year. I would hate to see it lost to development. When I was little, I used to be taken the the permanent funfair there. When my daughters were small we enjoyed so many days there picnicking, in the adventure playground, around and on the lake, in the zoo, or riding their bikes by the riverside. The football stadium has to go somewhere else.

Ah ok, thank you. I got my info from This article in The Telegraph which said that the club was hiring the driving force behind So-Fi Stadium to work on CFC's new home.

So-Fi Park is stunning and technologically outstanding. Anything even close to that would be fantastic new home for CFC. Obviously we won't be looking at all of the additional things around the stadium itself, there just isn't that kind of room available in London: -

Roman did go for Battersea, but lost out to a Chinese bidder. In fact he could never have won. The Chinese had deeper pockets and, more importantly, a mixed retail/housing development is always going to generate enormously more revenue than a football stadium. Not only could the Chinese bidders afford to pay more, they could also justify paying more because of the greater returns.

I always describe this as my favourite CFCW away fixture, and sometimes fixtures, of the season, but I'm beginning to wonder why. I've been up there more than half-a-dozen times, but have never seen us win once. This was a really disappointing performance by Chelsea but, as our girls can do, they found a way to get a result despite not playing well.

It is claimed to be inside info but not mine. I have no inside sources. 🙂 Simon Jordon has said he knows what went on, and that Tuchel had to go. Danny Murphey has said the same, as has Jason Cundy. All claiming that the information they have left CFC with no option but to dismiss TT. Chelsea journalist Nizaar Kinsella has echoed this as has, for what it's worth, Chelsea fan YouTuber Yan on his Football Therapy channel. He has claimed to have learned information from inside the club which means there was no alternative but to sack the former manager. This is not an exclusive list.

Without knowing details of the Tuchel sacking, I can't really judge it. I do though give weight to people who say they know details. Every such person I'm aware of says TT had to go. I would have liked him to stay but there does not seem to be anyone in the know who is on his side on this. The players who left needed to go. Whether they wanted to go because they lost faith in the club's leadership, or because they lost faith in the quality of the squad, doesn't matter. With the one possible exception of Lewis Hall, they all had to go as a matter of urgency.

I agree that Lyon would have been a better destination for Andrey than Forrest, but that he would have earned, and retained, a place in L'OM's first team is not a given.

Football wise I think we all agree with this but multiple sources are saying that they have information about non football issues which forced the club to sack him. Other than the rumours of an affair with a CFC staff member, I have no idea what these issues might have been but it does seem the club had no option.

I haven't seen anymore of Andrey Santos than I had when I gave an opinion about him previously. That's to say, YouTube clips, and our preseason games only. That opinion was that I had seen nothing to suggest Andrey can help us. In the absence of any new evidence, I'm stuck where I was before, and so I don't find his situation with Forrest surprising. My only hopes for this lad lie in the fact that others here have seen more of him than I have and liked what they saw. Meanwhile, a bad loan is not the end of the world. Harry Kane, for example, had one or two dodgy ones before everything came together for him.

Really good footballer I like her a lot. If she was among a group of players, including all of our current squad, that I could pick from to rebuild a new group, she would get in. We have financial, and emotional, commitments to our existing squad members however. In what will be, at most, a 41 game season for CFCW, our current squad is, seemingly, already too big. Unless there were to be a number of departures, there was just no logical way to add Cooney-Cross. Although there is still time for players to leave, given that the window is still open in France and in Saudi, it looks unlikely that anyone else is going. In my head at least this seems a realistic explanation of why Cooney-Cross did not join Chelsea. The logic of that argument gets blown away however, given that she signed for Arsenal. A side with an equally large squad, and a maximum of just 34 games to play during 2023/24. What do I know! I do fear Arsenal though. Don't be fooled by the fact that they were, unluckily, knocked out the champions League at the qualifying stage. Their squad is not only large, it is full of talent. Finishing above them this season is going to be a serious, serious challenge.

😂 They do love Maika though. Shame about her injury.

Sweetener for the Lavia offer? After all, this report says we are offering the value of our buyback clause, if I'm remembering the figure correctly, but there were links last week about Tino moving for less than half that.

The excitement around Andrey has totally passed me by so far. Hope I will soon learn what I have missed up to now.

That's a relief. Was really concerned how we were going to cope with only four first team keepers. Now we have five I can relax. 🙂 At a guess, this has to mean that Ann-Katrin Berger is gone when her contract expires at the end of next season. Before that we'll surely be on the hunt for another club, in addition to Brighton, that's in the market for a goalie. That might be a loan deal, or a permanent one, but there's no way we're carrying four first team keepers in the squad.