OhForAGreavsie

I could not disagree with you more on this. Until someone brings me incontrovertible evidence that Marina made any decisions on football grounds I will not believe it. For her to have done so would be ridiculous beyond farce. The very notion is silly and I don't understand why it persists. If Marina has an opinion on a given player then of course she might give it casually but the ultimate football decision is not her domain. Advising Roman and the football people of the cost of the best deal available and of its financial implications going forward; yes, whether that player is the right choice; not her job. Armed with the financial facts the final decision over whether or not to allocate x% of their budget to a particular signing has to have been between Roman and his football advisors.

May already have left.

We put ourselves in a position we can be exploited. Let's hope this will happen much less frequently from now on eh.

I think Ruben should take that offer and the club should allow him to.

It wasn't out of the blue. He was a Shed ender before he started spending his Saturday afternoons another way. Definitely clueless however.

Good. At the beginning there was a claim that he would be taking action against the British government.

I don't believe they should be signing Kessie anyway, especially if they don't have any money to waste but perhaps I'm wrong about him.

To be specific in my case it is that all we ever saw were assertions the Roman was guilty of 'something'. Never a description of what that something was and not a shred of evidence offered to support the assertions. I have never claimed that the assertions were inaccurate, because I simply don't know, but I complain that they are unsupported. Reeks of PR. Tell you something is bad and tell you not to like it but never allow you to see what it is and what makes it bad. Contrast that with Bill Browder's two books in which he exposes the shady world of dirty Russian money. He lays it all out; this illegal thing happened that generated criminal income, it was laundered like this, and this, then this and finally passed to some Cellist in St. Petersburg and here's the evidence that he's holding the money for Putin. Clear, proper, cases. What Dorries and her underlings produced is just propaganda to make them look active and distract from how useless the government is on almost every front. Nothing almost about it. The express intention of the 'special licence' was not to hurt the club and its fans but it, and we, are the only entities which have been hurt by it. If I bump into Dorries, Huddleston or Bryant any time in the next few years I might end up getting arrested. One day my anger about this will die down, but not this day. Just waffle aimed at pleasing an audience which they know consists of non-Chelsea football fans who mostly hate CFC and people who are detached and won't examine any of the governments claims. It was never going to come to that but it sounded good to their target audience.

I agree that we should not politicise this. The way the government handled this was a self-serving, pointless, stupid, inconsistent piece of pathetic PR but in my view Labour would have done the same had they been in power. I'd like to think it would have been less stupid if Dorries wasn't involved but that might just be over optimistic thinking on my part.

Ok, let's hope Antonio will leave before forcing Spurs to buy a duster for their trophy cabinet. If they have one that is.

More seriously than my reply above: - You clearly know Conte better than I do so I hope you are right that it will burn out for him at Spurs. I have huge respect for his ability and am definitely worried about what he might achieve with Tottenham. They would need to build their reputation but they have many of the pieces required to do so in place. CL qualification is a big, perhaps ahead of schedule, boost for them.

You have to understand that I do not only worry about Spurs finishing above us, which I do of course, I also worry about them finishing above ANYBODY! Well, that's not strictly true. I'd like to see them finish seventeenth every season. I don't want them to go down because I love the two games each season far too much. I say 'enjoy' but the tension often takes over in the build up to the game. Not losing to them regularly means more to me than beating them. Lot's of people criticised Eden for taking the ball from that free kick at the edge of their box and running it into the corner. Not me, I loved it. I was on my feet punching the air yelling, "Go on Eden. Go on son!"

I'm capable of worrying about many things. 🙂 In Tottenham's case I love reminding people that they have won just one trophy in the last thirty years. I only ever want to have to update the number of years, not the number of trophies. My worry is what CL qualification did for their ability to retain Antonio, to recruit players to add to their two superstars, for the prospect of their establishing themselves as regulars in the CL thus adding glamour and money to their recruitment firepower. They already have the stadium and the training facilities. Spurs competing for top honours is not something I ever want to see. I don't even like to hear that a Tottenham team won a game of five-a-side in training.

We all agree about the poorness of the recruitment methods. The knowledge that this can, and the hope that it will, be done better are the major reasons for optimism about the change of ownership. For me however the jury is out on the question of contract management. It's clearly not good that three key defenders have been up for renewal at the same time I'm, but aren't there issues impacting on this which are beyond the control of the contract planers? We will increasingly have to accept players running down their contracts in order to better exploit their negotiating position when renewing or transferring. This change is a new fact of life, not a failure of contract management. It's obvious that happy players are more likely to renew than unhappy ones. Anyone who follows the women's team closely knows that they genuinely adore Chelsea football club. Three players (so far) have departed CFCW this summer; two for Life reasons and one to seek more minutes. All three were emotional when announcing their departures and two of them had tears in their eyes. The CFCM squad is nowhere near as happy in general. The reasons for this are not the fault of contract management. A key contributor to happiness is belief in the quality of the squad you are a part of. None of us here believe in that quality so why should the players be any different? The reasons for this lack of belief are not the fault of contract management.

Hopefully astute CFCM transfer activity between now and then will have removed some of the uncertainty. And, yep, I was a Norwich fan too on that final Sunday.

I've had a very, very bad feeling about Spurs since the day Antonio signed.

I'd look forward to this as an indicator of how we will proceed. If we get it right then that's a positive of course. If not hold on, things will get difficult.

There's going to be a lot more for Arsenal and Chelsea fans to regret about the Gunners' failure to secure top four than just Spurs playing in the CL next season.

Can it be that he really thinks money is the only reason for leaving Napoli?

Can't see how they could possibly fail to see the need for that. The only question is if either player asks for too much money. Even then it's hard to see how anyone else could beat our offer given they'd have transfer fees on top.

Bloke's a Chels fan but there's nothing else good to be said about him. Football knowledge close to zero, general knowledge less.

Planted by his agent as a nudge to Barca and others? Anyway, I'd be pleased if it's true.

You see, if I didn't read about this stuff here I'd never know about it. Now I'm gonna laugh for a week. 😂😂😂😂

I agree, major clubs won't touch Bissouma now and maybe never unless he is clearly and convincingly exonerated.

I was not the first one on the, "Kante must be sold while he retains value and before his legs go.", bus. (As far as I'm aware @Vesperwas.) I did get on the bus though and never got off. It would not have been popular but I would have sold last summer and would certainly do so this time.