Vesper

Herrera: I said ‘Jose, I’ll man-mark Hazard, even follow him to the bathroom’ https://theathletic.com/1856539/2020/06/08/ander-herrera-exclusive-interview-mourinho-van-gaal-woodward-psg-united-manchester-louis-pogba-alexis/ Ander Herrera is casting his mind back to the half-time break in the away dressing room in Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium. During an abject first 45 minutes in April 2018, Pep Guardiola’s champions-in-waiting had sliced Manchester United apart, racing into a two-goal lead. They were, by then, one half of football away from sealing the Premier League title against their fiercest rivals. Jose Mourinho, a long-time antagonist of Guardiola, would surely have seen it as a personal affront. And then came the interval. Taking their seats in the dressing room, United’s players let loose. It is hard to overstate City’s excellence in that first half. They teased and tormented their rivals. The home fans sang “Championes” and blue smoke bombs permeated the air. Many United supporters watching on feared that scoreline might double in the second period. “Me too, me too, as a player,” Herrera sighs. “It is true. I remember at half-time, the dressing room was a funeral. The first 45 minutes, they were amazing. I remember saying to my team-mates, ‘At least we need to go out there and make some tackles. Let’s go and make it difficult for them. We are going to make it nasty for them’. But, in my opinion, they were not humble enough after half-time and we are Manchester United. I think they didn’t think about that. When you are playing the biggest club in the UK, one of the biggest in the world, you cannot sleep even for 10 or 15 minutes because in 15 minutes, we went 3-2 up. Paul Pogba scored two and was amazing. It was probably Alexis Sanchez’s best 45 minutes at Manchester United. “After the game, we knew they had some T-shirts prepared to say, ‘We did it in the derby day’ so, I think sometimes Karma works! OK, we were not champions but we did not let them do it on derby day, as they wanted to.” Herrera lets out a little giggle and briefly pauses. In the coronavirus pandemic, he has been deprived of these days of sporting exhilaration and, now at Paris Saint-Germain, he is coming to terms with the dispiriting reality whereby French football has been called off until next season. Legal challenges have arisen, most notably from Lyon, who stand to miss out on European qualification. PSG remain in the Champions League after qualifying for the quarter-finals just before the lockdown but in the absence of domestic football, players will be acutely short of match fitness if the two European competitions do resume in August. “We do not know what is going to happen,” Herrera says. “We don’t know if we will play the Champions League or not. We do not know if the government is going to allow us to play in France. This is a mess but we, my family, are in Spain, so we are fine. Lyon and PSG are not in the best situation. They took the decision too soon. I think it was too quick to cancel and finish the league. They could have waited a little bit longer to see what was going to happen, and now we can see with Germany and Spain starting back up and they have even pushed the first games before they were expected to be. “We will try our best to prepare by training — probably we will play some friendly games — but it will never be the same (fitness level). It is all we can do; to try to compete between ourselves in training. I agree with the president of Lyon, who said a few weeks ago that the situation is horrible for French teams. It is not fair. But the government decided to finish the league and we have to adapt.” Herrera is an unusual interviewee in modern football. He does not obfuscate in his answers and he does not shirk topics. A regular in the stands at his boyhood team Real Zaragoza, he describes himself as “a football fan as well as a football player” and it is why an interview with him often feels more like a conversation than a prod and poke exercise. He admits he finds the idea of football played behind closed doors “horrible” but he is quickly theorising about how the sport may differ. He is hoping to hear more conversations between coaches, players and referees through the TV screen. He expects teams who press fast and high, such as Liverpool, to find life more difficult without supporters urging them on, while the Bundesliga has thrown up more away wins than home ones so far since its resumption. Herrera says: “Some teams really feel the atmosphere of their fans. Liverpool are one example. Osasuna in Spain get a lot of points because the stadium is small, the fans are really close to the pitch; because they put pressure on the referee. Every team will suffer in this situation but there are some examples where they will suffer even more. It is going to be a new sport. For example, I think more penalties will be scored than before. When you train penalties, you normally score but in the game, it is a different pressure because of the fans. “My view is that football without fans is nothing but we are realising now that football is a business. It is going to be horrible for football fans and football in general but we have to find ways to enjoy it. The most important thing is that the virus, step by step, disappears. A lot of people make a living through football, so I hope it is the shortest time possible without fans. “Now in Spain, they talk about the chance to play with 30 per cent of fans, which would be OK, I think. Some bars and restaurants can open at 50 per cent capacity, so why in a stadium which is so open, outdoors, you cannot have some people? Of course, you have to respect distancing. People must travel sensibly and go an hour before, in small groups. It would need to be organised well but it is better than nothing. Everyone has to put their hand up to help in this situation.” Back home in Zaragoza, Herrera put his hand up early. He made a sizeable donation and collaborated with local councils to organise funding and shopping for local elderly residents shielding during the pandemic. It is a mission he has embarked upon with his usual enthusiasm and zest. One former colleague at United privately compared Herrera recently to former Liverpool defender and now pundit Jamie Carragher; in his enthusiasm for the sport, his depth of knowledge and, in the nicest possible way, he is always talking. Over an hour-long conversation with The Athletic, he speaks openly about his five years at Manchester United. He details the “disagreements” with Ed Woodward that led him to leave on a free transfer last summer, reflects on the management of Mourinho, Louis van Gaal and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, while also offering his opinions and insight on some of United’s most contentious players, including Pogba and Sanchez. First, to the good times. It can be easy to forget, amid the heightened emotions and all the setbacks, that Manchester United have enjoyed some rather good days over the past seven years. After signing for the club in the summer of 2014, coinciding with the arrival of Van Gaal, Herrera featured in many of these happier times. He started the League Cup final win over Southampton and subsequent Europa League final defeat of Ajax in 2017. He assisted Anthony Martial’s winning goal in the FA Cup semi-final victory against Everton in 2016 and then scored the winner as Tottenham were beaten at the same stage two years later. Among United supporters, he is probably most fondly remembered for a series of duels against Chelsea, where Mourinho, having reinvented Herrera as a snap-at-your-heels midfielder, challenged the Spaniard to man-mark Eden Hazard. Most successfully, it came to fruition in a 2-0 victory over Antonio Conte’s title-bound side in April 2017. On the day, Herrera made one goal, scored another and threw a blanket over Chelsea’s main man. Herrera says: “Jose and I both knew Hazard was the best player, by far, in the Premier League at the time, so if we wanted to win that game, we needed him not to touch the ball, or at least as little as possible. That’s what we agreed. I said, ‘Jose, I am ready if you need me to man-mark him, to follow him everywhere. If he wants to go to the bathroom, I will go with him because I want to win the game’. The most important thing in football is that my team wins, because then I go to sleep happy. It does not matter what you have to do, as long as you respect the rules and don’t do anything illegal.” A month before, Herrera’s lines blurred a little. United went to Chelsea in the FA Cup and his man-marking job on Hazard saw him receive two yellow cards and a dismissal inside 35 minutes. Despite the defeat, player and manager viewed their tactical plan as a success. “We were playing very well,” Herrera recalls. “We lost 1-0 but we had control of the game. Hazard was not playing really good that day. In a very strange decision by the referee, he sent me off around the halfway line. It was not even a violent foul. It was a normal foul; one of those you have 20 or 25 of in every game. But we knew after that game we did something good and we were going to get it right.” On those days where you get it right for Mourinho, what is he like to play for? “Mourinho is the best manager in the world when things go well. The relationship with the players, the way he treats everyone; I really liked his training sessions. Also, with (long-time assistant) Rui Faria, they were a fantastic team together. But it is also true, when he loses, he does not take it in a good way. That is true. And he accepts that! He does not hide from it. We have a great relationship. The first year was fantastic, we won three titles. The second year, we won 84 points in the Premier League and came second. We lost the FA Cup final but we played much better than Chelsea (that day), if you remember that game.” The third season, however, was a calamity. United sacked Mourinho a week before Christmas as the team languished closer in points to the relegation zone than to the top of the table. “It is true the last six months was a bit different,” Herrera begins, “because he had some disagreements with the club and the team was a bit, you know… when you see your manager has some confrontations with the club, you do not perform the same way. It is true. Everything affects the training session, everything affects the daily work.” From the outside, I suggest, it appeared the problems began on the pre-season tour in the US and every Mourinho press conference seemed to add to the brewing tension. “Yeah, I agree,” Herrera says. “Something was happening between him and the club. But I was just a player. I am no one to tell you or find out what happened (between them). I was just trying to do my job. But it is true, the same as you saw at that time, we were seeing the same. Something was happening between him and the club.” A little more under the radar, something was happening too — between Herrera and the club. The midfielder’s contract was due to expire at the end of the 2018-19 season and it came as a surprise last spring when Herrera’s time at the club came to a close. It was particularly strange given his role in the instant recovery under interim manager Solskjaer, starting in significant victories at Arsenal, Spurs, Leicester and Chelsea before the Norwegian was given the job full-time. Herrera starts by explaining Solskjaer’s impact: “The first thing to say is I do not like to make comparisons between managers, particularly as I had a great relationship with Mourinho. As soon as Ole came, he brought that smile to the dressing room. He was ready to listen to the players, he was more like a friend. He was a man who had, not long ago, been a United player. Everyone connected really well with him. “He is, honestly, one of the best people I have found in football. I am still in contact with him because he is fantastic and deserves to be successful. You do not find too many people like him in football; someone so honest, so ready to help, always by your side. It doesn’t matter the situation; as soon as you work and give everything, he is there for you. That was his first quality; to connect very soon with the dressing room.” Why, then, did Herrera leave behind a manager he likes so much? Reports suggested that PSG offered a bumper contract and at the age of 30, a five-year deal naturally appealed. “It was not about money,” Herrera insists. “It was not about the duration of the contract offer. In my opinion, I waited too long (for an offer) and deserved more attention from the club. I was a player that gave everything. I never complained. I never went to the media to complain about anything. I never put a bad face to any manager, to any member of the board, and they waited until I had five or six months left on my contract. “That’s why I had some disagreements with them. I tell you this but I also tell you that it is part of football, part of life, nothing personal at all. But you ask the question and I give my point of view, as a professional player.” It seems, therefore, that it may have been a different resolution had United been proactive, rather than reactive? “Yes, absolutely,” Herrera agrees. “I thought they were going to come two years before my contract finished, like most other clubs do. I expected them to come to sign a new contract after my club Player of the Year award in 2017 but they waited until I had six months left on my contract. I just felt sad. But, I repeat, and I really want you to put this so clear in this interview — that it is part of football, part of life. This is only professional and I have no personal problem with them. “They had a different idea about the club, about the team, and I respect that 100 per cent. Even if I see Ed Woodward tomorrow, I’ll give him a hug because it is life. I had a great relationship with him. He is a very good man but we had some disagreements with our point of views about the team and about the club. That’s it. “Every time I wore the United shirt, I was so proud. Every time I walked into Old Trafford, I was so proud to be part of that. I remember Sir Alex Ferguson used to travel with us sometimes for Premier League or Champions League games. When he is there, you feel this amazing aura, this sense in the room. You can feel how important he has been for the club. On that first day I signed for the club, I was in shock because I was signing for the biggest club in England — one of the top three or four in the world — and Sir Bobby Charlton was there waiting for me at the training ground. My dad (Pedro) was even happier than me. “Dad played 200 games in the Spanish first division but Sir Bobby was one of the great players for him growing up. We were so thankful for the club and how I was treated for five years. In spite of what I told you before, how I was a bit sad for the final two years as they didn’t come to sign a new contract, I don’t have one bad word for the club.” Herrera has adapted quickly to life in France, learning another language and securing a league title. United, meanwhile, did seem a midfielder short for much of the first half of this campaign, although they are now bolstered by the return of Pogba and January addition of Bruno Fernandes. “When I stop playing football and when I am older,” Herrera says, “I do not want to regret anything. I don’t have time to think about what could have happened. I am thinking about the next day, the next challenge, because we have the best job in the world. It is as simple as that. I want to enjoy every single day of my career. And when you wake up every day and train with Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Marco Verratti and Marquinhos — players who could win the Ballon d’Or one day — it is very easy to enjoy.” As has become the norm in his career, a new manager has taught him a new position, as Herrera filled in at right-back for Thomas Tuchel earlier in the campaign. Herrera evolved his game from attacking playmaker under Marcelo Bielsa at Athletic Bilbao to a more regimented role for Van Gaal’s United, before becoming more defensive again under Mourinho. It was under Bielsa’s guidance that Herrera first caught United’s eye, impressing Ferguson and club scouts in a mesmeric Bilbao display on the night the Basques won 3-2 at Old Trafford in a Europa League last 16 tie in 2012. United came close to signing him under David Moyes but then sealed the deal with Van Gaal in 2014. He has now built up a star-studded cast of coaches. “But I do not want to be a manager — and I will tell you why. The manager is probably the most unfair position in football. You can work so hard —you can give your life, you can think about the opponent, you can work 24 hours — and after all that, if the ball hits the post and goes out, probably you will be sacked. “I cannot say, ‘100 per cent, never’ because you never know, but I am not thinking about that. I probably will have a position in football because it is my life but to be a manager, it is so difficult. I like to have some empathy with managers and it is so difficult to have a dressing room, to try to control 23 or 24 egos. Every player has his dad or his mum who thinks he has to play every game for 90 minutes, every player has a brother who thinks he can do it better than the manager. What I know is that the managers I have played under are examples for other coaches. “It was a big change, from Bielsa to Van Gaal. They are both offensive coaches. They want to win games through possession but the way they do it is completely different. “Bielsa wants players moving all the time, looking for space, breaking the defence by running into space. Van Gaal wants order and control by staying in your position and controlling that space on the pitch. Bielsa wants movement all the time and he does not understand possession of the ball if it is not to score goals. If you are winning 2-0 or 3-0, he wants you to score the fourth or the fifth because he does not understand football in a different way. He just wants you to keep attacking. If you are winning, he thinks the best way to close the game is to keep scoring goals. Van Gaal, he thinks differently. When you are winning 1-0 or 2-0, he wants to control the game, he wants to keep the ball and not put the ball at risk. “I had a lot of conversations with Van Gaal, because I was used to playing under Bielsa. Whenever my team-mates had the ball, I was looking for the space and to move all the time. But after one or two months, I realised Van Gaal was looking for a different thing. He wanted me to stay more in the position and keep the ball. “It was amazing to have those conversations with Louis, because he is like a teacher for other managers. He was very receptive. He has an image in front of you guys, the media. It is sometimes true that in front of some people or the media, he can look very rude (direct) as he is a strong man. But I found a man with a huge heart. That is my experience with him — a great person.” Herrera’s former team-mate Wayne Rooney recently suggested Van Gaal was harshly dismissed by United two days after winning the 2015-16 FA Cup final. Could he have gone on and built a great United team? “No one knows,” Herrera says. “What I do know is Mourinho came and we won three trophies the next season. We were successful when he left, that is the truth. I enjoyed it with Van Gaal but under Mourinho, I found a new position on the pitch and learned to do new things.” Herrera’s success under Mourinho was not shared by all of his team-mates. Most notably, Sanchez arrived midway through the 2017-18 season. Yet the Chilean forward, currently on loan at Inter Milan, scored only five goals for United. Inside the dressing room, Herrera watched on as bewildered as the rest of us. “Sometimes, in football, there is no explanation for every single thing that happens,” the midfielder says. “Alexis is one of them. He came from Arsenal. He used to win games by himself for Arsenal. I remember watching him because Arsenal were our rivals for titles and the top four. I saw them losing games 2-0 and Alexis would score two and they’d win the game. He’d score the winning goal. “It shows football sometimes has no explanation. How can a player, who one month before, two months before, is the best player by far in a big team like Arsenal… then he comes to United and he doesn’t perform? I have no explanation. “He trains good, he is a good professional, he tries to improve. In training sessions, you can see his quality. He scores a lot of goals. In front of the goalkeeper in training, he was lethal, scoring goals, goals, goals. He fights if he loses the ball, he runs back and wins the ball, so he had everything to succeed at United, and he didn’t do it. The only thing I can tell you is that I have no explanation.” It would not be a conversation over recent times at United if Paul Pogba is not mentioned. The Frenchman was once described by the Italian newspaper Gazzetta Dello Sport as an “NBA athlete with Brazilian feet”. “But I would add something else,” Herrera interjects. “‘An NBA athlete with Brazilian feet and the combinations of a Spanish midfielder’. He can combine really well — he can do one-two, very quick at high speed. He does have a good attitude. “I give you my opinion: I don’t know what other players say but he is a midfielder that has everything. If you see other midfielders in the world, they may have some qualities — control of the ball, long shots, passes, tackles, box-to-box — but Paul can do all of this, plus head the ball, score goals, make recoveries, one against one… everything. “But of course, if you want to become the best midfielder in the world, it is about consistency. You have to do it day in, day out. He is a good guy. He wants to do it. He does train well. He has to do it every day.” Herrera senses similar potential in United strikers Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial, who have both, in periods of this campaign, demonstrated renewed quality and consistency. He says: “They have the quality to be among the top 10 in the world. Why do we admire Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, or Hazard, who I also think is one of the best in the world? We admire them because they keep that form for a long time. If they do it, they will become… maybe not Messi or Cristiano, because they are unique in the history of football… but they can be top five or top 10, but they have to do it for a long time and keep it up. “It is the same for Paul. Rashford is on his way to doing it. And Paul can be the best midfielder in the world if he keeps playing those games where we are all amazed by him. But to keep it at that level is the most difficult thing in football. To keep at it it Sunday-Wednesday-Saturday, every time. “If those three can do that, Manchester United will win the Premier League soon, for sure.”

Grown-up Gallagher gives Lampard freedom to ignore midfield in Chelsea rebuild https://theathletic.com/1754364/2020/04/18/conor-gallagher-chelsea-chances-grow/ Football’s shutdown has halted a season that was making a man of Conor Gallagher and brought him back to his childhood. Having been given permission to leave his apartment in Swansea prior to the United Kingdom’s lockdown, the 20-year-old is spending much of his days kicking a ball around the garden of his family home in Surrey, the same patch of grass where he first honed his skills in daily battles with his three older brothers. If the remainder of the Championship season can be finished at some stage, Gallagher will have plenty to play for. Swansea City sit 11th in the table but are only three points outside the play-offs with nine matches left, and the Chelsea loanee is still four goals shy of the target he set himself in August — to reach double figures in his first campaign of senior football. But even if the pandemic means he has kicked his last ball for Swansea, Gallagher has more than made his point in the Championship. The plan was always to take time this summer to discuss the next stage of his development with Chelsea, and his rapid adaptation to competing against men had ensured that head coach Frank Lampard would face an interesting decision. Gallagher’s dream is to play for Chelsea, the club of his heart and his home since the age of seven. But as his decision to swap Charlton Athletic for fellow second-tier side Swansea in January underlined, he is single-minded in his determination to maintain the steep upward trajectory of his career. The next step is the Premier League, and he backs himself to be ready for it sooner rather than later. Chelsea could keep him and use him, loan him elsewhere in the top flight or sell him. All options will be on the table when those talks take place, and the decision reached will depend heavily on where Lampard sees Gallagher within the landscape of a wide array of midfield talent, much of it from the Cobham academy and the rest acquired at great expense. Lampard took an early liking to Gallagher last summer, including him in the first-team squad’s pre-season trip to the Republic of Ireland and deploying him as his No 10 in a friendly against Bohemians. But he also likes N’Golo Kante, Jorginho, Mateo Kovacic, Mason Mount, Ross Barkley, Billy Gilmour and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, the last of whom he hasn’t even been able to pick yet because of long-term injury. Something has to give. That could be Barkley, who has been inconsistent on the pitch and tested Lampard’s patience off it. The Athletic reported in December that Chelsea are open to selling the England international this year if they receive a sizeable offer, but his departure alone may not open up the minutes Gallagher will need to continue his development. Gallagher’s contract, signed in July 2019 before he was loaned to Charlton and running until at least June 2022, brings no immediate pressure. A loan to a Premier League club next season could suit all parties, and if it is pitched to him as the home stretch of a journey that will lead him back to Stamford Bridge in summer 2021, it will be hard to resist. The spectre of Chelsea going into the transfer market for midfield reinforcements will be a consideration, but Lampard is prioritising other areas of the pitch. In any ordinary off-season, Gallagher could feel confident of catching Lampard’s eye, but the disruption to the schedule caused by coronavirus has complicated matters. Whether or not this season is completed, the delays will inevitably have a knock-on effect on the schedule for 2020-21 and pre-season is likely to be heavily compressed, if not scrapped entirely. It would be ludicrous to even suggest the kind of extended overseas pre-season tour that Chelsea and other elite clubs have engaged in annually over the past decade. That is a blow for all of the youngsters looking to impress Lampard but particularly so for Gallagher, who did more than any other Chelsea loanee this season to earn first-team consideration. The immediacy of Gallagher’s impact at Charlton pleasantly surprised even his biggest supporters at his parent club. Five goals in his first 12 league appearances — including a spectacular 25-yard strike against Derby County in October — answered any questions about whether his skill set would translate to the senior game, as well as helping Lee Bowyer’s newly-promoted team up to seventh place. Gallagher’s goals dried up as gravity came for Charlton, pulling them into the relegation battle. He scored just once in his final 14 appearances for the south-east London club and has yet to do so in 10 games for Swansea, but playing under Steve Cooper — his coach at England Under-17 level — has enabled him to show off his other qualities. Deployed as the most advanced member of a three-man midfield, Gallagher has become more of a creative presence, registering five assists. Three of those have been for his fellow Under-17 World Cup winner Rhian Brewster, whom Cooper borrowed from Liverpool in January. The presence of Brewster and their fellow Chelsea academy graduate Marc Guehi helped Gallagher hit the ground running in south Wales, his first loan away from his family. All three moved into the same apartment block and were inseparable at the training ground, though a lack of outside exercise space meant it made sense for them to return home while football was suspended. It may only have been two months, but Gallagher and those around him feel his time with Swansea has helped him answer key questions that Chelsea pose of their youngsters. He has shown he can positively impact games in a variety of ways, in two different teams with very different styles of play and aspirations. He has also proven he can look after himself off the pitch. He has fast-tracked himself, developing his game as much in two-thirds of one season as many academy graduates do in their first two full years of senior action. Along the way, he has displayed the tireless work rate and all-round technical skill set that is increasingly the base requirement of all modern midfielders at elite clubs. Of all the talented midfielders to come out of the Cobham in recent years, Gallagher is the one closest to Lampard in terms of profile. He combines the energy to run box to box at a high level for 90 minutes with a burning desire to attack the opposition penalty area, and the knowledge of what to do once he gets there. There are no prizes for guessing who his footballing idol was. Gilmour’s first-team breakthrough in the week before the shutdown is particularly exciting for Gallagher. They have played brilliantly together in the youth sides, and there is a feeling their respective games complement the other’s perfectly – Gilmour as the elegant No 6 pulling the strings from the base, Gallagher the shuttling No 8 at his side. Whether that vision is realised in Chelsea’s midfield next season, or at all, is a decision Lampard must face as he remoulds his squad.

here is the podcast from the Athletic that The Express based its article off of https://theathletic.com/podcast/144-the-ornstein-and-chapman-podcast/?episode=85 I am listening now

wrong Hernandez we are talking about Theo at AC Milan not his brother Lucas at BM

do not shoot the messenger I only posted it becuase it came from The Athletic as the original source

bigger than Chilwell, better defensively, stronger, nearly as pacey, very good passer, hi footie IQ

not just £40m or so on the fee chalk on another £25m or so we will have to eat (half his salary for the next 5 years) as no team is going to splash out £82m in total (32m fee plus 50m in salary) especially the euro clubs who have to pay that amount in equivalent euro to quid FOREX rate (so over 90m euros)

Chelsea board clash with Frank Lampard over Timo Werner transfer because of Aubameyang https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/1292681/Chelsea-board-Frank-Lampard-Timo-Werner-Pierre-Emerick-Aubameyang-Arsenal on edit complete bullshit by The Express, it is NOT what the podcast said the Express now joins the Sun on my banned list

Tom Taiwo: Joining Chelsea wasn’t a bad decision. It was a sensible one https://theathletic.com/1830391/2020/05/26/tom-taiwo-chelsea-leeds-bates-decision/ (TDarren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images, taken in 2008) Tom Taiwo counts his regrets with one finger. “Orthotics,” he says, remembering the inserts Chelsea made for his boots after he broke his ankle in training. “I don’t think the club realised this but I chucked them in the bin. They hurt too much and I thought, ‘I’m not wearing these bloody things’. If I ever had a regret, that would be it.” He paid for his quiet disposal of them with persistent back pain and Taiwo admits that he should have known what was good for him. He retired last year, a few months after his 29th birthday, having grown weary of managing “a couple of hamstring strains and a groin injury every season”. Given his time again, he would take the orthotics and grit his teeth. “I’d only have been using them for a couple of months,” he says. He regrets that part of his career at Chelsea but he is not inclined to speak with repentance about the transfer that took him there. The only thing that rankles — or did for a while — was the narrative surrounding his exit from Leeds United and the attention it attracted; two academy players whom very few people had heard of becoming bitter, back-page news. The names of Taiwo and Michael Woods are synonymous with Chelsea and synonymous with the squabble that earned them unwanted publicity in 2006. The dispute was sparked by them leaving Elland Road and ended with Chelsea paying Leeds £5 million to sign both players but the story went deeper than those two transfers alone, opening English eyes to the way academy recruitment was evolving. Taiwo and Woods made the headlines but Chelsea’s youth-team strategy was so much bigger than two teenagers; it was ambitious and it was aggressive, with serious money to back it up. It didn’t work out for Taiwo at Stamford Bridge, or for Woods. Taiwo broke his ankle two days before his youth-team debut and Woods left without appearing in a league game. But Taiwo is happy and content, with a job in scouting and two kids to keep him busy. No regrets. Apart from the orthotics. In any academy and any age group, there are footballers who stand out instantly. “You always get three or four who are technically outstanding but I was never one of those,” Taiwo says. But from front to back, Leeds rated the cohort of which he was a crucial part. Taiwo was a ballsy defensive midfielder. Woods could play box-to-box, a “Steven Gerrard-type”, as his former coach Greg Abbott says. The squad included Danny Rose and Fabian Delph, two future England internationals. Taiwo describes Woods as “Paul Scholes on steroids. I’d get an assist just by passing the ball five yards in front of me. He’d run the length of the field and stick it in the bottom corner.” Taiwo needed constant convincing about his ability, even though others around him could see it. Leeds scouted him at Farsley Celtic and took him on trial twice. The first, when he was nine, ended with Taiwo coming away feeling badly out of his depth. The second, a year or so later, went better and ended with a chat with Lucas Radebe, who nipped over the road from Leeds’ training ground to the pitches where the matches were taking place, next to Wealstun Prison. The chance to meet Radebe warmed his heart. “In that first trial, I was miles off it,” Taiwo says. “I didn’t play well or do myself justice but I was young and overawed, quite shy and lacking a bit of self-confidence. I’d have been fazed going into an academy at that stage. It would have been too daunting. We did routines with the quick-feet ladders and other boys would be going through them at breakneck speed. I’d be kicking them, messing them up. I used to say to my dad, ‘I hate those ladders!’ “After the second trial, which went well, the guy coaching us said, ‘I’ve got a treat for you all’. It was Lucas Radebe. I’m a quarter Nigerian and when he heard my surname he said, ‘Ah, so you’re African like me!’ It was an amazing experience just to speak to him. He was my hero and I wanted to be like him — composed and elegant, even though I was neither of those things. When I watched him I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s my idol’.” Taiwo’s first berth was in the centre of defence but at 5ft 6.5in — “I always throw the half in there” — he could see that his height would count against him. Some of the coaches in the academy assured him that he had the poise and anticipation to play there but before long he acquired a midfield role. The Leeds side in which he played was flooded with flair and potential. Taiwo got his first boot deal from Nike at 15. “That was massive, a little bit of recognition from outside the club,” he says. “Our team was amazing. We’d go to international tournaments with Ajax and Juventus and get to the finals of big competitions. In academy terms, you couldn’t have got better at that time.” The general feeling, then and now, is that Taiwo and Woods genuinely were that good. If £5 million seemed like a staggering amount of compensation, they were justifiably sought after. “All Michael lacked was a little burst of pace,” says Abbott, who worked with them at Leeds. “Little Tom, he had a great understanding of the game. He was one of those who, if you didn’t know what you were on about, you’d look at him and ask, ‘What does he do?’ But he was excellent at taking up good positions, reading the game, finding space and playing the right passes. “I made no secret of the fact that I didn’t think it was the right decision for them to go to Chelsea — but not because I didn’t think they had loads of quality.” Leeds’ academy has resolutely survived the blows and cuts inflicted on it in the 16 years since the club were relegated from the Premier League. It continues to be one of the most productive systems in England and Leeds sells themselves to prospective youth-team signings with something they think many elite academies cannot offer: a clear pathway to the first team. In the six years Taiwo spent at Thorp Arch, there were senior debuts for James Milner, Simon Walton, Matthew Kilgallon, Aaron Lennon and Scott Carson. The potential to break through was evident. What started to worry Taiwo was the state of the club itself. “Growing up as a kid, all I’d wanted to do was play for Leeds United and be a professional footballer,” Taiwo says. “Everything I did was to allow me to play football. My mum and dad were sticklers for saying, ‘You don’t go to training unless you’ve done your homework and done it well’. They didn’t want me to flunk school but, really, I was working hard there so I could play football.” His godmother suggested he become a doctor and take up the piano. “That wasn’t happening,” he says, laughing. “I can just about play a tune on the xylophone with the little one.” The first half of 2006 was a watershed moment for Leeds. They lost in the Championship play-off final, a more pivotal tie than anyone realised. Fourteen years later, they have yet to come closer to rejoining the Premier League. Beneath club chairman Ken Bates was a financial minefield which would drag Leeds to the point of insolvency in 2007. Promotion in the play-off final might have cured a thousand ills. Defeat was catastrophic. “There were massive financial difficulties at the club,” Taiwo says. “We could all see that. I loved football but I was switched on as well. I’m looking at the bigger picture and thinking, ‘Leeds are in trouble here’. “I was there in the season when they got relegated to the Championship. I was there in the first season under Kevin Blackwell. You know when you can tell that things aren’t right? Well, that was it.” Chelsea had a new academy plan and were in the market. And three players at Leeds were taking their fancy. Roman Abramovich’s takeover of Chelsea in 2003 — a buy-out which ended Bates’ long reign as the owner at Stamford Bridge — brought with it a fresh look at academy football. The club moved to a new training base near Cobham in Surrey and wanted a roster of youth-team players to match the quality of the facility. Neil Bath, their long-serving academy coach, was named academy manager. Brendan Rodgers accepted an invitation from Jose Mourinho to join the coaching team. Frank Arnesen left Tottenham to become Chelsea’s sporting director. “It’s not just about catch-up,” Arnesen said in answer to questions about their academy. “It’s about having the best youth development programme in the world.” Chelsea began throwing money at signing a whole host of scholars, in the UK and abroad. They landed Ryan Bertrand, Scott Sinclair, Patrick van Aanholt and numerous others. Bertrand cost an initial £125,000 from Gillingham in 2005 after the fee was decided by a tribunal. Gillingham chairman Paul Scally wanted more and called the tribunal’s valuation a “shocking deal”, claiming his club had been “sold short in a massive way”. It was not their only controversial youth signing. In 2009, Chelsea were initially banned from making signings by FIFA after being found guilty of illegally recruiting 15-year-old Gael Kakuta, a France youth international at Lens. The ban was lifted on appeal by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which ruled in Chelsea’s favour finding that Kakuta’s contract with Lens had not been valid. In what they called an “act of good faith”, Chelsea agreed to pay the French club a six-figure sum “as compensation costs for the training given to the player while at Lens.” Academy recruitment was nothing new but the scale of Chelsea’s was reaching a different level and, before the battle over Taiwo and Woods, much of their harvesting went unnoticed. Money and the development of state-of-the-art facilities at Cobham made Chelsea a very easy sell and as the years passed, other Premier League sides reacted by dramatically expanding their networks. Glenn Roeder, the former West Ham United manager, described the volatile academy market as “a bloodbath, a free-for-all”. As they scouted the country, Chelsea laid eyes on Taiwo, Woods and Rose. They liked what they saw and wanted all three of them. Rose was courted but chose to stay and sign a new contract, to the delight of Bates. (He would leave for Spurs 12 months later after Leeds were relegated to League One.) Taiwo and Woods weighed up their options and decided to go, unaware of the firefight into which they were about to walk. They left and agreed terms with Chelsea in April 2006 having rejected scholarships at Elland Road. Bates, who was initially offered £200,000 for the pair by Chelsea, was furious about the departures and accused Chelsea of using Gary Worthington, a former Leeds scout and talent spotter who later joined Manchester City, to poach them illegally. Legal proceedings were issued against Worthington over an alleged breach of the severance deal agreed when he quit Leeds for Chelsea in 2005. The story blew up one weekend as quotes from Bates attacking his old club appeared on the back page of the Sunday Mirror. The names of Taiwo and Woods were not at all well known and the controversy seemed to have come from nowhere. Taiwo had just turned 16 and says the decision to leave was entirely his. “My mum and dad didn’t leave me to deal with it myself, but they said from the start, ‘Tom, whatever you want to do is up to you. Do whatever makes you happy’,” he says. “I’d played up a level at under-14s for Leeds but then played under-15s and under-16s in my own age group. I was getting England recognition and good reviews but I hadn’t made one appearance for the Leeds under-18s. I wasn’t sure why. Physically I was pretty developed and aggressive, but the club weren’t pushing me on. “My personal view was that I didn’t think there was a pathway anymore. That doesn’t necessarily mean I was right but I look at the boys who went on to make debuts, like Jonny Howson and Fabian Delph. They were different players to me. Would they have put a 16 or 17-year-old defensive-minded midfielder into the first team in the Championship while there was loads of pressure on Blackwell? I don’t know for sure but I didn’t think so. “I was criticised for not staying but if you speak to me, I don’t think I come across as a total plonker. People look from the outside, they look at decisions and make snap judgments about them. It’s not frustrating any more but at the time I was thinking, ‘You don’t have a clue about what’s happening or how much trouble the club are in. You don’t know what’s going on’.” Chelsea’s financial clout is not in question. They were able to make offers to emerging talents and for players there was always the prospect of substantial wages, in excess of the salary a club like Leeds could pay if they went on to sign professional terms. Taiwo, though, says he chose Chelsea “for the right reasons and with the best of intentions”. He stands by the transfer today. Abbott was worried about the pair getting lost in the mass of prospects at Cobham and went to Woods’ house to play devil’s advocate with his dad, David. “They’ve both got lovely families and I never doubted for a minute that the parents had the lads’ best interests at heart,” Abbott says. “I didn’t think Chelsea was a good move for them but that shouldn’t be read as me criticising them. I wouldn’t do that because they were being offered a fantastic opportunity. Chelsea were going to be appealing to anyone. “I just felt they’d be better off staying at Leeds a little longer. I didn’t think they’d get into Chelsea’s first team: you were talking about the best of the best down there. I didn’t want them to go by the wayside. But at the same time, those are really big decisions and really tough decisions. It can be hard to know what to do for the best.” Bates’ war with Chelsea became personal. He called a press conference at Elland Road to call for investigations by the Premier League and the FA into alleged tapping-up. Chelsea took umbrage in particular over him referring to their board as “a bunch of Siberian shysters” and accused him of racism, an allegation Bates laughed off. “Racism is the last card of a desperate man,” Bates said. The dispute took several months to resolve but in October 2006, Chelsea agreed to pay £5 million in compensation and undertake “a review of policies and procedures in relation to the recruitment of players”. Bates, in turn, withdrew his complaints against Chelsea and Worthington, both of whom denied wrongdoing. The FA and Premier League jointly announced that “any claims and litigation arising out of any alleged improper approach have been settled.” The settlement was bound by confidentiality. Taiwo and Woods were already in London and living in shared digs. A long way south, they were able to switch off from the arguing. “It was actually OK,” Taiwo says. “I was miles away in London and cracking on, doing what I loved. “But in academy football, you’re not exposed to anything like that. You see the same boys every day and you have great coaches who look after you. You’re shielded. Outside of that, things happen which make you think ‘bloody hell!’ I’d get sent things that had been written about me in the paper. ‘Have you seen this?’ No, I haven’t and I wish I hadn’t either. It doesn’t make you feel great about yourself. You’ve got to be so thick-skinned. “You make informed decisions and you speak to people and chat. It was a pros-and-cons situation and I did it for the right reasons. I’d spoken to people about Brendan Rodgers, who came across as a top coach. I felt the Chelsea academy was full of top people. From a decision-making point of view, I don’t look at it and say it was a bad decision. With all the information I had, it was a pretty sensible one.” Having Woods with him at Chelsea was good for Taiwo. In terms of moral support, they were good for each other. But while Woods found his feet quickly and began to make the first-team staff notice him, Taiwo’s experience was very different. “It was a contrasting situation,” Taiwo says. “I lived with Michael for about nine months until he moved closer to the training ground. He was doing amazing and starting to get into the first-team picture. He was exceptional, with innate ability, and Mourinho loved him. Me? I broke my leg before my first competitive game, the first game of the season.” The injury occurred in training, two days before Taiwo’s youth team were due to play Liverpool. In a tangle of legs, he snapped a bone in his ankle and tore a ligament badly. “So much in football comes down to luck and timing,” he says. “I’m not sure I was ever going to be a top, top player but I could have done better than I did. The injury affected me from then on. “I was out for eight or nine months. It was a really bad one, just as I was looking to kick on. It needed pins, screws, everything. I was confident that I’d have started against Liverpool but the injury stuffed me. How could you envisage that? “Chelsea gave me these orthotics to wear and I should have worn them. But they were painful and I was already in a situation where I wasn’t in the team and wanted my place back. I was being offered something which, for a short time, wasn’t going to let me make the best impression so I threw them away. I just thought ‘bugger this’.” Taiwo’s perspective on moving to Chelsea is fascinating. Rather than assuming a first-team career was waiting for him there, he tried to think about which academy setting would nurture him best. His prospects of making it at Stamford Bridge were small (he was never handed a senior debut and Woods played in just two FA Cup ties as a substitute) but he told himself that several years in Chelsea’s academy would give him an ideal grounding if professional football took him elsewhere. “I had loads of top players around me — Liam Bridcutt, Jack Cork, Gael Kakuta and Michael,” he says. “I was clever enough to know that not all of them were going to play for Chelsea and I was honest enough to know that I wasn’t as good as them.” After a brief spell on loan at Port Vale, the 2009-10 season saw a 19-year-old Taiwo leave on loan for Carlisle United in League One. Chelsea were so sympathetic about the effect of his ankle injury that they sanctioned the loan without charging Carlisle a penny. When that transfer became permanent in 2010, Taiwo could have been forgiven if he felt pessimistic. Stamford Bridge and Brunton Park were miles apart, geographically and professionally. Was the transition sobering? “It was me who suggested to my agent that I sign permanently,” he says. “I was actually proud. I’d gone through some real soul-searching and I was in a positive space. I’d stepped out of my comfort zone, gone up to Carlisle and made it work. I was loving it.” When his contract at Carlisle expired in 2012, Taiwo hoped to jump up the leagues but he says English clubs were hesitant: he was still under 24, which meant Carlisle were entitled to compensation if he made a domestic transfer. He went north of the border to Hibernian, where he tore his groin trying a Cruyff turn at Celtic Park. By then, he was never far away from another setback. “I don’t have any bad feeling towards Carlisle,” he says, “but I’d established myself as one of the better players in League One and was ready to move on to the next stage. Carlisle wanted compensation and no one would pay it. I guess that was a time when things could have turned out different.” After two years at Hibs, four years at Falkirk and one with Hamilton, Taiwo listened to his body and retired. At no stage does Taiwo give the impression that his playing career left him unfulfilled. It is the irony of the perception that he went to Chelsea to potentially to earn more money or for the bright lights: he enjoyed League One, the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Championship. He never felt any of those levels were beneath him. He calls his transfer in 2006 a “no-brainer” but what his experience reveals is the difficulty of making major, life-changing decisions at an age when players are barely out of school. Is any 16-year-old really cynical enough to think only of where they might earn better money? You suspect not. And like Abbott says, the Taiwos and the Woods were sensible families. The moral of this controversy is that academy footballers are too young to be vilified in the media. Taiwo lives in Edinburgh now and scouts for Chelsea, covering Scotland and the north east. Life has taught him to live with criticism. “When I left Falkirk — and I know this is on a different scale to Leeds — I had people messaging me on Facebook thanking me for my service,” he says. “But I saw plenty of other posts saying, ‘Thank God he’s gone’. The game can be tough and with what I know, I don’t envy kids having to make big decisions at a young age. “There are always people who want to see you fail. The saddest part for me was that, after I joined Carlisle, some people took great joy in the fact that it hadn’t worked out for me at Chelsea — people online and people in the street when I went home. When you sign for someone else, you expect to hear opinions, including some criticism. But, naively, I didn’t think anyone would actually take pleasure in my career not hitting the heights.” These days, when he goes back to Leeds, he is rarely asked about the summer when he and Woods — two hot but obscure teenagers — became the talk of the country. “It’s almost as if it’s a long time ago now and everyone’s moved on,” he says. “There’s always the next young player to come through or the next saga around the corner. I think everyone’s forgotten. Which is a good thing.”

George Weah in England: An FA Cup, a Rolls Royce and an abrupt ending https://theathletic.com/1823686/2020/05/27/george-weah-man-city-chelsea-england-liberia/ Pre-match in the away dressing room at Stamford Bridge and, as copies of the team sheet for the afternoon’s FA Cup quarter-final were distributed among Gillingham’s players, the nervous excitement briefly gave way to gallows humour. The visitors scanned the names selected by the Chelsea manager Gianluca Vialli. “I don’t fancy yours much.” “He’s only picked the two World Cup winners, then.” “Well, this’ll be a doddle.” Gillingham, under Peter Taylor’s stewardship that February afternoon 20 years ago, were destined for promotion from the third tier. Their previous manager, Tony Pulis, used to tell them they had one or two “cream” players in their number and the rest are “ham and eggers” — honest workers upon whom he could rely. This, though, was an away tie against a team with cream throughout. Andy Hessenthaler’s eye drifted down the list past Marcel Desailly and Gianfranco Zola to Didier Deschamps, his opposite number and the man who had captained France to World Cup glory 19 months previously. Hessenthaler decided, then and there, to make off with the midfielder’s No 7 shirt after the final whistle. “My father-in-law’s got that one mounted at home,” he tells The Athletic. “It was phenomenal. Pinch yourself time. But you go further down their line-up and you get to the fella at the bottom. George Weah. And that’s when you’re grateful you’re not playing centre-half. “You have to remember his status back then. We’d watched him for years scoring all sorts of unbelievable goals for AC Milan, making defenders look like idiots. He was an absolute legend and, even at that age with his career winding down, he still had an aura. I mean, it’s George Weah, isn’t it?” The striker, then 33, carried that reputation out on to the pitch. It fell to Barry Ashby and Guy Butters to deal with him that day, something they achieved admirably up to the break, by which time Chelsea’s lead was still one goal. Thereafter, the centre-halves’ afternoon rather deteriorated. Five minutes after the restart, the tie was as good as over as Weah looped a header over Vince Bartram to extend the hosts’ lead to three. “There was one ball played over the top into the corner, and I’ve turned and sprinted towards it thinking Weah was going to come bombing past me at any second in pursuit,” says Butters. “I’ve torn after it, slid in sensing he was on my shoulder, and belted it out of play. ‘God, I’ve done well to beat him in a straight sprint. I’ve still got it’. But when I turned around, he was still on the halfway line. He hadn’t even bothered running. “That was his reputation preceding him. That fear that he was going to embarrass you. But he’s ended up winning the territory anyway. And made me look a right Charlie, too. Yeah, I remember George all right.” Weah, a title winner in Liberia, France and Italy, and voted African Footballer of the Year three times, spent a little over nine months in English football at the back end of his illustrious career. The man currently serving as the 25th president of Liberia played 24 times in that period, for Chelsea and Manchester City, and was not the on-field force he once had been, but his name still carried a mystique that was inescapable. His arrival was cited as evidence of an on-going shift in status between the Premier League and Serie A. It drew even greater focus on the league’s development and encouraged other players, particularly from Africa, to follow in his footsteps. In the end, his time in England will be remembered best for a late winner against Tottenham Hotspur on his Chelsea debut, an FA Cup triumph at Wembley, an acrimonious falling-out with a manager and three outings against Gillingham which, in truth, probably reflected his decline in status. He scored four times against the Kent club, and which other current head of state can boast that? By the turn of the millennium, Chelsea and Gianluca Vialli had issues to address. Relatively smooth progress in the Champions League had not been mirrored in domestic competition. The team were in danger of slipping out of contention in the race to qualify again, with their problems born of a lack of cutting edge. The manager had called time on his prolific playing days at the end of the previous season. Chris Sutton, a £10 million signing from Blackburn Rovers, had managed a solitary league goal to date. Even Gianfranco Zola, still so effervescent in European competition, had not scored since the opening day of the Premier League campaign. In that context, Weah’s potential availability at AC Milan was a godsend. The veteran, scorer of a hat-trick at the leaders Lazio in early October, had been enduring his difficulties under Alberto Zaccheroni having steadily slipped down the pecking order behind Oliver Bierhoff and Andriy Shevchenko. He had featured only once in the Champions League and not at all in Serie A since late November. Jose Mari, a Spanish forward, had been signed from Atletico Madrid for a hefty fee in the new year, forcing the Liberian to consider his options. Weah’s preference was to move to Roma only for Milan’s vice-chairman, Adriano Galliani, to rule out strengthening a rival. “In this way, they have ruined my life,” bemoaned Weah at the time. Vialli sensed his opportunity. He sanctioned Bjarne Goldbaek’s £650,000 sale to Fulham and asked Marcel Desailly to sound out his former club-mate. Weah was in bed when the Frenchman phoned and delivered his sales pitch on life in London. Suitably encouraged, the Chelsea chief executive Colin Hutchinson was dispatched to Italy to discuss a loan move until the end of the season. He found the process smooth, noting Weah to be “a likeable guy”. Yes, if given the choice, the Liberian would have opted instead for a reunion with Arsene Wenger – under whom he had enjoyed such success at Monaco, and to whom he had dedicated his Ballon d’Or in 1995 – but Arsenal were oblivious to his availability. And so, on the morning of Wednesday, January 12 2000, Weah boarded a plane bound for London to undergo a medical at Chelsea’s somewhat basic Harlington training complex. Weah at Stamford Bridge before making his Chelsea debut against Spurs (Photo: Francis Glibbery/Chelsea FC via Getty Images) By the same evening, having spent half an hour with his new team-mates and registered his loan 90 minutes before kick-off, he would be sitting on the bench at Stamford Bridge preparing to make his debut in the febrile atmosphere of a derby with Tottenham Hotspur. “It was such a big surprise for us all,” says Gus Poyet, a useful scorer from midfield in Vialli’s side. “But Gianluca knew the situation. He’d been one of the four strikers himself a year before and would have been used to having four around, so was probably looking for that extra player to help. “George Weah, the best player in the world a few years before, had that powerful part of the game and an ability to score goals. There was no doubt he’d be good for English football. It was not like he was coming to play for a side with an old-fashioned style of play, either. We were a European, cosmopolitan team. I’d imagine it was a very easy decision for Gianluca to make.” It is only with the benefit of hindsight that the decision to recruit Weah could be pinpointed as the beginning of the end for the Italian’s tenure in south-west London: not because it backfired on the pitch but, rather, as a result of whom it ended up marginalising. The fall guy for the visit of Spurs had been Zola. The Italian had gone 18 league games without a goal and, to make way for the new arrival, it was the playmaker who was omitted from the match-day squad, delaying his 150th appearance for the club. It was the first time he had been dropped since joining Chelsea. “There is no way I can be happy if I am not playing,” he said at the time. “After everything I have done for Chelsea, I don’t think I deserve this treatment.” So incensed was Zola that he did not attend the fixture and therefore missed Weah springing off the bench, sporting a rather snazzy pair of gloves, just before the hour-mark with the contest still goalless. Or the substitute barging through Stephen Carr and Stephen Clemence three minutes from time to reach Dennis Wise’s clipped cross and guide the winner beyond Ian Walker. Zola apologised to the squad for his uncharacteristic fit of pique back at Harlington the following morning, shaking his team-mates’ hands before their warm-down session and insisting he had no axe to grind. He would go on to feature regularly for Chelsea over the remainder of the campaign, eventually scoring again in the league in mid-April. But a wedge, on a professional level at least, had been driven between him and Vialli. There were subsequent pushes to sign first Savio at Real Madrid and, later, West Ham’s Paolo Di Canio over the summer – neither successful – which reflected the manager’s scepticism over Zola’s long-term future at the club. The hierarchy was left weighing up whether to back a popular and talismanic player or their head coach. The politics were certainly one factor behind the sacking of Vialli the following September. Yet, in the aftermath of a win over Spurs that had thrust Chelsea back up to sixth in the table, the move for Weah felt far more of a masterstroke. His immediate impact had not been lost on his former Milan team-mates, who were in the process of surrendering their scudetto to Lazio. Paolo Maldini called the striker late that same night, apparently telling him “we need you back, we miss you” and bemoaning the void the charismatic forward had left behind. It was his new club who were now benefiting from the feelgood factor. “I’d chat with Jody Morris, Eddie Newton, Michael Duberry and Celestine Babayaro, and all they’d talk about was him,” says Frank Sinclair, who had left Chelsea for Leicester City in 1998 but would end up in direct confrontation with Weah on the striker’s first Premier League start. “They couldn’t believe it. All I heard was ‘what a signing’, and ‘he’s unbelievable in training’. “When he was our manager at Chelsea, Glenn Hoddle used to tell us about Weah. He was at Monaco under Wenger at the time and George (then with the Cameroonian club Tonnerre Yaounde) walked in asking for a trial. This went on constantly for a couple of weeks, pestering the manager, but nobody knew who he was. Eventually, he gets his way, joins in training and Hoddle said they’d not seen anything like it. His first touch, his ability on the ball… that says a lot, especially coming from Hoddle, who was incredibly gifted technically.” There were concerns at first that Weah might struggle with the physicality of English football. Chelsea’s fitness coach, Antonio Pintus, had expressed doubts over whether he was strong enough to thrive. Yet Weah insisted his forte was his mobility and resisted the medical staff’s calls to bulk up. Pintus duly devised an exercise programme which would help raise his match sharpness given he had only featured twice at Milan since November. Four goals in his first seven appearances in all competitions suggested that hard work paid off. “He was so educated, so nice, so calm,” says Poyet of a team-mate who had been appointed a UNICEF goodwill ambassador in 1997 and went by the moniker “King George” in his homeland. “He got on very well with everyone from the beginning. “Then there was the quality of play. I remember how he had this ability to pass his right leg over the ball, making a dummy. You knew he was going to do it, but you’d be done by the dummy anyway. He was very, very special. He may not have scored a huge number of goals, but he helped us improve as a team. “I took advantage of him. So many of my goals that season (there were eight after Weah’s arrival) owed something to him. He understood the game so, when I was coming from deep, I was able to exploit the spaces he left to score.” Weah’s presence even benefited Sutton, whose confidence had been shattered by that goal drought and the weight of expectation generated by the mind-boggling fee paid to Blackburn. The suspicion had been that Weah had ultimately been recruited to replace the misfiring Englishman. As it transpired, they looked far more comfortable in partnership. It is a measure of the respect in which he held his team-mate that Sutton named one of his Kunekune pigs “George” having, according to Weah, swerved the chance to attend one of the striker’s Fellowship Bible meetings to buy livestock. “He was the one player I felt could get the best out of me and link up with me,” wrote Sutton in his autobiography, Paradise and Beyond. “My game got better with George. He knew I was on a bit of a downer, and he tried to help me. I started to enjoy my football more when he came. When he walked into a room, he had amazing stature. A lovely person. On a night out, he was great company.” Weah had settled quickly in a new city, club and culture. “The first thing he did was get involved with the English players,” says Poyet. “He bonded with Dennis Wise, Chris and the younger ones, John Terry and Jody Morris. He became part of the culture. He looked for the British guys and was in there straight away, bang! It was great to see from a player like him. Poyet (left) and Weah celebrate Poyet’s goal against Leicester City in January 2000 as Sutton looks on (Photo: Gary M Prior/Allsport) “I remember when we recorded the FA Cup final song in London later that season, he was a big part of it. He left with the British players afterwards to go for a few drinks in the city. It was important for George to do that, but it was very clever as well. He knew he was probably only coming for a short time, so he got to know the British culture.” Given he was ineligible in Europe, it was the FA Cup that proved the highlight of Weah’s time at Chelsea. His goal had helped dispatch Sinclair’s Leicester in the fifth round. “He was almost unstoppable that day,” says the former centre-back. “His ability to pick up pockets to receive the ball… he was so difficult to mark because he was always on your shoulder in clever positions. And when he got the ball, oh my. I remember when he was running with it, going past two or three players, and the pace and the stride on him made me think: ‘God, imagine what he must have been like when he was in his mid-twenties.’” Butters’ Gillingham would be put to the sword, 5-0, in the last eight. “He was constantly moving the ball,” says the former centre-back. “It was exhausting, playing him. The slightest mistake and that’s it, he was away. After an hour, you’re absolutely knackered and hanging on.” There was a smart finish across Sander Westerveld in a 2-0 win over Liverpool, and only a pair of league defeats as Chelsea ended up securing UEFA Cup qualification by finishing fifth, before Weah started alongside Zola in the FA Cup final against Aston Villa. Sutton had talked himself out of the team and club by then, with Tore Andre Flo on the bench. Weah might have proved a match-winner only to spurn two fine chances to force Vialli’s team ahead, with Roberto Di Matteo eventually scoring the game’s only goal. “George loved that day, for sure,” says Poyet. “It was a very special trophy for him. I remember the way he celebrated afterwards — with the lid of the cup on his head. He was a very happy man, no doubt.” He had a winner’s medal with which to return to Monrovia that summer. A spokesman for the Liberian president, Charles Taylor, had expressed publicly back in January the hope that the country’s favourite son would have “something to show the people” upon coming home. By then it had been made clear that Chelsea’s rebuild on a budget would not extend to making his move from Milan permanent. His time in London had run its natural course. But he was not done yet with England. Not quite, anyway. Nicky Weaver was out on the training pitch at Manchester City’s Platt Lane complex, the new league season a little under three weeks away, when he heard the throaty purr of the engine. A black Rolls-Royce drew to a halt. “It was a super flash car, and out stepped George Weah,” recalls the former goalkeeper. “He was wearing all the bling. There’d been all the rumours flying around that morning but none of us was sure whether to believe them or not. Then this mega superstar has rocked up. At City. “It was almost like Ronaldo was signing for us, that kind of magnitude. A monster, monster name, and I don’t really know how we managed to get him. We were all a little bit starstruck at first, but he was such a good lad. A nice fella, very humble. “The Rolls-Royce actually belonged to his agent, apparently, and you wouldn’t have known you were talking to a megastar or former World Player of the Year most of the time. It was only occasionally little things reminded you. I remember somebody pointing to his watch and saying it looked nice. He just said: ‘Oh yeah, Donatella Versace gave it to me’. He obviously moved in high circles. He must have turned up at City and thought, ‘Who are these cowboys?’” At the time, this felt a strange fit. This was the club whose local derby only two years previously had been against Macclesfield Town in the third tier. Even the previous season, they had lost at home to Stockport County before finishing second, behind Charlton, in what is now the Championship to secure elevation back to the top flight under the management of Joe Royle after a four-year absence. To prepare for the challenge ahead, Royle had signed hard-working players (Alf-Inge Haaland and Steve Howey) and even seemed to have his stardust in the figure of Paulo Wanchope, signed from West Ham. Convincing an international superstar to join seemed unlikely. But times had changed for Weah. In the summer of 2000, Chelsea had opted against securing him on a long-term basis and, rather than remaining on the periphery at Milan, he waived the £1.4 million he would have been due over the final year of his contract and accepted a free transfer. One of his former clubs, Monaco, flirted with the idea of offering him terms, while Bologna and Roma, under Fabio Capello, sounded out his Italian representatives over the possibility of extending his stay in Serie A. He was offered to Celtic and Rangers. Yet it was Mohamed Al-Fayed’s Fulham, fresh from a top-10 finish in their first year back in the English second tier and under the management of Jean Tigana, whose interest was firmest. They contacted Ian Anderson, the player’s London-based agent, and opened talks over personal terms. It was only when news of the move was leaked in the press that Royle, yearning for a marquee signing, made his own move. “It was all Joe,” says the former City director, Dennis Tueart. “George was on his way to Fulham and Joe hijacked the deal. We were signing Wanchope but Joe felt he needed a bit more. I did say at the time we should make sure the team were good enough to get the ball to him because I didn’t think he was going to be the old George Weah who drops deep and runs the channels. But Joe explained his ideas so I was happy to support it — if we could afford it.” The deal was thrashed out by Royle, along with Tueart, the deputy chairman John Wardle and the chief operating officer Chris Bird in the absence of the chairman, David Bernstein, who was on a rare summer break. In terms of wages, it was the most expensive in the club’s history. Weah signed a one-year contract worth up to £35,000 a week, with an option for a further 12 months. Anderson was paid £100,000, with a similar agent’s fee due should City take up the second year. “Nowadays, Christ, bloody apprentices get better than that, but it was heavy money for us at the time,” Bird tells The Athletic. “When we signed Nicolas Anelka in 2002, we only paid him about £35,000 a week, too. “George’s record spoke for itself. The only things you wondered about at the time were his age, at 33, and, given we’d only just come up, what were his other options? Was it just his last hurrah or was he serious? But when you met the man, you realised he was absolutely dead serious about making it work.” For Royle, this was a statement of City’s intent. Even Weah sounded enthused, claiming “we will go into Europe”, even if there was a good deal more realism behind the scenes. “It was the draw of the Premier League for George, more than anything else,” says Bird. “We were a work in progress. What came across to me, certainly in the personal conversations I had with George, was he understood humble beginnings and how you’ve got to fight for everything. He just got that. “I was still handling all the media, too, and managed his first press conference. We went into this little bar area, the Blue Room, and everybody sat around him asking their questions. He answered every single one. He was a delight. This guy had been there and done it. He was a very intelligent man and he just knew how to conduct himself. An absolute diamond. Nothing seemed to faze him.” That included an on-field photocall at Maine Road alongside Wanchope to unveil the new shirt with a life-size, gun-wielding model of Lara Croft, complete with rather disconcerting pneumatic breasts. Eidos, who manufactured the Tomb Raider series, was the club’s sponsor at the time with its executive chairman, Ian Livingstone, a long-standing City fan. “A new shirt, Lara Croft, and we’ve got George Weah as well… the stars were aligned,” adds Bird. City went one better in mid-November ahead of their first competitive Manchester derby with United since 1996 and invited Lucy Clarkson, the fourth Croft model from the games series, to meet the players pre-match in the dressing room. Yet, by then, Weah was no longer on the scene. The unravelling would prove rapid. He suffered from having missed pre-season, a reality that set him back from the outset. One of his few outings was in a testimonial game for Denis Irwin against Manchester United at Old Trafford, just three days before the start of the Premier League campaign, in which he failed to control a pass four minutes in. As he lunged to retrieve the loose ball, he planted the studs of his right boot into the inside of Irwin’s left ankle. The Irishman, clearly irate, brushed away the apology and, having hobbled on for almost half an hour, ended up retreating from the field immediately after Teddy Sheringham had put United ahead. For the neutrals, it was an inauspicious start. It would be compounded by events at the Valley on the opening afternoon. City, back in the big time and up against the team who had pipped them for the Championship the previous season, were thrashed 4-0. Wanchope had only returned from international duty with Costa Rica on the day before, and his body clock was clearly skewed. Weah, in contrast, just looked off the pace. Royle was left wondering whether his most lavish summer signing might best be suited to a role off the bench. In his opinion, the veteran simply didn’t have the legs to cope. It was a shocking conclusion to feel compelled to draw after only one outing. “George saw us as a team who had just been promoted and probably expected to walk into the side but, as Joe said, he wasn’t really fit enough,” says Weaver. “In training, you saw glimpses of what he could do, but his fitness levels just weren’t there. They never really got there, either. If we ever did running in training, he was miles behind. Even in the warm-up, he’d be tailing off behind. “We only saw flashes of the great George Weah. On match day, there’d be the odd touch here and there, but I don’t think the fans ever saw a performance that made them think, ‘Wow’. He never really ripped anyone inside out or anything like that. He’d lost that edge, that half a yard. He couldn’t get up to the rigours and demands of the Premier League.” “We knew we’d be fighting against relegation,” says Gerard Wiekens, a regular in the City team for five seasons in which they were always either promoted or went down. “We were probably defending in games 80 per cent of the time. That was not his game. So he struggled. “Look, he was a lovely guy. His son Timothy (now playing at Lille in Ligue 1) was a small boy at the time and would sometimes come round to my house to play with my kids. But it was really hard for George to make an impact on the pitch.” Royle was concerned about potential divisions in the dressing room caused by the disparity in pay between those players who had secured City’s back-to-back promotions and the big-money new arrivals. He worried that resentment might fester and harm team spirit, particularly if Weah — as the most high-profile of the signings — failed to make an impact. A more encouraging display in a 4-2 defeat of Sunderland at least papered over the cracks. Wanchope scored a hat-trick that day. At least he had struck up an immediate rapport with the Liberian. “I used to watch George Weah, Marco Van Basten and Romario so, for me, it was really special to have George as a team-mate at City,” Wanchope tells The Athletic. “I was a kid who had followed in his steps, always watching videos of his goals. I was quite nervous in my first conversation with him because he was such a hero of mine, but we could talk about our time in international football, the travel, our games. I still found it shocking that he never had the chance to play at a World Cup, and he told me I was in a privileged position to be able to do that one day (Wanchope featured at the 2002 and 2006 tournaments). “I learned many things from him. At that time he was in his mid-30s but still training hard, talking to the young players, and on the pitch, he made everything easy. You don’t need to talk too much. You just make eye contact and that’s it.” The problem was that, while his mind was as sharp as ever, Weah’s body was struggling to keep up with the frenetic nature of the English game. He would not complete another full Premier League match after the dispiriting 2-1 home defeat to Coventry towards the end of August. The manager, conscious that Weah had just returned from international duty in Africa, telephoned the player on the eve of the next match, at Leeds, to inform him that he would be among the substitutes. Royle recalls the forward accepting the decision, and could point to a subsequent positive contribution off the bench against Liverpool at Anfield — where he scored his only Premier League goal for the club — as justification for his selection policy. With the benefit of hindsight, though, there was to be no real recovery from that snub. The relationship between star player and manager deteriorated thereafter. At least the two-legged League Cup tie against Gillingham, hardly a priority competition, was an opportunity for Weah to work on his match fitness. His goal salvaged a draw at Maine Road, and he scored twice just after half-time at the Priestfield Stadium in the return to put the visitors ahead on aggregate. But a late equaliser forced the tie into extra-time and, with City having used all three of their substitutes, an exhausted Weah was forced to plod through the closing stages making clear his frustration. “I know he scored twice that night, but it was as if he was a bit disinterested,” says Butters of his third encounter with Weah within seven months. “His attitude was very much, ‘Give me the ball and I’ll score a goal, but I don’t want to do all the shitty work. That’s your job, not mine’. So unless the pass was into his feet, laid on a plate, he didn’t want to know. There was no graft in his play. “Paul Dickov was there, again, running his balls off for them. A complete pain in the arse to play against, closing you down, hassling you, not giving you a second to think. Dickov made my life a lot harder, to be honest. “Maybe Weah just didn’t want to be there, in Gillingham on a Tuesday night. It probably says a lot about his natural ability that he still scored twice, but I thought you could tell by his body language that he wasn’t going to break his neck for City. And we’d learned a bit about him by then. Barry Ashby and me, we’d be going tight up to Weah and treading on his heel, ‘Oh, sorry mate’. Little reminders to level the playing field. The novelty had sort of worn off.” It was depreciating for Weah, too. He started the subsequent top-flight game at Maine Road, departing 20 minutes from time and promptly watched Alan Shearer score Newcastle’s winner. In the dressing room post-match, Royle expressed his dissatisfaction with the team’s performance only to notice Weah and Wanchope conducting their own private inquest into the defeat in a corner as he was addressing the group. This, Royle made clear in front of the group, was unacceptable behaviour. “I used to go in the dressing room after every game just to check the temperature and then, obviously, go and do the press conferences with Joe, and I could sense something heated had gone on,” says Bird. “George and Paulo were very close, and they shared the same opinion about the way the team were performing, and the way Joe was managing them. “They just didn’t see eye to eye. Joe says it how it is. He was just absolutely focused on what he needed to do, that Everton ‘dogs of war’ mentality. George was a superstar. He’d come in and was probably not delivering what Joe needed. I doubt George had ever come across someone like Joe Royle, a hard-nosed British manager who knew what it was like to be a centre-forward for City and to manage in the Premier League. I think they both lost respect for each other: George wasn’t used to being spoken to the way he was spoken to by Joe, and Joe didn’t respect George because he hadn’t got the reaction he wanted. There wasn’t a lot of love lost between the two.” Royle considered the post-match altercation with Weah “one of those heat-of-the-moment exchanges that occur frequently in every dressing room after a defeat” and was surprised when the player’s agent, Anderson, telephoned requesting a meeting at Platt Lane the following midweek. Again, the manager deemed those talks “perfectly civilised” but, where Weah had clearly expected then to start the subsequent home game with Bradford City, Royle opted instead for the industrious Dickov. He recalled Weah conducting “a silent protest on the bench… without the slightest inclination to warm up”. The manager did not even bother to name him among the substitutes as his team won at Southampton the following week, by which time their relationship had fractured beyond repair. He would never pull on the City shirt again. “Joe fell out with Paulo Wanchope and George Weah, totally different personalities to what he had been used to managing,” says Tueart. “We’d had Championship and League One players to get us into the Premier League and then brought in Paulo, George, Alf-Inge and Howey. Joe struggled because, with his skill set, he wasn’t used to them. We later brought in Kevin Keegan whose skill set was handling big players. He loved it.” Tueart was present alongside Bird and Anderson at the meeting which confirmed a parting of the ways after Weah had spent only 10 weeks at the club. It cost City £500,000 to terminate the contract early. “It was a very abrupt ending… uncomfortable,” recalls Bird. In a statement released that night, Royle expressed regret that the move had not worked out but praised Weah’s professionalism. The player, however, released his own statement, claiming Royle had been “disrespectful” and left him feeling like “the worst player that ever existed”, which rather trumped the official line. “I’m not willing to subject myself to feeling small in front of the younger players that I hope to be an example and an inspiration to,” he said. “I will not accept being at a club where the manager names me in the team and then calls me five hours later to tell me that I am not in the team. In my opinion, that is unprofessional and shows a lack of confidence in me. “I’m not upset because I’m not playing. I do accept because of my age that I won’t play all the game. I didn’t come for the money. I could have stayed at AC Milan but, instead, I sacrificed £1.4 million from them to come here. I didn’t leave that for somebody to tell me to shut up and fuck off. I was made to feel old and of no real use to the club. I felt I was being used for publicity to attract other players. I respect the people I work with and I expect the same in return. My reasons for leaving are the lack of respect, the lack of communication and the dishonesty shown to me by Joe Royle.” The manager refuted those claims and pointed out — quite justifiably — that Wanchope and Weah had hardly been treating him with much respect while talking among themselves at the back of the room during his post-match inquest. “At no time was it my intention to make an example of them in front of the other players,” he said. “I had nothing but respect for George Weah and for his record in the game.” Two days later, and much to City’s surprise, Weah joined Marseille. “That disappointed me a bit, to be perfectly honest,” adds Tueart. “If I remember correctly, there’d been mention of George retiring. I asked Joe if he wanted me to put in a clause whereby, if he moved anywhere, we would be remunerated. But given the suggestion was he was going to retire, it didn’t seem worth putting anything like that into our agreement. All we could do was carry on because we had to get some positivity back in the dressing room.” That, ultimately, proved beyond them and City slipped out of the top flight after only a season, with Royle sacked in late May. Weah’s nine-month dalliance with the English game was over. He would play 19 Ligue 1 games that season, scoring five times before moving to Al-Jazira in the United Arab Emirates. He retired in 2003 at the age of 37, those memories of regular collisions with Gillingham fading fast. His career in the years since has taken him from the Priestfield to the presidency.

Gabriele Ambrosetti: After Vialli compared me to Ryan Giggs, I had no chance https://theathletic.com/1851695/2020/06/04/chelsea-gabriele-ambrosetti-gianluca-vialli-ryan-giggs/ (Main image: Ambrosetti scoring his only goal for Chelsea. Photo: Jon Buckle/Empics via Getty Images) It’s August 1999 and manager Gianluca Vialli has just given a quote to a packed press conference that has sparked great excitement among all Chelsea fans. With a big smile, he declared that the club had signed “the Italian Ryan Giggs”. Sitting next to Chelsea’s head coach and looking rather bemused in front of all the cameras and tape recorders was the man in question, Gabriele Ambrosetti. He had just been bought from Serie A side Vicenza for £3.5 million. The west London club brought an interpreter along to help him cope with the language barrier during his official unveiling, and the winger couldn’t believe what he was hearing. As soon as the media briefing was over, he sought a word with Vialli. Ambrosetti tells The Athletic: “I said, ‘Thank you, but Giggs? He is different to me!’ Luca explained he did it to help me, to give me motivation. But I didn’t need motivation. I was 26 and at one of the biggest clubs in the world.” Ambrosetti regarded Giggs, the man who had shone for Manchester United since making a professional debut in 1991, as an idol. One of his most prized possessions is a shirt belonging to the flying winger. It was given as a present by former Brescia team-mate Gheorghe Hagi, who had faced Giggs while playing for Romania in a World Cup qualifier against Wales in 1993. Just a few months before the arrival of Chelsea’s latest acquisition, Giggs had helped Manchester United become the only English side to win the treble of Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup. Whether he meant the comparison literally or not, Vialli had inferred that Ambrosetti could bring similar skills — and results — to Stamford Bridge. “To compare Gabriele Ambrosetti with Ryan Giggs is one of the biggest mistakes someone can do,” continues Ambrosetti. “I’m not saying I wasn’t a good player, but Ryan Giggs is an icon. The position we played was similar, but that’s it. Were we similar in other ways? No chance! I wasn’t the only one. I have never seen another player like him. “Ryan was a great player and special to me. I was really surprised he never won a Ballon d’Or. Giggs is like George Best. He was one of the best players in the world. In his position, he was the best ever. No discussion. If you were to pick an all-time world XI, Giggs would be in it in the same way as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. “Luca’s comments didn’t help me. They put a lot of pressure on me. Every mistake I made at Chelsea, people would say, ‘Oh no, Giggs wouldn’t do that’. Look, Luca trusted me but you can’t compare Giggs with anyone else back then or even now. “I was under pressure all the time. The crowd had high expectations of me but they had expectations I was never going to be able to meet for sure.” So why did Vialli give such a high appraisal of his new signing, who went on to make a total of 23 appearances for Chelsea? Well, it’s perhaps been forgotten now, but Ambrosetti was a rising star in his homeland during the 1990s. He first made headlines of sorts in England by scoring the winner for Brescia against Notts County at Wembley in 1994 to claim the now-defunct Anglo-Italian Cup — a competition that was staged between teams from the second tiers of both countries. But it was at unfashionable Vicenza where he came to the fore after joining in 1996. Playing in a city with a population of around 100,000 people, they were regarded as minnows when they were promoted to Serie A for the 1995-96 season. Yet they confounded the experts. They finished ninth that season, then eighth in 1996-97. Even more remarkably, they defeated AC Milan and Napoli on the way to lifting the 1997 Italian Cup, the only major honour in their history. “No other ‘small’ club has won the Italian Cup since we did it at Vicenza in 1997,” Ambrosetti says proudly. “Since then, it has been won by Lazio, Parma, Fiorentina, Inter, Roma, AC Milan, Napoli and Juventus. “A lot of Italians wanted Vicenza to win it. We were a small club with unknown players. It was a really important moment for us. Not just our fans, people in general. Other small clubs thought if they can do it so can we.” Significantly, it also meant they had qualified to play in a European competition for only the second time. Their first outing did not go well. Despite having a young Paolo Rossi, who would go on to be the hero of Italy’s World Cup triumph in 1982, they lost to Dukla Prague in the UEFA Cup first round in 1978. Twenty years later, they were in the Cup Winners’ Cup. Legia Warsaw, Shakhtar Donetsk and Roda were easily despatched. It set up a two-legged semi-final against a club growing popular with Italians due to the presence of famous countrymen Gianfranco Zola, Roberto Di Matteo and player-coach Vialli: Chelsea. The excitement for the home leg was palpable. “They closed the shops in town the day before,” says Ambrosetti. “It was all anyone was talking about. The players and the people were nervous, but at the same time, really, really happy. The dream was coming. Whatever was going to happen, no one imagined we’d be involved in anything like this. A first major European semi-final against such a big team.” Few gave Vicenza a chance. However, Chelsea couldn’t cope with the energy of the home side, who were roared on by the majority of the 19,319 crowd. A neat finish by Lamberto Zauli gifted them a precious 1-0 victory. “The Chelsea players told me how they were taken by surprise with the atmosphere in the first leg,” he says. “They didn’t expect that kind of support. The stadium wasn’t that big, but the stands were close to the pitch.” Their more fancied opponents were still expected to comfortably turn things around a fortnight later only for Pasquale Luiso to silence the Chelsea supporters by getting a crucial away goal. It meant Vialli’s men had to score three times without reply to progress to the final and they had less than an hour to do so. But in what is still regarded as one of the best Chelsea comebacks, strikes from Gus Poyet, Zola and Mark Hughes turned the tie around. “The key was Poyet scoring so soon (within two minutes) after we had,” admits Ambrosetti. “Maybe the situation would have been different if we had got to half-time still 2-0 ahead. Chelsea played well in the second half, but can you imagine what it would have been like if they started after the break still 2-0 down? They would have had to play even more offensively and we were a counter-attacking team.” Ambrosetti may have been on the losing side, but there was a positive consolation. The quality of his two displays had caught Vialli’s eye. Within days, he had a phone call from the former Italy centre-forward about a move to London. “Luca didn’t say ‘please come’ — he just said ‘we are Chelsea’ and that was enough,” says Ambrosetti. “Luca is Italian, he is a hero to us. When I played against him at Juventus, I didn’t see a player, I saw a lion. He likes to fight. We saw that same fight as he’s overcome his health problems (pancreatic cancer) in recent years. “AC Milan were also keen but my mind was made up. It took another year to go through — it was because Vicenza wouldn’t let me go. But Chelsea kept watching and calling me after every match. Even though other clubs came in for me in 1999, I’d given Chelsea my word and that was it. “So one year after the semi-final, I was at Chelsea. As soon as I arrived in the dressing room, the players were saying to me, ‘Hey, hey, hey — we don’t accept you here!” I asked, ‘Why?’ They said, ‘Because you ran a lot against us at Vicenza!’ It was a funny moment.” But life at Chelsea was soon to be no laughing matter. Eight games gone, just 12 minutes played. Ambrosetti couldn’t believe it. He may have now been in the same league as Giggs, but their experiences were poles apart. After all the big build-up, Vialli simply didn’t select him. It quickly removed the initial happiness he felt about moving to London. “As a man and a footballer, I didn’t have a good time in the first few months,” he says. “There was all this scrutiny on me because of what Luca said and I expected to play more. A lot was going on in my head.” Team-mates such as Marcel Desailly, Graeme Le Saux and Celestine Babayaro, as well as the Italian contingent within the dressing room, provided welcome support. When given the opportunity, there were flashes of the skill that was so often on display at Vicenza. A late cameo as a substitute in an impressive 5-0 Champions League win away at Galatasaray saw him drill a superb shot into the bottom corner. His arms were held aloft in defiant celebration. Nobody could have imagined that his first goal for Chelsea would be his last. “I thought, ‘Now I will start to be the player I used to be’,” he says. “But I didn’t get the opportunity to show it. I scored against Galatasaray on a Wednesday and then four days later, I was not even on the bench against Arsenal. I was in the stands. I was regularly playing with the reserves. “I spoke to Luca about it. There were only five subs on the bench back then, but it was not easy for me to understand why I wasn’t being used. I just got told there were a lot of players and competition. I had to accept that and I did. I just tried to fight more than the others. Maybe my skill wasn’t good enough, certainly compared to Gianfranco. But I knew that from back in Serie A. “I had a bad experience, it helped me grow up. I trained very hard and I know everyone respected me. We reached the FA Cup final at the end of the season and I wasn’t in the squad. I was not disappointed because you have to respect the decision. It doesn’t mean you are weak to think that way, you are strong. I may not have understood it, but I accepted it. “It was still amazing to be a part of it and see how the FA Cup compares to the Italian Cup. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. We won the game, I got a medal and afterwards had a big party. I drank a lot of wine!” Any hope of better fortune for the 2000-01 campaign soon evaporated. Ambrosetti arranged a meeting with Vialli early in pre-season to explain how he was determined to turn things around. While the signal of intent was appreciated, it was ignored. After six matches, he had not been on the pitch once. As it turned out, he wasn’t the only one having problems with Vialli’s style of man-management and the Italian was sacked. Although others would go on to benefit from Claudio Ranieri’s appointment, Ambrosetti’s fate was sealed. Ambrosetti says: “Claudio sat me down after the first training session and said, ‘Gabi listen, you don’t play with me’. I was very frustrated. I wanted him to tell me why. I had another four years left on my contract. All he said was he had different ideas. He was really honest with me and I appreciated that at least. “I was really upset. It was really strange. One of the clubs that had wanted me when I was at Vicenza was Fiorentina. Who was the manager then? Ranieri! We have met since, though, and shared a hug.” Ambrosetti was loaned out to Piacenza but his confidence levels never recovered. His playing days petered out in further spells at Piacenza (loan and permanent), Vicenza (loan) and Pro Patria in Serie C before retiring in 2005. His love for the game remained. After starting as a sporting director at the club where he began his career, Varese, he returned to the UK in January 2016 to act as assistant manager to Francesco Guidolin at Swansea. The latter was his coach when things were going so well at Vicenza. The duo kept Swansea in the Premier League but were gone by October after a poor start to the following campaign. Again there were no hard feelings — Ambrosetti jokes that he is the only Italian who enjoyed living in Swansea with all the “wind and rain” and still keeps in touch with many of the people he met there. Ambrosetti had a second spell in England working as part of Franciso Guidolin’s coaching staff at Swansea in 2016 (Photo: Matthew Ashton/AMA/Sports Photo Agency) So does he blame Vialli for what went wrong and those comments about Giggs at the outset? Far from it. “I have to thank Luca,” Ambrosetti says. “He gave me a great opportunity to play in another league and another country. If things didn’t go right for me on the pitch, it’s not because of that press conference. It was down to other details. “When he was sacked, I called him. I said, ‘I’m so sorry, so disappointed’. Our relationship was really good, it wasn’t harmed, even though I didn’t play. That experience made me better as a man. “I am a football agent now with players in Italy, Portugal, Spain, France and Morocco. I use what I went through to help them. If they are going through something similar, I know what to say.” As for Giggs, Ambrosetti is still waiting to have a proper chat with him. The 46-year-old didn’t get a chance when playing for Chelsea against Manchester United in 2000 nor during his brief spell at Swansea. Giggs is still a great source of inspiration for Ambrosetti though, despite those 12 months spent living in his shadow.

Hazard’s second chance https://theathletic.com/1849921/2020/06/06/hazard-eden-real-madrid-chelsea-zidane/ “I’m not a galactico, not yet,” Eden Hazard said. “I hope I will be one day. Despite everything I’ve done in the past, it will be like beginning from zero.” Hazard was speaking to the 50,000 Real Madrid fans who had filed into Santiago Bernabeu on a scorching hot June lunchtime to welcome their team’s big headline summer signing. No new arrival had drawn more supporters to the stadium for an unveiling since Cristiano Ronaldo a decade earlier, and the €100 million transfer from Chelsea was also pointedly being given the No 7 shirt once worn by the now-departed Portuguese. After a very poor 2018-19 season without Ronaldo, Madrid president Florentino Perez and his allies were selling the idea that Hazard was the big star who could return the team to glory. That message met a receptive mood around the Bernabeu. Everyone knew that returning coach Zinedine Zidane had long wanted to bring Hazard to Madrid, and now it was finally happening when the Belgian was at the peak of his powers aged 28. A player who had led Chelsea to two Premier League titles and his country to the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup was expected to recharge an attack lacking a leader since Ronaldo left. Among those who welcomed the transfer was Rafael Martin Vazquez, who won 15 trophies in two spells with Madrid in the 1980s and 1990s. “Hazard had shown he was a top-level player during his years at Chelsea,” Martin Vazquez tells The Athletic. “When he arrived, Madrid expected he would bring a lot to the team and be decisive for them. He was at the top of his career. They thought of him as the team’s new ‘franchise player’.” It has not exactly worked out that way. Hazard has started just 14 games and scored just one goal for his new team. Three different injury absences have been big setbacks, while there have also been concerns about whether he understood all that was involved in moving to Real Madrid. The enforced break due to the coronavirus has now offered him a second chance to make a first impression. Hazard is likely to start Madrid’s first La Liga game back at home to Eibar on June 14, a year and a day after his big Bernabeu presentation. Whether he has learned enough over the 12 months since to prove worthy of that galactico status over the last 11 games of the season remains to be seen. The day after his unveiling at the Bernabeu, Hazard went on holiday with his family. The next big headline he made claimed he had arrived back 7kg overweight for pre-season training. Telling interviewers who questioned his professionalism that “when I’m on holidays, I’m on holidays” did not make a great impression either. Those watching closely and wondering if Hazard knew what he was getting into included La Liga TV pundit Terry Gibson. “Hazard himself has admitted that at the start of the season he was not in great shape,” Gibson tells The Athletic. “That sort of baffled me a bit. You are moving to one of the biggest clubs in the world, if not the biggest. A dream transfer. And yet you enjoyed the summer a little bit too much. Understandable on one hand, but you surely would like to create that really good impression. He was the superstar signing. A lot was expected of him.” Those who know Hazard also say that he had looked nervous during his first public appearances with Madrid. The usually carefree character was overwhelmed a little at the size of his new club, especially by the media attention on every little detail of his personal life, just as his wife was preparing to give birth to their fourth child. Much more gossip and information leaked out of the Valdebebas training facility near Madrid’s airport than at Chelsea’s leafy set-up in Cobham. Pre-season also came as a shock, according to sources close to the player, even after working under hard taskmasters Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho at Chelsea. Looking to shake up a group of ageing players who had sleep-walked through 2018-19, Zidane had hired former France fitness coach Gregory Dupont to get them into better shape. Hazard knew Dupont from a previous spell together at Ligue 1 side Lille, when both were starting, but at this stage of his career, he found all the physical work more difficult. Hazard looked sluggish through Madrid’s warm-up games, especially the embarrassing 7-3 defeat against Atletico Madrid in New Jersey. Zidane remained very supportive publicly, saying he was sure he would be fine for the start of the competitive campaign, only for the team’s new big star to injure a thigh muscle in training on the eve of La Liga’s opening day. The minor problem only kept him out a few weeks, but Hazard was already playing catch-up. His first competitive start for Madrid was another shock to the system, a 3-0 Champions League group defeat away to Paris Saint-Germain in mid-September. As he got closer to match fitness, he scored a first La Liga goal in a 4-2 win over Granada in October. By November, he was full of running and zip, helping to win two penalties for Real at Eibar. The most striking moment was a 50-yard run down the left wing past three defenders, which ended with an attempted rabona cross. His fitness and confidence seemed to be back, but just two games later disaster struck again. In the return against PSG at the Bernabeu, his international team-mate Thomas Meunier inadvertently stepped right on the spot in his ankle where he had a metal plate inserted in 2017. It was decided that the problem could be fixed with rest and rehab, but it was mid-February before Hazard played again. He looked good on his return against Celta Vigo, winning a crucial penalty with a sharp sprint into the opposition penalty area. Just a week later, he was limping off yet again after what seemed an innocuous collision with Levante’s Jorge Miramon. This time, there was confirmation that the bone was cracked and he would need an operation. While misfortune played a part in this run of issues, those close to the player admit that everything to do with the move was more hassle than he expected and that an accumulation of little things caused stress, which can lead to injuries. Whatever that is the case or not, he has only completed 90 minutes on five occasions for his new club. Luis Milla, a La Liga winner with Real and Barcelona, says Hazard’s skill set means he will feel the effects of this irregular playing schedule more than most players. “Hazard is a player who needs to be playing regularly,” Milla tells The Athletic. “He had that injury on arrival, had to stop and has never really got going since. We are still all waiting to see his performances when La Liga returns. He has lots of quality, but he needs a run of games to reach his top level. Whenever it looked like he was feeling better, he had to stop again. All Madridismo is still waiting to see in what condition he returns.” Hazard’s fitness issues have hampered his ability to perform for Madrid, but what about his performances when he has been able to get on to the pitch? Are there tactical factors to match the physical problems? Gibson says that, even in the moments when he did make an impression on the pitch last autumn, he was not coming close to hitting his top Chelsea form. “He has not hit the heights of form he showed at Chelsea,” he says. “There was room for improvement in autumn. It was disappointing. He has not influenced games for Real Madrid the way he used to in the Premier League.” An initial look at the numbers certainly suggests that his performances have dropped off dramatically. During Hazard’s last season at Chelsea, he hit double figures for goals and assists in the Premier League. So far at Madrid, apart from penalties won, his only direct contributions to goals in 1,124 minutes across La Liga and the Champions League were against Granada in October. That is not the whole story though. As the table below shows, Hazard has undershot his expected goals (xG) — he’s scoring fewer goals than you’d expect given the positions he’s getting himself in. Hazard’s underlying xG isn’t too far away from where he was at last season with Chelsea, which is somewhat reassuring given he’s not played more than four games in a row so far this season. With minutes, he might find his rhythm in front of goal. Hazard also notched a career-equalling 15 assists at Chelsea last season (joint with 2011-12 at Lille). He has not hit those heights this season, but his underlying expected assists (xA) isn’t too far away from last season at Chelsea. Part of the reason for these dips in underlining numbers in the first case might be due to a lack of familiarity for Hazard from his new surroundings from a tactical point of view. At Chelsea under Sarri, Hazard played as part of a 4-3-3 in every single game. This season under Zidane, Hazard has featured in a 4-3-3 11 times, but also in a 4-1-4-1, 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-1-2. The lack of consistent game time and formation will no doubt have had an impact. Finally, there’s how Hazard has been positioned within Real’s team. In the graphic below from Stats Perform, we can see how Hazard’s touches per 90 minutes in the different areas of the field have changed between Chelsea last season and Real this season. Hazard has seen a huge drop in touches just outside of the opposition penalty area (the darkest red area), seeing the ball 10 times fewer per 90 minutes than he did at Chelsea last season. Additionally, he’s seeing the ball more in his own half compared to last season, seeing an almost 50 per cent increase in touches. At least partly, this appears to be down to Zidane requiring more tactical discipline and work rate from his attacking players, with a new focus at Madrid in 2019-20 on everybody pulling their weight on and off the ball. “He has been restricted in his positional play at Real Madrid,” Gibson says. “This happens. At Chelsea, when you are the biggest star in the team, the best attacking player, you get a licence to roam. At Madrid, I wouldn’t say he has been stifled, but he has been disciplined in where he plays. I don’t think that is the way to get the best out of Hazard. He is a player you want facing the goal.” Those close to Hazard say he has accepted this requirement for hard work from someone he once idolised as a kid, more so than when previous club managers Mourinho and Conte tried similar tactics. However, this is keeping him away from the areas where he can do the most damage. Also, it was in tracking back against Levante last February, when his physical condition was not 100 per cent, that his ankle gave up and he required the operation. Milla says that it is normal that Hazard does not have the same freedom to play where he wants at a team like Madrid. “There are many great players at Madrid and you always have to share the main stage,” he says. “Maybe he is not feeling as important as at Chelsea. But that is a question of adaptation. He has to understand his role in the team and at the club. It is still his first year and it has been such a strange season for him. He has needed time. In the future, Madrid will demand more.” Overall for Madrid, Hazard has been seeing less of the ball and less of it in the areas where he’s effective. However, the standout stat of one goal in 15 games is a bit misleading. While his underlying figures for getting chances in front of goal and creating for others do not look as healthy as last season, they are not far off. What he needs is an extended run of starts at full fitness, then he can find a role in the team where he is comfortable. He could yet find the form he showed at Chelsea. When the latest ankle break came in February, all involved knew the problem needed to be fixed properly, regardless of whether he was going to be able to play for Madrid again in 2019-20. Hazard’s camp considered various options and consulted with Belgium national team physio Lieven Maesschalck but decided against returning to the London-based surgeon who had performed the first operation on his ankle in June 2017. It was felt that Hazard’s tendency to spin and turn on his ankle, pivoting more like a basketballer than a footballer, had been a contributory factor in the recurring problem. So they chose to visit the Texas-based Eugene Curry due to his experience in handling players from the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. The procedure was carried out in the US on March 5. The idea at the time was for Hazard to return with Belgium at this summer’s Euro 2020 tournament. Instead, the COVID-19 pandemic meant he was preparing to come back for Madrid, but the timetable was more or less the same. The lockdown added a complication: a procedure to have 30 stitches removed from his ankle had to take place at his home in Madrid, but it went off without any problems. Another hitch was the physio who was visiting his house to help with his recovery programme going into self-isolation due to a possibility of coronavirus contagion. That turned out to be a false alarm, but it meant he had to do some rehab work over Zoom, which again required Hazard to show new diligence in following the exact exercises required to return the ankle to full working order. It all went to plan, however, and those around the player say that Hazard has shown seriousness and maturity in getting back as quickly as possible. He has been a lot more careful with his diet and preparation during his time at home with the family, enjoying time with his wife and children. That has left him mentally refreshed and physically much sharper than before. The only slight slip was Hazard being fined by his club for interviewing with Belgian TV without telling Madrid’s press team first. There is also a feeling that Hazard now accepts the extent of the challenge he faces at the Bernabeu. So far in his club career, he has never had to push himself to the limit. He has enjoyed his football and his life without feeling the need to eke every little bit out of his talent. Even winning the Premier League at Chelsea came relatively easily. To succeed at Madrid, a more singular focus is required and Zidane has been talking to him a lot during the enforced break to make sure this message gets across. Those around him bring up his experience with Belgium at the 2018 World Cup, when Hazard’s intense brilliance drove his country through to an unlucky semi-final defeat. Also in Russia that summer was Madrid’s fitness coach, who had prepared winners France to physically wear down their opponents. Dupont’s approach is now similar for La Liga’s accelerated schedule of 11 games in six weeks, a mini-competition that Hazard feels he is now ready for, physically and mentally. Tactically, Hazard also feels comfortable with Zidane. The former galactico is not one for issuing detailed instructions to his big-name players, but he does offer nuggets of well-timed advice, which are welcomed. Hazard even sees a hidden benefit now in being made to press and work hard off the ball, as these extra sprints should help him return to top shape more quickly. He still feels that Zidane values him, so wants to repay that faith. Hazard has been quite fortunate that Zidane and president Perez have made big personal bets on him. Supporters and pundits at the Bernabeu have been sympathetic about his situation and shown patience not always offered to other big names with a similarly poor goal and injury record. “The adaptation process at a team like Real Madrid is not easy,” Martin Vazquez says. “Many other top players have found it difficult to adapt. I expect he will be important for the team and make that difference over the last 11 games.” The hope for many at Madrid is that Hazard has been through a learning experience. Circumstances have worked against him at times, but they could be back in his favour. Those close to him say he now realises what it takes to meet the sky-high expectations at Madrid. He is ready to “explode’ over the next few months, they believe. A year on from his presentation as the symbol of new Madrid team, Hazard is still “not a galactico, not yet”. But he now has another chance to “begin from zero”.

I mostly agree, and I fucked up (rare for a list of mine) lol I forgot Rashord, grrrrrr (in my defence I was doing it on the train (am home now) on my phone with wifey pulling my hair over and over to get my attention, roflamoooooooooooooo) He got shoved over to LW on the site, so I missed him I would put him right after Werner, maybe right before, need to see how Timo adapts I would take Rashford well over Martial, who I would but at 12th, after or maybe right before Jesus (which is still really rating him and all the others, there is not a dog on the list, although some will whinge about Icardi, but the bloke is a fucking sniper) Lukaku I want no part of on a dream pick he is so not suited for Lampball Manure worries me so much De Gea is back to form and they are hellbent to add a WC CB a great DMF and Sancho they get those 3 and hold onto Pogba somehow, they are tough OGS still underwhelms as a manager thank fuck they didn't get Poch so far

Brilliant Werner was mocked by team-mates and called a ‘son of a whore’ by fans https://theathletic.com/1854014/2020/06/07/werner-timo-chelsea-leipzig-germany-stuttgart-honigstein/ Marc Kienle can never forget the first impression Timo Werner made on him: right on his nose. The former Stuttgart youth coach is laughing as he recounts going in goal during a practice session with Werner and other 12-year-olds. “He stepped up… and thumped the ball straight into my face,” Kienle tells The Athletic. “I didn’t want to show how much it hurt but came away thinking, ‘Man, that kid has some shot on him’.” It’s one Chelsea fans will no doubt get used to seeing very soon. As the son of former professional Gunther Schuh (German for “shoe”) and growing up in Stuttgart’s Bad Cannstatt district, just a few minutes from the Bundesliga club’s headquarters — Werner perhaps had a better-than-average chance of making it in the game. Schuh spent countless hours working on the boy’s shooting skills in the green hills surrounding the city until he was discovered and signed up by Stuttgart at the age of six. Werner (who plays under his mother’s surname) was a veritable wunderkind, even then. “He was physically much more advanced than his peers; unbelievably quick and dynamic. Opponents found it impossible to live with his runs and calmness in front of goal. He just wanted to score goals as if his life depended on it,” Kienle says. The ex-Stuttgart player was in charge of the under-17s and under-19s during the forward’s formative years but often conducted special technical drills with younger players. Werner’s natural goalscoring ability at 12 wasn’t immediately matched by his ball skills, however. “He had problems juggling the ball as often as the other kids did and couldn’t live up to the club’s standards in that respect but we gave him a pass because of his sensational runs and finishing. And to be fair to him, the next time I worked with him again a few weeks later, it was obvious that he had worked hard to improve his technique.” Werner’s explosiveness was such that he frequently lined up with kids two years older than him. Three days after his 15th birthday, he debuted in Kienle’s under-17s, an extraordinarily-gifted group that included Joshua Kimmich and Serge Gnabry (now both at Bayern Munich), Benfica goalkeeper Odysseas Vlachodimos and Rani Khedira (Augsburg), the younger brother of future World Cup winner Sami Khedira (Juventus). He scored seven goals in 10 appearances in his first season, then 24 in 24 in his second, with his father watching on at every game and almost every training session as well. “When Timo didn’t find the net in a game, he’d get very upset,” Kienle says. “You could point out to him that he’d actually performed well but that cut no ice. He was simply inconsolable unless he got on the scoresheet. That made him so different, so special.” “It was difficult not to see his talent,” Bruno Labbadia said a few years ago. Now-Hertha Berlin coach Labbadia gave Werner his professional debut at the age of 17 in a Europa League qualification game away to Botev Plovdiv of Bulgaria in August 2013. Stuttgart’s youngest-ever Bundesliga debutant scored five goals in 35 games in his first season, playing mostly as a winger, and immediately became a hero with the crowd. The fans were excited about another real Stuttgarter making waves, having lost Mario Gomez and Sami Khedira to Bayern and Real Madrid respectively. No one had any doubt Werner would blossom into a Germany international as well. “There won’t be any stopping him,” said Stuttgart’s captain at the time, Christian Gentner. Werner was a typical product of the German academy system: low-maintenance, uncomplicated and completely unremarkable off the pitch. There was no trouble — no fast cars, no dalliances with Instagram models. His family made sure his budding career didn’t put a stop to his education. With the club’s help, they ensured he passed his A levels when he was already an established Bundesliga forward. Unfortunately for Werner, his emergence coincided with Stuttgart’s sporting demise. His form wavered amid the turmoil of three chaotic seasons which saw the 2006-07 champions slip progressively further down the table and seven different coaches try and fail to stop the rot. “Far too much pressure was put on him to rescue a sinking ship,” a source at the club tells The Athletic. “People expected him to save us from relegation but he was still only a teenager. The burden was too high.” Werner duly failed to live up to the hype and only found the net three times in his second senior campaign. “He’s a goal machine but a little sensitive, too,” a former team-mate says. “He’s not one of those strikers who will score goals whether it’s minus-30 or 30 degrees hot. He needs to feel the support of the club and the coach. At the time, it wasn’t forthcoming. Instead of helping him, others were looking to him to make up for their flaws. The expectations were unrealistic.” Possibly wary of his status as the fans’ favourite, some of his team-mates used to mock him for missing the target in training, while coach Alexander Zorniger publicly criticised his trademark goal-celebration (“if he wasn’t so busy air-kissing, he could have scored a second goal today”) and poor performances. “There is a lot of envy in football,” Werner told newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung about his time at Stuttgart. “When you’re a young player popping up all of a sudden, getting ahead of older players and receiving lots of plaudits from outside, it’s perhaps a natural reflex to get slapped down once things don’t go so well, whether that’s by some of the fans, parts of the media, the coaching staff or a team-mate.” His six league goals weren’t enough to prevent Stuttgart going down for the first time in 29 years at the end of the 2015-16 season. The club and their unforgiving supporters were in shock. For many, Werner made for a convenient scapegoat and a fitting symbol of the club’s demise. Just like his team, they felt, he was essentially overrated, suffering from a mistaken sense of entitlement and unable to perform when it truly mattered. “I couldn’t play at my level and couldn’t change it either. My natural game had somehow gone missing,” he said later. There were no objections when Germany coach Joachim Low left him out of his Euro 2016 squad. Tottenham Hotspur had bid €10 million for him in 2015 but a year later, there weren’t many takers. Only Ralf Rangnick’s RB Leipzig, newly promoted to the Bundesliga, were keen and triggered his €10 million release clause. “There was no way you could do any wrong for that price, knowing what he was capable of at 20,” Rangnick tells The Athletic. “For our game, based on pace and directness, he was the perfect player. And we had a strong belief that he was going to get a lot better, as young players tend to do when they’re being well coached.” Under the tutelage of now Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl, Werner quickly went to another level. His 21 goals in 2016-17 helped Leipzig qualify for the Champions League in their first season in the top flight and made him the most prolific German striker in the division. He also helped a young national team win the Confederations Cup in the summer of 2017, yet found himself cast as German football’s public enemy number one. Wherever he played, he was greeted with, “Timo Werner is the son of whore” chants — including in a game for Germany. The insult even found its way onto a novelty record that became a big hit in the German tourist bars of Mallorca, sung to the tune of Belinda Carlisle’s 1980s number one Heaven Is A Place On Earth. The hate was triggered by a dive in a win over Schalke in December 2016. Werner admitted he had gone down too easily a couple of days later and his cynical conduct made him a natural target for all the traditionalists who disliked RB Leipzig’s inorganic ascent in the first place. By taking the Red Bull euro, Werner had gone from wunderkind to mercenary in their eyes. It didn’t help that he came across as rather cold in TV interviews. Germany likes their forwards jokey, matey and emotional but Werner, desperate to show that the public jeering didn’t get to him, only managed to alienate vast sections of the public further with his aloofness. Newspaper Die Welt called him “the greatest irritant in German football”. “I think he was taken the insults much more to heart than he let on,” Kienle says. “I don’t think it was fair on such a young player. We all make mistakes.” Two goals and an all-round strong performance in a 6-0 win over Norway in Stuttgart in September 2017 did turn the public tide somewhat. Werner was celebrated in his former home ground after Low and Germany team manager Oliver Bierhoff had urged the crowd to support Werner. The “Hurensohn” chants have since died down in many places, but not all of them. On the pitch, things went well, if not spectacularly so. A weaker second year for Leipzig delivered a return of 13 league goals, and a catastrophic World Cup in Russia by the holders didn’t do much for his standing, especially outside Germany. Upon Rangnick’s return as caretaker coach last season, Werner netted 16 times in the Bundesliga as Leipzig qualified for the Champions League for a second time. There was strong interest from Bayern but a move did not materialise. There’s perhaps no surprise that he’s hit new heights under Julian Nagelsmann this year, a managerial prodigy with a track record of improving forwards in particular. The 32-year-old has added more possession elements to Leipzig’s game and successfully forced Werner to adapt his style to smaller spaces. He’s been mostly playing as a slightly wide centre-forward off another central striker or as part of a three-pronged attack. Even his greatest detractors can’t deny his progress: 25 league goals underline his rise to elite level. He’s no longer a converted winger thriving on the break but an accomplished poacher in the Sergio Aguero mould. German FA chief scout Thomas Schneider, one of his former coaches at Stuttgart, is convinced that Werner will work out a very smart buy for Chelsea. “Look how good he is now, at the age of 24,” he tells The Athletic. “Then imagine what he’ll be like in three or four years, when he’s at his peak. Timo is a goal machine; he just loves to score goals. I have no doubt he’ll be a huge success in England.”

Chelsea want Abraham and Werner in same XI. But No 9 won’t rush to sign new deal https://theathletic.com/1858515/2020/06/08/abraham-werner-tammy-timo-chelsea-lampard/ In the summer of 2003, Frank Lampard made a decision that would define his career. He reported to Harlington for Chelsea pre-season training and watched as, one headline-grabbing deal after another, new owner Roman Abramovich’s unprecedented transfer spree transformed the squad before his eyes. Most worrying for Lampard were the arrivals of Joe Cole from West Ham, Juan Sebastian Veron from Manchester United and Claude Makelele from Real Madrid. Competition for places in Claudio Ranieri’s midfield was ramped up within the space of a few wild weeks, and expectations of what Chelsea could achieve on the pitch grew sky high. “I thought about the situation and decided that I had two choices: I could leave Chelsea or I could become a better footballer,” Lampard later recalled in his 2006 autobiography. “I decided to become a better footballer.” He finished the 2003-04 Premier League season with 10 goals from midfield for the first time in his career — a taste of what was to follow. The challenge presented to Tammy Abraham by Chelsea’s impressive move for RB Leipzig forward Timo Werner is not quite the same. Abramovich has bought only one new potential rival, albeit one with formidable pedigree; 25 goals in 30 Bundesliga appearances this season marks the Germany international out as one of the most talented and dangerous attackers anywhere in Europe. But it is a transfer that invites questions about how Chelsea view Abraham within their broader plans. Their decision to spend up to €60 million on a new attacker has raised a few eyebrows — not just because few other clubs are prepared to commit to such large deals during the pandemic, but also because they already have a striker who the numbers show has scored at a similar rate this season to a 22-year-old Harry Kane. Sources have told The Athletic that there were no specific conversations with Abraham about Chelsea’s decision to move for Werner before the deal was agreed and then leaked into the public domain. Lampard and his staff will, however, be watching their No 9 closely during training in the coming days and weeks to see how he reacts to the news. The feeling around Chelsea is that it will be good for Abraham to feel pushed. That is the way it should be at clubs with the greatest resources and grandest aspirations. His idol, Didier Drogba, forged a large part of his Stamford Bridge legacy on devouring other strikers brought in at great expense: hitting 20 Premier League goals in a season for the first time after Andriy Shevchenko’s arrival, then responding to the arrival of Fernando Torres by delivering the Champions League. Abraham has shown plenty of this kind of determination in his career to date, proving himself as a prolific goalscorer during loans at Bristol City and Aston Villa either side of a deeply frustrating spell at Swansea City that might have derailed a young striker with less self-belief. This season he has done enough to put to rest any doubts about his ability to punish Premier League defences. Lampard still considers Abraham central to the Chelsea team he is building. He wants his No 9 to be the focal point for the attack, just as adept holding up the ball with his back to goal and linking play as he is leading the team press and running in behind opposition defences. Abraham has shown hugely promising signs since last summer of being able to combine the best parts of Olivier Giroud’s game with his own greater speed and mobility. There is a reason why the forwards Chelsea have looked closest at over the past six months — Dries Mertens, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Werner — all happen to be converted wingers. They fit the profile of proven goalscorers who can just as easily play with Abraham as instead of him, as second strikers or left wingers encouraged to attack the penalty area at every opportunity. Werner’s tactical role for RB Leipzig has shifted this season, with Julian Nagelsmann often deploying him in front of the opposition defence more as a left-sided inside forward than a conventional on-the-shoulder striker. It has helped him become a more complete attacking threat, learning how best to exploit deep-lying opponents by drifting intelligently between the defensive lines, as well as using his explosive speed and acceleration to carve them open in transition. Along the way he has built an easy chemistry with Yussuf Poulsen, the 6ft 4in Denmark international who provides RB Leipzig with a more traditional focal point. It isn’t hard to imagine Werner and Abraham interacting in similar ways for Chelsea next season. If they do it could actually be Christian Pulisic, who began to flourish as Lampard’s secondary scoring threat from the left before missing three months with a groin injury, who faces the bigger fight to keep his starting spot. There will likely need to be a rebalancing of Chelsea’s attack whatever happens. Werner has averaged 4.1 shot attempts per 90 minutes in the Bundesliga this season, second only to Robert Lewandowski and more than Mohamed Salah (3.9) averages for Liverpool. Poulsen averages 2.4 shot attempts per 90 minutes — the same as Giroud in the Premier League this season — underlining his role as more of a facilitator than a true threat. Abraham averages 3.4 shot attempts per 90 minutes, ranking him fifth in the Premier League among regular starters. Playing with Pulisic this season has given him a taste of what to expect if paired with Werner; the USA international has managed to average 3.3 shot attempts per 90 minutes without either of them feeling sidelined within Chelsea’s attack. Regardless of which combination he picks, Lampard will expect his forwards to figure it out on the pitch to the benefit of the team. The complicating factor in all of this is the unresolved state of Abraham’s contract talks. He has two years left to run on his current deal. His scoring form has done much this season to strengthen his negotiating position, though apparently not quite enough yet to convince Chelsea that he is worth a package comparable with Callum Hudson-Odoi’s £120,000-a-week basic salary. Werner’s deal, which sources have told The Athletic is likely to rise to around £170,000-a-week plus bonuses, could well establish a new benchmark for Abraham’s camp. Lampard is understood to remain confident that Chelsea will convince their No 9 to commit his long-term future to the club, but it is fair to say that the process has already taken longer than most anticipated. Those around Abraham say he is keeping an open mind about Werner’s arrival. He always expected Chelsea to sign a new attacker in this transfer window, and he will back himself to win any battle to be Lampard’s starting striker. Don’t be surprised, however, if he decides to wait until he has a better idea of what the new arrival will mean for his game time before revisiting the contract question. Recent history shows Abraham the path Chelsea would like him to take. Lampard used the Abramovich revolution to drive himself to become arguably the greatest player in the club’s history. As well as seeing off Shevchenko and Torres, Drogba formed a prolific partnership with Nicolas Anelka which helped Carlo Ancelotti win an historic Double in 2009-10. Whether he becomes a rival, a running mate or a combination of the two, Werner could be exactly what Abraham needs to take his game to the next level. What happens next is up to him.

What 10 CF's would you choose for us? In order. Money is no object, clubs are no barrier, this is just pure buy ratings if expense is removed as a barrier. None can be 29yo and up, so only 28yo and under, as there is zero chance we would drop huge cash on a player who is already 30 or turns 30 this coming season (like Griezmann, Lewa, Immobile, Cavani, Aubameyang, etc are all no goes.) Kane (too much hate and I think he might be starting to decline, especially injuries wise, this season upcoming is make or break for that) and Firmino (barely makes age cut, if he was 4 months older he would not) are allowed, but I refuse to put them in the list for me. on edit I so forgot Rashford 1. Mbappe 2. Håland 3. Havertz (I know, he plays all over, why do you think I want him so badly, lolol) 4. Lautaro Martinez 5. Werner 6. Rashford (I could see flipping him with Werner, but Werner guts the nod at 5 for now) 7. Dybala 8. Calvert-Lewin 9. Icardi 10. Richarlison Bonus SS João Félix Gabriel Jesus drops out of the top 10 due to Rashford add

my objection is the £60 to £80m price tag that was been tossed out for damn near a year. The only LB in the world I would spend £70m plus on atm is Alphonso Davies. Robertson £60m (he turns 27 this coming season, so has only 3 full sub 30yo seasons left) Alaba £40-45m or so, as he soon is 28. If he was 3 or 4 years younger, then he is an £80m player. in a normal market Chilwell is worth £45-50m max in this COVID market, that 10, 20m (or more) extra is the fucking English tax, and I am not an into paying that very often. I rate Theo Hernandez, Alaba (last year to buy him) above Chilwell (obviously Davies and Robertson too) Almost every fullback goes to shit after they are over 30. I have said and shown this 30 times or more since I joined. I think Alex Sandro is a wee exception and has 3 decent years left in him, so I would not mind a straight swap for Emerson. Short term move, but 3 years of solid LB play is 3 more years than we have had since Ash left. I would however, rather buy Theo or Alaba flat out. If there was no FFP and I had 20 billion backing me, I would offer Bayern 100m euros for Davies. I think by the end of next season or so, he will be the best fullback in the world, even counting TAA. He is faster and far better defensively than TAA, and has crazy attacking winger skills. The kid is only 19 too. I have never seen a better fullback at that age on my life, and he has been playing there for only around 8 bloody months. the 5 best players on the planet 21yo and under atm are Mbappe (best player overall on the planet) Sancho Havertz Håland Davies then João Félix Sandro Tonali Eduardo Camavinga Matthijs de Ligt Nicolò Zaniolo Achraf Hakimi Ferran Torres Victor Osimhen Ansu Fati Christian Pulisic Declan Rice Ryan Gravenberch Rodrygo Vinícius Júnior Dayot Upamecano Reece James Ibrahima Konaté Gianluigi Donnarumma CHO Florentino Martin Ödegaard Samu Chukwueze Mason Greenwood Mohamed Ihattaren Gabriel Martinelli Dejan Kulusevski Edmond Tapsoba Marash Kumbulla Boubakary Soumaré Alessandro Bastoni Alexander-Arnold turns 22 near the start of next season Federico Valverde turns 22 in a month and half Houssem Aouar turns 22 in 3 weeks Frenkie de Jong turned 23 3 weeks ago Lautaro Martínez is 22, 23 in August Marcus Rashford is 22yo Federico Chiesa is 22yo Aaron Wan-Bissaka is 22yo Theo Hernández is 22yo

FFP take that away (and still realistic in terms of who we simply cannot buy, like Mbappe, Varane, Alphonso Davies) and my splash the cash like Scarface starting XI GK Oblak CB Romagnoli CB Skriniar LB David Alaba RB Reece DMF Sandro Tonali CMF Saúl Ñíguez AMF Havertz LW Sancho RW Ziyech CF Werner

GK Uğurcan Çakır or Predrag Rajković CB Try like hell for Romagnoli (seeing as so many do not rate Gabriel and think Salisu is too raw) IF we do not go for a left-footed one then I say Skriniar should be top of the list on a COVID discount (yes, I know that either truly puts paid to Havertz, but Bayer did that already with their 100m euros or fuck off demands) Edmond Tapsoba is another CB to REALLY think about, but, like Gabriel and Salisu, is young, although he looks REALLY polished already. My other WC CB's are too expensive or are impossible to pull (Varane, José Giménez, Marquinhos, or too old for the cost, ie Koulibaly) LB Swap Emerson for Alex Sandro (if not, as Chilwell at even £60m is outrageous, then Theo Hernandez, who Irate as a better buy that Nicolás Tagliafico, Theo is around 6 years younger, bigger, (1.84m versus 1.72m) faster, stronger) Telles is now being chased by too many teams Manchester City 'join race for Alex Telles' Alaba perhaps but I fear Bayern will want Chilwell level cash, although Alaba is also a left-footed CB atm, so there is that to consider. I think he might be overwhelmed at CB in the EPL though, as he is only 1.80m tall and not the strongest bloke.Robin Gosens is also in the mix. DMF Sandro Tonali FTW (or Thomas Partey as a the 2nd option) Kante looks like he is going to fuck us hard (ie not play due to COVID, let us all hope not) Toss Denis Zakaria in the mix as well.

yes, absolutely

he has replacement potential I rate Uğurcan Çakır and Predrag Rajković as my two top smart GK buys these two posts were pre COVID in terms of utter chaos

it was a £97m loss https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2019/12/31/chelsea-fc-financial-results in 2018 we made £62m in profit https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2018/12/31/chelsea-fc-financial-results-show-record-revenues in 2017 we made a £15m profit https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2017/12/29/financial-results-announced-with-record-revenues-#:~:text=Chelsea FC plc today announced,increase of 9.8 per cent. FFP is based off a rolling 3 year review the max loss allowed loss allowed for 3 years is 30m euros total (£25m) add those 3 years up, and we squeaked by with a £20m cumulative loss as for pure monies in and out from transfers Assuming Werner costs £53/60m euros (not the £49m /55m euros I have seen quoted as well) we are down to £74m in the net kitty (as we had £127m after the Kovacic and Ziyech buys, giving a running total that I have kept for ages) that £74m is explained to a point at the link below (that link is pre Werner buy so you can adjust accordingly) We will soon know where we stand in terms of the the fiscal year that soon ends (on June 30th, 2020) obviously none of us have a clue as to the true bottom line, as we do not have access to the club's books we shall soon see

I would maybe, maybe take that deal, interesting option Juve are just pure cunts to deal with and De Ligt is a dice roll, although one with HUGE upside for the next 10 to 12 years

15 CL-winning capable CB pairings (LCB first, and all these have a left-footer and then a right-footer) I did not include VVD, nor De Ligt (too young and not proven) some of these are damn near impossible, especially Laporte and Varane and Lucas (I still think Kante could be used as bait for Varane, but oh well) Koulibaly is soon 29 (in 13 days), so unless a huge price cut is involved, he is a pass for me. We should have bought him ages ago, but got poison dwarfed the first pair would be my pick if I had godlike powers and could grab any LCB and RCB in the world, but ANY of these 15 pairings would be insane to have

We all know I fucking HATE Real with a burning passion, more than and other international team, with Bayern, Juve, a tie for 2nd and Barca in 4th, BUT they (especially with CR7), were the absolute pit of doom to play in the CL for ages. All 4 of those teams I hate not because they are always in the top 4 to 8 teams in the world, I respect winners on the pitch, but because of the way the manipulate the rules and bully the rest of not just Europe but the world. Real have destroyed the t-market (Barca too, but I just to not view them as pure predators like Real) and Juve and Bayern are just some pure cunts, who fuck teams over like crazy in Italy, Germany, and then fools like us who get involved (especially with Juve,) trying to make honest deals with them. BAD FAITH fuckers!!!