Vesper

IF Arse pull Osimhen they already will have won the window for the planet for this summer signing period 3rd highest valued CF on the planet 2nd highest valued left-footed CMF 5th highest valued left footed CB (and they already have the top valued one)

I wonder if this means we are about to drop €80m or so on Shamu?? 🤬

Why Chelsea’s goalkeepers will be crucial to Enzo Maresca’s system working https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5671414/2024/08/01/Chelsea-enzo-maresca-goalkeepers-tactics/ “For sure, the way we want to play, the goalkeeper is very, very important. It is one of the main positions.” Enzo Maresca did not attempt to downplay the greater demands that will be placed on his goalkeepers this season when he spoke after Chelsea’s first pre-season friendly against Wrexham. The ripple effects have already led to Filip Jorgensen being signed from Villarreal for a fee of €24.5million (£20.7m, $26.6m), creating the real possibility that Djordje Petrovic will be sold only a year after arriving at Stamford Bridge. Robert Sanchez is set to go into the new Premier League season as Chelsea’s starting goalkeeper. Even he must make a significant adjustment to satisfy a head coach whose tactical approach requires an 11th outfield player when in possession, and a highly aggressive last line of defence when out of it. Maresca’s system is about control, and control is established at the back. When his team has the ball and one of his full-backs inverts into central midfield, the goalkeeper is instructed to push up where possible to restore a fourth passing option to the defensive line, creating a 4-2-2-3 alignment in possession. This could be seen regularly at Leicester City last season, with goalkeeper Mads Hermansen venturing far outside his penalty area in possession to aid his team’s attempts to build up play and defeat opponents’ pressing systems. Here, against Southampton, he splits centre-backs Jannik Vestergaard and Wout Faes while left-back James Justin pushes up high and wide. Right-back Ricardo Pereira is in midfield: Despite committing five players to the opposition half, Southampton’s pressing unit is outnumbered thanks to Hermansen. On this occasion, he spots an opportunity to kick longer towards Abdul Fatawu, who wins the aerial duel and creates a dangerous situation where Southampton are forced to defend man-to-man: Those longer passes were the exception rather than the rule for Hermansen under Maresca; while he averaged the second-most attempted passes of any goalkeeper in the Championship last season per 90 minutes (49.7) according to Fbref (behind Carl Rushworth, on loan at Swansea from Brighton & Hove Albion), only 13.5 were hit further than 30 yards. Most of his shorter passes were directed into central areas just outside his box: Maresca demands that his goalkeeper be comfortable and courageous enough with the ball to play shorter passes through and around opposition pressure. The sequence below is a good example. Starting in a deeper position, Hermansen waits to draw three opponents towards his penalty area before threading an incisive pass forward to Faes, who has space to advance: Baiting the opposition press is a risky business for a goalkeeper. When it goes wrong the results can be catastrophic, as Hermansen found when he dallied too long against Birmingham City in April and striker Jay Stansfield charged down his attempted clearance, deflecting it into the net: Asked about his goalkeeper’s mistake after the match, Maresca said: “We won many games this year because of Mads. It can happen. What cannot happen is that he starts to play long balls. Otherwise, we are going to play the second keeper.” The above sequence may prompt shudders from Chelsea supporters who recall similar errors from Sanchez last season — not all of which were punished — attempting to build from the back under Mauricio Pochettino. Those moments do not appear to have shaken his confidence in his ability to do what Maresca requires. “It’s a different style,” Sanchez told talkSPORT earlier this month. “The goalkeeper here needs to ‘have a pair’ and show a bit of personality. I think I am the right guy for that.” Sanchez has committed himself to Maresca’s system in his early pre-season appearances. Here, against Wrexham, he slowly advances with the ball into Chelsea’s defensive line and then, when no opposition pressure is forthcoming, rattles a sharp pass into the feet of Romeo Lavia: But there were also signs in Chelsea’s dispiriting 4-1 defeat against Celtic that the Spaniard’s decision-making in possession is not yet as reliable as Maresca needs it to be. Receiving a backpass from Tosin Adarabioyo under a strong Celtic press, he elects to move the ball straight to a retreating Benoit Badiashile, who compounds the error with a reckless and wayward first-time pass back towards Tosin. The result is a disastrous turnover and an almost immediate goal conceded: In any case, Sanchez will need to significantly scale up his involvement in possession under Maresca; he averages 40.8 touches per 90 minutes according to FBref, much lower than Hermansen’s 51.4. There is also a marked distinction in where these touches occur. Hermansen was extremely adventurous in his positioning under Maresca, taking 32 per cent of his touches in central areas in front of his penalty area: As well as making himself an 11th outfield player when Leicester had the ball, he was also an aggressive sweeper-keeper behind his team’s high defensive line. At times these two roles merged: here, against Norwich City, his interception of a high ball over the Leicester defence is also a first-time pass down the left side towards Yunus Akgun, who initiated a sharp passing interchange that quickly transforms defence into attack: Sanchez, in contrast, took 74 per cent of his total touches for Chelsea in 2023-24 in his penalty area and fewer than 10 per cent in those same more advanced central zones: He is not naturally wired to be hyper-aggressive rushing out of his penalty area, but interventions like this one against Wrexham will need to become commonplace under Maresca: According to FBref, the average distance from goal of Hermansen’s defensive actions is 18.8 yards, slightly beyond the boundary of his own penalty area. Sanchez’s average distance is 15.8 yards, a marginal but important difference in Maresca’s system. But what of the other senior goalkeepers at Maresca’s disposal? First, it is easy to see why Petrovic is not considered a good fit. He is more risk-averse with his distribution, favouring safe passes to centre-backs either side of his penalty area as well as kicking longer when pressured more often than Hermansen or Sanchez: With an average distance of defensive actions of just 12.7 yards he is also even more conservative with his positioning in and out of possession than Sanchez, interacting with the ball outside his penalty area as little as possible: New signing Jorgensen is an interesting case. He registered the highest pass completion rate (80.7 per cent) of any La Liga goalkeeper not playing for Real Madrid or Barcelona in 2023-24 and his shorter distribution was notably more progressive than that of Petrovic, exhibiting a greater willingness to pass forward into central areas outside his box: But the Dane hardly profiled as a modern sweeper-keeper at Villarreal. The average distance from goal of his defensive actions is 13.8 yards, only marginally better than Petrovic, while 82 per cent of his touches were confined to his penalty area and the bulk of those were in his own six-yard box: Perhaps that is no more than a reflection of the way Jorgensen was instructed to play at Villarreal, but it does mean he faces an even greater stylistic change than Sanchez if he is to establish himself as the type of goalkeeper Maresca wants at the base of his team. None of Chelsea’s current goalkeeping options are as seamless a fit for their new head coach’s system as Hermansen was at Leicester in 2023-24. Maresca will be hoping that is no longer the case when competitive football begins later this month.

Filip Jørgensen ready to battle Robert Sanchez for Chelsea No 1 spot https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5676740/2024/08/02/filip-jorgensen-Chelsea-sanchez/ Filip Jorgensen says he is ready to battle Robert Sanchez to be the first choice goalkeeper at Chelsea. Jorgensen completed a €24.5million (£20.7m, $26.6m) move from Villarreal earlier this week and flew out to the United States of America to join the club on their pre-season tour. The 22-year-old has already made his first appearance, replacing Sanchez at the start of the second half in Chelsea’s 3-0 victory over Club America. New head coach Enzo Maresca has yet to confirm who his main ‘keeper will be this season and Jorgensen is ready to fight for his place in the side. He said: “I came here to compete with him (Sanchez). Then, of course, the one who chooses is the manager. I try to do my best every day, to get better. Then at the end of the day, it’s the manager who will decide who will play. “We (Maresca and Jorgensen) talked a bit (before joining). He wanted me to come here and I wanted to come as well. It was a short conversation just to get to know each other a little bit. “Everyone welcomed me very well, to be honest. Robert as well. He seems to be a very good guy, a good trainer, and I think we will compete good. We will have good competition.” Jorgensen reveals he ignored interest from a number of other Premier League clubs in favour of a move to Stamford Bridge — as well as from a Ligue 1 team in France. He recorded the most saves in La Liga for Villarreal last season (143), but one of the main reasons the Denmark Under-21 international, who agreed a new five-year contract at Villarreal only a few months ago, has been signed is because he fits Maresca’s philosophy of having a keeper that is comfortable in possession. Jorgensen added: “In Spain, we also always try to build from the back and try to play with the goalkeeper. I would say I’m pretty confident with that. I have some knowledge of how the manager wants to play but it’s been very quick. I have seen some videos, I have trained (with the team), but I am looking forward to getting to know his style of play better. “In the summer, we got some clubs calling, and they wanted me to come. But in the end, when Chelsea called, there was no doubt for me. The club and my agent, we knew it was Chelsea where we wanted to go, so I’m very happy. “I have taken the first steps. I am very happy. Now we have to keep building and getting to know the players better.” Chelsea begin the new Premier League campaign against champions Manchester City on August 18. GO DEEPER Filip Jorgensen to Chelsea: The Athletic 500 transfer ratings

Chelsea’s Andrey Santos returns to Strasbourg on loan https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5676092/2024/08/02/Chelsea-andrey-santos-strasbourg-loan/ Chelsea midfielder Andrey Santos has returned to Ligue 1 club Strasbourg on a loan deal for the 2024-25 campaign. The French club are owned by BlueCo, the multi-club ownership group which also controls Chelsea. The Brazilian has been capped once by his country and returns to Strasbourg for a second spell having spent the second half of the 2023-24 season at the French side. Santos arrived at Stamford Bridge in January 2023 from Brazilian club Vasco da Gama in a deal worth £18million ($22.8m), with the 20-year-old then rejoining the club in March last year. He spent the first half of last season on loan at Nottingham Forest but played just seven minutes of Premier League action for the club, as he featured in the 3-0 defeat at Liverpool in October 2023. Chelsea recalled Santos from the City Ground in January before loaning him to Strasbourg, for whom he scored one goal in 11 appearances. He returned to Chelsea this summer and had been a part of Enzo Maresca’s pre-season squad that is in the United States. Strasbourg finished 13th in Ligue 1 last season and made a managerial change over the summer, with Patrick Vieira leaving by mutual consent and replaced by Liam Rosenior. GO DEEPER Chelsea, Strasbourg, BlueCo and a multi-club model yet to convince a sceptical fanbase

Why Conor Gallagher is on cusp of Chelsea exit: Short contract offer and fear of free transfer https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5671384/2024/08/02/conor-gallagher-Chelsea-atletico-madrid-transfer/ As he walked with his Chelsea team-mates on a lap of appreciation around the Stamford Bridge pitch in May, flanked by his jubilant father celebrating a hard-fought win over Bournemouth on the Premier League’s final day by pumping a fist towards the Matthew Harding Stand, a shirtless and smiling Conor Gallagher gave off no sense of a man saying goodbye. But a move to Atletico Madrid in a deal worth €40million (£34m) is fast becoming the likeliest outcome — one that would bring to a close 18 months in which the England international’s future at Chelsea has been the source of endless uncertainty. Throughout the summer, the message coming out of Stamford Bridge was that two very different options remained open for Gallagher: he could sign a new contract or be sold. Allowing him to go into the final year of his existing deal and reach free agency in July 2025 was one scenario that owners Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly were utterly unwilling to countenance. So the revelation that Gallagher twice turned down the offer of a new contract at Chelsea — once in early June and again in late July — against the backdrop of serious interest from Atletico Madrid landed with a jolt, undercutting the notion that the Cobham graduate wanted nothing more than to keep playing for his boyhood club. It is also an incomplete picture of a more nuanced, complicated reality. To tell the fuller story, The Athletic gathered information from various individuals involved in the Gallagher saga, all of whom spoke anonymously in order to protect relationships. Chelsea offered Gallagher the same contract twice: two years guaranteed followed by a club option to extend for a third, on a vastly increased salary than the previous deal he had signed as a 21-year-old before joining West Bromwich Albion on loan in September 2020. His new wages would, according to those with knowledge of the club’s pay scale, have pushed him up into the same range as top midfield earners Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo. On the first occasion, Chelsea tabled a formal contract offer in early June after Gallagher had indicated he did not want to join Aston Villa, who had expressed serious interest in signing him. The second time around, as talks with Atletico intensified in late July, club officials checked in with the England international’s camp to see if he was prepared to reconsider the same terms. Both times the answer from Gallagher’s camp was no. Whether this offer should be regarded as a two-year or a three-year deal, given the nature of the option, is a matter for the parties involved to debate. What is indisputable is that it stood in marked contrast to almost every other first-team contract handed out by Chelsea under Clearlake and Boehly, where a minimum of six guaranteed years has become the standard. Within this context, Chelsea’s offer of a much shorter deal sent a clear signal that Gallagher’s long-term presence in the first-team squad was not viewed in the same way as that of fellow midfielders Fernandez, Caicedo, Romeo Lavia or Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, one year older than Gallagher, who arrived on a six-year contract from Leicester City in June. Chelsea’s rationale was that while Gallagher’s off-ball excellence had helped him establish himself as a regular starter under Mauricio Pochettino, he was projected to be a squad player in new head coach Enzo Maresca’s more possession-focused, positional style of play. As such, while they were willing to reward his performances with a big pay rise and potentially be proven wrong in their assessment, they were not prepared to risk limiting themselves in football and financial terms by committing to a long-term deal on such terms. From a business perspective, such a short guaranteed contract would also have allowed Chelsea to protect Gallagher’s transfer value beyond the summer of 2025, giving them more time to assess his squad role under Maresca and potentially canvass the market for him if he was deemed surplus to requirements or wanted to leave. Chelsea’s pitch to Gallagher’s camp was that if he took the deal, continued to improve in 2024-25 and became a regular starter under Maresca, he could quickly put himself in a strong position to return to the negotiating table and secure a longer contract in his higher salary range. This stance landed poorly with Gallagher, who had done much in 2023-24 to silence critics who doubted his ability to contribute to a ball-dominant team, leading Chelsea’s entire squad in minutes played across all competitions and proving one of Pochettino’s most reliable performers in a side that averaged 58.6 per cent possession in the Premier League, according to FBref. Gallagher could be forgiven for feeling he merited a more solid place in Chelsea’s long-term squad plans, and more stability in general. In terms of individual development, he has barely put a foot wrong in his career, returning from a series of productive loans in the summer of 2022 to blossom into a significantly positive contributor at Stamford Bridge. But he had not done enough to convince Chelsea that he would be worth paying like a regular starter on the type of ultra-long contract so often favoured by Clearlake and Boehly. Chelsea’s only previous attempt to initiate talks over a new contract was in October 2022. Gallagher’s camp opted not to engage at that time, wary of agreeing to fresh terms when his path to regular game time remained unclear; in the first two months of the 2022-23 campaign, he had started just three games and played 166 minutes in total. At the end of January 2023 the dynamic shifted when, having started back-to-back Premier League games against Crystal Palace and Liverpool, Gallagher was the subject of serious interest from Everton. They indicated they were prepared to meet Chelsea’s valuation and Gallagher’s camp were informed, but the player made it clear he had no interest in the move. The rest of the year came and went without any progress on a new contract for Gallagher. Operating under the impression that his camp would not consider an extension until he had established himself as a regular starter, Chelsea did not force the issue — and in the meantime, the club maintained an open stance in listening to transfer offers for him. Throughout last summer’s pre-season tour of the United States, during which Gallagher played more minutes across Chelsea’s five friendlies than any other player in Pochettino’s squad, he was shielded from media duties as speculation swirled that he was set to be sold. West Ham had a £40million offer turned down and there was serious interest from Tottenham. Chelsea were open to selling what they still considered to be a squad player for the right price, but there was also a degree of reticence inside Stamford Bridge about allowing Gallagher to join a domestic rival for Champions League qualification. Yet that reticence had not prevented Chelsea from selling Kai Havertz to Arsenal or Mason Mount to Manchester United for what they deemed to be good offers. Nor did Gallagher’s presence deter Clearlake and Boehly from sanctioning around £170million in transfer fees to sign midfielders Caicedo and Lavia in the summer of 2023, six months after completing a nine-figure deal to prise Fernandez from Benfica. Gallagher continued to play more frequently than anyone else in 2023-24, often wearing the captain’s armband in the lengthy injury absences of Reece James and Ben Chilwell. “It’s priceless to have a player like him,” Pochettino said pointedly in February, offering an early hint at his lack of alignment with Chelsea’s ownership and sporting leadership. Gallagher’s excellent individual 2023-24 campaign did no harm to his transfer value but, coupled with Chelsea deciding to mutually part ways with Pochettino and hire Maresca, it did set the stage for a fundamental disconnect between the player and the club about his importance to the team in the years ahead. Having enjoyed the best season of his career to date, Gallagher would ordinarily have been in a very strong position to get everything he wanted in a new contract — but Chelsea’s pivot to positional play with the arrival of Maresca raised new questions about his stylistic fit that he could not readily answer this summer, and entrenched the club’s negotiating position. Put simply, given the demands of Maresca’s system and Gallagher’s desire to be a regular starter, Chelsea feel it would be a mistake for both parties to enter into a longer-term commitment. The prospects of a contract extension receded further at the start of July when Chelsea signed Dewsbury-Hall, Maresca’s chief creator at Leicester, intensifying competition for midfield minutes in 2024-25. His six-year deal was also in contrast to the offer made to Gallagher, though his salary is considerably lower than that of Fernandez and Caicedo. Chelsea accepted a significantly lower transfer fee from Atletico for Gallagher than they could have recouped from another Premier League club at various points in the last 18 months. That is partly a reflection of the club’s preference to sell Gallagher abroad rather than to a Premier League rival, particularly Tottenham. Partly it is also born of their determination not to lose him for nothing in 12 months; Clearlake and Boehly consider the situations they inherited with Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen in the summer of 2022 to be ownership malpractice, and have vowed never to let any valuable player reach free agency again. Fundamentally, though, it is indicative of the club’s pragmatic calculation that selling him, even at considerably below his peak market value, is still preferable to giving him the combination of a big pay rise and a long-term contract that would have been required to keep him at Stamford Bridge beyond June 2025. Time may prove them right, and Chelsea might reasonably argue that such cold-eyed judgment is required to construct an elite squad. But the likely sale of Gallagher, coupled with the treatment of Trevoh Chalobah — another popular player squeezed out by signings deemed more suitable for Maresca’s style — could further inflame disaffected match-going supporters who voiced their disdain for the club’s senior decision-makers several times last season. As with all of their other major decisions this summer, Chelsea are doubling and tripling down on Maresca’s vision of football. Possession-focused positional play is at the heart of the philosophy that the new academy management structure will preach. Liam Rosenior and his staff are also being tasked with implementing that style of play at BlueCo sister club Strasbourg. The final choice of whether or not to join Atletico now belongs to Gallagher, but his departure from Chelsea this summer looks increasingly inevitable.

Enzo Maresca interview: ‘I am 100 per cent sure we are on the right path’ https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5674021/2024/08/01/Chelsea-enzo-maresca-interview/ Enzo Maresca does not want to perform an initiation song as Chelsea head coach but he is prepared to change his mind if it means getting to emulate Italian compatriot Antonio Conte. Maresca is already renowned as a coach who does his homework. As he sits down with a small group of journalists in Atlanta to conduct his first in-depth interview since taking over at Stamford Bridge, he does not need reminding that Conte was the last manager to win the Premier League for Chelsea. Conte led Chelsea to the title in his first season in charge seven years ago. Before the 2016-17 campaign began, the club toured the United States. After being asked to take part in the Chelsea tradition of new arrivals performing for the rest of the group, Conte obliged them by singing a Neapolitan favourite called Malafemmena. In contrast, Maresca jokes it was part of the terms and conditions inserted in his five-year contract that he does not have to follow suit, but adds: “If someone said that singing would make us win the title, then I am going to sing every night!” Few will consider Chelsea among the favourites to lift the trophy next May. The men’s team has not won any silverware since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium took over two years ago and they finished 28 points behind champions Manchester City last season. Maresca knows better than most the size of the task facing him to bridge the gap to his former employers, let alone teams such as Arsenal. He was assistant to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, who have won six of the last seven Premier League titles, when they won the treble in 2022-23 and, before a brief 14-game in charge at Parma, was City’s under-21s head coach. After succeeding Mauricio Pochettino, who left by mutual consent, there are inevitably going to be teething problems. Before securing their first pre-season win over Club America on Wednesday night, Chelsea struggled to a 2-2 draw with League One side Wrexham and were thrashed 4-1 by Scottish champions Celtic. Manchester City are their next opponents in Colombus on Saturday. The fixture comes two weeks before they face each other in their opening Premier League game on August 18, when there will be a lot more scrutiny about what takes place. Maresca is feeling calm and realistic. ”I would like to reach the same level (as Manchester City) as soon as possible,” he said. “Every manager is asking for time, especially when you change the idea completely. “Sometimes it looks like an excuse but for instance, everyone that watches us is focused on what we do with the ball, we build from behind. But I watched many, many games last season of Chelsea and I almost never saw man-to-man high pressing. They always wait a little bit. Since we started, we have decided to go man-to-man because it is our way, so aggressive. It’s a big change. “Before the Celtic game, we sat with the staff and said how they had played four friendly games, with their first league game (vs Kilmarnock) coming up this weekend (August 4) while we have played 45 minutes (only Carney Chukwuemeka was not substituted at half-time against Wrexham). We could sit back and wait, not take a risk, or we could go in the way we want to go in the season. I said, ‘No chance! We are going in the way we want to because we need to prepare ourselves for the season’. “The big difference between us and the teams that dominate, Manchester City and Arsenal, is that one club has had the same manager for eight years (Guardiola) and the other one for five years (Arteta). We have had two or three weeks. “If we played against Celtic with Leicester, we would have played better because I already had one year and they knew many things. But when you start, it is the price you pay at the beginning. I am 100 per cent sure we are on the right path.” One of the reasons Chelsea hired Maresca despite his limited experience as a head coach — Leicester in 2023-24 was only his second job and they finished top of the Championship — was the knowledge he has gleaned from working closely with Guardiola. He wants his teams to dominate possession like Manchester City, another factor that appealed to the Chelsea hierarchy. But Maresca is resistant to the notion that he is a Guardiola clone turning Chelsea into a bunch of copycats. He told the club the same during the interview process. “What I don’t like is people, or you, or fans, or the club expecting the same football that Manchester City is doing,” he said. “Because when I joined Leicester and I met the chairman and sporting director, they asked me, ‘We want to change the style and we want to play the same way that City play’. And I told them, ‘We don’t have the same players and I am not the same manager’. The same thing when I met Chelsea. I said, ‘The idea is that idea, but probably we need time because the players also need to understand what way we want to play and it’s a bit different’.” The lazy comparisons are made even easier because Maresca looks so similar to Guardiola that they could be related. He continued: “This is something that I struggle a little bit with sometimes, when I see something saying, ‘Because he’s bald and with a beard, he wants to play the same’. No, I don’t want. I try to play the way that we want to play. It is probably close because I fell in love with that idea, but that does not mean it is exactly the same way.” No one should doubt how much admiration Maresca has for Guardiola, though. It began when Maresca was playing in midfield for Sevilla against Guardiola’s great Barcelona side that won the treble in 2009. In the two La Liga games played between them that season, Sevilla lost 7-0 on aggregate. “I have to say that, if I am where I am now, it’s because of him,” Maresca admits. “I was 28, 29. I faced Barcelona. On the pitch, I realised that it was not the same as playing against another team. I was still playing and I was already watching games, analysing games, watching training sessions on YouTube, because I fell in love immediately. It’s like when you see your wife or your kids. I fell in love.” Such is the strength of their bond, they speak frequently, including the night before this interview. On accepting the post at Chelsea, Guardiola was one of the first to reach out and back him to do a good job. ”We speak many times,” he says. “When I joined Chelsea, he was very happy because he is sure with timing, we can build something important.“ Another former Manchester City coach, Manuel Pellegrini, is among the other men he lists as having a big influence on his coaching career: “He was the one that said to me, ‘Enzo, you have to try to be a manager’.” Carlo Ancelotti, who won the Premier League and FA Cup with Chelsea in 2009-10, is another. Both taught him about man-management. So what does he make of the squad he has inherited? Naturally, he had only good things to say about them during the interview process with Chelsea, which consisted of three or four meetings in all. Another Premier League club was keen on hiring him too. Maresca did not name who but Brighton, Liverpool and West Ham all changed managers over the summer, while Manchester United spoke to other candidates before deciding to stick with Erik ten Hag. “I expected exactly what they (the players) are showing me,” he says. “Christopher (Nkunku) was injured for almost all last season but I knew from Germany how good he is. He has surprised me but it is not a big one, I expected that. I know Levi (Colwill) is very good and he is showing what I expected. There was some doubt with Noni (Madueke) but in the way I like the winger, he could be a good profile for us. Most of all, it is just important to compete and have at least two options so if it is not you, it can be him and we have the same level.” He is yet to see Chelsea’s best player from last season, Cole Palmer, who was given extended time off after playing for England at Euro 2024. Palmer scored a remarkable 25 goals in his debut season at the club, not that it came as a shock to Maresca, who worked with him while in charge of Manchester City Under-21s. The 22-year-old was given a lot of licence to express himself under Pochettino, but could Maresca’s high-press demands force the attacker to adapt in some way? Given he does not report to Cobham until next week, he is already going to have to play catch-up when it comes to understanding the system. “I’ve spoken with him many times. He is not going to play if he does not work,” Maresca laughs. “I had Cole one year so I know him. I know he likes a little bit of freedom. But if Cole is what he is now, it’s because he learned for 10 to 15 years the way he learned at Manchester City. “On and off the ball, for sure he is a fantastic player. He scored (over) 20 goals last season. Hopefully, he can score the same but it is not easy for any player to score (over) 20 one year and do the same the next. What we want from Cole is to try and be himself.” Before our time is up, Maresca is asked how he would celebrate if he does take the Chelsea men’s team to their first trophy since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium took over. “I love cigars,” he replies. “I love Partagas because my dad smokes cigars. Partagas is the one (brand) that I like.” Just like Maresca’s squad, they do not come cheap. But they will be worth every penny if Maresca succeeds in providing the spark that has been missing at Chelsea for the past two years.

Wes Fofana likely a perma damged flop, and so epensive Badiashile closing in on 'flop' territory

Chelsea https://thedailybriefing.io/i/147227634/Chelsea The new contract proposed by Chelsea and twice rejected by Conor Gallagher was valid for two years plus an option for a further season. Chelsea agreed on a deal with Aston Villa for Gallagher in June, a club-record for Villa... Conor said no. Now, he has to decide on a move to Atléti. Wesley Fofana: “I’m desperate to show why Chelsea bought me, of course… also because I love my club. When I joined Chelsea, then I realised my dream. I want to perform, I am hungry. I want to win titles for sure. I am ready to work hard for that.” Understand Chelsea keep pushing and advancing on the Gabriel Mec deal with Gremio. Negotiations underway between clubs, Chelsea are opening talks with Gremio after the player’s green light to the project. 2008 born Brazilian talent, keen on Chelsea move. Si Phillips does a deep dive into why the Man City fixture will be a different kettle of fish for Enzo Maresca. Andrey Santos will be announced as a new signing for Strasbourg later today. Loan move from Chelsea, confirmed. Napoli and Chelsea have reopened discussions for Romelu Lukaku. How will that affect any move for Victor Osimhen? Fabrizio Romano breaks the latest news down.

this is true especially at CB where I really believe we are fucked

lol, I started reading that and thought that was the Atleti offer for Gallagher!! almost reflex tossed a glass at the wall 🤪

you know we are in the D leagues when the 'big' names playing are FC København CFR Cluj Gent CSKA Sofia Başakşehir AEK Athens Austria Wien Djurgården (boooooooooooooo!!!) Brøndby Maccabi Haifa Legia Warszawa Vitória SC Hajduk Split Maribor FC Zürich and the 4 other 'BIGGER' teams who (besides Chels) got draws Fiorentina Lens Real Betis FC Heidenheim Fiorentina and Betis are the main threats, maybe Lens

yes

yes, with an AI personalised video with my full real name

Sanchez looked surprisingly good by far his best half a game in a long time

as long as the numbers work financially I dont give a toss what sponsor we have, other than porn and gambling

major injuries destroy footballers careers

so many bitch about 'experienced vet players needed' but the ones we bought were shit Koulibaly, Sterling, etc

he was a shit buy said so from the beginning and that insane salary, arffffffff

the only player who played like shit was Broja

no, Nkunku told him to take it

so much better