Vesper

righted footed LW is simple dump that fucker Sterling on the Saudis and buy either Désiré Doué or Morgan Rogers (Doué for me) Adeyemi is just a black version of Mudryck, with even worse decison making and ouput I used to really want him, I just have not seen him produce enough end product, have not seen him take it up a notch PLUS HE IS LEFT FOOTED, we need a right footed attacker, as we have so so many already, plus coming in I do not understand this obession with left footed players by our owners

No Mamardashvili is a better keeper and would cost a lot less

Swiss-born (like Xhaka, etc) Albanian rapper Loredana She is around 6 and half years older than him (she turns 29 in a month and half), and supposedly manipulates him (many stereotypes in play, such as older woman controlling younger man, sexpot slag Albanian seductress who bounces from man to man and uses them all, black man being controlled by his pronger, the interracial aspects, etc etc)

Nico demands crazy high wages, far above what we will pay.

If GKer doesnt worry you, then I do not kow what would. Petro is a decent backup Slonina looks like a long term project (and was still a teen just seveal months ago) the rest are meh

How much like Pep Guardiola is Enzo Maresca? https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5549110/2024/06/10/enzo-maresca-pep-guardiola-Chelsea/ It is easy to see why so many comparisons are made between new Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca and the man he used to be assistant to at Manchester City — Pep Guardiola. Beyond their similar physical appearance, Maresca has adopted a football philosophy that could have been drawn straight out of the Guardiola playbook. The circumstances of Maresca’s move to Manchester City in 2020 should serve to confirm the similarities to — or at least his suitability for — Guardiola. City were looking for a new under-23s manager and sporting director Txiki Begiristain put forward Maresca’s name, having heard good things about him from former City boss Manuel Pellegrini, who coached Maresca at Malaga in Spain. Maresca was part of Pellegrini’s backroom staff at West Ham United and Begiristain, always planning for the future, was keen to get him on board in some capacity, with half an eye on pairing him up with Guardiola — or possibly even succeeding him — in the future. Having emerged as the strongest candidate for the position following a round of interviews, he led a fine City team to the club’s first ever Premier League 2 title before being picked up by Parma. After a season there, he returned to City to join Guardiola at last in 2022, as part of his first-team staff. So, how similar are Guardiola and Chelsea’s new man in charge? Tactical approach and football philosophy Maresca studies managers and their playing styles from around the world, using folders on his laptop to keep track of teams that he thinks have been playing well or are worthy of further investigation, with a particular focus on patterns of play and modern tactical trends. His research serves as an archive of footballing knowledge and coaching methods that he has, in some cases, tried to implement himself, and has also allowed him to establish the way that he wants his own teams to play. That was one of the aspects that impressed Begiristain and others in the City academy during his first stint in Manchester but it was not just about style. “He was a winner. That stood out straight away,” says one source, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their position. He has certainly demonstrated that with his success coaching City’s under-23s and being part of the treble-winning staff, and besides a 13-game spell at Parma, he has carried on that winning trend with Leicester City, leading them back to the Premier League at the first attempt. He demanded high standards from everyone around him at Leicester and dedicated himself to long hours at their Seagrave training base. Maresca is very much his own man, completely wedded to his philosophy, but without doubt, Guardiola will have had an influence on his approach. He and Guardiola were in close contact throughout that 2020-21 season, while he was under-23s boss, in part due to the Covid-19 bubbles; contact was often limited with other people inside and outside of the training ground during that time, and so people inside their bubbles generally spent a lot of time together, but it is said that Maresca was the first under-23s boss to really make a connection with Guardiola. Due to their shared vision of the game, those two, Juanma Lillo and Begiristain spoke often, long before Maresca joined Guardiola’s first-team staff when he returned from Parma. During Maresca’s time with City’s under-23s, he moved a full-back into midfield to provide an extra body before Guardiola found success by using Joao Cancelo in the same way. Guardiola was no stranger to doing that long before that season, of course, but it is thought that the two discussed it before deploying it with their own teams. Guardiola’s own playing style is strongly defined and although some basic principles are non-negotiable — to dominate possession, to “run like bastards” — he does constantly adapt to the players he has, for example, shifting City towards a false-nine system in 2021 and 2022, only to integrate Erling Haaland since then. When Jose Mourinho was manager of rivals Manchester United, Guardiola took exception to Mourinho being called pragmatic, arguing that he too could be pragmatic, just in a different way: through possession. Maresca is committed to his ‘idea’ of dominating possession, moving the ball to move the opposition, with a full-back playing on the inside in front of a back three, with a high front five. It looks familiar. However, so far, he has refused to compromise on his philosophy, although there were subtle tweaks in the system to counter stubborn opponents that Leicester faced, such as moving the inside full-back forward to make a front six. Both are tactical sponges, always looking to learn and develop from all sources, not just within football. Maresca studied chess to draw parallels with tactical thinking — Guardiola has also noted similarities with the game — and took a lead on how to man-manage his City players from famous composer Leonard Bernstein. Man-management The following paragraphs will scream ‘Guardiola’. During Maresca’s time with City’s under-23s, according to sources close to the team, he had ‘players and staff hanging on every word’, as one put it. He is described as “phenomenal” in terms of “how he would deconstruct the game in a way that players could understand simply, but he would also not suffer with anyone”. Leicester players have stated similar numerous times this season how effectively and quickly he could get his ideas across, although when the message wasn’t sinking in quickly enough, Maresca wasn’t shy to vent to frustration. With the City under-23s, Maresca established a culture where he picked his teams on merit. That may sound obvious but there were several examples of highly rated youngsters who usually trained with Guardiola, conferring an air of seniority and quality, but if their attitude was not right, they were not selected. The new Chelsea boss is still in touch with some of his old City youth-team players. Maresca had two spells at Manchester City (Lindsey Parnaby/AFP via Getty Images) At Leicester, Maresca dropped young winger Wanya Marcal completely before a game against Rotherham United, despite him performing well and scoring his first goal for the club the week before against Cardiff City, because he didn’t like the way he trained afterwards. Guardiola has abided by that mantra ever since the earliest days of his coaching career, jettisoning Ronaldinho as soon as he took the reins at Barcelona. To this day, he will not pick players with attitude problems or those who have complained about being left out. Joao Cancelo found that out abruptly at the start of last year and plenty of others have, too. Guardiola’s man-management can be as hard to pin down as his match-day tactics: when the players are at their lowest moments, he will be closer to them. He will shower them with love in training sessions but very rarely explain his line-up decisions. Sometimes aloof, sometimes overbearing. The general rule is that, as long as he feels you are pulling in the right direction, you’re fine. Maresca was similarly supportive of striker Patson Daka when he was on a tough run of form in the second half of the season, continually picking the Zambian, despite criticism, to show faith in him. Overall, both have taken the football knowledge of those willing to learn to another level. As Riyad Mahrez once said of Guardiola: “I thought I knew football to a decent degree when I came. Pep made me feel like I knew nothing. He’s opened my eyes to so much. He’s kind of reinvented my brain. At Leicester, defender James Justin was equally impressed with Maresca. “I was in my mid-twenties when he joined and I thought that I knew about football before he came. It turns out I knew just the tip of the iceberg.” Approach to the media Guardiola will often detect either a trap or a criticism in a question, or at least provide an answer that he believes cannot be misconstrued by bad-faith actors online. While the media spotlight was not so strong on Maresca last season in the Championship, he interacted with the media in a similar fashion, sometimes even coming across as overly sensitive. In his early days at City, Guardiola never felt the need to get close to journalists behind the scenes, choosing not to do the established trend of a pre-season sit-down interview with local reporters. Ultimately, he would have felt that he did not need any extra help or goodwill, and that extended to some of his spikier/stranger public comments, such as his “I’m so happy, Happy New Year” effort seven years ago. (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images) Generally speaking though, Guardiola is great from a journalist’s point of view: he can be insightful enough to help explain what he wants his teams to do, he is willing to talk about wider issues (he is rarely as engaging as when he has to become club spokesperson during an FFP crisis) and the bottom line is that you rarely leave a press conference feeling bored. Similarly, Maresca was at his best when he was asked a tactical question, seizing on the opportunity to explain in detail his approach. He looked less keen to have to be the club spokesman when the club was being accused of profit and sustainability rule breaches by the EFL and Premier League. GO DEEPER How and why Chelsea hired Enzo Maresca - and the seven things they were looking for Touchline temperament If Guardiola generally keeps his cool in the media, it is a different story on the touchline. He will never criticise referees publicly but he is one of the more argumentative inside his technical area, making his displeasure known either through sarcastic claps and thumbs-ups, or the more traditional shouting in the ear. For somebody who says “body language is life” and wants his players to be positive in their efforts, he can get incredibly tetchy when things are not going to plan and he will berate his players if he feels the need to. Generally speaking, though, his touchline antics are usually confined to wild hand gestures and sinking to his haunches in fear when the opposition have a set piece or come forward on the break. Maresca, who doesn’t adopt Guardiola’s casual fashion sense on the touchline and is the quintessential tracksuit manager, is slightly less theatrical but still incredibly animated, especially when a big goal is scored. He was booked for running on the pitch to celebrate Harry Winks’ late winner at West Bromwich Albion in December. That was one of three bookings he received for his touchline behaviour and he served a ban against Ipswich Town in January. Maresca celebrates with his Leicester players during their win over Birmingham in April (Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images) Dealings with hierarchy At City, any idea of friction with the hierarchy is laughable. There have been times when Guardiola and his people have been frustrated at the failure to land a transfer target, but that is about as dramatic as it gets and even that negativity fades away overnight. Guardiola has been close with Begiristain for years; they share exactly the same footballing philosophy, which again speaks to Maresca’s views, and although the City boss does not always agree with the club’s decisions — if he could do pre-season in Europe every year, he would do — there has never been a suggestion, during eight years, of any kind of rift or even a situation that needed to be resolved. City have basically built everything around Guardiola and things have been a lot calmer than at his previous clubs. How Maresca handles the various challenges of managing Chelsea will also be something to keep an eye on. At Leicester, he had good support in terms of the biggest budget in the Championship last season and got most of what he wanted in the summer transfer window, but he wasn’t slow to express his frustration when he was told he would have to sell to buy in January when the club’s PSR worries started to emerge, a development Maresca said publicly he hadn’t been warned about when he first took the Leicester job. Maresca is a strong, demanding character, who will not shy away from clashing with authority if he feels it is justified: whether that be referees or his club’s upper management. It will be interesting to see how he handles the co-sporting directors at Chelsea.

sorry we could not plate up Big Sam for you

New Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca wants to introduce ‘right mentality and culture’ https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5623311/2024/07/08/enzo-maresca-Chelsea-first-interview/ Enzo Maresca says his priority is to create the “right mentality and culture” as he begins his stint as Chelsea head coach. Maresca, 44, joined Chelsea from Leicester City in June. He signed a five-year deal which includes a club-held option to extend by 12 months. The Italian replaced Mauricio Pochettino, whose relationship with the Stamford Bridge fanbase was often fraught during his single season at the helm. Speaking in his first official interview as Chelsea head coach, Maresca said he was focused on “creating a connection between the fans and the club”. “When you join a club you try to analyse what the club and team needs to improve and do the right things,” Maresca said. “For me, it’s clear we need to create as soon as possible the right mentality and culture, a culture that the fans can be proud of. This is very important. “We are going to try to be an aggressive team on the ball and off the ball and we need to create this connection between the fans and the club, especially at home. ‘When you have your own fans behind the team pushing, it’s like playing with 12 players and this is what we have to create here.” GO DEEPER How and why Chelsea hired Enzo Maresca - and the seven things they were looking for Maresca will become the seventh Italian coach to take charge of Chelsea in the Premier League era after Gianluca Vialli, Claudio Ranieri, Carlo Ancelotti, Maurizio Sarri, Roberto Di Matteo and Antonio Conte. The former Manchester City development squad manager said Chelsea’s rich history of Italian coaches was “one of the reasons” he decided to accept a move to south west London. “I’m very proud to be an Italian manager here again,” said. “Probably there is something between Chelsea as a club, as a family, and Italian people that works well!” He added: “I consider Chelsea one of the biggest clubs in the world so I will feel very proud of it.” GO DEEPER Does Enzo Maresca meet Chelsea's seven criteria for their ideal manager? Maresca — the fourth permanent head coach in the space of two years — also asked fans to “trust the process” after a disappointing start to the Clearlake Capital-Todd Boehly ownership. “Just trust the process, trust the idea, be behind the team,” he said. “For sure we are going to enjoy the journey. Like at every club, for every manager, it will not be easy because nothing is easy. But for sure we are going to enjoy our journey.” His first competitive match in charge of Chelsea will be on August 18 in the club’s season opener against defending champions Man City. GO DEEPER How much like Pep Guardiola is Enzo Maresca?

Chelsea reach agreement with Atlanta United to sign Caleb Wiley https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5624615/2024/07/08/Chelsea-transfer-news-caleb-wiley/ Chelsea have reached an agreement in principle with Atlanta United to sign left-back Caleb Wiley. The 19-year-old USMNT international is set to join for a fee of around £8.5million ($10.9m) and on a contract until June 2031. Wiley is expected to be sent on loan to Strasbourg next season for regular first-team football. The negotiations for Wiley — who on Monday was named in the United States squad for the Paris Olympics — were helped by good relations between the Premier League club and their Major League Soccer counterparts. Wiley has been twice capped by the senior U.S. side since making his debut last year. He was not part of Gregg Berhalter’s squad for Copa America. Chelsea have been very active in targeting young players at the start of the summer transfer window and have already brought in Omari Kellyman from Aston Villa and Barcelona striker Marc Guiu. They also look set to add Boca Juniors defender Aaron Anselmino and have an agreement with FC Basel to sign versatile defender Renato Veiga. GO DEEPER Maresca to introduce 'right mentality and culture' at Chelsea

Who is Michael Golding? Meet the England youth midfielder Leicester have signed from Chelsea https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5611512/2024/07/07/leicester-city-michael-golding-Chelsea-transfer/ New Leicester City manager Steve Cooper needs reinforcements across the pitch but the one department where he desperately needs more talent is in attacking midfield. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s £30million ($38m) move to Chelsea, the departures as free agents of Wilfred Ndidi and Dennis Praet, and the return of Yunus Akgun to Galatasaray after his loan spell have left Cooper with very few options if he wants to play with two high No 8s. Leicester’s second signing of the Cooper era after the club recruited forward Bobby De Cordova-Reid on a free transfer following his Fulham departure is Chelsea’s Michael Golding, an 18-year-old attacking midfielder who, while in the Dewsbury-Hall mould, should be viewed not as his direct replacement but as one for the future. Golding joins, in a separate deal to Dewsbury-Hall’s transfer in the other direction, for an initial fee of £3million potentially rising to £5m, having captained England at under-16, under-17 and under-18 levels, and having played in both the Under-17s European Championship and Under-17s World Cup in 2023. He was a key member of the under-18 and under-21 sides at Chelsea as an industrious attacking midfielder, scoring eight goals and providing six assists last season. Such performances led to a senior debut, as a late substitute, in the FA Cup third-round win over Preston North End of the Championship at Stamford Bridge this past January. Golding, who started his career across London at AFC Wimbledon’s academy before joining Chelsea after his under-12s season, only got nine minutes (including stoppage time) that day after coming on for Enzo Fernandez but showed his temperament and confidence, finding space and demanding the ball. In this example, even though he initially doesn’t receive a pass when Malo Gusto is in possession, Golding continues to seek an open area to be an option. He plays a skilful flicked one-two with Moises Caicedo before surging into the box and almost getting on the end of the resulting rebound after Noni Madueke has an effort on goal. He had also shown previously, in appearances in the EFL Trophy for Chelsea Under-21s, what he is capable of. In a 2-2 away draw against Northampton Town of League One last September, he found pockets in front of the home side’s defence before playing in Ronnie Stutter to score the opening goal. He went on to score the second himself, squeezing an effort home after Billy Gee’s knockdown. There isn’t a huge volume of footage of Golding so early in his career but there have been other examples of why Leicester were keen to bring in the west London-born midfielder. While playing for England United-17s against their Faroe Islands counterparts in the Nordic Tournament in 2022, he again showed his strength and ability to deliver an accurate, defence-splitting pass after holding off a defender… He displayed the same knack for breaking the lines with accurate forward passing in last November’s Under-17 World Cup in Indonesia, with Golding picking out Arsenal’s Ethan Nwaneri in a 2-1 group-stage defeat against Brazil. When England beat Iran 2-1 in the preceding match, Golding’s strength and quality inside the opposition penalty box (an area of the game where Dewsbury-Hall made huge progress last season under Enzo Maresca) could be seen, receiving the ball with his back to goal, rolling a defender and getting the shot away. Leicester should be patient and not throw Golding into the fray too quickly amid the pressure of an expected Premier League survival battle in the coming season. They have other young players coming through the ranks who will also be pushing for opportunities, including Sammy Braybrooke, Will Alves and Ben Nelson, who featured nine times last season under Maresca. Braybrooke and Alves have returned from long-term injuries but all three have recently been on England duty with the under-20s, having come through the international youth ranks as Golding has. Had it not been for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee injuries, which kept them out for a year, Braybrooke and Alves would be further along in their developments, ideally having spent a loan spell away from the club playing senior football at lower levels, as Nelson did in the 2022-23 season with League Two (fourth division) sides Rochdale and Doncaster Rovers. Dewsbury-Hall’s loans at Blackpool, in third-tier League One, and Luton Town, then of the second-tier Championship, were the main reason he made such an impact once he broke into the Leicester senior side. Golding has yet to experience a loan spell but is ready to step up and experience a different environment, as well as the extra pressures of first-team football. Leicester have only just started their transfer business this summer. With concerns over profitability and sustainability rules (PSR), they have held back on any incomings as they needed to reduce costs in an attempt to avoid a second charge for a PSR breach for the period covering the 2023-24 season. However, after the financial belt-tightening of the past year, which has seen 10 senior players leave as free agents and four assets sold (Dewsbury-Hall, James Maddison, Harvey Barnes and Timothy Castagne) since their initial relegation from the Premier League, the shackles may be a bit looser. There will not be a huge budget and the deal to make Abdul Fatawu’s 2023-24 loan from Sporting Lisbon permanent will take up a chunk of the funds available, but Cooper will need further backing to get Leicester in strong enough shape to compete in the Premier League, with midfield now the priority. Time will tell what Leicester have planned for Golding but they believe they have signed a player who, in time, will be able to make an impact on their first team like Dewsbury-Hall did. GO DEEPER Leicester Transfer DealSheet: Ndidi in limbo; Fatawu latest; Maresca's plans on hold

CB (top need now), right footed LW, WC GK, and CF

Why Chelsea are signing Veiga Analysis by Chelsea correspondent Liam Twomey The acquisition of Veiga is another sign of Maresca’s influence on the recruitment strategy led by Chelsea’s co-sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley, following the arrival of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall from Leicester City. Veiga, unlike Dewsbury-Hall, is not a player Maresca has worked with before. He does, however, fit a specific profile that the Italian is looking for to help implement his style of play at Stamford Bridge: a left-sided defender who can invert from full-back into a defensive midfield role when Chelsea are in possession. Marc Cucurella is also viewed as capable of performing that role, having been deployed in a similar manner by Maresca’s predecessor Mauricio Pochettino in the final stretch of last season. Veiga, however, offers a more aerially imposing option: at 6ft 3in tall (190cm), he addresses what some have identified as a relative lack of height in Chelsea’s squad. Maresca will assess Veiga in pre-season and judge whether he is first-team ready or requires a loan spell to aid his development. He is essentially one year behind Riccardo Calafiori, who became a breakout star for Bologna last season after moving back to Italy from Basel in the summer of 2023 and has been widely touted as a transfer target for Chelsea in recent weeks. Veiga’s modest transfer fee reflects that. Chelsea consider him an excellent value proposition, particularly considering that he is taller than Calafiori and has a cleaner injury history. Above all he is the type of flexible, multi-positional player increasingly prized by progressive, possession-focused coaches like Maresca.

Chelsea https://thedailybriefing.io/i/146364459/Chelsea Samu Omorodion to Chelsea latest - the Blues are not giving up, according to Matteo Moretto in his latest exclusive column. After Renato Veiga deal, Chelsea are prepared to complete two signings for the future. Final details being sorted for Aaron Anselmino to join from Boca Juniors, progressing to the final stages. 2004-born full-back Caleb Wiley is also close to joining but the deal will be for Strasbourg. Basel confirm Veiga has left their camp to discuss a transfer: “Renato Veiga has left the training camp - he is in talks with another club.” Moises Caicedo: “At Brighton it was all tactical, just with the ball; ‘tactical, tactical, tactical’ and at Chelsea it was run, run, run and it was very difficult for me. With Chelsea I always ran a bit more and with Brighton we almost always had the ball, with Chelsea it was a different football and we had to run more.”

Kante Jorginho Diego Costa Cesc Kova Kai (money wise, and did score the CL winning goal) Rom (money wise) Puli (money wise) Kepa (money wise) Morata (money wise) Chilwell (money wise) Timo (money wise) all were after Eden

If 27 goals and 16 assists in 3989 minutes, all done with a weak supporting cast other than Davies, is 'nothing', can we get 'nothing' from all our attackers?

I absolutely could have seen them as our two starting CBs in a back 4 and 2 of the 3 in a back 5

fuck FIFA

Seyi Olofinjana | Growing Up in a Polygamous Home, Representing Nigeria and The Business of Football

Back when I typed that last September, Wiley was the 3rd most valued teenage LB on the planet trailing only Lewis Hall Valentín Barco

fucking insane we do not buy him for £20m!!! w t f

Piero Hincapié Willian Pacho Gonçalo Inácio Jorrel Hato youth El Chadaille Bitshiabu Mikayil Faye

we have spent well over a billion quid since Roman left multiple big names (if not big results from many of those, at least not yet for the ones still here)

why? that would only lower his value

So much better than Poch's first one.