Vesper

I am worried about a 2nd yellow from him

omg how did we not score

shit pass by Jackson

woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot reverse jinx

Sterling is so so so shit

that ball looked like it went out early on that counter for them

fuck, have to score there!!!!

delete

Mаnсhеstеr Сіty vs Сhеlsеа 17 February 2024 at 18:30. Browser Links 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 99% Web 991kbps 95% Aliez 992kbps 95% Aliez 2500kbps new Aliez 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 970kbps 95% Aliez 1871kbps 95% Aliez 1936kbps 95% Aliez 1938kbps 75% Aliez 1939kbps 95% Aliez 1930kbps 75% Aliez 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web 95% Web AceStream Links 95% 95%

And yet some yearn for the return of Tuchel, who also was ok with the Rom buy.

Dreading this one, not going to lie. Hopefully we pull off a massive surprise.

We are now only up over Citeh via more goals scored. Even on everything else before it. Games played, points, wins, losses, draws, goal difference

We were dire shit at the end of his tenure. He has been poor at Bayern, despite the addition of Kane. Hard pass.

Actually it IS the point of that particular reply.

thankfully you are not in charge

Trent Alexander-Arnold is set to be out again for a few weeks after he was rushed back by Liverpool and aggravated his current injury. He will miss the Carabao Cup final vs Chelsea as a result.

absolute shit now has been for ages I never want to hear his name brought up again in terms of being a Chels manager again

Nice article. 👍

Fichajes is proably the worst source for football news on the planet. They literally make hundreds, likely thousands, of things up just to get eyeballs. Horrific rumourmongers. I honestly do not know how it is legal to do what they do, as their lies have impacts at some levels in some situations, especially in Spain.

Pep rates him highly he 21, HG, 1.95m, pretty athletic with decent pace, good on the ball, and a left footer who can also play on the right

his injury record scares me atm

Malo Gusto form should help Chelsea avoid repeat of Reece James woe https://theathletic.com/5271727/2024/02/13/malo-gusto-reece-james-Chelsea/ This time, there should be no need for Chelsea to rush captain Reece James back from injury. The desperation to have James, one of the best right-backs in the world, on the pitch has led Chelsea to make mistakes in the way they have handled him in the past. It is never easy to get the balance right when assessing the best time to recall a key player following a spell out through injury. Despite all the data and medical advances, there is no crystal ball. Luck, certainly bad as far as James has been concerned, does come into it. Yet because James offers so much on the pitch, providing balance and leadership, he has come back too early at times. The best example of this was last season. After injuring his knee against AC Milan in October, he suffered the same problem again during his comeback match against Bournemouth two months later when he surprisingly started rather than being given a gentle introduction as a late substitute. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it proved to be too much too soon. He ended up missing another five weeks, returned to the side for two months, then got injured again. It has been a similarly exasperating story for James this season. He has made just nine appearances, during which he has not once completed 90 minutes, due to hamstring injuries. In December, he had an operation on his right leg, with the specialist who did the procedure expecting him to be out for three or four months. Aside from the responsibility James would feel as a key player for Chelsea and their captain, there is also the slim hope of making the England squad for the European Championship in the summer on his mind. But Chelsea can afford to be patient to ensure James gets back to feeling 100 per cent right physically and mentally. Why? The form of Malo Gusto. No one would say Gusto is as good as James in the right wing-back role — at least, not yet. However, the biggest compliment you could pay the France international is that he is limiting how much the 24-year-old is being missed. Gusto is in his first full season at Stamford Bridge having been signed from Lyon for £26.3million ($33.4m), plus add-ons, in January last year and spending the second half of last season back on loan at the Ligue 1 club. You could argue that he is second only to Cole Palmer in terms of the best buys the owners have made since they took over in May 2022. Gusto turns 21 in May and is beginning to look like a bargain. His display in the 3-1 victory over Crystal Palace on Monday was the perfect demonstration of this. When Chelsea laboured during a very poor first half, he was one of the few bright spots due to the width he added to Chelsea’s attack. It was Gusto’s fine cross, one of 11 he delivered on the night, that set up Conor Gallagher for Chelsea’s equaliser just after half-time. He had a remarkable 132 touches in the game and a 92.6 per cent pass completion rate from 94 passes. Another sign of his influence was that 50 per cent of Chelsea’s attacks came down the right flank. To put that in perspective, only 30 per cent of their attacks came on the opposite side where the more experienced left-back Ben Chilwell was operating. Gusto has six assists in all competitions, a fine return. The inch-perfect cross he provided for Nicolas Jackson in the 3-1 FA Cup victory at Aston Villa last week was worthy of James himself. Inevitably for one so young and new to English football, Gusto will make mistakes and have games where he is not at his best. His display in the 4-2 loss at home to Wolves this month, where he conceded a penalty for a rash tackle on Matheus Cunha, was an example. Still, Mauricio Pochettino is delighted with his contribution, even if he understandably still laments James’ absence. When asked by The Athletic whether the speed of Gusto’s development is negating the need to accelerate the captain’s return, he replied: “When we assess Malo Gusto, we brought him in to try to compete with Reece James. He’s really, really young, but now with the injury of Reece James, he needs to play a lot and compete every single game. “We can see some good things and things he needs to improve because he is so young and in the first season in the Premier League, but yes, we are so happy. He is going to improve.” Gusto will need some protection from the intense workload himself. Pochettino revealed he had to be substituted in the 84th minute at Selhurst Park due to fatigue rather than an injury. Backup is available, albeit none of them are ideal for various reasons. There is Axel Disasi, but he normally plays at centre-back. The same could be said for fit-again Trevoh Chalobah, while academy graduate Alfie Gilchrist, 20, is only just getting his first minutes as a senior player, so is very raw. But Gusto is now a trusted member of the starting line-up and will continue to feature regularly for the rest of the season. That should also mean James will not have to take any risks. His competition with Gusto can wait until he is good and ready.

Is Conor Gallagher really ‘priceless’ to Chelsea and is he forcing their hand? https://theathletic.com/5274206/2024/02/15/conor-gallagher-Chelsea-contract/ As a non-native English speaker, Mauricio Pochettino can sometimes struggle to find the correct word to convey exactly what he means. His press conference after Chelsea’s 3-1 win over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Monday was not one of those times. “He’s a player with great commitment to the team, always trying to compensate in every situation, in offensive and defensive situations,” the Argentinian said when asked how important Conor Gallagher has become to Chelsea, before adding a memorable flourish. “That is priceless, to have a player like him.” Priceless. Of all the adjectives to bestow praise, Pochettino’s choice of the one that evoked the concept of monetary value for Gallagher (intentionally pointed or not) stuck in the mind. Because for more than a year, Gallagher has been regarded as anything but priceless by Chelsea’s owners and lead football decision-makers. It is common knowledge across the Premier League that £50million ($62.7m) would be enough to get him. An indication from Everton that they were willing to pay £45million in late January 2023 sparked a serious conversation that only ended when Gallagher made it clear he had no interest in joining a team who were fighting relegation. West Ham United had a £40m bid rejected last summer and Tottenham Hotspur were serious suitors in the final weeks of August, but their valuation was significantly lower than Chelsea’s. The winter window then came and went without any movement either in his market or on his contract, which will have 12 months left to run at the end of this season. Dialogue between the 24-year-old’s representatives and Chelsea’s co-sporting director Paul Winstanley remains open and cordial. There is none of the bitterness that hung like a dark cloud over fellow academy-graduate midfielder Mason Mount’s final months at the club last season and, as long as that continues to be the case, there is a significant chance an agreement is reached for Gallagher to extend his contract. But there is also no movement towards that outcome, and no new offer on the table for him to consider. The reality is Gallagher’s vast improvement this season has been an unexpected development for Chelsea, who were not planning for him to become a key cog in their midfield when they committed more than £300million in transfer fees across the two trading windows of 2023 to recruiting Enzo Fernandez, Andrey Santos, Moises Caicedo, Romeo Lavia and Lesley Ugochukwu to play there. Lavia’s almost complete unavailability since signing from Southampton (on the bench twice, playing once for 32 minutes) in the first week of the season has worked in Gallagher’s favour, and he has gone on to make himself indispensable to new head coach Pochettino, ranking behind only Axel Disasi in the squad for minutes played in 2023-24 across all competitions. He has also delivered an emphatic riposte to critics who argued his skill set was not suited to possession football, attempting a career-high 61.1 passes per 90 minutes in the Premier League with an 88.9 per cent completion rate. Chelsea have had plenty of bad days with Gallagher on the pitch — no one can escape criticism with the club 10th in the Premier League table after 24 games — but arguably their worst performance of the season was the only one he missed, due to a suspension: the 2-1 loss to Manchester United at Old Trafford in December that was far more one-sided than the scoreline suggests, and in which Fernandez and Caicedo were entirely overrun at the base of midfield. GO DEEPER How Sepp Blatter's 6+5 rule would have changed the look of football's elite clubs Pochettino has weaponised Gallagher’s outstanding talent for winning the ball back in his Chelsea pressing system, deploying him ahead of Fernandez and Caicedo without the ball to harry opponents close to their own penalty area. According to data website fbref.com, an average of 0.45 tackles in his team’s attacking third per 90 minutes puts him in the 91st percentile (the best-performing nine per cent) among midfielders in Europe’s top-five domestic leagues, the Champions League and Europa League over the past 365 days. Beyond tactics, Chelsea’s head coach has done everything in his power to publicly emphasise how highly he rates Gallagher as a player and as a person: praising him at every opportunity, picking him whenever fit and even handing him the captain’s armband for a significant stretch of this campaign when Reece James and Ben Chilwell were injured. The future, as Pochettino admitted in that press conference after beating Palace, “is a matter for him and the club”. It is in the hands of co-sporting directors Winstanley and Laurence Stewart and, ultimately, Clearlake Capital co-founder Behdad Eghbali and the club’s co-owner Todd Boehly. Gallagher wants what he has always wanted: a long and successful career at Chelsea, his boyhood club. He also, not unreasonably, wants to feel wanted. Chelsea’s decision to slow-play Gallagher’s contract situation stands in stark contrast to the urgency with which fellow academy graduates James, Armando Broja and Levi Colwill were tied down to new long-term deals in the past 18 months, and all the signs are it has weakened their position. GO DEEPER Malo Gusto form should help Chelsea avoid repeat of Reece James woe Gallagher is playing by far the best football of his career. He has significantly improved almost every aspect of his game, and three goals in Chelsea’s past two matches — both wins — suggest he might finally be rediscovering the scoring touch he demonstrated during formative loan spells at Charlton Athletic and Palace. Barring injury, he is almost certain to be included in England manager Gareth Southgate’s European Championship squad this summer. That will naturally be reflected in his salary expectations for any new contract. Renewing him on vastly increased wages may be unpalatable to Chelsea, but the alternative is not much more appealing. The ticking clock on his deal will make it difficult to realise a £50million asking price unless there’s a bidding war, and that dynamic looks unlikely given Gallagher’s preference will have the power to dictate the process. In recent windows, potential suitors have detected a degree of wariness from Chelsea to sell Gallagher to Spurs, Newcastle United or any other club they consider direct Premier League rivals — a stance that seems illogical if the fundamental talent evaluation is that he is simply not good enough to be a long-term starter at Stamford Bridge. It is also a position that will be entirely impossible to maintain come the summer, when the choice becomes binary: renew or cash in. Beneath all this is a nagging sense that football judgement will not be the sole factor determining who Chelsea sell in the next window. Despite the insistence from club officials that compliance with the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR) is not as big a concern as has been made out, the informed consensus among those from the outside is that significant funds must be raised before June 30 to avoid breaching the allowable loss limit. It is hard not to view Chelsea’s unsubtle, unsuccessful attempt to drum up a market for buying Broja in January (he ended up being loaned to Fulham for the rest of the season) through this prism, and the same could be said for the inclusion of a £35million release clause in the new contract Ian Maatsen signed last month before his half-season loan move to Germany’s Borussia Dortmund. Pure profit from selling a Cobham graduate or two would be the easiest way to climb out of any PSR hole, and Gallagher has established himself as their most saleable homegrown product. Gallagher’s positive development deserves more than to be talked about in such cold financial terms, but the tenor of the discussion is set until his future is resolved one way or another. The only positive for Pochettino is that if the first seven months of the season are anything to go by, the price hanging over his head will not affect his priceless form. GO DEEPER Who are the worst offenders for dissent in the Premier League?

Chelsea’s Reece James returns to light training following hamstring surgery https://theathletic.com/5278217/2024/02/15/reece-james-Chelsea-injury-training/ Chelsea captain Reece James has returned to light training after undergoing hamstring surgery in December. The England international is hopeful of being back in full training in less than a month and is targeting being involved in Chelsea’s season run-in, although the club will be wary about rushing him back to action too soon. James, 24, has been out of action since being withdrawn 27 minutes into Chelsea’s 2-0 defeat at Everton on December 10. James has suffered from injury problems in recent seasons and the current layoff is the second period of absence for the wing-back this campaign. The Chelsea youth graduate had previously struggled with a hamstring problem earlier this season. He was substituted off in the second half of the opening-day Premier League draw against Liverpool with an injury and missed nine matches, before returning in October. James was not involved in the England squad at the 2022 World Cup due to a knee injury and then suffered a recurrence of the problem in his first game back for Chelsea against Bournemouth on December 27 2022. The wing-back then missed the final month of the 2022-23 campaign due to a hamstring injury, limiting him to just 16 Premier League appearances that term. Malo Gusto arrived at Stamford Bridge last summer after a transfer agreement was struck with Lyon in January 2023 with the France international featuring 17 times in the right-back role for Chelsea in the Premier League this season. Chelsea, 10th in the Premier League, return to action against Manchester City on Saturday.