Vesper

Was not impressed with him

James Hill yes pathetic defending

4 2 Salah

jammy cunts 3 2 Chiesa of all people

reverse jinx!!

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 2 2 Semenyo on a hat trick

do not rate Konate have not ever since he went to Pool

2 1 Semenyo

2 nil game over more than likely

£17m is a fucking joke and it starts out as a loan so does little this year to help sort our balance sheets now

Chelsea ‘need a central defender’ after Levi Colwill injury, says Enzo Maresca https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6555194/2025/08/15/Chelsea-transfers-defender-maresca/ By Cerys Jones Aug. 15, 2025 Enzo Maresca believes Chelsea “need a central defender” after Levi Colwill suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear that will see him ruled out for most of the season. Colwill, 22, sustained the injury towards the end of Chelsea’s first session after returning at Cobham ahead of the new campaign in the first week of the month. “You know how important Levi has been for us last season, for the way we want to play,” the Chelsea head coach said at a news conference on Friday. “We said many times that we are able to create chances and to attack in the right way, if we are able to build in the right way. Levi was a huge part of our build-up and now he is out. “We are trying to find a solution internally, but the club knows exactly what I think and we will see what happens. “I think we need a central defender.” What You Should Read Next Levi Colwill is fundamental to Chelsea on many levels – replacing him will be tough Levi Colwill will miss a lot of the 2025-26 season after tearing his ACL Chelsea have several central defenders in their ranks — Tosin Adarabioyo, Benoit Badiashile, Trevoh Chalobah and Wesley Fofana, with Josh Acheampong also featuring there in pre-season and new signing Jorrel Hato having previously played there for Ajax — but Maresca believes it will be hard to replicate Colwill’s role, as a left-footer in the middle of a back three, in the way his side build up. “We build with Levi in the middle,” Maresca said. “Last year, we played 64 games and we played 64 games with Levi and Tosin. Now Levi is out, the only one that can do that job well is Tosin. “Also we have players that unfortunately, like Wes or Benoit, they have in this moment some problems and this is the reason why I said that the club knows exactly what I think about central defenders.” Chelsea have so far signed Liam Delap, Joao Pedro, Jamie Gittens and Hato this summer, with Dario Essugo and Estevao joining up with the squad after pre-agreed transfers. Maresca’s side open their season with a home game against Crystal Palace on Sunday.

fuck Dortmund, those cheap twats

because it is a made up quote

I have seen many outlets claim if is 25 per cent of the total fee, but then many claim it is 25 per cent of the profit so no clue atm

Konate wants to go to Real. Real says they will only pay Pool £17m to £21.5m (€20m to €25m) now, or they will jusat take him for free in 10 months.

Liverpool reach agreement to sign Giovanni Leoni from Parma https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6552813/2025/08/14/liverpool-transfers-giovanni-leoni/ Liverpool have reached an agreement with Parma to sign defender Giovanni Leoni. The Premier League club will pay a fee in the region of £26million (€30m) plus add-ons for the 18-year-old Italian youth international. The player has been given permission to travel to Merseyside to agree personal terms and undergo a medical, which is expected to begin on Thursday. The club’s plan is for Leoni to be immediately integrated into the first-team set-up for the upcoming season with any suggestion of a loan move completely ruled out. Leoni only joined Parma last summer and went on to make 17 appearances, including 14 from the start, in Serie A, as the newly-promoted club finished 16th. He has been capped by Italy’s Under-19 side, and was contracted to Parma until summer 2029. Liverpool have been looking for defensive reinforcements since selling Jarell Quansah to Bayer Leverkusen last month with the move for Leoni in conjunction with the pursuit of Marc Guehi from Crystal Palace. “The clubs have agreed a deal but he hasn’t signed for us yet. The moment he signs for us, I can go into more detail,” head coach Arne Slot said of Leoni in his press conference on Thursday. “And the other one is of course (Guehi) the answer you always get from me. He’s not our player. Unfortunately he was the captain of the team who we lost against last Sunday. If you want to have any talks about him you should go to Palace, to (Oliver) Glasner and ask him his opinion about him.” Slot only has two fully fit central defensive options at his disposal ahead of the Premier League opener against Bournemouth on Friday in Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate, although Joe Gomez has returned to training after an Achilles injury. The Premier League champions have enjoyed a busy summer with Florian Wirtz and Jeremie Frimpong arriving from Bayer Leverkusen alongside Hugo Ekitike from Eintracht Frankfurt and Milos Kerkez from Bournemouth while the club maintain an ongoing interest in Newcastle United’s Alexander Isak.

always detested that fucker

sounds like a termite infestation better call Anticimex

Chelsea co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley, Laurence Stewart sign new contracts https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6553098/2025/08/14/paul-winstanley-laurence-stewart-Chelsea-contracts/ Chelsea’s co-sporting directors, Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, have signed new contracts at the club. Co-director of recruitment Joe Shields and director of global recruitment Sam Jewell have also signed fresh terms until 2031. The quartet all started their roles at Chelsea following the takeover by the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital-led consortium in May 2022. Stewart and Shields joined from Monaco and Southampton respectively in October of that year, with Winstanley and Jewell moving across in November 2022 and February last year respectively. The new regime at Chelsea had already spent more than £1billion on player transfers ahead of this summer window, with fans and pundits often critical after the significant turnover in the playing squad resulted in 12th- and sixth-place finishes between 2022 and 2024, a period which saw four head coaches lead the men’s team before Enzo Maresca was appointed last summer. What You Should Read Next Chelsea’s co-sporting directors were hired for the long term and that is how they will be judged Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley are the subjects of fans' anger but they are key components of Chelsea's plans for the future Optimism has shifted around Chelsea after Maresca guided the west London club to a fourth-place finish and triumphs in the Conference League and Club World Cup in 2024-25. Chelsea have continued to spend with the signings of Joao Pedro, Jamie Gittens, Jorrel Hato and Liam Delap for around £240m this summer, while bringing in just over £200m in sales. As well as the playing staff, Stewart and Winstanley have overseen a period of change in Chelsea’s recruitment operation since their arrival, with around 20 new hires across the scouting and data teams alone. There was also leadership change in the academy following the departures of the long-serving Neil Bath and Jim Fraser in the summer of 2024. Glenn van der Kraan then joined from Manchester City in the role of academy technical director. Winstanley and Stewart also led the process to replace Emma Hayes as Chelsea Women head coach in 2024 alongside head of women’s football Paul Green, with Sonia Bompastor recruited from Lyon, as well as overseeing the then-world record signing of Naomi Girma from the San Diego Wave in January. Chelsea start the new Premier League campaign on Sunday at home against Crystal Palace, while Bompastor’s side begin their Women’s Super League title defence against Manchester City on September 5.

Chelsea to give share of Club World Cup player bonuses to family of Diogo Jota, Andre Silva https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6551143/2025/08/14/diogo-jota-family-Chelsea-donation/ Chelsea will use a portion of Club World Cup bonuses paid to players to make a financial donation to the family of Diogo Jota and Andre Silva. The west London club were crowned champions of FIFA’s newly-expanded tournament in July, defeating Paris Saint-Germain 3-0 in the final at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Their success in the tournament earned the club an estimated $114.6million (£84.4m). Chelsea have subsequently allocated a $15.5m (£11.4m) fund to be distributed equally between the players who represented Enzo Maresca’s side during the tournament, with a decision made jointly between club and players that an equal payment will also be made to Jota’s family. The overall value of each portion tallies more than $500k before it’s subjected to currency conversion costs from US dollars into UK pound sterling, alongside relevant employer costs, taxes and social security costs. Liverpool forward Jota and his brother Andre Silva, a footballer at Portuguese club Penafiel, both died in a car accident in the Spanish province of Zamora on July 3, 10 days prior to Chelsea’s Club World Cup final victory. Liverpool recently unveiled plans for a memorial sculpture at their Anfield stadium as the focal point for a permanent tribute to Jota, who scored 65 goals in 182 appearances for the club. The club’s players will wear a ‘Forever 20’ emblem on their shirts and stadium jackets for the duration of the 2025-26 season while the LFC Foundation, the club’s official charity, will launch a grassroots football programme in the Portugal international’s name. A special fan mosaic and a minute’s silence is planned for Arne Slot’s side’s first game of the Premier League season against Bournemouth at Anfield on Friday. Liverpool announced last month that they were permanently retiring the No. 20 shirt at all levels of the club in memory of Jota, who joined the club from Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2020.

How Chelsea play: Building from the goalkeeper, a box-shaped midfield and lots of short corners https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6550962/2025/08/14/how-Chelsea-play-building-from-goalkeeper-box-shaped-midfield-short-corners/ Many outside the club might only admit it grudgingly, but Chelsea’s extraordinarily well-funded project under Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly has finally achieved football legitimacy. That much was clear in May, when Chelsea secured a return to the Champions League with a fourth-place finish in the Premier League before lifting the UEFA Conference League. “For me, the biggest achievement this season is that exactly one year ago, no one was talking about Chelsea for football (reasons), but talking about the big squad, big money,” head coach Enzo Maresca said in a press conference before the FIFA Club World Cup final. “Now, no one is talking about this, but they are talking about the way we play, and the way we win games. This is personally the biggest achievement of this season.” What You Should Read Next How Chelsea won the Club World Cup: Big bonuses, training-ground deals and ‘scary’ Palmer The inside story of Chelsea's unlikely triumph in New Jersey that was 329 days in the making The fact that Maresca’s young team then comprehensively beat newly-crowned Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain at MetLife Stadium to win the tournament only served to underline his point. Chelsea are a serious side again, but how exactly do they play? Let’s talk about it. Maresca’s appointment in the summer of 2024 was a clear signal of the football direction the club wanted to take: a shift towards the Pep Guardiola school of possession-focused, positional play, implemented by a man who, like Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, served as Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City. Equally as clear was Maresca’s specific interpretation of the Guardiola style: a 4-2-3-1 system that shifts to become more of a 3-4-3 in possession, with the ‘four’ arranged in a box shape consisting of two defensive midfielders — one of which is typically an inverted full-back — and two attacking midfielders operating in the half-spaces, or ‘pockets’. Maresca’s box midfield can be seen below, during last season’s home meeting with Arsenal… This structure, which grants a measure of balance by enabling the team to attack with five players while the other five remain behind the ball to protect against counter-attacks, tends to be Chelsea’s default alignment. But throughout last season, Maresca demonstrated that he is flexible when it comes to how he gets to it. Sometimes it was left-back Marc Cucurella inverting into the base of midfield, sometimes it was right-back Malo Gusto moving in from the right. Sometimes one or the other would instead push up into one of the attacking midfield roles, with two natural defensive midfielders behind them. Cucurella is also integral to Maresca’s preferred tactical plan B: a more attacking alignment in which the inverted full-back pushes all the way up into the final third to enable Chelsea to attack with six players rather than five, keeping just one defensive midfielder to screen the back three. This tactical shift led to Cucurella scoring several crucial goals for Chelsea last season, including a late winner against Manchester United at Stamford Bridge in May… Gusto is a more awkward fit inverting into midfield, and Maresca has not returned to it since the Frenchman was targeted by Real Betis in the UEFA Conference League final. He is, however, a real overlapping threat, and was utilised in that manner to great effect against PSG in the Club World Cup final, creating the opening goal with one surge upfield. Chelsea’s campaign in the United States was the stage for Maresca to get significantly more creative tactically. His experimental 4-2-2-2 shape against Flamengo in the group stage failed, but moving to a 4-3-3 enabled his team to press Fluminense much more effectively in the semi-final and in the final against PSG he started talisman Cole Palmer on the right and Reece James in midfield, enabling his club captain to drop into right-back when Gusto ran forward. Maresca’s team were also highly aggressive out of possession against the European champions, pressing man-to-man. Levi Colwill and Trevoh Chalobah both pushed well into the PSG half to track Ousmane Dembele whenever he drifted deep, with Moises Caicedo filling the gap in the defensive line behind them. On other occasions, Chelsea are happy to drop off a little into a mid-block and use their attackers to screen opposition passing angles through their lines, trusting their defenders and goalkeeper to sweep up any high balls over the top. When forced to defend deep, they often try to play offside on the edge of their own penalty area — a strategy practised by Maresca’s other coaching mentor, Manuel Pellegrini. This was exploited by several opponents last season, but it also routinely catches attackers offside. On the ball, Maresca’s preference is for his side to build with short passes from his goalkeeper, often with the aim of baiting opponents into a press that creates space higher up the pitch. Chelsea are very capable of moving the ball forward quickly in such situations, with plenty of speed in their attacking line and an elite transition passer in Palmer to release them. But against PSG, goalkeeper Robert Sanchez was instructed to kick longer, bypassing PSG’s attempted press and often isolating Gusto against Nuno Mendes. It proved to be inspired. Chelsea’s other tactical evolution at the Club World Cup was a shift towards short corners. Last season, Chelsea’s 4.1 goals per 100 set pieces ranked 10th in the Premier League, while their 4.6 goals conceded per 100 set pieces was the sixth-worst in the division. Maresca and set-piece coach Bernardo Cueva do not have the biggest or most aerially talented squad to work with, so passing short at attacking corners makes sense. The structure is illustrated below, with one player positioned on the byline and another level with the penalty area to form a triangle that entices opponents out to defend. Chelsea manoeuvred this situation into an own goal from Palmeiras defender Agustin Giay in the Club World Cup quarter-final, and it has the added benefit of limiting the risk of giving up defensive transition. All in all, Chelsea took 26 of their 43 attacking corners at the tournament short. This summer’s recruitment should make Chelsea even more versatile. Up front, Liam Delap and Joao Pedro both made an immediate positive impact at the Club World Cup and each offers a different aspect of what Nicolas Jackson provided to this team last season, while also providing a more clinical touch in the final third… On the left flank, Maresca can pick from Jamie Gittens or Pedro Neto, depending on which angles of attack he wants to take. On the right, Brazilian prodigy Estevao can provide an X factor and lessen the creative burden that weighed heavily on Palmer at times last season. Chelsea have far better and more varied tools to pick apart opposition low blocks. Behind the front line, the rounded skill set of returning loanee Andrey Santos should make Chelsea’s midfield more fluid and flexible. Caicedo and Cucurella, two of Maresca’s most-picked players in 2024-25, finally have specialist understudies in the forms of Dario Essugo and Jorrel Hato, the latter of whom can also cover for the injured Colwill at centre-back. Maresca fielded 27 players at the Club World Cup, more than any other manager in the competition. He has more options than ever, and Chelsea’s identity is more sophisticated as a result.

with his father, Nelson, a well known footballer in Portugal he is 17yo in this pic from 2020 they are Cape Verdean his mum

he won the pen shoot-out

woot spuds choke on it hard