Vegetable

Yeah, I think so too. Admitting mistakes is something that this ownership is very reluctant to do so far, with terrible impact on the club, and that would be a huge pill to swallow, as it would pretty much trash the last 2 years of the vision. I can't see owners evaluating their whole strategy as failure sooner, than in 4-5 years time. Too bad, as I personally think sacking Tuchel was biggest and the most costly mistake this club made in years.

Geez 🤦‍♂️ But it's kinda in line with what our owners communicate, isn't it? So he is probably protecting himself by confirming he is on the yes-man bandwagon, than protecting the players like managers sometimes do when saying this kind of ridiculous things.

So, are we back to the same mode of dragging the suffering for way to long as it was under Potter? If Poch can't shake things up, the owners should, sorry. Or are we back to "give them time" and "boys gave everything" and finding Mudryk scoring 5 goals in 12 games or something as huge positive and the points don't matter, as we are a team of sunday footballers, freshly promoted to 2nd division, not Chelsea freaking Football Club. Vision, rebuilding or other bs, there is a pool of game that must be won and it was one of them.

Not much to add. It's rather sad that we went from "we need to get ourselves together as this game will be difficult, because such teams will play for their lives against Chelsea" to "we need to get ourselves together as this game will be difficult", full stop.

Could be; Still, my point is that whole unnecessary narrative around it like careful analysis, picking the absolute best of best, data driven, deep insight blah blah blah probably burnt more bridges than was needed. I can see that our owners really tend to put themselves in situations that are hard to back up from and fix the mistake (contract and pr-wise). And they do some mistakes.

Amorim was rumored the last time, so I guess we pretty much binned him then. Not to mention it's not like Enzo transformed us the way people justyfing this crazy pricetag were claiming he will.

I wouldn't underestimate the manager's role. Sure, he doesn't play, but it's manager's job to give a team an edge - some players flourish under right managers and are shit with others, either due to motivational skills or purely tactical ones like knowing how to use the players best assets (Rudiger, Jorgi were good only under one manager not without a reason). It's managers role to see and trust the players with potential and it's a manager who enables the synergy of the squad. Finally, it's a manager who imposes the mentality of the entire team and it's a crucial point sometimes. Let alone the tactical ingenuity that sometimes means winning with much stronger rival or turning the game around. In our case, I'd admit our two CL wins largely to manager's input, we weren't exactly galacticos, especially with Tuchel's roster. He made the team believe they can go for it at some point. Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that the club pretty literally told Nagelsmann, Amorim (so I find this rumor bs) and who knows who else they are not good enough compared to Poch, so I pretty much doubt they will come here. And judging by Clearlake's actions and ideas I'm genuinely concerned of who they could replace Pochettino with, so we have to take this into account as well - it won't be a logical choice out of elite managers.

I think this whole "developing players" thing is a tricky thing. Yeah, it takes time, but we need the group of players we have at their peak in 2 seasons absolute max, otherwise what? Literally teach the guys play football on reasonable level for 4-5 years, get 2-3 usable season from them and then start the relegation battle over? Especially when owner's idea seems to be replacing young players with even younger players all the time. James, Mount etc. were elite players after like what, a year in first team? Rudiger went from meh to beast after one tea with Tuchel. That's the kind of development we can afford. I really resonate with Pep's quote someone put up here recently - first squad of an elite team is not the place to let players find their form, not even mentioning teaching them the game. We have the same building and developing the players talk since the very first day of Potter's rule and still zero-ish outcome. I am patient, but getting the results when time is over is too late.

Pressure is on Poch now, but there is a very basic problem, that bugs me since very beginning: Clearlake got a lot of free credit due to out hopes that club's structures will be finally sorted out and we will build a system like every top club does. So… how it's going? What kind of system is this group of players assembled for? What tactical identity are we building for? What element is our biggest strength? ("Brighton" is not a good answer, however natural one) Okay, the recruitment idea is clear: Very young, very raw with basic potential and very low rate of actually turning out good. A gamble. That's fine, if those players are cheap. But oh boy, they are not. Besides this, we are just all over the place like we were under Roman, only difference Roman aimed for top quality and price vs quality later, meanwhile we are getting totally random transfers like getting Mudryk for absolutely no clear reason. Everyone knows already that building the club in FM-like manner just doesn't work, yet we are not only still kinda doing it, but also digging the puzzles from the variety clearance bin.

Perhaps it belongs more to The Board thread, but yeah, the idea of relying on all the recruited staff (players/coaches/sporting department) to suddenly massively overperform after big-money move here just because they had shown a minimal bit of potential, way below of what we need, elsewhere as reliable tactic to build top-level club is something I still can't understand, yet the Board seem to be all in for it, despite the returns are rather grim so far. When was the last time such thing actually occurred? Mendy perhaps, for a while?

I envy our owners burning hundreds of millions like it was Monopoly money, that's one thing. Second thing is: The outcome of super-duper detailed, careful and high-tech, 0% chance miss-process, that trashed high-profile managers and led to Poch appointment is apparently a trainwreck, what could be pretty easily foreseen by most of sane people, without employing the board with million+ salaries and cutting edge data analysis. Are we even serious anymore? Not even mentioning it's pretty much a replay of Potter situation (muh data bro). Zero lessons learnt. I respect the idea of employing ideas and strategies from other sports into football, but it doesn't work for shit and even if we look at it as a multi-year project, it doesn't bare any signs of positive outcome potential. Just cut the losses already.

Still can't get over how surprised some folks are. Poch was trashed and laughed off FOR YEARS by the same people, who magically shut up when this absolutely ridiculous, no-go appointment of not only Tottenham manager but The Tottenham Man was done. He has never shown anything out of ordinary with meh Tottenham squad. He couldn't handle the galactic PSG pack, he couldn't handle PSG when things went south there. He never has been nowhere near the level of what Chelsea was before the takeover, he is quite the level of what we are now, but I can't see him getting us back where we belong, especially with this ingenious recruitment, and can't even blame the guy for it. People expecting him to go on Mou or Tuchel -like campaign are just delusional. From 12 to 8 in six years? More realistic, but I think the time passed had shown that the argument of him building the foundations, system, youth yada yada is invalid. He won't, as there is hardly environment and level of power to do so.

Having Brighton as a role-model wasn't an accident; Time to accept we are midtable club now and adjust our perspective accordingly.

I remember reading soon after the takeover that redlining the debt is growth model for most of Clearlake's endeavours in first years. A lot of businesses are making money on investors, while losing them on actual business part anyway. I'd be more concerned with not slipping on FFP than actual financial "collapse", as owner's pocket is sort of bottomless here.

I doubt "Poch and his backroom staff" were enlightened with what was very very obvious to everyone well before this bizarre transfer just now. Interesting to see some tensions between Poch and Board growing there, as it's a clearest of unclear messages possible, if true.

Barca or not, Tuchel will be welcomed in big club even more, than Mou was after every of his sackings. Still an elite manager and sane person probably sees the problem of him „struggling” in Bayern (well, that's relative, it's hard not to dominate with Bayern in 98% farmers league, yet it's hard to expect a club to win everything for indefinite amount of time as it's just impossible and it's not like they are battling relegation as we used to recently) is more a problem of Bayern itself, than Tuchel himself (pretty much lighter version of what we have here, although I'm far from rating Poch highly, can't really full scapegoat him here). No comparison to likes of Lampard or Potter. Modern football is a carousel of million variables, if it won't click it won't, but it usually means more systemic issues, than one player/manager lacking. It's tad more complicated, than spamming million of pages of rating everyone highly when club does good and bashing everyone when things go south.

Same can be said about everyone on this board, but that's not quite the point

Some surely do. But it depends on how you look at it; One can say we became shit under him, one can also say he delayed the inevitable for a season or two. A lot of people were rightfully signalling the club is going to hit the wall in ugly manner if nothing will be done soon and nothing was done for years. Most of our downfall comes down to sleeping on issues that needed to be resolved before Sarri's appointment and only got worse with time.

Why so? In terms of output he produced with limited resources, to put it lightly, he equaled or beaten the legendary Mou's run. He had the genuine enthusiasm for the team unseen here bar maybe Mou. He was far from yes-man until given death kiss from the board in form of Lukaku. AND he has actual modern tactical knowledge and feel that wipes the floor with every manager after him and most of those before. He is abysmal with Bayern? Yeah, so are the world-conquering starlets in form of Enzo, Caicedo and whatever another 25 Brighton players we've got here. He at least has an excuse in form of his life being rather rocky lately and Bayern being not less toxic dumpster fire than us. He suffered with us at the end of his stint? Yeah, but hundreds of millions Euros, few managers and ~20 players later we still aren't any better, so maybe it wasn't all on him, since we closely avoided relegation battle with his replacement. I'd take him back instantly, however have no doubt that manager of his character and gravitas is Clearlake's nightmare fuel. I've seen him frustratingly stubborn but never had I seen him clueless and that's drastic change of quality from what we had later.

Thing is, high potential players must step up and become actually good players to even think about the trophies. Overpaying comically for players doesn't instantly make them superstars. Why blame the guy for club's stupidity though? He was free agent, we lured him with massive paycheck because someone at Chelsea had red this board or FM20 wonderkids list. Club took a gamble, club lost. He didn't turn out crap out of pure pettiness. This kind of deal would make sense if he was shifted quickly, meanwhile he is here for fourth year on massive paycheck.

I am, but toying around players valuations to influence ffp was a thing some clubs (Barca?) were actually accused of afair…

We are Chelsea Football Club, wait for FIFA/UEFA investigation and threating us with transfer ban and points deduction for FFP-fixing due to this 👀

Lost case here

Not at all imo. Perhaps one of last moments to leave in absolute glory, he may be anticipating the bumpy road we somehow refused to see here for a decade lol

Yeah, except the tiny detail most of those youngsters are grossly overpaid from the start, what complicates this plan a bit. Also, they fail to impress much, what complicates things even further. So who would those youngsters should be sold to to gain anything from the transaction (overinflated fee + salary invested + agents etc.)? Another Clearlake's entity is the only idea that comes to my mind, as Arsenal ended the phase when they apparently lost their sanity and mainly it's us who are mugged on transfer market, not the other way around.