Mhsc

Despite everything, I disagree about Maresca. Have not agreed with all his decisions but you have to put responsibility on someone other than the manager at a certain point - the Directors who assembled the squad, the players who fail to deliver, the owners who orchestrated it all. Maresca could have done better, sure, but I think he is the least of the problems here and still the best manager we've had since Tuchel.

Yes, at least one... He looks like a pen waiting to happen in the box, and he is a consistently poor decision maker under pressure. Sanchez hit a particularly dreadful run of form recently but before that Colwill was the number 1 cause of my high blood pressure during our games, even with Sanchez on the pitch.

Said it countless times, Colwill should be going through multiple years of loans, no where near ready for playing at a top club, bags of potential but he is not blessed with football IQ, he needs years of experience to cover the gap (if it ever will) He wasn't even a guaranteed starter CB for Brighton.

If NJ's hamstring is done then our season is over probs, 5th or 6th becomes most realistic scenario

Some good chances created but everyone toothless, basically same ol Chelsea Cole our only clinical player in unclinical form, hopefully he can find it again

No no, my man, you misunderstand. By 2030 the best of the players we've bought now are sold for huge profits, and we bring through a new crop for Project 2035. This is the forever project. And then someone like Levi Colwill will retire and step up to manage us under a transfer ban, effectively restarting the cycle

Santos is way ahead of this guy or Ugo - and even then is far from a certainty to make it into PL squad next year. They'll all be in loan army probably. Maybe Santos will stay if Lavia is perma injured, but in all likelihood he will be rotation/backup. What is consistently baffling though is why we keep signing these players to Chelsea FC directly. Put them under the BlueCo umbrella directly at Strasbourg or buy another club in Portugal or whatever. It made more sense having a massive loan army before the rules around max loan numbers came in (at least conceptually it made sense, in execution we always just bought tonnes of shit players and lost money on them, got stuck with Malang Sarr's etc)

Clearly Maresca didn't rate him and the directors persuaded him to give him a try Also seems likely this is the reason the Samu deal fell apart, a player we needed far more.

Yes, or really just anyone that will add a lot of goals to our team tbh, but ideally good competition to NJ As an alternative would probably take a left winger who is essentially a striker who plays out on the left and puts in good numbers

Nah, absolutely not. He would be a massive downgrade on NJ for 6x the weekly salary and 2x the transfer fee. His only plus side is his defensive workrate.

He's dreadful. Arsenal fans can't stand him and can't wait for him to be replaced. Even as bad as we've been recently, he'd be on the bench.

In classic fashion, I dropped Wood from my fantasy team this week for Ollie Watkins

Lets not forget, club were all of a sudden HARD after Osimhen at end of transfer window going into deadline day. Nothing has changed since then has it - at least its hard to say they'd be more positive and relaxed now than they were when they wanted to go all in on Osi? So surely they do want and feel the need for a number 9. I wonder if we'll suddenly see some transfer deadline day idiocy again... Probably not for Osi now, given that he chose to retire. I have had the feeling for a while the directors like to create time pressure for players and other clubs, which seems to backfire at least as often as it helps.

I didn't really see it that way personally. Generally, I am one of the biggest supporters of NJ on the forum and think he has been a great signing and have long term faith in the guy - not to be our only number 9, but to be a key player for us competing there. Usually I hate to see him go off because even though he's missing chances, he is normally still confidently going for things and I have the feeling that given more time he is our best shot at doing something. Did not see that at all in this game, felt like every minute he was on the field was a minute wasted - I saw a man bereft of confidence, out of ideas, shying away from the ball and afraid to take risks. In my opinion he absolutely had to go off and Maresca did the right thing. Unfortunately Nkunku was a total disaster but I'm glad he took off a player that was clearly struggling as much as NJ, who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else than playing City. Just my opinion based on what I saw.

I thought he was dreadful in the first half too, sure he did a decent job capitalising on a horrific mistake by their new CB but overall thought it was his worst ever performance from us and he had to go off Nkunku doing a terrible job for the time he was on the pitch is its own thing. With the benefit of hindsight, he should have brought on Guiu. But lets be real, if NJ had stayed on the field performing as he was, the pitch forks would be out that he DIDN'T make the sub - and people would say he should have at least tried Nkunku. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't!

Jackson was having one of the worst games of his career

We would be relegated with Lampard, come on man, he's not ready for PL and may never be.

Surely at least 1 of the directors have to get fired over the goalkeeper situation. Spent endless money and we haven't got a single playable goalkeeper at premier league level, either in the squad or out on loan. Fundamentally they picked all of those GKs (aside from inherited Kepa situation) and couldn't find a SINGLE ONE in the market. Liverpool have at least 3 goalkeepers I know of that are completely clear of our best GK.

Usually I am in favour of playing NJ for the full 90 even when he hasn't scored, because his confidence is still there and he keeps plugging away and he could still score at any time Today I am happy he is off, looks like a shadow of himself, just wasting time keeping him on.

Sanchez can't even throw the ball man Usually even goalies who are shit with their feet can throw the ball properly

True. At this point we have to say he is an amazing flat track bully and not a big game player. Must be a mental thing. He just can't do the same things with space and time in these games that he does in other games.

Not the first time Madueke played everyone on No concentration, no brains.

NJ's confidence is so shot man

It would be very cash positive for them from a financial fair play perspective, as they would instantly book a huge profit on Garnacho but take on (for this year) only the transfer fee divided by the years of Nkunku's contract, so maybe that might be like £60m in £10m out for the year for a £50m paper profit while being totally cash neutral in real terms (aside from Nkunku costing way more in wages surely). It would be a strange deal for both clubs though - I mean I guess from our side we get his wages off the books as another highly paid player not delivering vs expectations of his salary. I would rather get Chilwell out of the bomb squad to Man Utd tbh, at least Nkunku has some value to us on the field.

We should not be signing any Man Utd player, they've got minimal quality in the whole squad and wont let what little they have go ffs. Anything they're chucking us, given their league position and desperation to turn it around, is going to be a Mason Mount-esque hit and run for a bunch of cash for a hugely overrated player that the buying club will regret forever after. Just stay the hell away. I agree that Diallo is pretty much the only player they've got that has the kind of quality to play for Chelsea. Bruno Fernandes as well, perhaps. Rest of that squad is complete dogshit and they belong where they are in the table - frankly they could finish lower. Because almost to a man it is a desperately poor squad. They need some kind of miracle to even start the turnaround - like some moron paying £60m for Garnacho. No thanks.