Mhsc

He must be! Just straight up taking on Wes Fofana's role I reckon.

Acheampong?! Did not see that coming. Bold move!

Is he still? Tbh, I think if we look back on this forum there will be plenty of criticism of Reece when he plays - it has been years since he was genuinely the best RB in the world. He is out of practice at...everything, for obvious reasons. He makes a lot of bad decisions defensively these days, lacks concentration, and of course is a bit yellow/red card prone. Reece is mostly living off of his old reputation and a ball striking ability that is every bit as good as it ever was imo. Absolutely should sell both if we can but anyone that takes on these guys wages and pays a fee to buy them would be considered extremely negligent. Maybe the Saudi league would do it but I doubt either would agree to go - why should they? Great wages already here and staying living with the fam in London. If we send them to the bomb squad it makes literally no difference to them as they hardly ever train or play anyway.

If VVD is available on a free then offering him a couple of years on stupid money would surely be a bit tempting, even at his age, after the positive experience we had with Thiago.

Oh dear - if he is out for the season that is pretty terrible for us. I haven't really spoken about it but I actually really rate Wes, he has come back and clearly been rusty and to my eyes, plays a bit like he doesn't fully trust his body. I was starting to get quietly excited that maybe he was finally going to turn a corner with this one game a week approach. Gutted if he is out for the season and think we are pretty terrible without Wes, and have no obvious alternative to him - the way he does the M2M press, plays proactively and aggressively, he was just perfect for Maresca's system and we are immediately a drastically worse team without him, TBH not sure we even can effectively play Maresca's strat without him (against reasonable opposition). Btw, I don't really understand the hate Wes is getting - "sell this fucker" ... What's he done wrong? It is not his fault, and it is not Reece's either. I agree in general we should try to get them both off the books if we can but I really don't see any reason to dislike either player and personally only wish the best for them. I hope they can both make a real career still. I just don't think it should be on our books if we can manage it. It is only the owners fault for giving these guys with known injury problems long expensive contracts so if there is gonna be any heat it should go to Boehly imo.

Personally I think it is extremely likely... Scouts have a big hard on for him. They'll at least want to feel out if there is a deal to be done, given they went to the last second trying to get it done on deadline day. If he is still not willing to get sensible about salary then we should just leave him to rot tbh. I am feeling more positive about the striker market now than I have in a while, more and more interesting number 9 opportunities have been emerging and we don't really have to let either Napoli or Osimhen bend us over - his stock and their position has never been weaker. Also he rejected a straight loan deal with us and then... took a straight loan deal elsewhere. Fuck around and find out etc.

Absolutely. You never forget the days when you travel far to give your support and the players just amble around half heartedly. I still have nightmares about an away day to Wigan in 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8269672.stm featuring prime Drogba, Lampard and co - and we lost 3-1 to a shitty Wigan team featuring Titus fucking Bramble. Never went to Wigan again after that - fuck Wigan.

He reminds me a bit of Torres.. You can see there used to be something there, but it just isn't there anymore

Nkunku fire sale, any bidders at all and he goes same day I reckon. £300k a week for a Conference league striker, no thank you.

To be fair the group that played vs Everton were dreadful too. Players look like they've had way too many pies and way too many pints of beer over the festive season to me tbh. Every one of them. Yes Maresca has made mistakes but the players have delivered at a terribly low quality and made huge, silly individual errors.

Whichever scout picked Disasi needs to take responsibility for what they've done

VAR should just be scrapped. Doesn't do anything useful still, and makes it even more aggravating when wrong decisions happen. Plus the constant stoppages. Fuck VAR.

Nkunku looks totally finished, sure he can finish if you drop him into a clear 1:1 but he doesn't have the tools to get himself the chances (speed, strength, work rate) Felix is just in the squad for vibes, should not even be in the squad for PL days.

3 of our best players on the bench (NJ, Neto and R. James)

He's got no excuses either... not like he's not had plenty of rest!

Nice ball in there by Colwill to get that all started

Wouldn't be surprised if we win this by 3 goals Wouldn't be surprised if we lost this by 3 goals We are still Chelsea :')

How long does it take to make a decision on that? lol

Looked offside in real time but my stream is behind everyone elses... I assume it has been ruled out?

Wow Cole unlucky. Nkunku sub please. We need NJ.

Oh, I just clocked that Reece James is on the bench. Almost forgot about him. We have missed his set pieces...

In my opinion Colwill is the worst defender and biggest liability from our best XI - he for sure deserves to be in the XI, because of the low quality we have at CB right now, but he is the worst of that XI imo. Any normal top team would have him out on loan still - he's 21, and does not have high football IQ or defensive ability (tackling / positioning / decision making). Everything will be fixed with time - his ceiling is probably not THAT high given he clearly lacks football IQ but in his mid 20s I expect he will be a very decent PL CB because experience will paper over the cracks to a decent extent, and his ball playing ability will carry him (especially if he adds better decision making there too - he could become a menace). Question remains should we be bedding these guys in directly at Chelsea or not. The clubs view clearly is in the end it is better to do it and let them develop and bond with the rest of the squad. I can see the merits of that.

Interesting. The group has played a lot in short succession and looked leggy in last 2 games, so I can kind of see the point, as well as giving players a chance when others have not performed (while they can't complain not to play when we keep winning, it would be pretty legit for Nkunku, Felix, Noni etc to get grumpy if they don't get a game after 2 shit performances from the people they're trying to win spots from). Still quite risky though, because these guys don't play for a reason by and large. We'll see what happens. Only having Disasi in there genuinely concerns me.

Imagine it might be basically the same team as with Fulham but maybe Noni comes in and Sancho goes to bench?

But you said we dropped 12 points - which if we had got would have put us on 47 points, ahead of Liverpool and in 1st, and probably favourites for the title. And subsequently on about 100 points at the end of the season, if we were to continue getting the kind of points you think we should be getting. I just don't see it as realistic for us to be dominating the PL like that. It is not that easy imo. I don't think we are "dropping" points - we are not serious title contenders and have not done anything to have those kind of expectations around us - we are getting the results we deserve, for the most part. I think we are, if anything, slightly over performing the expectations for us this season.