Peace.

We have been very, very, very lucky to suffer our decline while the whole English football was declining as well. It has allowed us to keep the head out of the water and to win two PL, otherwise we would be right now at the same level as Liverpool. Seeing our inability — or rather, our non-desire — to manage the squad and to renew it properly, in a few seasons we will be in a dangerously dire situation. I mean, ten years ago we had world-class (outfield) players in every position in the field : Terry, Lampard, Cole, Drogba, etc... Now, we have only one and it's Hazard. Abramovich needs to understand that doing these cheap business will cost us greatly in the mid to long term. Not only it is crucially weakening our squad, but it does also hurt our ability to attract big names and/or futur stars. Young kids want to play with Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar, Mbappe, Robben, Pogba, etc... The only one of our players that has this power of attraction is Hazard — and he is not eternal. That is also why, back in the days, we were able to sign good players for the bench : because they had great players before them and thus could deal with it. Now, we cannot even convince the likes of Chalobah to stay on the bench while years ago players queued for that. And if you throw in the mix that every two years we are in a shambles, then you have a club that is not very attractive at all. I fear the future is not very bright for this club...

I do not know why, but I cannot stop imagining him acting as a Roman senator in a 60s peplum...

Naahhh, this is not the issue. Why would we keep wasting million of pounds on the bench when they could be in the bank ? Abramovich is a businessman and he is managing the club like he is managing his business.

If you want more water to your mill : the academy and loan system. Most people believe that we have an army of loanies because of mismanagement and because we do not know how — or whatsoever, anyway — to introduce them in the first team. That is not the case : people need to realize that loaning them is the very purpose of our academy and the very purpose behind buying dozens of average youngsters. Chelsea has become a thrid-party owner institution, just as Joorabchian and co. That is why we buy players whom we know pertinantly will never play for us or have any impact — that is why we still have on our books Rémy, Piazon (!!!!!!), Thomas Kalas, Hector, etc. We are loaning them as we would with bikes or cars. The real question is, though — does Abramovich want to make money for the sake of making money or is he locked in his modern-businessman cognitive software and cannot think past it ?

If the games against Spurs are anything to go by, I — sadly — do not think it will be the case. When the pace of the game is of high intensity, whether it is through technic or physicality, he seems unable to cope with it. That being said it is a sample too restricted to draw a conclusion. Regardless, I do hope that Bakayoko will add a strong physical presence into the midfield ; as we do not have any playmaker, we need some muscles to bypass this weakness ! P.S. That being said, I am more worried about our attacking play than our defensive...

Tomo, I do appreciate that you are eager to find optimism in this situation but, come on, the players we have signed are an ocean away of being "borderline" world-class, whether in regards to their level or their achivement. Good players ? Sure. Will they be world-class one day ? This is another debate. A world-class striker is someone such as prime Drogba or Suarez — and nobody could ever make the argument that Morata is "borderline" as good as prime Drogba or Suarez. Idem in respect to midfielders, no one could ever hold the argument that Bakayoko is "borderline" as good as Modric, Kroos or prime Essien. Same for Rudiger. As for now, they are good and that's that.

Kante is typically the kind of player who is good at what he does, although, what he does is pretty limited.

What kind of message though ? That Chelsa Football Club will be the first club to field ten defenders in their starting eleven ? We have already fielded five yesterday, buying a sixieth one is indeed the right way to go f it is our truly our aim...

And yet it is his sixieth season at the club....... Not trying to make the best out of Hazard is the biggest clue in regards to the fact that those — or should we say the one — who build and manage our squad are — is — out of their depth. Someone really needs to step aside and to hire an ex-footballer who is able to have a decent strategy — having a strategy, even a mediocre one, would be a good start — and who is at the same time able attract great players to this club thanks to his past fame.

Well, we still can go for an Epiphone then.

That is nonsense Fernando and you know it. Juventus did not lose because they played 3-4-3 but because they faced the best team in the world. In 2015, they played with a back four and still lost to Barça — the best team in the world back then. Long story short : they lost because they played against better teams than them. 3-4-3 & 4-2-4 are just forms, neutral forms ; if you have the right players then any tactic, strategy and game-plan are legit. Oh, and by the way, don't lose your sleep regarding whether we play with a back three or four. Either way we will not be in CL final and we will lose regardless when we will play against European big boys ahah.

The real problem — or rather, one of — is pretty clear right now : we are managed by modern businessmen who think and act like modern businessmen... that is, short-term productivity. Let's take a trivial analogy : a car producer. That man has 100 workers who have produced 100 cars in the year X. For that car producer, who is a modern businessman, the aim for the year X+1 will be (i) either to produce 120 cars with 100 workers or (ii) produce 100 cars with 80 workers. How does it fit with our club ? Well, Conte — or any other manager for that matter — has won the League with 20 players last season ; to Roman Abramovich's eyes, the aim for this current season is to win the League with 15 players. That is what happened in 2010-11 with Ancelotti and this is what happened with Mourinho in 2015-16 and this is what happening today with Conte — and this is what will happen all over again as long as we are managed by businessmen. It might be a legit strategy for a business, but a football club is not a business, let alone a modern business.

Likewise during Ancelotti's the second season in 2010 (i.e. with Kakuta, van Aanholt, Bruma and McEachran), this is not giving them a chance — this is throwing them under the bus. They will be the first victims of the bad management of the squad from the Board.

My friend, this is not football move, let alone a power move. Qatar is in a very dire situation right now — does it no surprise anyone that, in spite of the blocus, they spend amounts of money they never spent before ? It is a political move — that is, propaganda. By signing Neymar for 200m, and perhaps Mbappe too, they send a signal to the world : (i) they still do have plenty of money and the blocus does not remotly affect them, quite the contrary (this means also they can host the WC without any problem) ; (ii) they are giving to children lollipops so they root subliminally for Qatar (or at least, so they do not see them for the terrorist hub they are) which will — just a little bit but still — make their position in this political showdown more comfortable. In other words, people, do not expect Abramovich or anyone else to spend money any near of those indecent amounts. In other words mark II, people, do not expect to see any football authority to investigate the case, it will — or is already — be bribed to the bone, as the matter is far mor important than a game of ball.

"My idea was to use Matic to sweeten in Bakayoko and ultimately to bench him in a few months when the French will be ready. Unfortunately, the Serbian was having none of that and wanted to leave this club ; and, at the same time, Manchester United did bid a significant amount of money. We thus had to sell and to accelerate the process blah blah...." Indeed. Reading between the lines is cool — but there is not always things to read, between those lines. Sometimes, plain statements are, well, mere plain statements without any hidden meaning. And here, we are most certainly in one of those cases : a mere exposition, a mere statement made by Conte without any masterplan hidden behind it.

French players with behavioral problems should be avoided at any cost. They are just no worth the troubles that comes with them — I would not touch him with a five meters long pole.

Quite the contrary, actually. Cesc's technical ability is perfectly fine to play in tight spaces. However, he is slow, unmobile and lacks any sort of explosiveness ; thus rendering him unable to use his technic when he is in this kind of situation.

Actually, if we want to piss off ManU/Mourinho then selling them Matic is the right thing to do !

You are heading into the right direction, Barbara. Yet, it is not a « change of philosophy » per se — that is unless if you consider a « loss » as being a « change. » We seem, indeed, to have lost any kind of philosophy, good or bad. I will try to post about it in length when I have the time, but here I will give you a few trails. 1) « The supply make the demand. » For some reasons, it has been our credo since a few years. We are not going after players we would like — and the scarce times we do, we fail —, but we are solely going after players that are available. This is why in the last five years we have signed up score of average players — Rudiger, Cuadrado, Baba Raham, Falcao, Pato, Kennedy, Miazga, Nathan, Zouma, Rémy, Micjael Hector, Djiloboji, etc... And this is also why, as I have already explained, that all of the few good players that we have were actually "easy" buys. We first look at who is available and then we buy accordingly 2) Why is it that so ? Let's use this metaphor. Roman Abramovich is a wealthy merchant that has bought a fanciful sailing-boat with a good crew so it can sails the seas and bring back the goods. He has done everything write : a good boat, good sails, good sailors, etc... But he forget one and only one thing — that is, to hire a captain. There is no one in control of this club's tiller ; no one who has a plan, good or bad, or at least an idea of what he is doing. Emenalo is solely the head scout — tell him to go and scout a precise profile of players, he will probably do that (more or less successfully) : Marina is in charge of the negotiations — tell her that her only imparative is to sign this player no matter what, she will probably do it. You cannot expect horses to tow and to lead the cart all on their own, they need a driver. ... Go figure why we cannot buy great players ! It is because we are not attractive anymore !! And the reason behind that is that we have no project and no one to hold a project. Why do you believe that Alex Sandro (but also Pogba, etc......) is not that keen on signing for us ? Because we have nothing to tell him and there is no one to go and explain him that we are following him since a long time, that we have always admired his abilities, that we always wanted him to have a great partnership with Hazard and that he will be part of a fabulous project and play with M'Bappé, Veratti, etc... Quite the contrary, all we have to say to him is that we will not go above a certain — and relatively low — sum of money ; that he will have to push his club to be sold ; and that he wil experience an incredible journey amidst Moses, Cahill, Matic, etc... Of course he hesitates to leave Juventus for Chelsea. We have no one that has a clue of what is going on and thus we have no project and vice-versa. This situation is greatly repulsive for great players, so we have to look after those available which we leads us inevitably to get average players. By the way, we too, we have no clue of what is going on in the board. It speaks for itselfs and to be frank, board members are probably asking the same question than us : « who is doing what ? » P.S. This is also the reason for which we are reluctant to spend huge amount of money on a single player. We have no vision for the future and thus, very logically, we are not ready to spend big on a player whom we do not know were he would fit in in two or three years.

And in regards to the usefulness that Marshal Matic could be to us, I beg to differ. On the bench, you need a series of different kinds of player — kinds of player which the Serbian Gliding Machine is not. You need one or two experienced players that can add that little extra thanks to their years of experience at top flight level, but also because their are characters that other less experienced players can rally behind. This is something that can be said of Fabregas (and also explain why he should be on the bench and not in the first team — or Pedro for that matter). This is also why Danni Alves would have been a good player to have. You also need one or two jack-of-all-trades which can allow you to have flexibility during games and in-between them. And how God, the Serbian Magician is anything but that — actually, aside of maybe Courtois, he is the most unidimensional player we have at our disposal. On the contrary, Pedro, Willian and Alonso nay Moses are players that fit the bill. Additionally, it is important to have one or two "specialists", that is, a player that has some type of quality in abundance. The best thing would be to have an attacking player with a lot of speed and/or trickeries to add dynamics late in the games where we need to score. On the contrary, a big, tall and strong defensive minded player to close the game when we have to — and that who is a good header as well. The Serbian Control Tower may be tall but he is not strong, nor dynamic or good with his head (and not only to strike the ball !!). Finally, you need a Super Pipo to nick goals every now and then — and Super Pipo, Super Matic is not. The Serbian Superstar is none of that. He is a terrible player for the first team and an even more terrible player for the bench. He is a painfully average player with no significant and glaring quality aside of looking gauche ; a player that should play in a midtable team God knows where.

If we are talking about our best player, then yes it should be mandatory to not sell him to an English team. In any other case, if the offer is good, then we should sell him. The situation with de Bruyne has shown us that doing this kind of calculation is inefective and that if an English team realy wants one of our players, they will buy him anyway one year later from that foreign team. Had we sold him directly to Manchester City, the current situation would have been the same nonetheless — aside of us having 30 million pounds additional in our pockets. So let's keep Matic, and what will happen ? Manchester United will regardless buy another midfielder — a midfielder that might be better than the Serbian Marshal. And as for us, we will have on our hands a player who is, a fortiori, not desired ; and who thus will waste a place in the squad. So then let's sell him abroad for a lesser price ! Manchester United will nonetheless get their new midfielder — a midfielder that, once again, might be better than Matic. And if the Madlić of midfielders is truly desired by Manchester United, they will buy him one year later. End result : at best, they have their midfielder and we win a hefty amount of money ; at worst, they will have their midfielder nonetheless and we will have nothing but a non desired player on our hands. This kind of scheming amounts to pissing in the wind or to try to stop a brook with your bare hands. It is useless, it does not work and is probably a waste of incomes more than anything. As for the notion of "helping" them, it is highly debatable — if anything, it is more probably a disservice. On the contrary, a real "help" which we could provide them with would be to keep a crippling liability. So let them have their Serbian Marshal as it would not change a damn thing on the big picture and let us get rid of this average player and have good money — and most importantly, let us enjoy intricate interplays between Post-Afro Fellaini and Marshal Matic.

That is paranoia. The same was said for Mata — since then we won two PL while Manchester United finished respectively 7th, 5th, 4th and 6th... When de Bruyne signed for Manchester City, it was all doom and dark. They finished 3rd and 4th... The same goes for Sturridge and Gallas — and probably many others that I do forget. Basically, when was the time we let one of our player go to a direct rival and had to pay the price afterward ? Had we been talking about Hazard, such a paranoia could be justified, but come on... People on this forum love to freak out, my word. Let them have our Serbian Marshal. I am looking forward to see a midfield-three of Matic-Pogba-Fellaini — it will be a sight to behold.

He is not the only one — me too, I have seen the epiphany. It is like in Dragon Ball Z, where San Goku is so fast and so strong, that when he fights against opponents that are on par with him, all of his friends cannot see what is happening as it is too quick for their eyes. This is the same for Matic. What he does is so quick, so subtle and so refined that nearly nobody can appreciate what he is doing on the pitch, aside of a few connoisseurs. Actually you should search for that interview of Pep Guardiola, where he talks in depth about his team at Barcelonna. He explains that he was desperate to sign the Serbian genius, but unfortunatly, could not. As a consequence, he was left with no other choices than to allocate Matic's role between his three midfielders (Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets). And while everyone consider this midfield-three to be one of the best midfield in history, Guardiola stresses very intensively, in his interview, that he was still not satisfied as he had to use three players (Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets) to do the job which could have been done by only one (Matic). He even admitted that he and del Bosque had a secret plan to try and fashion Sergio Busquets into the same mold as Matic — needless to say, it did failed. Ancelotti too, has had a lot of nice words towards our Serbian Marshal. Just the other day, when he was discussing his failure here at Chelsea, he told the reporter that it was undoubtedly due to the critical mistake of having sold Matic to Benfica. To have lost Matic was what made the difference between a winning team scoring 103 goals and a team that painfully finished second ex-æquo. As for Mourinho, well, after we won the League he made the mistake to give the creative duty to Hazard — and it backfired greatly as we fell one point above the relegation zone. I hope Conte does not make the same mistake and that he is able to see the crucial importance — and no words strong enough do exist to emphasize enough the importance — that Matic represents for the team.

What were you expecting, guys ? The time to sell him was this past January month. Now it is too late. He is a player which is no longer desired at his club and who no longer desire to stay there ; and moreover he has been heavily inconsistent during his time here while not improving one iota. Throw in the fact that he is not a player with a big marketing value and that teams are not queuing to acquire him, and you have on your hands a player that will be sold at a low price and/or for a price lesser than his previous purchase price. Remember, he was bought for only 32 million pounds — a loss of 6 million pounds is not "derisory" in light of the situation, quite the contrary actually. All we can do now is to do "damage control" and hope we can lose only marginal money in regards to the amount we spent to get him. Actually his situation echoes that of Fabregas at Barcelona : a player who was no longer desired, who was inconsistent and who did not improve one inch. If I do recall correctly, the spaniard was sold for something between five and ten millions less than he was bought. In this regard, 26 million pounds for him appears to me as a fair deal. And to be honest, if the offer is true, we should let it go ; and instead of penny-pinching for a few bucks, we should be clever and negociate with Atletlico some kind of "first purchase option" for one of their players, or something along the lines.

If he receives that much hate, it is because : he is globally the only member of the "board" who makes public appearances, and thus the only face toward which to direct our frustation. I mean, who even know who is David Barnad ? And who is able to put a face or a function on the name Tenenbaum ? he is associated with negative events. He bursted onto the scene when Wilkins was fired — an event that did coincide with our "Bad Moment©" —, and he was the one who announced the departure of Mourinho. On the other hand, Martina appeared when we signed Luiz & Torres which gave her a lot of credit. his buddy Ron Gourlay — who used to received just as much hate as what Emenalo is receiving this days — is gone ; and with that departure he took his place as the guy to hate. Adding to that the fact we have absolutly no clue about what is going on in our administration, Emenalo is basically the only one person fans do have to express their frustration — only person other than Roman Abramovich himself, but bitting the hand that feed you is not something easy to be done. It has nothing to do with what you mention...