OneMoSalah

I don’t know. For the past 18 months since the changes made by Boehly/Clearlake to the medical department, the injuries/recovery timelines have been absolutely ridiculous. Under Tuchel, Potter, Lampard and now Poch. And even then, Poch has never a huge record of players getting injured constantly at any other club in his career either so wouldn’t see how that would start here given how fit his teams are usually (say usually because some of our mob in particular Enzo Fernandez, Axel Disasi, Reece James & Ben Chilwell when both have played, barely look like their fit enough to play Sunday league football never mind professional). It is ironic as well all the players that seem to be getting regular or big injured are guys with poor injury histories. Not sure whats in the tweet as been deleted.

He was never going to play that regularly ahead of Enzo, Moises & Connor anyway. Said it at the time, he had played one season at Southampton (had a good game against us) and he was some sort of must sign player. Not sure what the medical team are at either as it is a reoccurring theme but we pretty much signed him injured in the summer and it’s been injury after injury ever since. Said it at the time the likes of him & Ugo, particularly when you consider the apparent hype and whatever around Andrey Santos, were stupid signings when we really needed some proven quality in to help what we already had. We could have signed Joao Palhinha from Fulham for £55-65m and had some change left over instead of what we paid for the two of them.

True. But Leicester certainly had their moments and it could of been a loss. First half was good but as usual after HT we forgot to show up and what should of been a routine win is being heralded as some sort of monumental achievement but thats where we are. for the neutral yeah 100%

Haha aye maybe. Great game? Really? I know we won but lets not forget we were playing a championship side, it was typically a Chelsea performance, hard work made of a team we should be able to beat with ease. And again, as usual, without Cole Palmer we would of been fucked. Poch has to go come the summer.

Papering over the cracks. Poch will be out in the summer. 100%. Also wtaf is Sanchez doing for the Disasi OG? Whys he standing there what a fucking rocket 🤣

Yeah when it was announced after that deal was done in January, made me think its just more and more evidence that the club has cash concerns with PFS & FFP. £4m isn’t a lot but why write it in to any deal if your confident the player can go to Fulham, play regularly and then either end up fetching a fee in the summer/being reintegrated into the squad? Particularly when we should have loaned him to Wolves where Gary O’Neill was very open about how desperate they were to sign a CF prior. Just seems odd.

We know its bad when Mourinho, a man who’s stock has crashed and burned over the last 7 or 8 years, is saying that. But he is 100% right.

Created a few half chances on that right hand aide but as usual, the midfield isn’t doing enough. It’s all well and good knocking it around our own half but the likes of Enzo, Caicedo and Connor need to really impose themselves on the game in the Newcastle half when we have the ball. It’s the same every week.

Offside as usual.

For me it looks like he’s extremely keen to win his duels and you can see that with how he’s played tonight so far. I mean I’d rather he was doing that than some of the performances he had last season where he looked scared to try tackle or take the ball. Nothing wrong with aggression and being enthusiastic in duels. In a team that severely lacks it, its refreshing to see the likes of him, Gusto, Enzo & Connor getting right into players. Wee things like that set the tone and gets the crowd going.

Both fullbacks been outstanding defensively. Playing with proper aggression and energy. Gusto might be the end of Reece at this rate 😂

Girona not got strong links to City multiclub model? Have a feeling if this guy the real deal, he will end up there eventually. Or Barcelona maybe in the summer.

Dont think he’s quite a 70m player though. Good player, maybe top class eventually, will score goals in a good side but right now looks very much a good player physically and athletically, not overly impressed with his football intelligence or technique. Watch the games Leipzig have played in the CL, virtually anonymous.

Who’d of thought another botched loan by us but at least if he doesn’t play a lot we will get a bigger loan fee. Thats primarily why we sent him to Fulham as financially it was a better deal than Wolves. He would of played and improved a lot more at Wolves. Still mental the club put a £50-60m valuation on him at the beginning of January though, if we got anywhere near £30-35m it would of been a good deal (pure profit for big Todd’s spreadsheet before he runs us into a point deduction next season). Will be sold in the summer either way but demanding ridiculous amounts of money for him is going to slow down/prevent any sale. If we get between £30-35m for him & £20-25m for both Chalobah & Maatsen just sell them. No point trying to flog them for this magical £100m figure pretty heavily reported as what we need to balance the books before June this year, as it won’t happen. Punt some of the other useless cunts like Noni and Mudryk.

In all honesty, it really doesn’t matter how much it was unless it was ridiculously close to what we spent. Which it wasn’t. Call it £500m if you want - the club aren’t recording huge pre-tax losses for the last 2 years for no reason. I am a bit worried that people really are stupid enough to believe that there isn’t any chance of a huge financial problem coming up at the club. The club just announced a pre tax loss of £90 million up to June 2023. And it was over £120m the previous year. To put this in contrast, you are allowed £105m over a 3 year period for PL profit & sustainability rules. Everton barely spent over that, worked with the PL extensively and still got walloped with 10 points before it was changed to 6 after an appeal. What do people think being nearly £100m will be worth? Thats a big reason why there are persistent rumours of selling home grown players (as they are counted as pure profit on the clubs books) to generate over £100m this summer. We don’t generate that sort of cash for any players, yet alone homegrown ones, then we are definitely in some sort of trouble. I don’t see how we couldn’t be.

If we do, it is meant to be £100m or around before end of June/start of July. I don’t see how we can spend £300-350m let alone £200m, quoted in that article a few posts up. We have spent £1bn in the space of 3 transfer windows and only sold maybe £300m worth of players. People seem to think Broja, Chalobah and Maatsen are going to fetch top top dollar too. Or even be easy sells. Throw in the Gallagher rumours too. Maatsens release clause maybe will get triggered but again, £35m, lets see. Regarding the other two, we went from wanting £50-60m for Broja to accepting a £4 or £5m loan fee which will go to virtually nothing if he plays a lot. Whys that? Chalobah also made it clear he doesn’t want to take a big step down from Chelsea after Bayern interest which is why he didn’t go to Forrest. Selling Gallagher would also be insane even for £50m. People can bury their heads in the sand if they want but there are more than enough things that point more towards us needing to sell than not needing to sell.

I think looking back its not in doubt. Its the worst decision made under this ownership at least. But whats done is done. I think they’ll either give Poch 1 more season or twist, getting another manager, but long are the days of us attracting top top tier managers if I am honest. Not with the mess of the last 2 seasons on and off the pitch.

I don’t think the owners will do it. They’ll be too proud/stupid to do it. Half of these so called players we have will never ever be tough enough mentally for Tuchel. He‘d certainly risk upsetting a lot of these younger players but I genuinely think some of them need to toughen up. Particularly the likes of Fernandez, Caicedo, Jackson, Colwill, Mudryk and Badiashile - who all in different/multiple ways look far too soft or petulant. I mean I still laugh every time Jackson scores and shushes the opposition crowd. After likely missing about 3 or 4 easy chances and he’s sat trying to wind up the crowd? Not to mention how many stupid yellow cards does he pick up for shit like that and dissent? Focus on doing the job well and consistently first instead of acting like a petulant little kid thinking you’re proving something to the opposition fans, just looks like a grade A fanny. And Enzo showing more fight going up the stairs at Wembley after a Liverpool fan goaded him for losing than he did in 30 minutes of extra time when Klopp threw a couple of kids on and they ran over the top of him and Caicedo. Embarrassing. Maybe Tuchel would toughen some of these up but I also think he would tell some of the squad, that they aren’t Chelsea level players either. It would certainly be explosive.

Just a feeling I have. Think he is a huge risk. Doing well with Sporting, Benfica or Porto is a difficult barometer to judge a manager on. Good teams in their own rights but just don’t think he is the man for us. I mean I don’t think Poch is an outstanding manager by any stretch but the owners and footballing guys reportedly heavily favoured Poch over Amorim which says enough to me. Maybe but I think de Zebri who has experience managing in Italys top division and the PL will be much more appealing to a lot of teams than Amorim too. Same again with Xabi Alonso - which yeah sure not exactly making any outrageous or unobvious statements saying that - but because he has a notable body of work in a top 5 division in Europe (in the Bundesliga where Bayern have dominated domestically for 10+ years now) as opposed to in a much poorer domestic league where Porto, Benfica & Sporting are traditionally the best teams most seasons (maybe Braga too). Amorim just strikes me as far too big a risk when you look at some of the guys out there and which leagues they are doing good jobs in. For us, for Liverpool, for Bayern, for United for whoever. I think the days of these Portuguese league coaches maybe being of a Mourinho-esque standard as opposed to a Villas-Boas-esque standard are long gone. Maybe a bit disrespectful towards the standards of the Portuguese league but I don’t think its particularly impressive to win there as a manager these days. Look how many average managers Benfica had when they were winning everything domestically and Porto beforehand too, I mean how many of them did well abroad?

You can see him playing as a 6 and a 8 for Arsenal now and still making huge contributions. Scoring and making goals now too.

Rice is an absolute machine despite being “average” as many put it here (or worse as some folk claimed). Yet we bought Lavia, Ugochuwku and Caicedo all for about £200m. Sheff Utd may be piss poor but Arsenal comfortably up there with Liverpool and City.

Be injured again in a months time, wait and see. No faith in this medical department. Even more so considering Nkunku’s mysterious injury there last week and the fact Reece has been here before time and time again. Not to mention the countless injuries to others.

A manager who when he probably leaves Portugal, will fail in a much more competitive league against better teams and better managers. No thanks.

Enzo wasn’t good every week last season though. He did show good moments in some games with Potter/Lampard but I got the feeling people were so delighted that we signed him that it was like he could do no wrong. He did struggle with some of the things he is struggling with again this season, mainly without the ball and positionally. His performances have regressed this season - not all his fault but not like he doesn’t shoulder blame either - although he probably had his best game in a Chelsea shirt in Poch’s first game v Liverpool. That was the level I think many people were expecting him to aspire to reach in games this season. With him this season in particular its always the same old story. Has a good spell in a game when teams sit off then disappears when it gets tougher. Particularly when teams are more physical and get more dynamic, athletic players in and around him. He is easy to run off still and he can be caught in daft positions leaving huge gaps. He really needs to decide what sort of player he is going to be. He can be the sort of player Twitter accounts post daft tweets after he’s had a stat padded game against a bottom half championship side where we have all of the ball, vs players who have a 10th of his talent and cost a 100th of his price like v Blackburn Rovers earlier in the cup this season. Or he can be the sort of player who is able to take a game by the scruff of the neck against the top teams irrespective of the number of touches, passes, etc he has like the likes of Kroos, Modric, de Jong etc. do most games. You tend to see the tougher those games get, the better the likes of those players seem to play.

He will have options, plenty of them, so theres no doubt we will be near the bottom of any list. For any reasonably good player not just him. Let’s be real, why would anyone half decent want to come here when things are this bad? And throwing another £150-200m at young u21 players again this summer is going to do fuck all to fix the problems we have running from top to bottom of the club. This summer window is going to be brutal in all honesty. No longer got that safety from previous seasons with the older regime where we would have still attracted top top players & top top managers. Or that optimism like the first 2 windows when Boehly & Clearlake came in. Completely different now. This group and managers already written off and any chance of even slightly reversing a wee bit of this is going to take a lot of work.