Superblue

The Government licence ends 31st May and I would expect this whole process is working towards being sorted before that date. Like you said I think if a preferred owner can be selected within the next week or so, the PL owners test and Government approval I would expect can pretty much go through together but will likely take 2 - 3 weeks.

Unfortunately if it was going to happen one of them would have already stepped in by now.

I struggle to see how the bids will start to suddenly reduce downwards. In particular Boehly looked at buying Chelsea a few years back so will have done a lot of due diligence beyond the last few weeks, and Broughton is a lifelong Chelsea fan. I would expect both to already know the complications and complexities surrounding Stamford Bridge. Similarly if either bid had the idea of simply moving the club to a new site then again I'm sure in both instances they were well aware of the CPO. Ironically though both of these bids seem to suggest that their preference is to renovate the stadium stand by stand (not sure with the Pagliuca bid) and if there are ways and means of doing this then I would expect this to actually be a far cheaper and cost effective solution to either rebuilding at the Bridge or buying and building on a new site. The key here will be if this is possible. A couple of things I've read and heard is that Goldstein in the Boehly bid could be critical here and could well be the ace up his sleeve as he has far more influence, contacts and expertise within the construction and property industries than the other bids. Regarding the bit about George Osbourne/Rishi Sunak I struggle to believe this, simply because the Government seem to have gone to lengths to distance themselves from the process and don't want to be held accountable for any of it. I think any of the 3 bids will be accepted by the Government without a hitch so long as it's proven the money isn't being backhanded to Roman and is instead going into a frozen account or whatever. And I'm in no way against the Broughton bid but it appears to be American financed like the others. What's this "great and good of Britain" rubbish? Or is this the British media slant on it because media darlings like Seb Coe and Lewis Hamilton are named within the bid?!

Boehly gave an insight into the view from an American sports investor on football and in particular the Premier League a few years back and I would assume the others feel the same. A football club is not something that is going to give you 30% returns each year, but it's a solid and safe investment in the long term. I've mentioned already that I think the view from America is the Premier League is still very much a growing market, especially in their country. And I think in particular with Chelsea, there are definitely opportunities to push and drive revenues perhaps more than other clubs. For starters the stadium size. I think the Americans are also very much in their element with marketing, self promotion, etc and will look to push those markets, again especially in American markets. One big thing to note is the key drivers of these bids (Boehly, Harris/Blitzer/Broughton, Pagliuca/Tanenbaum) all have experience running and dealing with sports teams. That gives me far more confidence that despite some of the investors, private equity vehicles, etc helping to finance the bid, the people who appear to be those in control of the running of the club will have the football club first and foremost at mind. The capital make up of these bids - yeah they will see Chelsea as an investment vehicle. It's just something we're going to have to accept but keeping that investment valuable for a sports team does mean it needs to remain competitive and successful.

I think the key here is long term capital. It's easy for people to look at a deal like this and think christ we're going to be majority owned by a private equity firm who are just going to want the club to churn out profits every year. But I think certainly in America, the Premier League is still seen as in its infancy of just where it can reach, certainly with its exposure within American shores and markets. And with Chelsea being in my opinion comfortably positioned amongst the top 4 or 5 teams in the league with regards to size, support and exposure I think all of the bidders see us as a long term investment which could be worth significantly more than now in 10-20 years time. It's easy for people to look at the amount that Roman has pumped into the club, but what's being forgotten is if he was selling the club outside of the current situation and sanctions, he's actually selling at a significant profit on his investments. I think for someone like Clearlake they're backing that Chelsea in years to come will be worth 2 - 3x on their investment and maybe in time they can divest their shareholding within the club. That's my take anyway, and the reason why I'm not too concerned with a situation like this. The more important factor on this bid will be Boehly having control.

Which just hammers home how little long term strategy and planning the club seems to have. Make no mistake the cups and european trophies in recent years have papered over the cracks that we've been nowhere near challenging for a league title since Conte won it 5 years ago. And when I say nowhere near, we're talking 20 points or more each season off the pace. Our transfer policy when in seemingly positions of strength is nothing short of abysmal. Besides the first Champions League win when we bought Hazard and Azpi among others that summer, you'd have to go back really to Mourinho's first time here to see us have successful transfer windows the summer following a big trophy. We never seem to build on success, we rest on our laurels and get punished for it. Our scattergun policy of hiring and firing managers might at times reap short term rewards but does little to the long term. If the types of managers we hired were similar then at least a pattern can emerge but we've gone from Mourinho, Conte, Sarri, Lampard, Tuchel. It's a complete mish-mash of tactics, style and philosophy and our squad is made up as a result with no rhyme or reason. It is also a big reason why we end up with some players towards the end of contracts who we want to resign and ones that suddenly look disposable have been signed to a long term deal recently. There's talk of all three bidders for the club looking at keeping the status quo for the forseeable future. That for me is a huge mistake. We need direction and a long term plan in place. Maybe someone coming in looks at Tuchel and feels he needs backing for a sustained period and will give some time and resources to building something that can hopefully stand its ground for a fair few years.

This is going to become a more common thing over the next few years. If a player can command a £10-20m signing on fee, maybe even more because no transfer fee is being paid then financially it becomes a no brainer for them. The only way this will be combated is if clubs are prepared to pay big signing on fees on new contracts running down for their own players. This seems to have been the sticking point in talks with Rudiger when other teams could easily give him a £20m signing on bonus because they know they're buying a £50m+ player on a free transfer. Chelsea in recent times have not been the most proactive with contract negotiations. We left ourselves in a position with Hazard and Courtois having a year left each, we're losing Christensen and Rudiger now, it's something the club has to get switched on over and certainly the key younger players within our squad need tying down for 4-5 years minimum. The biggest kicker in this Rudiger news is the defensive players we've sold in the last 18 months. Livramento to a degree twisted our arm and I guess we've at least got a buy back on him but I think the way the season has panned out we could have taken the chance to keep him within the first team squad and convince him there was a pathway here and to resign. But Guehi and Tomori sales are looking worse by the day. Tomori had already shown that there was a player there and maybe just a loan away for 6 - 12 months for regular football was all he needed. And the same with Guehi, a Premier League loan looked the right stepping stone for potentially making it at Chelsea eventually. We've sold 2 very promising players who in my opinion had shown enough potential to not give up on. And essentially they've just gone into a fund to buy Lukaku. Our transfer policy is a complete shambles. We had a real opportunity to push towards that City and Liverpool level and with an overall younger makeup within the squad. We'll do well to put a competitive team together for top 4 next season.

I was thinking the same last night but even if we revert to a back 4 though, we'd arguably still need 2 centre backs if losing Christensen and Rudiger. A back 4 will leave Silva exposed a little more when he'll be 38 next season. Chalobah and Azpilicueta either aren't suited or aren't really experienced enough playing regularly as a centre back in a 4. Colwill is still young and would need time, and Sarr isn't good enough. I think what it will do for Tuchel this summer is force his hand a little as to maybe what he wants to do long term. The back 3 was a bit of a masterstroke I think for the players we had in the squad and has helped to mask certain players weaknesses and we always look more ill suited to playing a back 4. But in the longer term does Tuchel want to play a back 3 or back 4? Depending on his future and backing, this might actually be a summer and next season one where we have to take a step backwards to take 3 or 4 steps forwards where a couple more of the younger players come back and get integrated into the squad (I'm mainly looking at Gallagher, Broja and possibly Colwill but depending on what the club is looking to spend there might even be positions opening up for a Gilmour or even an Ampadu or Maatsen to come back and be a backup) and Tuchel starts to tweak things as we move on from some players. Midfield is going to be just as critical as the defence in my opinion because Kante and Jorginho have been nowhere near the quality they were in the run in last season and both now in their 30's with a year on their contract, a big decision needs to be made whether we cash in on one or both this summer and look to rebuild that midfield.

The loss of Rudiger will be massive if it happens. Not just losing one of our best players and clearly one of the leaders of our dressing room, but we're going to have to replace him and we already have other areas of the squad which need addressing. No idea what our budget might be but it won't stretch across too many players unless we have a couple of potential gems ready to unearth.

My gut feeling for preference (and to be fair we're only given a limited sample of information regarding the bids) would be Boehly, then Pagliuca, then Broughton. With regards to how valuable we appear to be for Americans - I can remember reading something early on in the process to suggest that the American line is that Chelsea at the price we are is a steal and with longer term in mind, could easily be 2 or 3x the price in another 10-15 years time. Boehly himself in an interview a few years ago mentioned football clubs aren't investments to return 30% each year but they're a stable asset to hold so I think he carries the same idea that if he can continue to grow the club and keep it challenging for trophies and amongst the top clubs in Europe then the club's value will grow in time.

The feeling is this is now must win.

This would worry me as it makes you wonder just how many people are involved in a bid like this if you've got such minority investors. The club might as well be floated on the stock exchange instead. I would assume there's probably a bit more to it than just their money to have high profile sports people involved but so far the Broughton bid has been the least transparent (whilst it's universally accepted Harris and Blitzer are significantly involved, no one has been honest enough to confirm it). There has been talk that it's well funded but unlike the other 2 it's yet to really see where that funding on a bigger scale is coming from.

For those superstitious type just to note that according to reports Boehly was at last nights game and has now been to oversee the home games against Arsenal and Madrid, the two biggest clusterfuck defensive performances I've seen for a long time. Pagliuca has been to one game per reports which was the 6-0 win against Southampton. I think if Boehly goes to West Ham too he wants to pray we actually win a game under his watchful eye, otherwise murmurs of a curse might start to escalate!

The annoying thing before the last two games is there's a regular theme amongst the draws of conceding late, poorly defended goals having not taken chances to kill teams off (Burnley, Everton, Brighton) and the Man Utd draw was a gifted goal and then an almighty effort to try and win the game thereafter. It felt like a theme that at least could be worked on and attempt to iron out but then the last 2 performances (3 if you count Madrid at home) cast a different shadow entirely on our home form this season. We have to become more clinical at both ends of the pitch. It's a difficult balance because we have had key injuries/covid at awkward times this season and a ridiculous amount of games to navigate but I think moving forward next season Tuchel needs to try and rotate the side less. The early rounds of the domestic cup and a couple of the Champions League games against weaker opponents are fine to freshen things up, but I think it needs to be a core of about 14 players who between them will regularly play the rest of the games. Long term injuries to Chilwell and James haven't helped this season and hopefully they stay fitter and play a lot more next season but we need that continuity across the back line which we seem to have lost more and more as the season has wore on. Similar with the attack. It's not a coincidence that we've looked more potent and more dangerous recently when playing Werner, Havertz and Mount because I believe currently it's the strongest attack and the most fluid. They were the regular trio last season and seem used to playing with one another.

They will probably play as close to their main team against both us and Arsenal because that's what they seem to do, but the focus will be on the cup games for them. It'll be completely normal for them to have one eye on that and try to refrain from injuries, etc. Hopefully Tuchel gets them in over the next couple of days and really ruffles some feathers because I think a professional, focussed performance will be enough to beat them.

Were Bernard Lambourde and Jes Hogh this century or am I going back a little too far? I'm not sure Sarr is necessarily the worst, but he's possibly the illest fit for the manager we've got in place and style we're looking to implement. Technically he's not at the level we need to be playing out from the back and that creates a massive issue and area of weakness for teams to press and exploit.

Not sure if it's as much Premier League football as it is simply the style of play Tuchel wants us to play which is playing out from the back and being comfortable and confident in ourselves in possession. There have been a few high profile mistakes recently, but in Sarr's case unfortunately he just isn't at a technical level to play this style of game. It was ok playing against Spurs and he'll play a role against a team that sits back (albeit he then restricts our ability to attack and move the ball quickly because he has to adjust his position to be able to play the ball with his left foot), but anybody that presses him will force him into mistakes and he will quickly be seen as a weak link when he plays if he's expected to play out from the back. Unfortunately Zouma was exactly the same. He was a good defender and serviceable until we started playing out from the back and then his technical ability became a problem.

I'd be surprised and really upset if we don't see a reaction at the weekend from the team and likely something more akin to what would be our strongest XI based on who is available. For West Ham, they have to have one eye on Frankfurt. It's possibly the biggest game of a generation for them, and offers their only realistic opportunity of Champions League football. We must take advantage of that.

If it's the same issue against West Ham, we have 2 weeks before the Wolves game which should be more than enough time for the club to address it if they wanted to find a way to sort it out.

Could be wrong with the maths but I think the maximum both Arsenal and Spurs can get is 73 points. That is assuming they draw against each other and both win their other remaining games. If one beats the other, the losing team can only get to 72 points, again assuming they win their other 5 games. So with our goal difference we need 11 points from final 7 games and 10 if one was to beat the other. It really shouldn't come to that point, and realistically I wouldn't trust either team to win their remaining games. Spurs for starters have to go to Anfield. But playing devil's advocate, I think the best result would be Arsenal to beat Spurs as I'd also be shocked if they went and won at Anfield. It would leave us needing 7 points from 7 games. It'll be interesting to see how West Ham approach their game against us. They will have had a week's rest but the Frankfurt game for them is far more important. Do they rest players or play within themselves at the weekend? Hopefully we're a lot more focussed and on it and they have their minds elsewhere.

Most away fans are usually really good, and to be fair we gave them every opportunity to get behind their team tonight with the mistakes. But having that condensed, concentrated area of noise will help with the atmosphere and that's something we'll have to seriously consider. Roughly 10-12k empty seats dotted around the stadium will have a massive effect on the acoustics and atmosphere, it has to. This loss of fans isn't likely to be resolved before the end of the season so for the remaining 4 home games it's going to be a struggle.

Very poor, very lethargic, was clear as day from the start it would be like this but it was mistake after mistake and it's a regular theme currently. It's very clear that if we want to play out from the back that Sarr isn't good enough. He'll have a decent career for a mid tier club but he's not technically good enough to play at this level. I've seen Colwill play a couple of times this season when Huddersfield have been on the box and technically he is levels above Sarr. I'm not expecting him to come in and start regularly but Sarr has had a decent amount of minutes this season, Colwill could and should fill that spot next season. If ever you needed a game to show you how much we'd miss Rudiger, not just by what he brings, but also what our alternatives to replacing him currently are, then that was the game. Lukaku is a complete pointless task now. Instead of Tuchel just managing our way through the rest of the season, I would look at really building up and playing regularly what he is likely to still have here next season. Havertz, Mount and Werner have been playing well together recently and I'd just keep that going. Kante is also a massive concern at the minute. He's been poor for a while now, as has Jorginho. The worry with Kante is if you start to take away his physical attributes, he's not the most technically efficient player. With both having contracts up next summer a big decision needs to be made, probably this summer, on what we want to do. As a side note, the atmosphere was awful tonight. The club needs to look into whether we can move the season ticket holders all into sections and just leave pockets of the stadium empty because a dispersed crowd like that will lead to a real dead home atmosphere.

With Tuchel suggesting Lukaku was in his mind to start against Palace, I think he'll start tonight. I'm hoping we can move him on next season and I think it'll be best for both parties for that to happen, but we could do with him at least getting a bit of confidence and scoring a couple of goals before the season end. Firstly to finish the season strongly and have that option from the bench in the cup final (we only need to see how much of a lift it can be when a couple of players have recently hit a bit of form like Werner), but secondly it hopefully reminds would be buyers for the summer to take a serious look at buying him. In general can see a bit of rotation tonight as the bulk of the same team has gone hard at it across 3 games the last week. Ultimately though this game is probably the most important of what we have left in the league as it would as good as cement top 4 with a win. I'd rather tie things up over the next week and Tuchel then looks to shuffle the pack a bit more in the last few games of the season.

Think Schlotterbeck appears Dortmund bound.