Jype

The same article also says Christoph Freund is Chelsea's new sporting director and was influential in securing the Nkunku signing so I wouldn't exactly put them down as reliable. Going by other reports Nkunku will still 99% sign but that source is most definitely not a confirmation of anything.

I suppose as long as the DoF spot remains vacant there's a chance for something to happen in the future? Michael Edwards refused the position too and the club are reportedly still interested in talking with him again at a later time so maybe another round of talks with Freund about joining is not totally out of the question either, especially if things were to turn sour at the RB football group. If Vivell follows Stewart to the club there's already plenty of RB experience in the team so Freund coming in would be like putting the old band back together. 😂

Are they though? Sure most of them may not come with that 'elite club pedigree' but what they all share is they have plenty of experience at clubs that are pretty much universally considered to have a very good eye for finding great young talent. - The guys brought from Brighton have been heavily involved with identifying and buying the likes of Trossard, Cucurella, Caicedo, Bissouma, MacAllister in the last few years alone for around £5-15M each. - Joe Shields has lots of experience from being the chief youth scout for Man City and brought for example Jadon Sancho to the club. He then got hired to be the head scout at Southampton and the players he got the club to buy (Bazunu, Bella-Kotchap and Lavia) have all been good in the EPL despite being just 18-20yo. - Before Laurence Stewart took the Technical Director job at Monaco he was the head scout for RB Leipzig who are known to have a great track record with their signings. For example he was there when they signed Christopher Nkunku so chances are he might have had some input for that one. - The other RB group guy Christopher Vivell was the head of the scouting department at RB Salzburg for five years (2015-2020) and together with Freund, who sadly didn't join this new recruitment team at Chelsea, he is said to have had a hand in unearthing and bringing in the likes of Erling Haaland, Karim Adeyemi and Benjamin Sesko to the club among others. Just because you personally haven't heard about any them before doesn't mean they're considered nobodies in the footballing world. Either way it's a big change from the previous setup where we had Scott McLachlan heading the scouting department (with a lousy record in recent years if I might add) and then basically Marina deciding everything by herself. I'd be very surprised if this new group of recruitment personnel weren't better at identifying the right players than their predecessors.

Hutchinson isn't eligible to play in the UCL. Would have been a great opportunity for the boy but sadly it's not going to happen.

This guy sure seems passionate about joining Chelsea, it seems. 😂

Yeah, from the newly signed youngsters only Chukwuemeka is registered in the squad. Any club-trained academy graduates can of course be added to the squad B list at any time but sadly the likes of Hutchinson, Casadei etc. aren't eligible for that. Should the last game end up being a dead rubber I'm sure we'll get an interesting squad for that either way. Broja, Gallagher, Chukwuemeka, Zakaria etc. to start from the first teamers who haven't been playing much and maybe throw in a couple of academy lads as well. But first let's see what happens at Salzburg. 🤐

True, but 4/5 good performances in his last five games is a pretty decent return.

Koulibaly had a rough patch towards the end of Tuchel's reign (Soton, Leeds, West Ham games) but if you ask me, he has looked much better again lately. I thought he played really well both games against Milan and was good against Wolves too. Also had a calming effect in defense in the Aston Villa match when he came on at HT (1st half Villa xG 1.8 and second half 0.6 with KK on). Only really need a draw against Salzburg and that should be doable no matter who plays, although a win would guarantee 1st place and allow for some extra rest in the last group match.

There's no CL next week, instead it will be the league match against Brentford on Wednesday.

And also that he was a pointless signing because Tuchel was sacked...

Yeah there's been no 'official' confirmation about it but the timing seems way too obvious to be a coincidence. Within 30 minutes of Leipzig announcing his departure it was already being briefed by Law, Jacobs etc. that Vivell has already agreed to join Chelsea as the club's new technical director (and there were rumors before too). If the 'sacking' wasn't in any way linked to his move to Chelsea there's no way anything would be agreed so soon.

Isn't it obvious the reason is because he'd held talks with another club about joining them without informing Leipzig about it?

James, RLC and Silva were fucking magnificent tonight. Great team performance and an even better result. Now just need to get at least a draw against Milan next week and topping the group is all in our hands for the last two rounds.

Yep. If he was still widely considered a player with elite potential, let alone already good enough to be a key player for a top club, there would have been plenty of takers lining up to get him in the past transfer window. It's quite telling that the club most interested in signing him was Newcastle, who may well have top ambitions but won't get there for a few years at least. Even they weren't willing to invest in a permanent transfer for him, and judging by the €70M deal for Isak it definitely wasn't for the lack of money either. Despite his inflated ego and popularity in his native USA he's just not a very good player. There is still a small off-chance that in a new club environment he will blossom into the player he was hyped to become a few years ago but it's definitely not going to happen at Chelsea so best for everyone he's moved on.

Not sure if he's ready to be a first team player for us right away but seems really promising at least. 13 goals and 16 assists in 58 appearances for Dinamo so far and he's been 17-18yo for most of that time. Plays midfield and LW so could be an understudy to Mount and Sterling? Definitely worth a punt at the €15M release clause if a deal can be sorted out. If he develops into something good, the price will have been peanuts and if not, he can easily be shipped out for the same price later on.

Yep. With Ziyech there were lots of rumors about interest from Milan and Ajax but neither club were willing to take him on a permanent transfer and only insisted on a loan with a buy option. Same for Pulisic too. Newcastle held a serious interest throughout the summer and even Man Utd sent out some feelers but both clubs were only ever interested in a loan. In the case of Pulisic a loan would have made even less sense than with Ziyech due to the fact he only had two years left on his deal and would have been on his last year after the loan spell. Milan may be broke but Newcastle, Man Utd and Ajax (following the sale of Antony) certainly had the required money to do a permanent deal so the club were definitely right to play hardball over these players and demand a permanent move or no deal. As much as I want both players gone ASAP I think moving on from Marina's "loan and forget" model seems like a better direction for the long term future of the club. This summer we already got rid of many unwanted players permanently but there's still a few to sort out in the coming windows, including Pulisic and Ziyech.

Get him the hell away from the club. What a spoiled little prick, clearly thinks he's much better than he actually is.

But with the work Freund and others have done for them over the past decade or so they also have a clear structure in place so they should also be able to replace him a bit easier and continue with the same principles, no? It's possible they even have someone within the club who could be promoted to take on the role, someone who already knows the club culture for a seamless transition. It seems any move for Freund is a lot further away as the reports from a few days ago made it seem but then again they were never going to just roll over and hand him to us without putting up a fight. If the man really wants to go and Boehly is willing to pay to get him, a deal is still definitely possible. Players and managers get poached by bigger clubs all the time and usually it's just a case of agreeing the payment terms so why would it be any different for a director? But if the man himself is open to staying and not pushing hard for a move, he'll probably end up staying. In that case be interesting to see who the alternative is for Boehly.

Yeah it's not so much a case of 'doing well' or 'doing bad' but rather if a model like that is any good for the sport itself or if it's a cancer that should be rooted out before it can grow any further. It can be a very beneficial model for the club doing it but will definitely not be a popular move among football fans in general. That said, the City Group are definitely overdoing it and aside from some marketing potential for the 'main club' (Man City) I don't see any sporting benefits for why they should own a club in countries like India, China or Australia. Having a 'feeder team' in a reasonably good European league to help develop and nurture young talents seems very different to what City are doing. I believe Red Bull's Leipzig/Salzburg model (though they have other clubs too) is more the way Boehly wants to go with, and that's why Freund is being targeted for the sporting director role. From what I understand the Portuguese league rules seem to restrict incoming loans to a maximum of three players from the same parent club so pretty much the same as in the Championship. Though if both clubs are owned by the same group of people there should be pretty easy ways to get around it if need be. Even if loans directly from Chelsea would be restricted to the maximum 3 players, I would think in the future if a business model like this was put in place then players like Chukwuemeka, Casadei, Slonina would be bought by the feeder club on a permanent transfer first and only make the move to the main club once they're good enough to slot straight into the first team. That way the loan restrictions wouldn't matter at all and the 'loan quota' could be filled by actual homegrown players from the club's own academy, for example with the likes of Colwill and Vale at the moment.

Got to say, as a fan of football in general I don't think a multi-club model is a good direction to head towards. From Boehly's point of view having a 'feeder club' in Portugal might seem like a pretty exciting idea and I definitely understand why they'd do it because from a Chelsea perspective there's many upsides for this kind of business model and not that many downsides but having a club who are only really considered to be 'Chelsea B team' potentially becoming competitive in a traditional league like the Portuguese Primeira would really tarnish the overall image of the league and that of their top clubs (Porto, Benfica, Sporting etc.) Having a club where the same people who run Chelsea's sporting department choose everything from the manager, playing style, players etc. would make it a very exciting destination to send our academy's best youngsters out on loan for a year or two, not to mention having a club who using Chelsea's scouting network could hoover up some exciting young talent from South America etc. to play first team football in a competitive league without having to worry about work permits or anything. The ones who prove successful could then be 'bought' by Chelsea at a reasonable price, similar to how the Red Bull clubs regularly trade players from Salzburg to Leipzig at prices that seem well below the market values for the players, which would definitely ease some FFP concerns too. If the business model was executed well enough it would definitely provide a better pathway to top level football for our young talents than the loan system and how it was used by the previous ownership. If such model was currently in place, the likes of Chukwuemeka, Casadei, Vale, Slonina etc. would definitely be playing regular games for the 'feeder team' where they would have the chance of developing good chemistry together with a view of translating that to playing together for Chelsea in the future. The whole plan seems plastic as fuck but if we're selfishly thinking about this purely for what it would mean to Chelsea in the long term it doesn't sound bad at all.

Most of what you listed are arbitrary 'reasons' that probably had very little to do with the sacking and it seems like there was more to it than that. Tuchel preferred the rigid structure under Marina/Cech a lot more than whatever role he had this summer where he needed to take a big part in player recruitment. He also wanted nothing to do with the hiring process of the new sporting directors and preferred to just have a coaching role, as confirmed by Tuchel himself. On the other hand, from the very start it's seemed like Boehly and Clearlake want a manager who both can and wants to, for lack of a better phrase, revolutionize the whole club culture from the ground up and build towards a long-term future. In an ideal world Tuchel would have happily taken on that increased responsibility (most managers would) but if he didn't want to then that's a fundamental difference in opinion and probably contributed more to Tuchel's dismissal than any other reason you listed on there. The poor results and performances at the start of the season were probably just an accelerant in what was very likely to happen eventually anyway. Personally I would have preferred Tuchel to stay till at least the World Cup break and see if he can sort out this run of bad form. If by then the club still felt a change had to be made, there would have been more time to sort out everything during the six week break from games. Then again we will probably never fully know what's been going on behind the scenes. Tuchel's history shows he's not the easiest guy to work with when things start to go wrong but I'd take all media reports about the circumstances with a pinch of salt because both sides are trying to spin the story their way. The owners are using their PR machine to try to paint Tuchel as the bad guy and Tuchel himself is doing the opposite by trying to make the owners come across as people who know nothing about football (the reports about '4-4-3' and all the CR7 stuff). The truth is probably somewhere in between. Either way Tuchel is now gone and I'd consider Potter to be a good replacement. He's been on my radar for a couple of years now and him getting a chance at a big club was always going to happen sooner or later. Potter already brought in one of his own recruitment people in Kyle Macaulay. Both Potter and Macaulay are reported to have a big say in who gets brought in for the director of football role and that was a key part of the negotiations to bring them in. At least on paper Potter seems a better fit for what the owners want from the manager but of course he needs to prove himself on the coaching part of the job too because for now his top level experience is quite limited. It's a risky move, especially on such a long and high-paid contract, but from what I've seen from Potter's teams gives me hope it will work out.

Jesus this guy is tragical.

Today it's being reported the club are looking to have a new sporting director in place before the World Cup starts so after that we'll probably know more.

What exactly does he offer more? Trossard is 28 years old in a couple of months and his best PL season (out of three full season) was one with 8 goals and 3 assists. Mount's last season was 11G+10A in the PL and outside his 'end product' he also offered a tireless engine well suited for a high pressing system.

Confirmations tomorrow?