Magic Lamps

He is playing games. I dont think its about money nor playing time. Both of which we can give him more than Bayern can. He either plays us or there is something that has torn CHO and the clbu apart which we do not know of. If he really leaves it will look just like he would do it to make a point. but usually behind every pointless transfer there is a greedy agent

I think midfield is the least of our worries. It will be harder to decide for a set up there with Mount, Barkley, RLC; Kovacic basically all competing for the attacking slot when Jorginho and Kante are set deeper. Kovacic can play the Jorginho role I guess but who is gonna fill in for Kante? He will figure it out I guess... Also defense I think should be alright. Emerson has been solid in the latter stages of the season and Reece gives us the opportunity to rest Azpi. Luiz-Rüdiger should also be at least as good as last season, now they had a year to get used to back 4 again and playing together regularly. DL especially has been the more proactive CB next to a static Cahill, Terry or Silva most of his career but with the way rüdiger has emerged as a an aggressive CB i think, DL can actually be the more tactical one. He has experience enough and albeit his occasional brain farts which got rarer, he still got it. The main worry is obviously attack. We will need a lot of goals from midfield. In the absence of RLC one of them has to hit the ground running. Without Hazard we play more fluently but we are also less efficient in front of goals. The main thing about hazard was that he almost always was ready to shoulder the responsibility and take on the shot, be the hero for the team. (OTT but haazrds weakness but also most redeeming quality was that he would always contribute for the team first before pursuing personal glory. some say that was lack of drive but it was also a sacrifice for the team not to risk tactical set ups or waste energy when the game was one just to boost his scoring stats) Every team needs such a player from time to time. Even very balanced success ful teams like 2007-2010 Inter Milan, Pre-Lewandowski Bayern Munich, the Lyon side that won 7 titles in a row, post-Ronaldo ManUtd had a player for the important moments. I have no idea who that is gonna be for us. Surely not Giroud, Tammy or Bats. Cos face it, neither is good enough to lead the line. the only solution I see is do it like our German national team and share the goals around. We have plenty of both fast and strong players. We should steamroll teams with our pace and power, attack in numbers. There is no use in trying to pass our way through opposition teams. Who is gonna finish the chances? just like Lamps said, Playing as quickly as possible is the key. Transition in both directions must be super fluent which requires hard work from all players.

desperate times, desperate measures. Can not remember the club putting that much effort into prolonging an 18 year old's deal with the manager himself going on for paragraphs over a player that has featured a handful times.Not sure if it is smart, because when the club is buying CHO's hype, he himself surely is way past that. At least it is transparent. The club shows that if CHO ends up leaving they at least did everything to keep him.

Still it is self destructory. The more dominant they get the weaker the league the less tv money for bundesliga the less tv money for them. They have always been proud of their 300m bank account. Today that is an average transfer Window for a top club.

I agree. No guarantees that Candreva would have had a good transition in to Englisj football even though he used to be quite good. Llorente and Giroud used to be like exactly the same player but Giroud has aged way better. Will be interestint how Lamps deals with our super diverse 60 players roster. He surely should hav3 enough Material to implement his style. Also love how fit and involved he looks like a player coach. Probably the best footballer to ever be our coach both back in his playing days as well as at the time of being coach.

tbf those kits only look marginally better than the home puker. I prefer the traditional swoosh anyway. Classic black kits have always suited us well. I remeber the ones from 2008/9 and the best match we played in them. https://www.premierleague.com/video/single/847674

Let's hope he signs that contract first. If not, I hope he gets snail pace. This is dragging on way too long. At some point it simply makes no sense for CHO not to sign a new deal. He is injured, might never recover fully to fulfill his potential and yet refuses to finanically secure his future for good. If he wants to leave eventually, he should have noticed that the club never keeps someone against their will anyway so there really is no harm in signing that damn contract. And if he never becomes the player he was, he would be out of contract next year and never make it to pro football again. He must be pretty damn sure he has lost zero burst or he has balls of steel to toy with us like that. If RLC renewal who is in a very similar situation with the injury and just off the back of a successful yet short spell in the first XI does not make him sign a new one before the season starts, i fear he is gone.

I also think he prefers to stay in Germany or join his friend Klopp but I its worth a try, given we are the only top club who has a starting spoton offer for a young striker. In Germany pretty much everyone expects him to join Bayern on a free next season, that is just how they roll.

Looks classy. But when did they brink that early 00s Nike logo back? Never seen it on a football kit since.

It fucking looks like it. We really ripped off Atletico in transfer windows lately for the past few years. They took Torres off us, Costa back for 20m more despite being 3 years older, Morata who was bang average for them for 65m. We were a bit soft on the Filipe Luis transfer back, other than that great business. Would never have believed they would actually buy him just bc we threatened to recall him. Rather would have expected them to be like "Please do". Dafuq that is like loaning someone a 10 year old malfunctioning Prius that cost 40k back then, it works alright and then say, well now you better buy it for 38k or I take it back

Good business for all parties involved. Good luck to Tomas, will forever be remembered for bossing Suarez when we denied Pool the title in 2014. Also that "longest serving Chelsea player" line cracked me up

If this is achieved with 4+ youth players integrated in the first team, I would consider it a success.

Obreqd that too. Their joke sporting director brazzo salihamicic even spammed pulisic with weekly video messages lol. But only unreliable sources reporting Bayern interest so take with a pinch of salt

surely they will have consulted Lamps before before making Kovacic official. Also what alternative did we have.

yup. would not be the Chelsea way to get things sorted out early. This would eliminate room for late drama which we all love so much at this club. The article makes him look very much like club. Alterating between high press and deep block, fast transition in a 4-4-2 to offense and quickly getting people behind the ball. But what I saw when i looked a tthem, the team looked more like our Sarri Chelsea with a very rigid 4-3-3 that people figured out. But I like his empasis on young players with high energy level and work ethic. Esp Mount, Wilson etc made runs you would never see a player in tha tposition make usually. I remember Mount sprinting up and down the touchline in the Leeds game multiple times in stoppage time and wilson to defend at his own corner flag opposite of his own position. Maybe it was not even planned but Derby surely knew how to put a shift in and never gave up fighting, even if not always successful. What I am really curious to see is what Lamps will do with Jorginho. The only thing that Lampard never did opposed to players like Xavi, Iniesta, Kroos, Jorginho and most of todays CMs was tactically controlling the game, sometimes advertedly slowing down the tempo, giving rhythm with short passes. Lampard was very direct and even when he fell back between the CBs he would always look for the optimal pass to score a goal in the attack. Which is where those hollywood passes pinpoint to Drogba's chest often came from. I dont think Lampard would have been unable to do the Queerpasstoni and exchange passes back and forth but that was just not the way we rolled. We looked inferior to the only team back then who already had those tactical midfielders, Barcelona, when we actually were not. We just were set up differently, whcih is also why we beat them multiple times with Lamps playing a key role. Anyway, the point is: Can Lampard use Jorginho to full effect never having played himself in a team with this kind of midfielder or having been coached by someone who uses a player like this? I dont even think it is a must. Coaches like Klopp, Kovac, Deschamps operate succesfully without a Jorginho-type player, whilst most other managers and pundits have identified these kidn of players as the key to modern football like Guardiola, Pochettino, Zidane. If Lampard is not this kind of coach, Jorginho could acutally hold us back building a high energy heavy metal football team.

I think we will play 4-2-3-1 with Jorginho-Kante double pivot. Azpi-- Luiz--Rüdi--Emerson --------Kante---Jorginho------ Pulisic------RLC------CHO---- -------------Giroud---------------- with everyone fit. A bit of a meh side. would be more interesting with Reece james for Azpi and Tammy for Giroud but quality stay same. Maybe some returning loanees can make an impresion. The new manager for sure has a huge roster to pick from

Yup it has been just as dull tbf. Solid but neither spectacular in front of goal nor overly stable in defence. His tactical concepts really are not mature yet and I doubt that the feelgood factor alone will carry us through the season. I am also not sure if Lamps is a feelgood-type manager. He is a genuine, smart, calm and introverted guy. Not a cheerful character like Conte or Ancelotti who focus on keeping a good atmosphere. What he has going on for him is the massive respect from anyone in the club. But as long as this is not backed up by tactics it will not be enough. Whoever becomes manager is set up to fail. I dont want it to be Lamps.

10m is about right. one time the club did not fuck up his contract situation and at least recovered the investment in his education with a bit of profit on top. Wish him all the best.

This we looked like shit and the amount of points we picked up in the second half of the season is shameful. The others were just as poor no denying. But if Emery in his first season and a loser mentality club, Rookie manager Ole taking over Mourinho's shit show and Spurs with all their injuries are the yardstick then good night. Even more shameful is however how we played against the smallest of sides with stupid errors, no clear offensive plan except giving Hazard and later RLC the ball and hope for the best. Even when we won we really rode our luck whilst most of our defeats we realyl deserved. On the surface it looks like a successful season and i am ecstatic with 3rd place and cup win but having watched 95% of our games the past 14 seasons, i rage quitted so damn often this season just because we were so gutless, frustrating, boring and one-dimensional etc As a chelsea fan and as a football fan i will surely not miss him.

She is usually great at selling stuff. (Even if we completely fucked up the kdb, salah, sturridge and lukaku sales but im not sure she was in charge of those) but she is shit at buying. And like in capital markets, buying and selling require completely different skillsets. So someone with such concentrated talents should not have such a wide range of responsibilities.

I think the posession approach is even more ancient. the key to modern football is speed and accuracy. both in mind and in the foot. Most goals come within 10 seconds of a team losing posession. The team who is sharp, quick to react and clinical in execution is the one to prevail. Liveprool won the CL like that and probably most leagues where also decided by the teams playing like this. Klopp created a team with maybe 3,4 world class players that matches peps 15 world class players squad by perfecting the transition. going from pressing to attacking to sitting deep to counter attacking. You can pass some small teams into submission but not the ones who are coached well. I rather trust Allegri get our players working like that than Ten Haag who may mould some talents into his ideas of football but we need someone to coach experienced divas like the ones we have.

Bayern fams are wetting themselves with him in Germany now and salohanidzic believing that him extending is BS. Hr is just Germany to attend Rüdigers wedding tho

In Germany Rangnick is rumoured to be a candidate for the job. For those who do not know him, he was at the helm for the investor-backed hoffenheim and rb leipzig project leading them from the lower leagues to el places in alternating positions as coach/technical director. His style is pressing and winning the ball high and then attacking as quickly as possible or sitting deep and counter attacking. He either plays 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 but is overall postionally flexible, just demands high work ethic. He is adept at identifying and developing talent, not at all a cheque book manager but would spend on young and upcoming players. I also thought hard about him but before but he usually had full backing of owner and board so this job may be out of his depth. No easy character but one of the sharpest footballing minds in Germany.

limits reputational damage tho

Thats true but if he goes to bayern we will never get him. If he goes to psg or Spain and fails we might get him. I would rather bayern sign an overrated player like Carrasco or Draxler and make the same mistakes as 2004 to 2010 and underinvest in average players but they seem to have learned their lesson and get proven quality. Runours are he prefers bayern tho whuch will probably conclude their interest in other wingers. I hate how they usually get their targets quickly. When we were still splashing the cash and going places in the CL we cpuld attract top talent too. But now we are further sown the foos chain. Even without transfer ban we only get specialist signings like Jorginho, pulisic, Kepa, fabregas, costa before and not really the super hot commodities everyone wants.and i think only half of that is down to our lack of success as we had the same problem after our 2 recent title wins. I suspect our lack of ambition displayed by low balling, unprofessional negotiating and failure to get deals done as major reason top talent shuns us.