Magic Lamps

Lewis hall never really looked like scoring that. Don't think any of our young players is good enough tbh but we will see.

Zakaria and Thiago have been brilliant today. The rest is just theirusual meh self. Can't really blame anyone today, they are all just not good enough plus we had super bad luck with the injuries again. Half the first XI is now sidelined what a rotten season again.

He is not. He is more like zouma when he first came here but with better technique he will become a decent defender but is not ready right now as for Enzo I think the statements from Schmidt pretty would confirm our worst suspicions about our board. Absolute amateurs. Unprofessional and rude. Can’t verify it independently but everything points in that direction. dire straits ahead for this club

Enzo is a facilitator, he needs space and a good supporting cast for his impact to be palpable. Enzo for Argentina is great bc he has de Paul to free him off defensively and allows him to roam around and into space. And then he has Messi who moves into the space Enzo creates, receives the ball in dangerous positions and can pick the killer final ball. This is vital, bc while Enzo is somwehat capable executing these roles himself, de Paul and Messi are better at them respectively which allows Enzo to concentrate on his main strengths by pulling the strings in between the lines. We have neither a Messi nor a de Paul. for Benfica, Enzo is not quite as impressive albeit still decent simply because the Portugese league is a joke. Against the few strong oppositions they faced, mostly PSG, he looked ok but was clearly outshone by Verrati. this for me is not a 120m player, maybe he will become one but only if we find the right system and players alongside him.

After the disaster windows of the past I am a lot more concerned about buying the wrong players than missing out on specific players. Almost no player is irreplacable but signing the wrong player on one of those bloated contracts we hand out will set us back for years. If Enzo comes, great, if not well at least we did not drop 120m on a single player who does not really improve us instantly. Hence, I am fairly relaxed about the Enzo saga. If however the club would do something unforgiveable like signing Pigford or Maguire i would probably break the desk with my head and throw my pc through the next window.

I think the point of splitting the fee in installments is to facilitate other transfers within the next two windows . paying a small amount like 6m over the clause but managing to defer a large chunk may actually be a wise move financially given inflation.

I don’t we are looking for that type of player anymore. Koulibaly was the attempt of a quick fix for Rüdiger leaving that backfired horribly but now we seem to be buying young players for the long term. If we can’t get Enzo we will get some other prodigy the problem will be that if we get Enzo alone we will not see any major improvements at first cos he has no partner. While Kante or Zakaria could cater to him, I think we need both, an actual playmaker or creative winger and a proper all action DM to complement Enzo for him to be maximally effective. Enzo on his own is just a middle of the road player between say Jorginho and Mount but with the right supporting cast he makes everyone around him better like the Xavi/Iniesta type he aspires to be

Ofc we are massively overpaying for Enzo like we always do but on the bright side he did not get more expensive due to his stellar world cup... I doubt Benfica would have settled for much less than his buy out clause. We still should not expect too much of him straight away. he is not much of a goalscorer or assist master nor is he Kante without the ball so I doubt our results will improve with him straight away. Yet despite his age he also has no real weaknesses, is already better than Jorginho at pretty much everything and is young enough to massively improve everywhere.

That's quite optimistic. We would still need someone to score.

2-1 watch them turn this. Everybody seems to be able to score and reate only us we are stuck at fkin 19 goals with the dross forwards we have.

I hope at least for a few games we will see Enzo and Kante together. That should be an electric midfield.

Forget it Potter is not going anywhere. They somehow came to the conclusion Potter was the man, gave him that stupid 5 year deal and now we are stuck with him for at least 3 more. In this case, I really think it is different with Boehly. Even if we at some point sack Potter we will not ring someone like Poch or Luis Enrique but rather Thomas Frank or Eddie Howe. They want to follow this American blueprint of building a squad and a coaching staff from the ground up with their integrated model... no idea if it will work out long term but it sure as hell will produce terrible results in the short term.

Aubameyang was a terrible purchase from the beginning. He was signed for tuchel who was sacked days later. Now we are stuck with him. the only good things about him is he has a short contract and has not yet thrown a toxic fit in the dressing room. He will still score a few easy goals for us but never when it really matters. Only 2 goals in CL knockout stages against teams not named Benfica. Badiashile is ok, Enzo would be a step in the right direction but unless we find a proper striker and/or a capable backup for RJ we will struggle to finish in the top half.

I d be surprised if we are still in the top half of the table after that run of games

We should stop worrying about Arsenal or whoever wins the league cos this is just not important to this football club atm. We have to take a hard look at ourselves and acknowledge we are with a board, a coaching staff and mostly personnel that is way over their heads. We will be a midtable club from now on under this management until they figure it out or there were to be a major reshuffle. Any fan who is expecting glory&trophies should think if Chelsea is really that important to them cos this will be the hardest time for us since the 80ies. There is clearly a lot in disarray atm and this is not solved overnight. however things change quickly in football and whoever sticks around for the next few years will reap rewards and it will be even sweeter if this club, this huge brand gets eventually resurrected at the top.

Rüdiger to Koulibaly must be the biggest CB downgrade for top 6 club in recent history. Only beaten by Kante to Gallagher I always thought he was overrated even in his prime at Napoli. Always been rash and clearly most of his pace and leap by now. The fault lies with the board for having monitored more closely when everybody knew he was shit. And also with Potter for playing him over Trev. Tragic we even paid quite a bit of money for this 31 has been. He appears to be a genuine enough guy off the pitch so I will not go on a full hate rant here. Just hopes he pulls his stuff together and

We have to get adjusted to a new reality. The frustration will only stop if we accept that with the new owners, their stupid decisions and the personnel we have as a consequence is not better than mid table. As sad as it sounds in a year we will be content with a point in a difficult away game in Nottingham . it will take years until we will be competitive at the top again. I doubt we will win a single major title with this manager and type of players we are signing

Carney, conor, Auba, cucu are the type of players who could also play for forest we might still win this, probably not but if so it will be luck In a game of even quality sides not bc we are dominant Given the absentees this is a mid table squad with a mid table manager

Auba is so shit

Didn’t expect anything else tbh with RJ missing we are useless

Well, at least our 85m for Fofana has served one sensible purpose... his replacement is on a mission to relegate Leicester on his own.

I had not seen too much of him in the past but recently done some research and he seems perfectly fine for me. Sure, this is in Ligue 1 (which out of all leagues is closest to PL in terms of overall athletic demand tho) and he is still young and inconsistent. But if he is mentally ready and can make the step up there is no reason he can not succeed here. As you correctly pointed out, he looks appealing by the mere raw data (age, height, pace, athleticism, value for money) already but also in his footage there are far fewer red flags than for all of our other recent CB targets. Not a spectacular technician or aggressive leader but also not an overly ambitious ADD-kid. Solid and dependable. Above-average anticipaiton and positional awareness for a young CB. Could be exactly what we need mid-term

While I do not believe Enzo will happen and generally dislike shedding 120m on a single player he is the type of midfielder I could most likely live with spending a fortune on. He impacts the pitch on both ends and thus has a better lever to enhance our overall performances. When you spend 100m on a striker like Lukaku you want to see goals and once he hits a barren spell or misses some good chances, he is already labeled a flop and has to dig himself out of a whole. Similar with goalies or defenders when they commit a stupid mistake that costs a goal, they become a joke like Maguire. the perception is very black and white, the pressure is all negative. Not everybody can deal with that. For a midfielder, esp one who is involved in defence and attack - unless you turn in a Saul or Bakayoko performance regularly - there is always a way back. You can redeem a missed pass with a great tackle or a wayward shot with a high pressing run. Look at Mount. Has played like a zombie for most of the season but a nice goal yesterday and for most casual Chelsea fans all is forgotten. The human brain likes simplicity and all-action midfielders simply have more tools to blur the lines. This does not make them better players but it makes them constantly face less negative pressure and hence may we.l make a big money signing more likely to succeed.

It is imaginable he pushed himself to be fit for the WC and skipped some of the build up but once the WC was over he should have put in the work. We do not know what went wrong but when you a rehab this long it should be expected of both, the players and the phyisios to be thorough enough. RJ as good as he is is becoming our most injury prone player...

I thought he was decent yesterday but he had tons of space which is where he excels he is not explosive and agile enough for manoeuvring in tight spaces so will always struggle vs quality oppositions and parked buses But vs shit sides like Bournemouth he usually does what is expected