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Dressing Room Harmony


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I mentioned this in a post a couple of days ago. It helps players settle in straight away and nobody feels left out. We started doing it with the Portuguese players, then the Brazilians who speak Portuguese and then we've bought Belgians and Spaniards. It's a very good way to do things and makes the players feel at home and having friends already. We did it too with African players too. Don't just buy one, get a few.

Nobody likes leaving home or having to start a fresh in a new culture but nowadays for us, players are coming in and knowing they have people to relate to. Chemistry is key to teams success. Arsenal done the same previously with French players.

Ashley Cole seemed disillusioned with Arsenal as he was the only English player there. There was a picture in a paper showing Arsenal celebrating a goal and Ashley Cole just in the background walking away. Ashley came to Chelsea because he wasn't involved much in Arsenal's cliches so to speak and he came to Chelsea to link up with the 4 or 5 England internationals we had at the time.

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Notice how certain players/nationalities have been brought in 'partly' for dressing room harmony. The club acquired Hazard's brother to further accommodate him, and before his arrival we confirmed the De Bruyne & Courtois deals, and brought in Lukaku. Having a contingent of players from particular backgrounds. Benayoun was a welcome face upon arrival for Torres. He was eventually joined by former Liverpool counterpart Meireles and Spain team mate Mata, and later Romeu, boosting the Spanish numbers. We saw a similar pattern developing after the Ramires acquisition, with the Brazilians. Of course there are exceptions to this, but the way the dressing room has been constructed recently would certainly indicate to it not being a mere coincidence. With the constant manager changes over the years, the club have at least managed to combat culture clashes effectively, and have managed to construct an identity/harmony within the squad.

Surely more down to the fact that Belgium have a lot of quality youngsters coming through, Spain are the best national team in the world at the moment and brazil constantly produce top talent, stands to reason we would be interested in players from those areas. I doubt dressing room harmony is considered when looking at potential signings. No idea as to the reasons behind the Thorgan Hazard signing, i doubt it has anything to do with company for Eden as has a family of his own and a number of players from his country already at the club.

At academy level we have seen us sign family members as sweetners for some top top talent (see the musonda and Angban brothers) this is also at a time when we are looking to build up the numbers in the squads available at that age too..

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How is Cahill an exception? He's English, our team is English, we have many English players. Now Marin is a better example, hopefully he paves way for a German influx :P

Of course, but I mean we didn't sign him to make some player feel less lonely or irrelevant or whatever.. Marin is ok I think, since the interviews showed that he has a good relationship with Ivanovic. :)

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The problem with Belgium is you have the Flemish speaking North and the French south. I think de Bruyne is Flemish while Courtois sounds French. I'm not sure about Lukaku or the Hazard Bro's.

It's not the same as Torres asking Mata to come over. There's a very remote chance that due to language barriers they may not get along as well as expected. There are precedent's for this in other sports, especially cycling where the French speaking Belgian Phillipe Gilbert had a very rocky relationship with his team mate and Flemish Belgian Jurgen Van den Broeck...

How dare you forget German speaking Belgium! YOU SHALL BE HUNG FOR YOUR CRIMES AGAINST THE SERENE AND MOST BEAUTIFUL KINGDOM OF BELGIUM!

Orange - Flemish/Dutch

Red - French

Green - German

220px-Communities_of_Belgium.svg.png

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I don't think the club takes the harmony factor into any major consideration when signing players. It's probably more like, "This guy is quick and tricky and clever. He won't cost us too much, either. Oh, and by the way, he should get along well with player X on our team." You know, they probably think about it, but it's probably nothing more than just a bonus. I would say that our recent apparent trend of signing Belgian, Spanish and Brazilian players is more down to the fact that these countries are currently producing some of the best talents in the world.

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This theory is impossible to disprove, nobody knows the inner workings of the club, unless Ron Gourlay has an account on Talk Chelsea. It’s an interpretation that it‘s taken into consideration as part of the overall process. The Thorgan Hazard transfer is the most obvious example though, even without confirmation we all know why that went through. At a club where the manager changes every year, it helps if you have a strong dressing room.

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