Welcome Mauricio Pochettino

[Thor 2,689]

On 04/09/2023 at 22:41, YorkshireBlue said:

We aren't playing 3 at the back Saturdays formation was 

 

                                 Sanchez 

Gusto        diassi                  Silva.          Colwil 

                      Conor          Caicedo 

Sterling.                   Enzo.                    Chilwel 

                               Jackson 

Should be this going forward: 

 

                               Sanchez 

Gusto        diassi              Colwill        Chilwell 

                      Enzo          Caicedo 

Sterling.                   Palmer                    Mudryk

                               Jackson 

[Vesper 30,091]

Chelsea have a hugely talented investment portfolio. Now they need a football team

https://theathletic.com/4827934/2023/09/04/Chelsea-transfer-spending-squad/

As Nicolas Jackson’s lunging finish looped almost impossibly over the crossbar in the 83rd minute, the raucous Nottingham Forest supporters in Stamford Bridge’s Shed End burnished their gleeful jeer with the chant that had become the soundtrack to a deeply frustrating afternoon for Chelsea.

“What a waste of money.”

The boos that rippled around the home support at the final whistle when Forest’s 1-0 victory was confirmed were an understandable response to a performance that echoed Chelsea’s worst travails at home last season: slow possession stifled by a deep-lying opponent following a smart but simple plan, rare good chances wasted and an unforced error ruthlessly punished to turn a draw into a defeat.

Forest did nothing unexpected to claim their first win at Stamford Bridge since 1995, but the fact that they succeeded should reinforce what might be an uncomfortable truth for those in charge of Chelsea’s insatiable recruitment operation: outspending everyone else in the transfer market offers absolutely zero guarantees of winning consistently in the Premier League, at least in the short term.

Lost amid the fanfare that surrounds massive transfer fees, hijacked deals and glitzy social media announcements is the reality that, with the exception of one or two promoted clubs, the talent advantage enjoyed by the richest Premier League clubs over the rest in England’s top flight is actually pretty marginal.

GO DEEPER

Premier League transfer window: The good and the bad for each club

There was compelling evidence of this across the pitch on Saturday at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea academy graduate Ola Aina, now 26, has never commanded an eight-figure transfer fee in his professional career. But he is an excellent one-v-one defender, more than capable of shutting down Raheem Sterling when mentally locked in.

Catch him on the right day and Anthony Elanga, the product of another elite Premier League academy (Manchester United) and with Champions League goals to his name, has more than enough ability to have a greater impact in the final third than Noni Madueke and Mykhailo Mudryk.

It also manifests in other ways. Brighton and Hove Albion had eight players at the last World Cup. West Ham had starters for England, Brazil, Germany and surprise semi-finalists Morocco. One day after completing a £30million deal for Ibrahim Sangare, a key midfielder from last season’s Eredivisie runners-up PSV, Forest were able to withdraw the tiring Aina and Serge Aurier in the second half at Stamford Bridge and introduce Gonzalo Montiel, the man who scored the winning penalty in the final shootout in Qatar.

Premier League clubs committed more than double the sums spent on transfer fees by the PIF-bankrolled Saudi Pro League in England’s summer transfer window. This competition is by far the closest thing football has to a Super League, and the talent level across the board has never been higher.

GO DEEPER

Premier League spending reaches almost $3billion - and the excess will only increase

Beneath the headlines that Chelsea seized when breaking the British transfer record twice in consecutive windows to acquire Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo, all they were really buying on an individual level was a relatively marginal talent edge over most of their direct opponents on a weekly basis.

That alone does not yield much of a margin for error. Caicedo’s loose touch that initiated the sequence directly leading to Elanga’s winner was not befitting of a £115million midfielder, because £115m is an arbitrary price that Chelsea decided to pay in order to avoid losing him to Liverpool. It provides very little by way of insurance against a moment of hesitation or misreading of Conor Gallagher’s intentions, particularly when the two have been team-mates for less than three weeks.

Only when these highly skilled individuals are put together in a stable environment and coherent system that maximises their best qualities is a gulf created with rival sides that delivers consistent results. This is why Manchester City and Liverpool have been the gold standard for the last five years and it is why every top modern coach, Mauricio Pochettino included, is so fond of talking about ‘processes’.

No amount of transfer spending can skip the time needed for coaching, adaptation and development to run their course. This is not the Premier League of 2003, when Roman Abramovich’s deep pockets elevated Chelsea to perennial contender status almost overnight. Progress is a slower burn now, even more so when your recruitment strategy consists of assembling the youngest squad in the division.

Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital believe youth is underrated in football, but it is also by nature relatively untested. Jackson, despite frequently flashing elite talent, is not currently displaying the composure in front of goal that he will likely find with greater experience. Caicedo has the look of a superb midfielder feeling his way in a new team while saddled with a huge price tag.

The scale of Chelsea’s transfer spending over the past year has created external expectations that are impossible for this squad to meet right now, and the prevailing “£1billion spent” narrative cares nothing for the context of almost £300m raised through player sales, or the fact that most of the new signings are players aged 23 or younger regarded internally as investments rather than costs.

GO DEEPER

Chelsea's transfer window: Heavy spending, significant sales and bargain Jackson

West Ham and Forest have already beaten Chelsea in familiar fashion. There will be more days like these, more symposiums of schadenfreude on social media, more gleeful chants of wasted money on miserable matchdays, as Pochettino’s shiny new team learns through its growing pains. The key question is whether the outside noise will be allowed to cause internal strife.

Boehly and Clearlake have utterly remade every aspect of Chelsea in the space of a little more than a year, driving a squad overhaul unprecedented in its speed and spend. For the last three months in particular, the club has been a transaction machine, buying and selling at a bewildering rate.

That is over now.

For the next four months, Chelsea have to become a football team that maximises the talent they have amassed, a cohesive squad of footballers as well as a human investment portfolio. That path will be far from painless, because winning in the Premier League is much more difficult than winning in the transfer market.

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Vesper

[Vesper 30,091]

16-year-old Kiano Dyer now spotted in Mauricio Pochettino’s Chelsea first team training

https://www.thechelseachronicle.com/news/16-year-old-youngster-now-spotted-in-mauricio-pochettinos-Chelsea-first-team-training/

Chelsea youngster Kiano Dyer has been spotted as part of the first team squad training during the international break.

A video posted on the club’s Instagram page has seen the 16-year-old as part of the session being run by Mauricio Pochettino.

It has already been claimed that it was business as usual as far as Pochettino was concerned for the players who remained at Cobham over the next two weeks.

He was planning to remove days off that had been previously allowed for the players, as they look to climb up the table when domestic football returns.

However, it does seem as if the lack of first teamers has seen an opportunity present itself for some youngsters to be involved and get an experience of what it is like training with the best in the world.

Dyer spotted in training

One of these this time has been Dyer, who was born as late as November 2006. 

He has become a full-time scholar at the club this season after his move from West Brom.

 

It has not taken long for him to impress enough to be part of the young group who took part alongside the likes of Raheem Sterling and Romeo Lavia.

It has reportedly not all been good news on the training ground this week, with the Belgian being one of those who has potentially suffered a serious injury this week.

The club are waiting for the results of a scan after what could be a muscle tear for the youngster, which either way is likely to push his debut back a few more weeks.

more:

Teenage Kicks: Kiano Dyer

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/article/teenage-kicks-kiano-dyer

Edited September 9, 2023 by Vesper

[KEVINAA 129]

Gary Neville YT Channel - The Overlap

Just uploaded a few minutes ago.

How Pochettino is fixing Chelsea.

 

 

[dimmas 130]

Double post

Edited September 17, 2023 by dimmas
Double post

[dimmas 130]

I don't understand what Pochettino is trying to do with Enzo since he has moved Enzo's position and role in the last 2-3 matches. It has made Enzo's and everyone's performance much worse.

Having an idea or offering a different solution is one thing, but while continually seeing that it doesn't work at all and not providing enough support to make it work, and insisting on it, is like asking for trouble.

Right now, Enzo is playing in a really high or too advanced position, which only makes him play in a strange way. He plays like he's chasing shadows, appears insignificant, isolated, and also doesn't receive enough runs or any other necessary support around him.

And after all this midfielder buying, our best midfield performance still occurs when we play Enzo-Gallagher in the pivot.

This doesn't necessarily mean Ugo played poorly today; actually, for me, he is decent and playing quite well. But it seems so bizarre and very unfortunate after we acquired Caicedo, Ugo, and Lavia. Pochettino actually seems to have a different (or weird) idea about how he sets up our team, and for now, it seems to make our midfield play much worse, despite spending around 170-200 million in total to get those three midfielders.

[xPetrCechx 13,570]

Why he changed our formation from the pre-season games?! too much Defensive.

 

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,920]

4 minutes ago, xPetrCechx said:

Why he changed our formation from the pre-season games?! too much Defensive.

 

That formation has been dead ever since Nkunku got inured tbh. There's something about missing him that has poch spooked, and I think its because he was relying on him.

 

Folks were going crazy over Jackson during the preseason but those with a keen eye could see the true star of the show was Nkunku.

[robsblubot 3,595]

11 minutes ago, dimmas said:

I don't understand what Pochettino is trying to do with Enzo since he has moved Enzo's position and role in the last 2-3 matches. It has made Enzo's and everyone's performance much worse.

Having an idea or offering a different solution is one thing, but while continually seeing that it doesn't work at all and not providing enough support to make it work, and insisting on it, is like asking for trouble.

Right now, Enzo is playing in a really high or too advanced position, which only makes him play in a strange way. He plays like he's chasing shadows, appears insignificant, isolated, and also doesn't receive enough runs or any other necessary support around him.

And after all this midfielder buying, our best midfield performance still occurs when we play Enzo-Gallagher in the pivot.

This doesn't necessarily mean Ugo played poorly today; actually, for me, he is decent and playing quite well. But it seems so bizarre and very unfortunate after we acquired Caicedo, Ugo, and Lavia. Pochettino actually seems to have a different (or weird) idea about how he sets up our team, and for now, it seems to make our midfield play much worse, despite spending around 170-200 million in total to get those three midfielders.

@OneMoSalahcommented on that on a diff thread (game thread?).

The squad is extremely unbalanced. There are a lot of CMs most on the defensive side and few capable of going forward.
I agree that it's the wrong thing to do; you don't touch your best player, but move and adjust everyone around him.

He's prob desperate given the lack of options up front.

We ask for Palmer and he looked raw which is understandable... because he is.

[Costa19 858]

 

And go next.  

Next one cant be as bad anyway so whats the point of keeping him?

Thanks for the 1-2 games in pre season and close the door on your way out. 

 

[Mário César 1,232]

our biggest problem is todd, tbh 

[Blue Armour 4,436]

Blaming Pochettino is so short sighted. Maybe he can do better.

But in less than two years we have gone from a top 4 team to below midtable.

That's not down to Poch. 

[Mário César 1,232]

6 minutes ago, Blue Armour said:

Blaming Pochettino is so short sighted. Maybe he can do better.

But in less than two years we have gone from a top 4 team to below midtable.

That's not down to Poch. 

thats my point 

[Mhsc 1,093]

Definitely not Poch's fault in entirety, I think a series of bad decision from him has not helped us but can't blame all of this on him. Of his many mistakes playing Nkunku in that preseason game on the dodgiest pitch I've ever seen and getting him injured killed our season before it started. But the fact we are nothing without Nkunku is not his fault in entirety. Obviously, he could have been stronger willed in pre-season about who he wanted and let the others have less say but that's not easy when you're new to a club. The club should have backed him a little more with some more players with experience which he asked for repeatedly all preseason.

I still think given the money and long term thinking involved EVENTUALLY we'll become a really good team, but the pressure to win immediately only seems to be felt by Poch - I can't believe PW or LS would have snubbed so many ready made options if they felt that pressure.

[Costa19 858]

Pochettino: "One thing I am disappointed is they [the full-backs] try to go forward too much and create confusion to the offensive players and give the opponent chances to score." Also says Thiago Silva was frustrated at his teammates for losing discipline.
 

Oh so now we are to offensive. Alright folks calmn down… next game we will probably play 4 CB and 2 withdrawn WB.