Chelsea F.C. Thread IX

Anyone else really really not see the hype around Kai H?
He looks completely average mostly

usually but what makes him any worse than Joao Felix?

A lot of Havertz issue is down to the midfield. Hard to score goals when Jorginho is passing 5 yards at a time instead of doing a through ball and when Gallagher can't pass at all.

I think they are similar players. Neither really impress me.

Gallagher is really a mid table player. All hustle and bustle and not much thinking to his game. It's not even a controlled pressing game with him, he just runs around the pitch like a 9 year old whos had an espresso shot. Which means I dont even think he's a squad player for Chelsea, but you can easily get £30m for him as he does a good job for clubs not wishing to compete.
Teams do need options for depth but I mean guys like Fletcher, Henderson, Milner, John Obi Mikel (a very underrated player imo), Parlour, Park etc. They have control and know how to follow very specific instructions. Gallagher is wild.

Not sure about the Felix loan signing. If Atletico can't get him to play well then how will a dysfuctional Chelsea?

He probably needs to go to a mid-table team for 2-3 years to really find himself (with less pressure/expectation) and then make a big move again when he's 26-28.

I've very sure about the loan signing, i'm very sure that he'll be average for us.

Looks like he's earned some time off to go shopping and sightseeing in London

I can see Potter getting sacked before the end of January.. a draw against Palace and a loss to Liverpool would do it I think.

Still ridiculous you guys fired a CL winning Tuchel...

I don't care, he can go really. The thing is we should have sacked him a few games ago and give a new manager a transfer window.

How we didn't buy Fernandez is ******* criminal. Tell me a CM that realistically will take us to the next level that will want to come to this **** club in the summer.

we've just lost 3M from this guy getting a red card. Didn't think we could get a worse loan than Pato but we've managed it, but hey he did some flicks and tricks so everyone loves it. How we managed to downgrade from Willian too is madness. Clowns man, then we've got Roy Hodgson lite guy saying this is the hardest job in football as if Juventus job doesn't exist.

How we are still playing Azpilicueta is akin to Milner and Chamberlain still getting games.

We should sack now or not at all. Arteta never was this bad and had a *****ier squad and worse board(because Arsenal's board is still **** but their performances are masking these issues) so I don't get why we're saying give him time. Should have given Tuchel time.

Heck I'd take Lampard again.

Looks like the owners are buying players without asking the manager so probably doesn't really matter if he was sacked before/after the window?

Benfica didn't want to sell unless all the release clause was paid upfront. Probably couldn't stump that up for cashflow/FFP reasons?

More criminal that you've spent like 350mil under the new owners and still playing Azpi!

Haha Lampard about to be sacked by Everton. Not even close to being proper manager material.

Bringing in Potter mid season was a madness really. Someone like that needs to be given a full pre season preparation, considering he's never worked a job like this before. He'll get fired (probably fairly) if he loses against Liverpool, but I wouldn't be surprised to see someone like Spurs snap him up after, and do well there. He's just a project manager, someone who will come good over a couple of seasons, but Chelsea don't have that time.

Completely agree. But there's an element of winning winnable games that is inexcusable. Even Arteta won winnable games, or at least that Arsenal squad got results and good performances Vs big teams(e.g. Vs us and Spurs, also won the FA cup in 2020) so there was something you could build on as a manager, a winning culture at least.

Arteta also clearly is a project type manager but there were some things he showed he could do. He could set a team up defensively, even if they were effectively playing dire Mourinho ball. He also could bin players that needed to be binned instead of being a ******* wet wipe and pandering.

Also you mean when we lose to Liverpool. Salah gonna have a field day against Cucurella

@Zurich know you've not been the biggest Arteta fan but can definitely back me up here that Arteta showed some promising features even in periods of sackable form. Binning Aubameyang, Willian, Pepe and Ozil ruthlessly as well as improving Saka during your troubled times.

Arteta did more than enough to be sacked
->Shocking attacking play which to me pointed towards to real gameplan. Attacking coaching is by far the most complex and I suspected Arteta was a one trick pony. Set us up hard to beat but Big Sam/Pulis can do that, its easy. Non existent system for nearly every game and we just relied on moments from the likes of Auba. It's easy to forget now watching Arsenal as we play nice stuff, clearly coached. But nobody could have predicted it watching us in 2020/2021.
->Stubborn beyond belief. You can point to things like selling Guendouzi, now linked to a 50m love to Villa. It was so obvious this kid was going right to the top. Yes he had behavioral issues but hes young and if you straighten him out youve got a player with some personality. RVP did worse and we didnt bin him for instance. On the other hand, he cleared out a toxic dressing room ruthlessly so maybe he needed to show he wasnt going to give any chances to trouble makers. Ozil, Willian, Auba, Lacazette, Kolasinac, Guendouzi , Mustafi etc makes for a really really toxic dressing room and to go from that to the current one I didnt expect. He deserves credit for it.

During his sackable days, his main credit came from a very solid defensive system. He made is hard to break down for the first time in >10 years. He's then built on that with attacking play so I guess his main focus was instilling resillence before moving onto the attacking play. He's a great coach, that's now clear but it wasnt then. The "trust the project" people were coping and clinging to the only horse left to bet on, a long term manager with a "vision"
I wanted him sacked and I admit that

Potter I think needs to get through this period and build from the ground up. He's a top coach and has proven that, much much more than Arteta had shown.

The questions now are:
Do Chelsea want a "project"? You guys got addicted to short term shots in the arm during the Roman era and it was obviously super effective. But those days are over and not coming back. You have a rich owner now but spending big bucks doesnt guarentee success as Utd have shown. You need a proper foundation to spend big and win and atm Chelsea dont have it. Can Potter be the person to make Chelsea work? I suspect not but certainly he deserves some time. The Chelsea fanbase are not my favourite and seem to have some god given expectation for trophies every year. Newsflash, that was Roman not Chelsea and you got lucky.

Yes I agree Arteta did enough to be sacked, but what has Potter done in his time at Chelsea? He's not got rid of the jokers, yes there's been injuries but it's criminal that Azpi is still playing week in week out. You say Arteta's main credit comes from a defensively solid system. Potter can't even do that, neither can he make us look good in attack and improve our phases of play etc. Yes there was an amount of cope when people didn't want to sack Arteta but it's worse here. We have more overpaid players who are incredibly hard to shift.

I don't think Potter will get through this period. I obviously give up on the season but I don't see results getting better unless our physios do a madness and we buy a midfielder, however the players we've got should be doing better anyway. We can talk about injuries but Fulham just came up from the championship and we got dunked on by ******* Vinicius Junior, Mitrovic wasn't even playing and we got slapped up. Guendouzi was criminal in terms of what Arteta did. Also while Ramsdale has been good I think Martinez should have been the one playing instead of Leno as it was clear he was a very solid keeper but Ramsdale is 5 years younger.

We want a project but this could be an Ole style project(although tbh, I think the Olé project was going well but then the board overrided him and bought Ronaldo due to optics). Potter doesn't have a real foundation to build on, there's nothing to suggest he's doing the right thing for the club. That's what's ****ing me off. At Liverpool e.g. Klopp went the opposite way to Arteta, focused on attacking play then made them defensively solid. Now there's a transfer window I think there's no excuses. That being said the Chelsea team as it is isn't as bad as people think and a new season reset, time to instill what he wants and getting the players he needs will probably improve our form(like it did with you guys). But it's not looking good.