08 Feb 2025 21:29:20
Hey ed001, have you got any time for a bit of an update to your thoughts on this chelsea side? I think, 3 years under the new regime, is an acceptable time to judge.

Am I being unfair to repeat my thoughts from last year that it's an utter disaster? I think the only big positive is cole palmer. While caicedo has definitely improved in form, I can't say he's been a huge success for the 115m we spent on him, especially when your own endo has performed to a similar regard and some would argue better. Enzo has also been, very poor.

Am.

{Ed001's Note - to be honest not a lot has changed - the style of play is still highly reliant on individual players to produce, rather than team play to create. The defence is still a disorganised mess. Enzo still looks like he is out of his depth unless he has two players alongside him to do all the hard work, so he can stroll around. Caicedo is decent, but he struggles without Lavia alongside him. Then you still have the same issue of injury prone players - Lavia has replaced Chilwell in that regard - in key positions in the team. And you are still selling off your better players and replacing them with worse players who might develop into better ones in the future, but you are talking years in the future, without any settled, experienced players around to guide them.

I am actually surprised you are as high up the table as you are. Maresca was a stupid choice, because he wasn't surrounded with experienced coaches to help guide him. He has shown nothing with Chelsea that wasn't plainly evident at Leicester, but now he has more talented players to work with. However, he has never shown any kind of tactical clue at all. He is just another Postecoglou - one way of working and so it is s**t or bust in every game. It either works or it doesn't, but he has shown no capacity to make the required alterations to grind out results when it isn't working.

That is fine when you have a team light years ahead of the rest of the division, like he did last season, though even then they just scraped through after a near total collapse. But you simply can't get away with it when you are in a competitive league with lots of teams of a similar level as you. If the plan is to stick with him, he needs help with the tactics, someone who will challenge him and make him look at alternative options and ways of getting at opponents. Otherwise, it might be too late by the time he figures it out for himself.

The big problem though is the recruitment. You seem to be trying to out-Brighton Brighton by buying the same kind of players they would target, but the much more expensive variants than they would buy. That is fine if the plan is to be a competitive Premier League team and aim to regularly compete in Europe, but if you are spending as much as they have, surely you have to aim to at least challenge for the title? You are not going to do that by selling off the silverware from the academy every summer.}

1.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 09:05:38
Thanks Ed001 for all in this.

{Ed001's Note - very welcome.}

2.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 09:25:33
Thank you ED, could not have put it better myself.

What are your thoughts on our si called SD's.

{Ed001's Note - it is hard to judge them without knowing the remit they are working under. They might be doing exactly what they are meant to be doing. But the recruitment policy has been very poor.}

3.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 10:34:03
Ed001, if the SDs remit is to appoint poor coaches and to sign players in positions we don’t need who are not very good anyway they are doing a great job. Throw in Ben Roberts “ Head of Global Goalkeeping “ and you can see why we are going nowhere. Usually, you get two jokers in a deck; we’ve got three.

{Ed001's Note - the goalkeeping situation is bizarre. The signing of Sanchez and then refusal to dump him is insane.}

4.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 11:08:44
Get rid.

5.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 11:45:19
I might the only one but I feel all this negatively around the manager, sd, owners is only because results have been poor, I don't remember any of this before Xmas, everyone was being praised. We've spent a lot and on a lot of players over a short period of time, things will go wrong, we will go through bad spells, not all signings will work out, we are buying players for the future and have some coming in the summer.

If it takes another 5 transfer windows then so be it.
I'm sure the club has players already in mind to bring in and it might well be a gk and cf.
Let's keep being positive x.

6.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 11:06:10
Ed, I couldn’t agree more. We as fans have zero idea what the SD’s have been asked to do but I have to assume they are, as far as the owners are concerned, fulfilling there function.

I also 100% agree about about the strange decision to continually play Sanchez.

7.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 11:10:49
Thanks Ed001. Great response. Pressed send before I was finished, was going to say am maybe being harsh on caicedo but for whatever reason he doesn't impress me massively. Off ball he's good but 115m for a player should net you a superstar. Most of the freinds I've spoken too haven't been too impressed with him either. But I know Tom is a massive fan so questioning whether I'm being too harsh.

Thanks again for the response. Always nice to get an opinion.

{Ed001's Note - it is a difficult one with Caicedo, I think he is being asked to do too much without Lavia alongside him. He is not great on the ball and he is not Kante able to cover every blade of grass on his own. He needs a partner alongside him who can work with him. That worked brilliantly with Gallagher, once they developed an understanding, but it does not work at all with Enzo, who just doesn't have the mobility or intelligence to play a deeper role in the Prem.}

8.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 11:57:26
ED

Sorry another question.

Di you think that the fallout between the ownership has caused an issue with them wanting different things for the club including the important issue about what to do about the stadium.

Are they actually holding us back.

{Ed001's Note - the stadium is a very difficult issue. The owners may well not have come to an understanding on it, but they don't need to until the options are narrowed down to ones that can actually be achieved. Right now there is no option in hand to move forward with. I am not sure there is an option right now, which is the problem Abramovich faced. If there was an achievable option, he would have set it in motion during his time.}

9.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 12:13:54
SteveCfc

It will never work with Maresca. He is far to stubborn, lacks tactical nouse and picks fights with players through the media.

10.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 12:26:17
Steve, what you say is very accurate but it’s also understandable. Most of us have set views and when events support those views we feel we validated.

I didn’t see the need to sign KDH or Felix, I would have given game time (subject to injury) to Chuka and Ugo.!

We did sign a goalkeeper who had a very reputation but for some reason he hasn’t been given the chances we all wanted. As far as strikers are concerned there aren’t many I would want just for sake of signing a striker.

11.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 12:31:01
But will they have experience Cfc?

12.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 14:11:11
Bill, it might not work with maresca, but half way through the season in his first season is hard to judge, especially how good it was looking before Xmas, most people wanted poch gone and he finally started to get it right at the end of the season, if maresca is still stubborn after a few seasons then I totally understand.
The clubs philosophy is to buy young players then I'm fully supportive of that, of course I would like experience ti help these players out but if not im not going to moan about it, I'd rather a colwil than a maguire, the mistake against West ham he will learn from.

13.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 14:13:36
Thank you ED for your brilliant input, much appreciated as always.
In my opinion, you should have a kind of ruthlessness to be able to win in any pro sport, which we are lacking at the moment.
Every decision has been poor up to now from our recruitment staff, although we have the benefit of the hindsight, but, a team without any sort of experience is not going to make it far in a very competitive league.

We should cut our loss right now with Maresca and bring in an experienced manager as a care taker.
Someone like Sean Dyche can do a better job and make it to the end with a European trophy and a top 4 finish!

This season has been a total disaster in my opinion. With a better manager and a slightly better squad with a proper ST and GK, we could have competed for the top spot, especially with the mess City are in and the injury issues of Arsenal, although winning it is another thing altogether.

{Ed001's Note - thank you, but I am not sure Dyche is the answer.}

14.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 14:22:23
Standard, I’m not the only massive fan of Caicedo. There isn’t a single season ticket holder that I know that doesn’t rate him highly and as I’ve said before there are a few who at this stage of the season will voting for him rather than Palmer as there POS.

Just for the record I also think Lavia will (subject to injury) prove himself to be a more valuable player than Caicedo.

15.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 14:41:46
Ashk, with due is respect your comment that “every” decision has been poor from our recruitment team, is totally wrong.

16.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 15:26:21
ED, the Dyche part was meant to be a jest.

Tom, well ok, maybe not all of them but more than 90% of them have been really bad.

{Ed001's Note - what? Jests on here? Whatever next? Banter?}

17.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 16:28:05
Potentially being bias though tom? Hard not to defend a player when 115m has been spent on him.

18.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 16:29:16
I still can't believe we forced out gallagher. An absolutely awful decision.

19.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 16:30:08
Regarding gallagher, do you think the owners is partly why poch walked? I think it's very clear maresca is being told (at least somewhat) what to do about players. Can't imagine the bomb squad was his idea, he was playing sterling in every game up until the bomb sqaud.

20.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 16:33:52
Ashk, I have issues with a few signings the worst being Disasi but I’m generally ok with the majority and as has been said by Steve, I don’t remember to much criticism when we were winning but i do understand the valid criticism when we lose or play badly.

21.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 16:37:10
Ashk, I respect your opinion but I don't think this season has been a total disaster at all, yes the last few months results have been poor and we've not been creating or taking our chances, but to go out so early in the FA Cup is very disappointing, and for someone who loves the fa Cup, even though its unfortunately lost its Cup magic due to PL money is frustrating, its always been my favourite Cup to win.

22.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 16:54:19
Standard, I have zero idea who chooses the players we sign. My assumption is it’s the SD’s but I would like to think that the manager is involved in some capacity.

I think the so called “bomb squad” was a name given by the press and pundits but I just saw it as players who were not named in the competition squads, I assume it was the managers choice who was in those squads. It was probably a tough decision but whoever was our manager the same decisions would have had to have been made.

I have no idea what the reasons behind Poch no longer being our manager. I’m also not sure him leaving had anything to do with CG leaving.

23.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 17:48:23
The continued Gallagher debate/ question does my head in. In my opinion he would have been a squad player and not a certain starter other than covering for injuries.

24.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 19:03:12
Tom, you are right some posters went overboard with early results but ST holders I spoke to weren’t convinced and neither was I. Presumably, I missed all this exciting football people were on about.

25.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 19:28:51
I enjoyed the football and it was a surprise given the poor pre season results. The strange thing is there have been occasions over the last few months when we have played ok and dropped points but when we had a good run going there were occasions (Bournemouth) when we didn’t play well and got a result.

I sticking with my 3rd -5th prediction and 68pts being good enough for 4th.

26.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 21:20:36
Tom, I certainly haven’t enjoyed the football. As you said on some occasions we have been okay but generally slow and predictable: no aggression, no leadership: not the sort of team neutrals could be arsed watching on the box if there was ironing to catch up on.

27.) 09 Feb 2025
09 Feb 2025 21:39:32
You thinking gallagher would be a squad player is quite strange in my opinion. He was our captain last year and started near every game. He also outperformed the two 100m men.

28.) 10 Feb 2025
10 Feb 2025 04:31:09
Standard, he certainly out performed Enzo but in my opinion not Caicedo. I didn’t want CG sold and I could see why he was a fan’s favourite but for me he. had glaring limitations. Him being made captain was more to do with injuries and anyway wearing an armband will not stop me giving criticism if I think it’s justified.

29.) 10 Feb 2025
10 Feb 2025 12:12:38
Steve mate, look at our run from boxing day to Christmas. We have lost against Ipswich and Fulham and a bunch of draws against teams like Palace and Bournemouth. The FA cup exit was only the cherry on top for me.
It's evident that Enzo Fernandez is not a PL player and that we need upgrades everywhere, but especially GK and ST. I understand that we can't solve all of our issues in one transfer window, but the whole process of buying kids and hoping one of them will turn out to be like Cole Palmer, is just wrong.

Our play style right now also makes us very predictable and we aren't doing anything for the most part of every game.

In my opinion, we need leadership and character, like the old days of Muorinho, and I think it should start with a charismatic coach.

Also, stop trying to play like Pep's teams for crying out loud! He has ruined football enough as it is.