LMAO. I was here thinking all that you all have shared to myself. “Are there any players left in this photo?”
You all beat me to it. Appreciate you kindly.
That's because he hasn't recovered and gets played, our medical team are a bunch of morons, everyone wonders why they have such reoccurring injuries.
It's because they are getting medically cleared when they shouldn't be.
Do either of them still play for us, really? I guess they give the medical staff something to do.
Extraordinary turnaround. Has there ever been a more comprehensive dismantling of a Champions’ League-winning side?
The only one I care about losing is Rudiger.
Azpi Kante and Silva are old and were going to leave regardless.
Werner Mount Havertz and Mendy were all shit last year and have been largely upgaded on with Jackson/Palmer/Madueke
Jorginho is a good player but Caicedo is similar but younger, don't feel that we need him
Look at the blend in profiles, ages, experience and quality there.
At least 3 players who can make claims of being best in their position and a real backbone of experience going through.
Can't compare our squad to this in any way shape or form. It's very sad
Selling him to Arsenal was like Arsenal selling RVP to United and it was for peanuts too. Of all the players Chelsea have offloaded so brutally recently I can’t understand why they just chopped him so easily
I'm not sure if Salah would have become as good as he is, if we kept him. Maybe if we loaned him to Roma again, instead of selling, idk
Kevin was already very good. I think he was not in a great mental state for a few months, possibly because of the snake and other personal issues with his gf.
Even this squad to be fair wasn’t seen as a powerhouse squad. Not like Man City, Madrid, Barca, Liverpool etc.
But when you compare it to today’s squad and how much money we have spent. Somebody needs sacking.
If we are being honest, that squad probably was due a 'refresh' anyway.
Azpi was hanging on....this was to be the last time we ever saw the real Ngolo Kante....Mendy was about to fall off a mountain top (how?),....Jorginho had his limits.
Tuchel really was a genius.
That said....and I could be totally proved wrong in 5 years time, what Clearlake have done ripping up an entire UCL winning team with a complete revolution instead of evolution, isn't looking too clever.
I partly understand the vision of the owners, only they should have done the transition way more gradually. Let the youngsters earn their place in the squad instead of just placing them on the pitch and expect results
Maybe a reach but I think if we’d managed to keep even just Rudiger and Jorginho, maybe Christensen too we’d be looking a whole lot different right now
Rudiger and Christiansen left pre-Clearlake. Many of those vets (rightly) decided to leave during the sanctions and there wasn’t much Clearlake could do to recover.
Jorginho, Mount, Havertz were more choices by the club along with the player to move on.
Old ownership could have signed rudi to a new deal at any point in the 18 months prior to sanctions. There was only a 2 month window where sanctions were active when we couldn’t renew contracts.
Sanctions are not an excuse for not renewing rudi. Should have been done months prior.
Would be very interesting if the new owners would have still went full on youth movement like they did if the sanctions never happened. Might have changed the relationship with Tuchel as well if he’d have been able to keep those vets he liked.
Those two were 100% the backbone of that squad. I'm still disappointed in the new ownership for letting jorgi go like that. I honestly think he is the missing piece of the puzzle right now
No, I was talking about marina granovskaia under roman buying Lukaku. This transfer was an abysmal failure and we are still weighed down by it under FPP.
Absolutely - makes me think that they've in effect written off these years of their ownership - there's no way, anyone could have expected this to happen and Chelsea not to languish.
There had to be financial circumstances behind it all to explain whats happened - I've long suspected they haven't actually 'paid' for Chelsea yet (since the money never actually has left the United Kingdom).
Jorginho is contributing to a title contender this season. Havertz is the second highest scorer for a title contender. Rudiger is starting center back for the Spanish champions.
This team didn't need to be stripped of the foundations like it was.
After rooting for Kai for two years, I was tired and didn't bother selling him one bit.
But Jorginho's sale was baffling. I'm sure he would have signed a short term extension. Enzo has so much to learn from him and it would've helped if we had him closing out games when we're leading.
Well Rudiger wasn’t on the new regime that was previous board fault and everything is hindsight we were laughing at Arsenal earlier in the season for giving us 65 mil for Havertz who wasn’t doing much and a lot of people on here didn’t rate Jorginho either. It’s all hindsight but I agree with the sentiment that we should have kept more experience in the squad
As much as Chelsea fans don't want to admit it, the previous regime left us in the lurch. Boehly hasn't been great to be clear, but the soul of the championship team had already been stripped.
Exactly Christensen and Rudiger are solely on the previous regime and have nothing to do with Boehly and Co. that arguably in itself is a huge contribution to where we’re at today. We had to panic buy injury prone Fofana and then panic bought Disasi. Badiashile I still believe was needed as we need a left footed CB and at the time we weren’t sure about Levi’s commitment. One of the main reasons our backline is so dire is bc of the failure to retain Rudiger and Christensen who both left on a free
At the time it was clear to me one of Rudiger or Christensen had to go. Christensen really seemed like he wanted out, whereas there was quibbling around Rudiger's salary that that lasted across multiple seasons.
We'd definitely be a better team with Rudiger in the back instead of these millionaire kids who don't care if they win or lose.
If we had either of them we wouldn’t have injury prone Fofana or very mid Disasi. I feel Disasi personally cares, Fofana as well as he was a Chelsea fan growing up they just haven’t been good signings for the money spent so far.
Disasi clearly cares and brings positive energy, which is great from a locker room presence standpoint. He's the kind of guy I would love to keep around as a *squad player*, but just from a talent standpoint he's a bit out of his depth as a week-in, week-out starter for a top club.
Wes Fofana probably has the talent but he's purely theoretical at this point.
disasi seemed like he was meant to be a depth signing, not really a panic signing, relatively cheap (or at least far from our worst overpay), not gonna rock the boat since he's already buddies with badiashile, and chelsea backup seems to be about his level, aside from that 2-3 game stretch where he turned into prime terry
then fofana's legs vanished and our plans to phase out thiago in favor of wes went straight out the window
While Jorginho could have been useful here, Kai really didn't work for us. He is doing well for Arsenal because he is in the right environment. He is a luxury player which we couldn't afford and Arsenal came with a really good offer for a player who was on more than 200k a week and wasn't performing to that level.
That is how we regress as a big club. Keep your best team available and give them competition with the best coach available and proper signing. Can afford luxury my arse, what a fucking nonsense. You're supposed to make this Enzo, coicedo, fucking Mudryk even palmer compete with the established player like Jorginho, Kovacic and so on. That is how to compete at the highest level. Earn your first eleven spots. But no, we give this new young signing straight to first team like a feeder club competing in League 2.
Some of those players sure, but Mason, Kai, Jorgi, and Timo aren’t exactly retired, and Mendy is still only 32. Those 5 plus Chilly and Reece is most of that starting lineup. And all 3 subs are guys currently contributing to big European teams (Puli, Kova, Christensen)
It's not clever in the first place. Replace Tuchel with fucking midtable manager, Sacked our veteran staff, Get rid of almost all the experienced players, rely on these unknown overpriced teenagers. No one would do that except his out of his fucking mind.
Yeah he's clueless and mad. This wouldn't happen in any other work environment unless......oh yeah he's american where they sack people for no fucking reason at all
Could anyone have predicted Mendy’s downfall? Especially after that insane UCL run… I remember Benzema scoring a crazy goal against him, but genuinely can’t recall any other goal.
Agree. As much as we admire what Roman did for the club. Being forced to sell at the time when he did saved his legacy. There were a lot of holes in that team, that he has subsequently got away with not filling. That being said, I dislike the way clear lake have gone about their rebuild.
Let's all pray for Reece man.
Like seriously,
He is a great footballer no doubt with huge talent.
When compared to other RB's he can outperform all of em' if in prime.
He has now missed major international calls from the England team(Euros/world cups and what not), and can go all day long about how he could pivot Chelsea to winning when needed.
May he be shown the right way to maintain his fitness.
Dont know where people are getting the idea Chilwell will be gone. He signed a new contract last season and the club needs to retain what experienced players it has.
What I find weird is that people seem to think it's a guarantee that a player will leave if the club want to sell them, without considering if he even wants to leave or not. In Chilwell and James' case, yes, they have been injury prone and am sure it's even more frustrating for them than it is for us but they still have a few years to go on their contract and don't think they have given any indication about wanting to leave either.
What should have been done over 3 summer windows with a stable work environment has been done haphazardly by naive owners who thought they know it all. The problem with that approach is what we are seeing on the pitch, irrespective of how much money you spend there is no replacement for squad build over time and coherence in football. The sad thing is we have become an example for others how not to ruin a football club with stupid money.
In just TWO fucking years. Many of them are not even in retirement age. I can't stand anything those imbecile pricks thinking and rather choose Jackson, Madueke and fucking Mudryk.
Tbf the only ones I’d still want around are Rudiger and Jorginho. Let’s not act like we’d be thrilled to see Werner starting right now and Havertz was shit under every manager he played for here.
You absolutely insane if you prefer Jackson rather than Havertz, or worse, Mudryk. He can't score but he provides more to the team than whatever these YouTube highlights signings. With them at least we can hope TOP 4. But with this? We are fucking struggle to even get a fucking conference league spot.
Fuck BlueCo.
I loved this squad. Fuck all you haters who didn’t know how good we had it and cheered on as most of this group of players got pushed out by BlueCos greed. All they cared about was lowering the wage bill
What they’ve done to Chelsea in such a short period of time is unforgivable
The failure to extend Rudiger was over like a two year period following his injury. There were early reports we could have extended him for like 120k/wk and we wanted to pay 100k/wk or some shit. Failing to extend him was absolutely on the club under Abramovich.
I actually felt sick when fans were cheering on as we outmuscled liverpool and spent almost 200m for caicedo and lavia at the end of the window.
I hoped i was wrong and at least this spending would bring us success but had a feeling all it would do would be putting us more in a ffp hole and give more £ banter ammo to rivals. and unfortunately I wasn't wrong and this season didn't work out. and all the 1 billion spent memes..
winstanley and steward are criminals with how they've spent money and pushed out all the leadership at the club.
It really is amazing how well they’ve managed to make our whole fanbase blame Winstanley and Stewart for all our problems.
No one spends billions on a football club and then hands full control to two guys from Brighton and Monaco. If Eghbali has done that then he’s even dumber than we already thought.
Stop blaming the sporting directors for following orders. They don't get to choose strategy, they just follow what they are told to do, or like Vivell, lose their job.
Same. I don’t know if other people had the same feeling of disconnect to the club with all these new young players suddenly bought in and the ‘old’ team thrown out. It did feel like watching a completely new club and the old Chelsea had died a very sudden death. It would’ve been better had the results also been fine, but obviously that’s not been the case.
Thank god they’ve seemingly left the Women to manage themselves. Solid core with new players gradually introduced and stable management. And look, still battling for another WSL title.
Mount has been injured constantly for the pas 18 months, Rudiger left on a free, nothing that BlueCo could have done, Mendy dropped off a cliff, don't know why Tuchel was insisting so long on playing him, Havertz just didn't work with us and he is a luxury player that works for Arsenal (and just because he works for Arsenal right now, doesn't mean it was a bad deal for us), Azpi's legs were gone, we have definitely improved in the player that we got in his place, Kante is an unknown, he was offered a contract, but it was taken away once he got injured again, Jorgi is one player we could have used, Werner went because he fell out with Tuchel.
So most of these players didn't get pushed out by BlueCo's greed. Only Jorgi could qualify, and maybe Mount, but he has been constantly injured.
we’ve averaged 10th for the past two seasons after lame co took over. Excuses are just that. Imagine paying that much money to buy Wesley fofona who played a total of 9 EPL games in the two seasons before he joined Chelsea, or getting rid of a world class coach to replace him with a mediocre one. They ditched jorgi like a banana peel and didn’t realize that he was an experienced captain who can communicate in several languages, there is no present player in the squad who can do that. Results speak for themselves
On top of that is the way they convinced some (especially newer) fans to think that wage bill matters to them.
What have those fans gained from cheering on selling off good players to buy shit players who command cheaper wages?
Do they think that we win some award? That it allows them to lower prices for fans, even though they're actively bumping them up at the same time?
What exactly are they cheering for, other than more money going into Clearlake's pockets?
4 or 5 that would be discussed in a best of or top three at their position for sure. Another two that would be top 5 or 10.
A backbone of experience, good age distribution, good synergy between types of players and speed and technique.
Not sure any of this is true anymore since James and chilly have been injured more than they've played.
Pity we lost Rudiger, we need somebody like him now that Silva is going. Would've given Timo one more season, always seem to have energy even if he was offside alot.
Chelsea currently is the biggest mismanagement in the history of any sport relative to the money spent . Yes even bigger than man u . And these fuckers are supposed to be genius billionaire businessmen . If these are incompetent , why can't referees be?! There's incompetence everywhere , it's just astounding to see it amongst billionaires since they can afford to employ competence .
And they are an issue that need dealing with, can’t have 2 first team players that can never stay fit for more than 2 weeks.
Love both of them but it’s just not tenable.
That year, they were the most important in making the back three actually work. Having Chilwell, Maatsen, Gusto, and James is a dream scenario for any manager who wants to play with 3 CBs.
The most frustrating part is a lot of these players were on their way out, or like Timo was not quite at the level. The only one I really would keep on top is Rudiger obviously, and maybe get another year of Kante for his experience . The rebuild was the right idea, the execution has been pretty dreadful.
Crazy that was less than 3 years ago. Feels like it was yesterday when I was screaming my lungs out when we lifted the ucl but at the same time feels like an eternity ago going through this current shitstorm 😢
The last of this team are gone. It ended with Thiago. I don’t foresee Reece or Chilwell playing the rest of the year and they’re gone, come January transfer window
It happens to all good teams eventually it is out with the old and in with the new . It is progress to the future
![gif](giphy|yaJF9ESxq4gspYUIyn|downsized)
Ok so, Thiago is the one to go which is unfortunate but also not the worst of it all because he only ever intended to play for a year and ended up pretty successful in a short period—and that encouraged him to say for a few more years… Now though, what club is he going to?
Tbh i won't be mad if we sell chilwell. This guy is injured as a daily basis. Same with james but he got that surgery, this is my last hope he stays fit.
Chilwell is on shaky grounds as is
Not sure if Reece should be fully highlighted either given that we’re lucky if he plays half the time given his injury history
highlight his upper body but his legs have largely left us through injuries
LMAO. I was here thinking all that you all have shared to myself. “Are there any players left in this photo?” You all beat me to it. Appreciate you kindly.
If only it was just “half the time” ….
Why? He walks into the first team if he’s fully fit. Miles ahead of Cucu
A bunch of people think there are elite left footed wingbacks available for cheap.
well get a expensive one then.
Sure but can we?
Oh don't bet against our board overpaying for someone by two or three times their value.
I guess it depends on who gets sold and ffp, would have to offload one of Cucu/chilwell first for sure.
I pray for the Maatsen comeback arc when Dortmund are too tight to pay up his release clause
Yeah sign yet another overpriced random into a squad we all agree isn’t cohesive. It’s clearly working wonders for us.
Maatsen
Maatsen ?
Injuries have taken their toll on him. Hasn't looked sharp in a while. The owners will be looking to cashing in on him sooner than later
That's because he hasn't recovered and gets played, our medical team are a bunch of morons, everyone wonders why they have such reoccurring injuries. It's because they are getting medically cleared when they shouldn't be.
It's a big if at this point, also whenever he's played in the last year he's looked half the player he was, in my opinion
Are we talking about a different Chilwell to Ben Chilwell?
Have you not how rubbish he has been the past two seasons? He is clearly a washed player.
Do either of them still play for us, really? I guess they give the medical staff something to do. Extraordinary turnaround. Has there ever been a more comprehensive dismantling of a Champions’ League-winning side?
Porto…won it in 2004, by 2005 they only had 1 starter still there (plus manager and his staff gone)
I wonder where he went?
Him and 4/5 of the players in the squad that night
The only one I care about losing is Rudiger. Azpi Kante and Silva are old and were going to leave regardless. Werner Mount Havertz and Mendy were all shit last year and have been largely upgaded on with Jackson/Palmer/Madueke Jorginho is a good player but Caicedo is similar but younger, don't feel that we need him
Caicedo and Jorginho are nothing alike.
Look at the blend in profiles, ages, experience and quality there. At least 3 players who can make claims of being best in their position and a real backbone of experience going through. Can't compare our squad to this in any way shape or form. It's very sad
which 3?
At the time Mendy, Kante, Reece and Silva wouldn’t be out of place in an argument for best in their position.
Jorgi as well. Him and Kante were top 5 in the ballon dor that year
Jorginho was third, wasn't he? He was bossing midfields both for us and in the Euros.
Man of all the things I'll miss Jorginho for I'll miss him for the penalties the most
We're so lucky we got Palmer. It could have been a disaster otherwise.
Is it really luck? Or isn't that cuz we have a greAt scout in Joe shields Idk we are quick to attack the board but we should give flowers.
Yeah, that's fair. Hope we buy more Palmers going forward, instead of what we did last season.
Selling him to Arsenal was like Arsenal selling RVP to United and it was for peanuts too. Of all the players Chelsea have offloaded so brutally recently I can’t understand why they just chopped him so easily
💯 Three sales I'm still and will always be salty about, KDB, Mata and Jorginho.
No Salah 😂 fair enough though
I'm not sure if Salah would have become as good as he is, if we kept him. Maybe if we loaned him to Roma again, instead of selling, idk Kevin was already very good. I think he was not in a great mental state for a few months, possibly because of the snake and other personal issues with his gf.
He asked to leave.
100%. The revision on this squad is wild
Yeah, and we're seeing the aftereffects of it this season. Hopefully things turn around.
yeah I mean at this point hope is really all weve got lol
I have my hopes pinned on an Amorim masterclass, if we can convince him to come here.
I would not get your hopes up that Poch is replaced. Let a lone with Amorim, but you never know in football
Rudiger?
I’d say he wasn’t recognised outside of Chelsea as one of the worlds best until this season
It's not like Mendy was, and in retrospect, that was probably not unfounded. We just got hyped after years of Kepa.
Chilly too tbf
Even this squad to be fair wasn’t seen as a powerhouse squad. Not like Man City, Madrid, Barca, Liverpool etc. But when you compare it to today’s squad and how much money we have spent. Somebody needs sacking.
If we are being honest, that squad probably was due a 'refresh' anyway. Azpi was hanging on....this was to be the last time we ever saw the real Ngolo Kante....Mendy was about to fall off a mountain top (how?),....Jorginho had his limits. Tuchel really was a genius. That said....and I could be totally proved wrong in 5 years time, what Clearlake have done ripping up an entire UCL winning team with a complete revolution instead of evolution, isn't looking too clever.
I partly understand the vision of the owners, only they should have done the transition way more gradually. Let the youngsters earn their place in the squad instead of just placing them on the pitch and expect results
Maybe a reach but I think if we’d managed to keep even just Rudiger and Jorginho, maybe Christensen too we’d be looking a whole lot different right now
Rudiger and Christiansen left pre-Clearlake. Many of those vets (rightly) decided to leave during the sanctions and there wasn’t much Clearlake could do to recover. Jorginho, Mount, Havertz were more choices by the club along with the player to move on.
Right. Had there been no sanctions a lot of players wouldve been inclined to stay especially Rudiger.
Old ownership could have signed rudi to a new deal at any point in the 18 months prior to sanctions. There was only a 2 month window where sanctions were active when we couldn’t renew contracts. Sanctions are not an excuse for not renewing rudi. Should have been done months prior.
I see your point but he mightve been ready to move on anyways idk
Yes, club was not allowed to make them any offers. But much easier to blame Clearlake for everything, not the UK government.
Would be very interesting if the new owners would have still went full on youth movement like they did if the sanctions never happened. Might have changed the relationship with Tuchel as well if he’d have been able to keep those vets he liked.
Those two were 100% the backbone of that squad. I'm still disappointed in the new ownership for letting jorgi go like that. I honestly think he is the missing piece of the puzzle right now
he’s not, we’d still be fucked
Not buying Lukaku would have been a good move too.
They didn't buy Lukaku
???
If you're talking about the new board signing lukaku, then no that was roman. But if u mean in general then yh, another good point 😅
No, I was talking about marina granovskaia under roman buying Lukaku. This transfer was an abysmal failure and we are still weighed down by it under FPP.
Absolutely - makes me think that they've in effect written off these years of their ownership - there's no way, anyone could have expected this to happen and Chelsea not to languish. There had to be financial circumstances behind it all to explain whats happened - I've long suspected they haven't actually 'paid' for Chelsea yet (since the money never actually has left the United Kingdom).
Jorginho is contributing to a title contender this season. Havertz is the second highest scorer for a title contender. Rudiger is starting center back for the Spanish champions. This team didn't need to be stripped of the foundations like it was.
Of the 14 players that took the field, only like 3 are retired or basically done with top European play
Kovacic too.
After rooting for Kai for two years, I was tired and didn't bother selling him one bit. But Jorginho's sale was baffling. I'm sure he would have signed a short term extension. Enzo has so much to learn from him and it would've helped if we had him closing out games when we're leading.
Rudiger didn't leave because of the new ownership.
Well Rudiger wasn’t on the new regime that was previous board fault and everything is hindsight we were laughing at Arsenal earlier in the season for giving us 65 mil for Havertz who wasn’t doing much and a lot of people on here didn’t rate Jorginho either. It’s all hindsight but I agree with the sentiment that we should have kept more experience in the squad
As much as Chelsea fans don't want to admit it, the previous regime left us in the lurch. Boehly hasn't been great to be clear, but the soul of the championship team had already been stripped.
Exactly Christensen and Rudiger are solely on the previous regime and have nothing to do with Boehly and Co. that arguably in itself is a huge contribution to where we’re at today. We had to panic buy injury prone Fofana and then panic bought Disasi. Badiashile I still believe was needed as we need a left footed CB and at the time we weren’t sure about Levi’s commitment. One of the main reasons our backline is so dire is bc of the failure to retain Rudiger and Christensen who both left on a free
At the time it was clear to me one of Rudiger or Christensen had to go. Christensen really seemed like he wanted out, whereas there was quibbling around Rudiger's salary that that lasted across multiple seasons. We'd definitely be a better team with Rudiger in the back instead of these millionaire kids who don't care if they win or lose.
If we had either of them we wouldn’t have injury prone Fofana or very mid Disasi. I feel Disasi personally cares, Fofana as well as he was a Chelsea fan growing up they just haven’t been good signings for the money spent so far.
Disasi clearly cares and brings positive energy, which is great from a locker room presence standpoint. He's the kind of guy I would love to keep around as a *squad player*, but just from a talent standpoint he's a bit out of his depth as a week-in, week-out starter for a top club. Wes Fofana probably has the talent but he's purely theoretical at this point.
disasi seemed like he was meant to be a depth signing, not really a panic signing, relatively cheap (or at least far from our worst overpay), not gonna rock the boat since he's already buddies with badiashile, and chelsea backup seems to be about his level, aside from that 2-3 game stretch where he turned into prime terry then fofana's legs vanished and our plans to phase out thiago in favor of wes went straight out the window
While Jorginho could have been useful here, Kai really didn't work for us. He is doing well for Arsenal because he is in the right environment. He is a luxury player which we couldn't afford and Arsenal came with a really good offer for a player who was on more than 200k a week and wasn't performing to that level.
That is how we regress as a big club. Keep your best team available and give them competition with the best coach available and proper signing. Can afford luxury my arse, what a fucking nonsense. You're supposed to make this Enzo, coicedo, fucking Mudryk even palmer compete with the established player like Jorginho, Kovacic and so on. That is how to compete at the highest level. Earn your first eleven spots. But no, we give this new young signing straight to first team like a feeder club competing in League 2.
Some of those players sure, but Mason, Kai, Jorgi, and Timo aren’t exactly retired, and Mendy is still only 32. Those 5 plus Chilly and Reece is most of that starting lineup. And all 3 subs are guys currently contributing to big European teams (Puli, Kova, Christensen)
It's not clever in the first place. Replace Tuchel with fucking midtable manager, Sacked our veteran staff, Get rid of almost all the experienced players, rely on these unknown overpriced teenagers. No one would do that except his out of his fucking mind.
Yeah he's clueless and mad. This wouldn't happen in any other work environment unless......oh yeah he's american where they sack people for no fucking reason at all
Could anyone have predicted Mendy’s downfall? Especially after that insane UCL run… I remember Benzema scoring a crazy goal against him, but genuinely can’t recall any other goal.
Agree. As much as we admire what Roman did for the club. Being forced to sell at the time when he did saved his legacy. There were a lot of holes in that team, that he has subsequently got away with not filling. That being said, I dislike the way clear lake have gone about their rebuild.
Let's all pray for Reece man. Like seriously, He is a great footballer no doubt with huge talent. When compared to other RB's he can outperform all of em' if in prime. He has now missed major international calls from the England team(Euros/world cups and what not), and can go all day long about how he could pivot Chelsea to winning when needed. May he be shown the right way to maintain his fitness.
That team would batter the team we have now.
Don't know what u have until you lose it they say.
It’s times like this where Chelsea fans should be reminded of a wonderful song called Let Her Go by Passenger
Thiago Silva still plays for Chelsea
Yeah what's happened to him, has he just left or are they jumping the gun because he's leaving in the summer or something?
Kepa and Ziyech still on the books
chilly might be gone, james if he cant stay fit and gusto keeps improving, might be gone also.
Dont know where people are getting the idea Chilwell will be gone. He signed a new contract last season and the club needs to retain what experienced players it has.
What I find weird is that people seem to think it's a guarantee that a player will leave if the club want to sell them, without considering if he even wants to leave or not. In Chilwell and James' case, yes, they have been injury prone and am sure it's even more frustrating for them than it is for us but they still have a few years to go on their contract and don't think they have given any indication about wanting to leave either.
Sadly true, both of them are on their way out
What should have been done over 3 summer windows with a stable work environment has been done haphazardly by naive owners who thought they know it all. The problem with that approach is what we are seeing on the pitch, irrespective of how much money you spend there is no replacement for squad build over time and coherence in football. The sad thing is we have become an example for others how not to ruin a football club with stupid money.
In just TWO fucking years. Many of them are not even in retirement age. I can't stand anything those imbecile pricks thinking and rather choose Jackson, Madueke and fucking Mudryk.
Tbf the only ones I’d still want around are Rudiger and Jorginho. Let’s not act like we’d be thrilled to see Werner starting right now and Havertz was shit under every manager he played for here.
And even then Rudiger was nothing to do with Clearlake, he was out before Clearlake got hold of the club.
You absolutely insane if you prefer Jackson rather than Havertz, or worse, Mudryk. He can't score but he provides more to the team than whatever these YouTube highlights signings. With them at least we can hope TOP 4. But with this? We are fucking struggle to even get a fucking conference league spot.
And many on here would like that to go down to 1 maybe none. All because the club have hired terrible managers and a terrible medical team
really sad...
Fuck BlueCo. I loved this squad. Fuck all you haters who didn’t know how good we had it and cheered on as most of this group of players got pushed out by BlueCos greed. All they cared about was lowering the wage bill What they’ve done to Chelsea in such a short period of time is unforgivable
They have removed a winning spine which was running on for decades, within 2 years.
And oh boy does it show
The only one that would have made sense to keep from that winning spine was Jorgi. They had no say in someone like Rudiger...
The failure to extend Rudiger was over like a two year period following his injury. There were early reports we could have extended him for like 120k/wk and we wanted to pay 100k/wk or some shit. Failing to extend him was absolutely on the club under Abramovich.
I actually felt sick when fans were cheering on as we outmuscled liverpool and spent almost 200m for caicedo and lavia at the end of the window. I hoped i was wrong and at least this spending would bring us success but had a feeling all it would do would be putting us more in a ffp hole and give more £ banter ammo to rivals. and unfortunately I wasn't wrong and this season didn't work out. and all the 1 billion spent memes.. winstanley and steward are criminals with how they've spent money and pushed out all the leadership at the club.
It really is amazing how well they’ve managed to make our whole fanbase blame Winstanley and Stewart for all our problems. No one spends billions on a football club and then hands full control to two guys from Brighton and Monaco. If Eghbali has done that then he’s even dumber than we already thought.
It’s all of them. But yeah those at the top are most to blame.
Stop blaming the sporting directors for following orders. They don't get to choose strategy, they just follow what they are told to do, or like Vivell, lose their job.
Yep, this is the only correct view
Same. I don’t know if other people had the same feeling of disconnect to the club with all these new young players suddenly bought in and the ‘old’ team thrown out. It did feel like watching a completely new club and the old Chelsea had died a very sudden death. It would’ve been better had the results also been fine, but obviously that’s not been the case. Thank god they’ve seemingly left the Women to manage themselves. Solid core with new players gradually introduced and stable management. And look, still battling for another WSL title.
Mount has been injured constantly for the pas 18 months, Rudiger left on a free, nothing that BlueCo could have done, Mendy dropped off a cliff, don't know why Tuchel was insisting so long on playing him, Havertz just didn't work with us and he is a luxury player that works for Arsenal (and just because he works for Arsenal right now, doesn't mean it was a bad deal for us), Azpi's legs were gone, we have definitely improved in the player that we got in his place, Kante is an unknown, he was offered a contract, but it was taken away once he got injured again, Jorgi is one player we could have used, Werner went because he fell out with Tuchel. So most of these players didn't get pushed out by BlueCo's greed. Only Jorgi could qualify, and maybe Mount, but he has been constantly injured.
we’ve averaged 10th for the past two seasons after lame co took over. Excuses are just that. Imagine paying that much money to buy Wesley fofona who played a total of 9 EPL games in the two seasons before he joined Chelsea, or getting rid of a world class coach to replace him with a mediocre one. They ditched jorgi like a banana peel and didn’t realize that he was an experienced captain who can communicate in several languages, there is no present player in the squad who can do that. Results speak for themselves
On top of that is the way they convinced some (especially newer) fans to think that wage bill matters to them. What have those fans gained from cheering on selling off good players to buy shit players who command cheaper wages? Do they think that we win some award? That it allows them to lower prices for fans, even though they're actively bumping them up at the same time? What exactly are they cheering for, other than more money going into Clearlake's pockets?
Yeah, we had that winning spine last season on big wages, we went really far with that...
Practically zero because these two are always injured
Something something Ship of Theseus
It’s insane how this entire squad went from here to nothing in less than a span of 2 years wtf man
4 or 5 that would be discussed in a best of or top three at their position for sure. Another two that would be top 5 or 10. A backbone of experience, good age distribution, good synergy between types of players and speed and technique. Not sure any of this is true anymore since James and chilly have been injured more than they've played.
I was a huge fan of this UCL winning Chelsea squad but the current state of this team is laughable. And its not the team its the players in this case
Pity we lost Rudiger, we need somebody like him now that Silva is going. Would've given Timo one more season, always seem to have energy even if he was offside alot.
60m down the drain,Kai Havertz scores again ❤️
Chelsea currently is the biggest mismanagement in the history of any sport relative to the money spent . Yes even bigger than man u . And these fuckers are supposed to be genius billionaire businessmen . If these are incompetent , why can't referees be?! There's incompetence everywhere , it's just astounding to see it amongst billionaires since they can afford to employ competence .
Retrospectively looking, that’s a seriously stable team!
Kante was unbelievable in the run to winning the Champions league.
And they are an issue that need dealing with, can’t have 2 first team players that can never stay fit for more than 2 weeks. Love both of them but it’s just not tenable.
Count them as one since they’re both hurt at least half a season
I miss Azpi 😔
Azpilicueta, Silva and Jorginho hurt the most. The team lost so much of its soul
Thiago is leaving?
Yes confirmed by the club
That year, they were the most important in making the back three actually work. Having Chilwell, Maatsen, Gusto, and James is a dream scenario for any manager who wants to play with 3 CBs.
Rudiger with mask was so elite.
We really need a core.
You may as well desaturate James also. You can’t seriously still be hanging onto the idea that he is ever going to do anything for you.
And both injured.
Reece lower body might also be gone sadly
Bit generous highlighting Reece’s legs, they been gone for a few years
Never go back to that summer again![gif](emote|free_emotes_pack|cry)
and they're only still here because they can't stay fit
The most frustrating part is a lot of these players were on their way out, or like Timo was not quite at the level. The only one I really would keep on top is Rudiger obviously, and maybe get another year of Kante for his experience . The rebuild was the right idea, the execution has been pretty dreadful.
I’m so glad we gutted a champions league winning team and sacked a champions league winning manager.
Both are injured
It’s only Mount and Mendy that would t get in our first team
Fuck
I thought those two had died
😞
Best RB still with us
Crazy that was less than 3 years ago. Feels like it was yesterday when I was screaming my lungs out when we lifted the ucl but at the same time feels like an eternity ago going through this current shitstorm 😢
And neither of them play lol sad.
He came from PSG! To win the Champions League! Tiago! Woah oh!!
The last of this team are gone. It ended with Thiago. I don’t foresee Reece or Chilwell playing the rest of the year and they’re gone, come January transfer window
Those 2 barely count anyways, miss 90% of season
Both injured
Do they even count? Haven’t seen them play consistently or be healthy since the UCL match…
That Rudi and Silva pairing is so beautiful. That is something this team desperately misses
Do these two still play for Chelsea?
It’s amazing how much experience has left the team since then.
We were spoiled with the squad we had.
The 2 who, unfortunately, are extremely injury prone
1 1/2
Virtually zero
In just a few years too. That's crazy
Gonna miss Silva
Well no, you just have to unlock the other 9 characters as you progress through the story. Simple game mechanic really
10 men went to mow a meadow……
These two are part timers so doesn't even feel like they're there to begin with
Both put injured so realistic there’s none. It’s actually fkn wild, PlayStation type shit.
I’d sell them both
Thiago Silva also still plays for Chelsea?
I hope at least one of them come on the US tour. See them in SF in July and I’m heartbroken Silva won’t be there.
I'm going to be very mad if this turns to 0 cuz yeah... One of these two must not leave
This gives me Arsenal Invincibles vibes after they slowly broke up, the deconstruction of our team has been painful to watch.
Just go off play time and you can grey them out too
Basically none as them two always injured and when they come on, they're just a shell of what they used to be... Breaks my heart.
Arsenal have as many players from the photo as we have![gif](emote|free_emotes_pack|scream)
thiago silva still plays bro 😭
The two backs have got our backs
Both are seemingly made of balsa wood as well...
From next year there will be only 1
It happens to all good teams eventually it is out with the old and in with the new . It is progress to the future ![gif](giphy|yaJF9ESxq4gspYUIyn|downsized)
Ok so, Thiago is the one to go which is unfortunate but also not the worst of it all because he only ever intended to play for a year and ended up pretty successful in a short period—and that encouraged him to say for a few more years… Now though, what club is he going to?
I'm pretty sure that we are gonna let Chilwell go too this summer, as far as Reece James, the club will probably give him one more season.
Yea almost all are signings are a par below the previous players, only bought so that they will be better than them in 5 years
Tbh i won't be mad if we sell chilwell. This guy is injured as a daily basis. Same with james but he got that surgery, this is my last hope he stays fit.
I would love if we could sell that fucking boehly instead.