Official: Enzo MARESCA announced as new Chelsea Head Coach

[Sciatika]

I worry about the amount of money spent on players that seem not to improve us greatly. I was concerned about the hotel thing which is why I spent about an hour investigating it. I now have a different view because I am open-minded enough to understand their actions.  I am aware that some things that went wrong are the owners' fault. However, other things are down to the SDs, the coach, the medical department and, in some cases, mistakes by the players. In some cases, it's just bad luck. 

[Max Fowler]

21 minutes ago, Ham said:

We shouldn't have gotten rid of Tuchel in hindsight.

Sold too many experienced players too quickly. 

Ideally would have bought a few more PL hardened players to compete immediately. 

Cancelled the away coach subsidy. 

The stupid VIP areas in the East and West lower.

How's that?

Nice one Ham, fair enough! 🫡

[ROTG]

48 minutes ago, Ham said:

We shouldn't have gotten rid of Tuchel in hindsight.

Sold too many experienced players too quickly. 

Ideally would have bought a few more PL hardened players to compete immediately. 

Cancelled the away coach subsidy. 

The stupid VIP areas in the East and West lower.

How's that?

You  missed the Argylle the move promotion 😀

[chara]

2 hours ago, Sciatika said:

I worry about the amount of money spent on players that seem not to improve us greatly. I was concerned about the hotel thing which is why I spent about an hour investigating it. I now have a different view because I am open-minded enough to understand their actions.  I am aware that some things that went wrong are the owners' fault. However, other things are down to the SDs, the coach, the medical department and, in some cases, mistakes by the players. In some cases, it's just bad luck. 

Usual sensible balanced approach..pleasure to read your posts. Agree wholeheartedly.

Let's not forget...and I won't let it go...HMG started the implosion and subsequent turmoil.

Change is always hard to accept and rightly or wrongly the new "Overlords" are trying new approaches to the game,

The log jam for me is the appointment of "Football" people to implement the ideas of the Board...or rather the "Football" people appointed.......for me there seems to be a lack of in depth football "instinct",,only way I can describe it,,,,,recognising talent is not the hard part...it's getting the right balance and players that can compliment each others playing strengths  etc. that is the intangible requirement.

Plenty of mistakes or transfers not working out in the past but generally the real errors were moved on rather than stockpiled as it appears of late.

[Chelsea_Matt]

48 minutes ago, chara said:

Usual sensible balanced approach..pleasure to read your posts. Agree wholeheartedly.

Let's not forget...and I won't let it go...HMG started the implosion and subsequent turmoil.

Change is always hard to accept and rightly or wrongly the new "Overlords" are trying new approaches to the game,

The log jam for me is the appointment of "Football" people to implement the ideas of the Board...or rather the "Football" people appointed.......for me there seems to be a lack of in depth football "instinct",,only way I can describe it,,,,,recognising talent is not the hard part...it's getting the right balance and players that can compliment each others playing strengths  etc. that is the intangible requirement.

Plenty of mistakes or transfers not working out in the past but generally the real errors were moved on rather than stockpiled as it appears of late.

I’ll tell you my issue. I think Todd ‘n’ Eggy DO come from a good place in terms of their aspirations for the club. My problem is that a lot of our troubles seem to be self-inflicted and avoidable. Like many though I feel we’re stuck with them and have spent so much money we’ve no choice but to fasten our seatbelts and hope. It shouldn’t have to be that way but here we are. A strong start next season, I hope, will be the corner turned and the new era finally underway. ✌️🇺🇸 🇬🇧🩶🫶🏻

[Blue Moon]

Trouble is, they seem to have something in common with Cabinet Ministers: a lot of aspirations, but a total lack of the necessary expertise and experience to deliver it. A PPE degree doesn’t necessarily fit you for getting down and dirty with engineering economists negotiating rules for energy markets, and an engineering degree doesn’t really fit you for resolving foreign policy. Anyhow,  bless them - we’re stuck with them - at least Chelsea is never boring. 

[Sciatika]

Decision-making should be led by experts, not done by experts, because decisions need to be made in the round, taking into account many experts in different areas with different opinions.  

[patThenevin]

18 hours ago, Ham said:

We shouldn't have gotten rid of Tuchel in hindsight.

Sold too many experienced players too quickly. 

Ideally would have bought a few more PL hardened players to compete immediately. 

Cancelled the away coach subsidy. 

The stupid VIP areas in the East and West lower.

How's that?

Spent 1 billion quid to 'transform' the team from champions league winners to Conference league qualifiers and in doing so severely threaten our longer term financial stability.

Missed that one. Balance? That tips the scales into grandiose incompetence dashed with grand yank arrogance, the type of which makes cries of 'balanced' pretty irrelevant.

[My Blood Is Blue]

10 minutes ago, patThenevin said:

Spent 1 billion quid to 'transform' the team from champions league winners to Conference league qualifiers and in doing so severely threaten our longer term financial stability.

Missed that one. Balance? That tips the scales into grandiose incompetence dashed with grand yank arrogance, the type of which makes cries of 'balanced' pretty irrelevant.

I’m not a fan of the sporting directors and I’m not exactly delighted by a lot of what our owners have done, however, I do think we may need to judge this all in another year or two. They have completely rebuilt not just the team, but a lot of other elements in the club as well… whether they should have done that or not is a slightly different debate, but they did and doing that takes time and seeing the results even longer.

If the planning and investment in this set of players results in us competing for the title consistently in a couple of years, a lot of our fans (and I include myself in that) will be eating an awful lot of humble pie, although it’ll taste pretty good if we’re eating it whilst watching our club lift trophies every season.

Obviously, the flip side of that is if we go through all this and remain floating between 5th and 10th every season, then I’ll be at the front of the queue to give my opinion on what an awful job they’ve done.

I have been pretty vocal in my anger and frustration at how the club has been run since the takeover, and maybe it’s just because we’re in the off season, but I’ve started to accept this is a longer game than I probably wanted it to be and I may have to just hold off my judgement slightly in some areas. This isn’t to excuse some of the things that have happened, the list @Ham added are all valid frustrations with regards to the new owners and i’d throw in the bizarre movie promotion stuff they did last season as well, but, and it’s still quite a big but, it’s possible the long term strategy they have could work and we may see our club competing again in the not too distant future.

Yes, they’ve spent a lot to take a Champions League Club to a Conference League qualification club, but that could quickly become a ‘cup team that won the Champions League to a team that competes every season for the Premier League and Champions League’.

For me, personally, I think we need to see a top 4 finish next season, then we need to build on that with a trophy the following season and at least a sniff at the title race, then by 26/27 be aiming to win the league. Thats just my opinion and some may say that that’s too long to wait for the money we’ve seen spent, which is fair, but I think I’m just trying to reset my own expectations.

[boratsbrother]

19 hours ago, Ham said:

We shouldn't have gotten rid of Tuchel in hindsight.

Sold too many experienced players too quickly. 

Ideally would have bought a few more PL hardened players to compete immediately. 

Cancelled the away coach subsidy. 

The stupid VIP areas in the East and West lower.

How's that?I

I disagree about the sacking of TT.

Although he won the CL that team was going nowhere fast in the league for a long, long time. It needed a complete rebuild which probably would see it go backwards before is started going forward which is exactly what did happen.

TT just isn't the type of manager who builds a young team. He's one who goes to an established team, wins something and then moves on. He just can't sustain his effectiveness or maintain stable relationships with owners, even at a very stable and sensible club like BM.

Ourleague fform in the second half of his first  season steadily deteriorated. The writing was on the wall during the following pre-season and continued into the season. 

I think his stock is already in decline and can't see  any top club in England hiring him now., or one the Spanish giants, so that probably means a  job in Italy .

[Ham]

1 hour ago, patThenevin said:

Spent 1 billion quid to 'transform' the team from champions league winners to Conference league qualifiers and in doing so severely threaten our longer term financial stability.

Missed that one. Balance? That tips the scales into grandiose incompetence dashed with grand yank arrogance, the type of which makes cries of 'balanced' pretty irrelevant.

The first line is a lie regularly used to discredit the owners. They did not spend anywhere near £1bn on "the team" or even the squad. 

I calculated that the first team squad benefited from just under £400m worth of signings last season, taking into account players subsequently sold, loaned out, bought for the future or injured all season. 

That £400m was after a complete rebuild of the entire squad. 

 

[Ham]

9 minutes ago, boratsbrother said:

I disagree about the sacking of TT.

Although he won the CL that team was going nowhere fast in the league for a long, long time. It needed a complete rebuild which probably would see it go backwards before is started going forward which is exactly what did happen.

TT just isn't the type of manager who builds a young team. He's one who goes to an established team, wins something and then moves on. He just can't sustain his effectiveness or maintain stable relationships with owners, even at a very stable and sensible club like BM.

Ourleague fform in the second half of his first  season steadily deteriorated. The writing was on the wall during the following pre-season and continued into the season. 

I think his stock is already in decline and can't see  any top club in England hiring him now., or one the Spanish giants, so that probably means a  job in Italy .

It's all about opinions. I meant, in retrospect, compared to the job that Potter and subsequently SFL did with the squad. 

[Max Fowler]

I'll say something positive about the owners. I think it's great we've build a young and sustainable squad with appreciating assets. So much better than having a squad chock full of past it players in their 30s on high contracts.

I just feel they have a major blind spot on what it takes to help our young players reach their potential. There is no way they reach their potential without more leaders and experience to carry the flame. Far too much pressure has been put on the likes of Enzo etc. he has no De Bruyne or whoever to learn from.

The owners think this was a Poch problem - Poch's system didn't suit Enzo (why they didn't know that already I have no idea) but actually it's a problem with the personnel of the squad.

All we need is a handful more experienced players, but the owners think they can shortcut the system. They think eventually we can build out these youngsters with patience and giving them the game time they need.

This will never happen because other teams will buy more ready made players and we will always be playing catch up. Ok, at some point our youngsters will be experienced and able to carry the torch themselves, but that will be far too little too late.

Youngsters need a winning club to learn from to learn what winning is about. They need to understand what is required at the very highest level. That's what Man City's youth are learning from.

The model is fatally flawed in that regard, and the incentives are not there for it to change. The owners have a serious blind spot that means they will always pump money into another 17 year old rather than a 26-28 year old, and I like that we're signing kids, but unless the model changes we will never win.

Edited June 15 by Max Fowler

[boratsbrother]

1 hour ago, Ham said:

It's all about opinions. I meant, in retrospect, compared to the job that Potter and subsequently SFL did with the squad. 

I don't speak negatively about Potter's time at Chelsea.  

He is the polar opposite of a short-term fix manager like TT.  He needs time (at least a couple of years) to implement his methods and we all knew that at the time of hiring him. To hire such a manager  and then fire him after 6 months is just muddled thinking in the extreme.

[Bison]

14 minutes ago, boratsbrother said:

I don't speak negatively about Potter's time at Chelsea.  

He is the polar opposite of a short-term fix manager like TT.  He needs time (at least a couple of years) to implement his methods and we all knew that at the time of hiring him. To hire such a manager  and then fire him after 6 months is just muddled thinking in the extreme.

Outside of a 9 game purple patch, Potter's "methods" had Brighton hovering around 15th in the league and conceding more goals than they scored.

[Max Fowler]

23 minutes ago, boratsbrother said:

I don't speak negatively about Potter's time at Chelsea.  

He is the polar opposite of a short-term fix manager like TT.  He needs time (at least a couple of years) to implement his methods and we all knew that at the time of hiring him. To hire such a manager  and then fire him after 6 months is just muddled thinking in the extreme.

It was muddled thinking to hire him in the first place. You say "he needs time" as if he had done it at other top clubs. He hadn't. There are managers who can cope with the pressure of elite level jobs and there are those that can't. He was practically in tears every press conference. He was eaten alive. The media and fans destroyed him and there was no way they could keep him on. 

That's why Maresca is such a massive risk - it's very likely the same thing happens to him.

 

[boratsbrother]

25 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

It was muddled thinking to hire him in the first place. You say "he needs time" as if he had done it at other top clubs. He hadn't. There are managers who can cope with the pressure of elite level jobs and there are those that can't. He was practically in tears every press conference. He was eaten alive. The media and fans destroyed him and there was no way they could keep him on. 

That's why Maresca is such a massive risk - it's very likely the same thing happens to him.

 

He didn't win anything or get them into Europe, but he did transform Brighton into a team which matched and even outplayed the top teams in terms of the quality of football played. What he never had was a forward who could finish off the chances they created. They consistently under performed in that one area of the game.

I could see the thinking behind giving him a chance at a big club which could spend more money and sign better players who could put the finishing touches he never had at Brighton.

I agree about Enzo being a massive risk. The football media, social media  and a percentage of our fans will onto hin if the team struggles for any length of time. I'll be very surprised if he's here in 18 months time.

 

[Max Fowler]

4 minutes ago, boratsbrother said:

I could see the thinking behind giving him a chance at a big club which could spend more money and sign better players who could put the finishing touches he never had at Brighton.

Except no other big club was seriously linked with Potter at the time. No other top club has gone for him now. Why is that? Because it was a fantasy project. We wanted the next best thing but Potter was just a talented coach at a mid-table team, no other club thought he was ready for the next level.

I actually think Maresca has more of a chance for some reason, simply because he is a foreign coach and English coaches in general just don't cut it at the top level in the current generations.

But make no mistake, I agree, there is a 60-80% he is gone within the next two seasons. 

[boratsbrother]

7 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Except no other big club was seriously linked with Potter at the time. No other top club has gone for him now. Why is that? Because it was a fantasy project. We wanted the next best thing but Potter was just a talented coach at a mid-table team, no other club thought he was ready for the next level.

I actually think Maresca has more of a chance for some reason, simply because he is a foreign coach and English coaches in general just don't cut it at the top level in the current generations.

But make no mistake, I agree, there is a 60-80% he is gone within the next two seasons. 

There was plenty of talk in the media about Potter deserving a chance at a big club. 

I do agree about foreign managers being a higher level than the  British ones and have been for a long time now.. I don't know why that should be but the facts speak for themselves.

MvKenna could be the who becomes a top coach over the next few years or so.

[jasonb]

18 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Except no other big club was seriously linked with Potter at the time. No other top club has gone for him now. Why is that? Because it was a fantasy project. We wanted the next best thing but Potter was just a talented coach at a mid-table team, no other club thought he was ready for the next level.

I actually think Maresca has more of a chance for some reason, simply because he is a foreign coach and English coaches in general just don't cut it at the top level in the current generations.

But make no mistake, I agree, there is a 60-80% he is gone within the next two seasons. 

I also think he is going to do ok though agree it is a risk.

[Max Fowler]

1 hour ago, boratsbrother said:

There was plenty of talk in the media about Potter deserving a chance at a big club. 

I do agree about foreign managers being a higher level than the  British ones and have been for a long time now.. I don't know why that should be but the facts speak for themselves.

MvKenna could be the who becomes a top coach over the next few years or so.

There was some talk but no concrete links. It was far less of a topic than De Zerbi now for example.

Chelsea hiring Potter really came out of nowhere - it wasn't like we were fighting other clubs for him.

Potter was rated highly also in relation to his standing among English coaches.

Noone saw him going to Chelsea or any other big club at the time. Maybe at some point - he was certainly highly rated - but he really hadn't done all that much with Brighton to suggest he was ready for the step up.

Edited June 15 by Max Fowler

[Sciatika]

1 hour ago, boratsbrother said:

There was plenty of talk in the media about Potter deserving a chance at a big club. 

I do agree about foreign managers being a higher level than the  British ones and have been for a long time now.. I don't know why that should be but the facts speak for themselves.

MvKenna could be the who becomes a top coach over the next few years or so.

I think there is a tendency to overrate English ones. Partly, this is because they are mates with the pundits and many of the English journalists and partly because there is a desperation to find one who will succeed running one of the big clubs.

[My Blood Is Blue]

I see that De Zerbi is off to Marseille. Glad we didn’t get him in and after all the talk of him taking a big job, I’m not surprised he’s essentially made a side step or maybe even a step down based on the league he’s gone to.

[patThenevin]

6 hours ago, Ham said:

The first line is a lie regularly used to discredit the owners. They did not spend anywhere near £1bn on "the team" or even the squad. 

I calculated that the first team squad benefited from just under £400m worth of signings last season, taking into account players subsequently sold, loaned out, bought for the future or injured all season. 

That £400m was after a complete rebuild of the entire squad. 

 

Firstly you are fiddling over terms of you see that as a "lie" (all part of a media conspiracy against the poor financiers eh?). Nah, it's fact. They have laughably SPENT £1bn. Didn't say net. I said spent. You narrowed the window to "last season" too. Flip, flop.

As for your point on a complete rebuild, we've sold experience and replaced it with potential. And still spent so much that we have to now flog off home grown players, whilst peering over out shoulders at FFP (and even worse acting like symps to man citeh over much needed financial rules).  

Btw you ignored utterly the aspect of taking the champions league team/squad/club and trashing it for their mere £400m "rebuild".

Quite remarkable that this far into the yank financiers journey with the club that you and some others cannot see the calibre of owners, let alone the fact the club is signing a clear profile of players that all adds up to these yanks and their middle eastern funders as using the club as a platform for commodity trading of young players. 

As for the owners being "discredited".....pull the other one, they've done it themselves from the laughable waste on signings, trashing a champions league winning club, all the way through to Todd every time he opens his mouth. 

 

 

Edited June 15 by patThenevin

[Ham]

7 minutes ago, patThenevin said:

Firstly you are fiddling over terms of you see that as a "lie" (all part of a media conspiracy against the poor financiers eh?). Nah, it's fact. They have laughably SPENT £1bn. Didn't say net. I said spent. You narrowed the window to "last season" too. Flip, flop.

As for your point on a complete rebuild, we've sold experience and replaced it with potential. And still spent so much that we have to now flog off home grown players, whilst peering over out shoulders at FFP (and even worse acting like symps to man citeh over much needed financial rules).  

Btw you ignored utterly the aspect of taking the champions league team/squad/club and trashing it for their mere £400m "rebuild".

Quite remarkable that this far into the yank financiers journey with the club that you and some others cannot see the calibre of owners, let alone the fact the club is signing a clear profile of players that all adds up to these yanks and their middle eastern funders as using the club as a platform for commodity trading of young players. 

As for the owners being "discredited".....pull the other one, they've done it themselves from the laughable waste on signings, trashing a champions league winning club, all the way through to Todd every time he opens his mouth. 

 

 

No point discussing this as we're poles apart. The next couple of seasons will tell whether the owners have done badly, not now. 

There will always be people like you, though, who see everything negatively to support a position you've taken early on the owners.