Media Stories, Rumours and Gossip

[Bert19]

23 hours ago, ROTG said:

Neither him or Melissa Reddy would condemn potter when talking about Chelsea result yesterday, instead putting their focus on TB and his board. 
 

GP is the media darling who smells of roses regardless of the circumstances. 

Surprised to hear she's capable of talking about anything other than Klopp and Liverpool.  It's one thing being a journalist and having a team of your own, it's quite another making that team the focal point of all of your content. 

[blueandproud]

On 02/04/2023 at 11:21, east lower said:

He would do, he's one of theirs. 

Smarmy git.

He's actually a plastic Liverpool fan

[east lower]

On 02/04/2023 at 11:44, ROTG said:

Neither him or Melissa Reddy would condemn potter when talking about Chelsea result yesterday, instead putting their focus on TB and his board. 
 

GP is the media darling who smells of roses regardless of the circumstances. 

Ah, Melissa Reddy, Chief Football Correspondent and girlfriend (not sure about how current) of Sadio Mane - completely unbiased of course!!

[Holymoly]

You have to wonder what Chelsea FC ever did to Craig Burley when he played for us. Every time I see him on ESPN he is laying into the club, flip flopping his opinion to suit his critical narrative. It really is the depths of "punditry" every time I see him. Pillock.

[FrankLampard8]

The opinion I keep seeing spouted that really gets my goat is that "Chelsea fans need to grow up - this isn't the Abramovich era anymore and they aren't going to win every game. Things will take time and they need to adjust their expectations". 

I think match going fans have been pretty patient with Potter and no one can tell me the squad we have should be in the bottom half of the league and dropping points to Everton, Villa, Southampton etc. this regularly. I think we all know it's been a challenging time but there is a minimum standard based on the talent in the squad alone. 

[Holymoly]

Ray Wilkins day today. 5 years ago when we lost a true gent. Gave TalkSport the opportunity to play THAT clip from a caller. RIP Ray

[Holymoly]

30 minutes ago, FrankLampard8 said:

The opinion I keep seeing spouted that really gets my goat is that "Chelsea fans need to grow up - this isn't the Abramovich era anymore and they aren't going to win every game. Things will take time and they need to adjust their expectations". 

I think match going fans have been pretty patient with Potter and no one can tell me the squad we have should be in the bottom half of the league and dropping points to Everton, Villa, Southampton etc. this regularly. I think we all know it's been a challenging time but there is a minimum standard based on the talent in the squad alone. 

Absolutely, we are bottom of the list of teams not in the relegation race. I don't know anyone who should be satisfied with that.

[east lower]

3 hours ago, Holymoly said:

Ray Wilkins day today. 5 years ago when we lost a true gent. Gave TalkSport the opportunity to play THAT clip from a caller. RIP Ray

Bet they didn’t play the clip where one of the journalists (loosely termed) got into a row with Ray and basically called him a drunk, with no censure. If memory serves me right it might have been John Cross.

[Mark Kelly]

Just now, east lower said:

Bet they didn’t play the clip where one of the journalists (loosely termed) got into a row with Ray and basically called him a drunk, with no censure. If memory serves me right it might have been John Cross.

I've always hated that weaselly Gooner 

[east lower]

7 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

I've always hated that weaselly Gooner 

More reason now. Ray did let him have it in return, basically telling him he had no experience and knew nothing. 
 

Written media has been full of Arsenal and West Ham fans for years. TV full of Red scouse and Arsenal apologists.

Edited April 4, 2023 by east lower

[Ham]

5 hours ago, east lower said:

More reason now. Ray did let him have it in return, basically telling him he had no experience and knew nothing. 
 

Written media has been full of Arsenal and West Ham fans for years. TV full of Red scouse and Arsenal apologists.

Including that scumbag Jacob Steinberg who should have been sacked based upon his Twitter history.  For sure he shouldn't be let anywhere near SB. 

[blueandproud]

9 hours ago, Holymoly said:

You have to wonder what Chelsea FC ever did to Craig Burley when he played for us. Every time I see him on ESPN he is laying into the club, flip flopping his opinion to suit his critical narrative. It really is the depths of "punditry" every time I see him. Pillock.

He's just bitter that we sold him just when we were becoming a good team, and we replaced him with the far superior Poyet.  Burley is just an attention seeking oxygen thief, whose opinions aren't worthy of consideration.  Ignore the to55er.

[blueandproud]

5 hours ago, east lower said:

More reason now. Ray did let him have it in return, basically telling him he had no experience and knew nothing. 
 

Written media has been full of Arsenal and West Ham fans for years. TV full of Red scouse and Arsenal apologists.

Yup.  The filth (written press to you and me)  is full of bitter Gooners, jealous of our success, and the fact we have won 2 UCL''s, which they never have (and probably never will) win.   I despise them all (John Cross, Amy Lawrence, Piers Morgan, Matt Scott, Alan Davies (5th rate comedian). they all make me sick.

[chrisb]

10 hours ago, Holymoly said:

You have to wonder what Chelsea FC ever did to Craig Burley when he played for us. Every time I see him on ESPN he is laying into the club, flip flopping his opinion to suit his critical narrative. It really is the depths of "punditry" every time I see him. Pillock.

I think the club refused to let him go on tour with the Pogues as Shane MacGowans stunt double.

[ROTG]

JT back coaching in the PL with Dean Smith at Leicester until the end of the season.  Surly there would have been a place on his old muckers' Franks coaching team - Bizzare

Going to be interesting to see who has the most impact - If memory serves me, when JT walked away from villa it all went south for Dean Smith.

[thevelourfog]

3 hours ago, ROTG said:

JT back coaching in the PL with Dean Smith at Leicester until the end of the season.  Surly there would have been a place on his old muckers' Franks coaching team - Bizzare

Perhaps it's not what Terry wants. He may not be so keen to leverage those connections, and particularly after seeing how things went for Lampard. I forsee him spending more time working his way up, and that being how he wants things.

[Holymoly]

6 hours ago, ROTG said:

JT back coaching in the PL with Dean Smith at Leicester until the end of the season.  Surly there would have been a place on his old muckers' Franks coaching team - Bizzare

I'm thinking it would probably be a bit more fun coaching Leicester for the last eight games than watching his club slowly circling the plug hole.

[Ham]

Apparently this was a Chelsea season ticket holder (watching the game from the Gent end earlier) who was hit by a train and killed after being chased by a mob of West Ham fans.  

https://news.sky.com/story/west-ham-supporter-dies-after-being-hit-by-train-in-belgium-after-teams-europa-conference-league-game-with-gent-12857104 

 

 

[xceleryx]

Chelsea tried to import Brighton’s IP - but has it already failed?

When Chelsea lost to Brighton in October, five members of the away-team staff had been on the home benches at the Amex Stadium two months earlier – and the crowd was not shying in voicing their view that it was all a betrayal. 

As well as Graham Potter, his assistants Billy Reid, Bjorn Hamberg, Bruno Saltor and goalkeepers’ coach Ben Roberts, were in Chelsea tracksuits. Elsewhere, Potter's recruitment aide Kyle Macaulay, also formerly of Brighton, had crossed to Chelsea. Separately from Potter and staff was another Brighton executive, now Chelsea’s co-sporting director, Paul Winstanley, who had pre-dated Potter in Sussex and had been appointed independently by the new Chelsea ownership consortium.

Brighton come to Stamford Bridge for the return fixture on Saturday with much changed. Three of Potter’s four coaches, including Bruno, interim manager for the Liverpool game, were not part of Frank Lampard’s matchday staff against Wolverhampton Wanderers last weekend. Goalkeeper coach Ben Roberts, however, drilled the goalkeepers pre-match. Winstanley remains. It was he along with Laurence Stewart, his co-sporting director, who endorsed the decision to sack Potter.

The official departure of the Potter loyalists who followed him from Brighton, has not yet been announced by the club. From among them, Macaulay is tipped to be the sole survivor. He is understood to have continued working since Potter’s departure. Chelsea under Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali have been enthusiastic in their appointment of recruitment specialists and one more in the team will no doubt appeal.

Chelsea also have a technical director, Christoph Vivell, from RB Leipzig, whose remit is to look further ahead than Stewart and Winstanley. Joe Shields, came from Southampton, as the fourth recruitment director. They may still yet appoint another recruitment executive as well as retain Macaulay.

He was a part of the soaring success of Brighton’s recruitment in recent years. He had joined Potter in Sweden with Ostersunds, and then subsequently worked with him at Swansea. His skill is in talent identification – it was him who wanted Levi Colwill on loan and who helped find the likes of Kaoru Mitoma. Macaulay’s role will have to change, however, if he is to stay. He was the conduit between Potter and the recruitment team at Brighton and then Chelsea. He is unlikely to fulfil the same role for Potter’s long-term successor.

Is the Brighton experiment over at Chelsea? Even once Potter is followed out the door by his four coaches, Winstanley and Macaulay will remain as alumni of the Premier League’s most upwardly mobile club of recent years. The sort of model the Boehly-Eghbali consortium seek to implement remains one of stability - judging by Lampard’s analysis at the club’s Cobham training ground on Friday -  even if they have continued an old Chelsea tradition of sacking managers.

“I went to Manchester City for the last year of my career [in England] and it really opened my eyes to a different model to Chelsea and for me that was great,” Lampard said. “Very different model. At Chelsea in my playing days the manager [position] turned over a lot and fortunately we had a squad that managed to win a lot of trophies. When I look back I feel disappointed we didn’t win more leagues … so there are always both sides to that.

“When I went to City and joined the City [Football] Group before I went to New York [City] it just opened my eyes to a slightly different way of doing it. In terms of the vision, the set up and how they were still working towards something that felt like a longer [term] goal. As opposed to Chelsea which was like ‘Change it!’. Result. ‘Change it!’ Result. Both have worked, in their different ways.”

Lampard noted that he did not think “the owners are copying any model” and that there would be a degree of refinement over time. His preoccupation is with beating Brighton and then moving on to the next of the eight games he has left after Saturday, providing there is not a comeback against Real Madrid that gives him a ninth and a 10th. As for the club, it has already abandoned a large part of the Brighton experiment but clearly not all of it.
The hiring of so many technical staff is not only for recruitment but also with a view to reviewing the training ground and the medical department as well as coaching across the club. The feeling is that in some aspects Chelsea had built up a very strong infrastructure and that in others it was the opposite. Also, that the performance this season has been in part because of the situation that was inherited. Although it is hard for the club to make that case publicly when Thomas Tuchel’s team were Champions League and Fifa Club World Cup winners in 2021 and then twice domestic cup finalists last year.

The squad is being built around a core of what the club believe are elite performers: Reece James, Wesley Fofana, Enzo Fernandez, Mykhailo Mudryk and Benoit Badiashile as well as this summer’s signing from RB Leipzig, Christopher Nkunku and the returning loanee, Colwill. They have to trim the rest drastically and Lampard’s impassioned defence of Mason Mount suggested that he does not think the homegrown Englishman should be part of that summer sale. Even so, there is now a recognition that the change will take time. The benefits of a solid working model nowhere more evident than in Brighton’s smooth transition from Potter to Roberto De Zerbi

Is not the problem, Lampard was asked, that Brighton can give a manager time in a way that Chelsea cannot? Potter was excused 10-game winless runs at the Amex that would have been considered unacceptable at Chelsea.

“All managerial jobs have their own challenges,” Lampard said, “and anyone who looks at Graham’s time at Brighton would say ‘Brilliant’. I’m guessing now but, having managed three clubs [myself], if you sat Graham down and said ‘That looked great ’. He would say ‘Yes, but that was challenging, and that was challenging’. You work within the parameters you get given.”

One only needed to look at the number of sackings this season, Lampard said, to see how great the expectations were upon managers “There are a lot of really good managers who have left clubs and will go back and be successful. and for what it’s worth I think Graham is one of those.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/04/14/chelsea-tried-to-import-brightons-ip-but-has-it-failed/

[Backbiter]

From today's Guardian match report:

Quote

Chelsea are like buying a 1,000-piece jigsaw only to find there are 2,500 pieces in the box and it’s the wrong picture on the cover. It doesn’t matter if some of the extra pieces are gold-plated or studded with diamonds, it’s still a confusing mess.

 

[Mark Kelly]

SKY now showing an article on "Arsenals youth team graduates leading them to the top"

Some of them have even played this season.

And Arsenal have won nothing 

[xceleryx]

 

At least this has been noted.

Chelsea players aren’t fit enough, says Frank Lampard in startling admission ahead of Real Madrid clash
Lampard is alarmed by the fitness levels in the squad he has inherited

Frank Lampard says his Chelsea players are not as fit as their Premier League rivals, but a lack of training time means he cannot fix the issue.

Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat to Brighton means Lampard has suffered three straight defeats since taking over as caretaker manager following the departure of Graham Potter.

Brighton broke the record for shots on goal by an away team at Stamford Bridge, outrunning and outperforming 11th-place Chelsea during most of the match.

Speaking about how he will try to galvanise his squad ahead Tuesday’s Champions League return leg against Real Madrid, Lampard seemed concerned about the fitness of his squad.

Lampard said: “At the minute, it has been mostly conversations and meetings than training pitch stuff. Training pitch stuff was all pretty walkthrough and low level because of the [tiredness] in the legs.

“It is more about speaking to the players individually. When we do get the chance to work, I think the team needs some physical work. I think that’s important for us because at this level you have to be right on the limit and we are not on the limit right now.

“I think that can be a capacity thing with the players for whatever reason. It doesn’t matter how we got there but it needs to be addressed now.”

Lampard further explained that Chelsea’s lack of physical “capacity” is what makes his players look like they do not have the same hunger as their rivals.

He said: “I think maybe when some players are lacking confidence then it can be seen as a hunger thing.

“When you are a yard short, you are just a yard short. Or when you are receiving the ball and not confident, you take your first touch backwards.

“That can sometimes feel like a hunger or lack of passion thing but I don’t feel that. I feel like the players are hungry to be successful as Chelsea players.”

Chelsea trail Real Madrid 2-0 from the first leg in Spain last week.

Supporters are getting increasingly angry with what they are seeing on the pitch, with several fans above the directors’ box pictured shouting at co-owner Todd Boehly on Saturday.

They are angry that, despite his world record £600million transfer spend this season, their club has gone significantly backwards.

Asked whether Chelsea’s reputation has been damaged this season, Lampard was defiant.

He said: “I don’t care what they think of us as a club. In the early [Roman] Abramovich years, I suppose, everyone hated us and we won. So I don’t think we should think that.

“We want to strive to be the team where people have a respect for you and understand what they are going to get. At the minute, we are not giving that.”
 

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/chelsea-fc-frank-lampard-players-fitness-b1074402.html

 

[Mark Kelly]

We haven't looked fit from day one of this most crappy of seasons and now we're blaming it on the travel pre-season where we went to America .

Guess where we're going this year?

This club is mental.

[Holymoly]

9 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

We haven't looked fit from day one of this most crappy of seasons and now we're blaming it on the travel pre-season where we went to America .

Guess where we're going this year?

This club is mental.

Yeah but we might get a result against Wrexham?

[Mark Kelly]

15 minutes ago, Holymoly said:

Yeah but we might get a result against Wrexham?

We won't.