Chelsea owners and board

[martin1905]

47 minutes ago, Sleeping Dave said:

So far, what saves them is the selling of any decent academy player we produce. So far they have sold off;

Maatsen €44.5m, Hall €33m (plus  small loan fee last summer), Hutchinson €23.5m, Mount €64.2m, Loftus-Cheek €18.5m, Ampadu €8.1m, Hudson-Odoi €3.5m and Gilmour €8.3m. That's roughly €200m right there. 

So we are effectively selling off the academy to finance this strategy. It's a very risky game, as we will tank if it doesn't come off (not to mention lose competitiveness in the first team). 

For good measure and comparison, we bought Lavia and Fofana for €140m. None of them has given us anything meaningful so far. 

I have no problem with selling academy players to finance the first team, after all the academy is there to produce players good enough to play first team football for Chelsea Football Club. If that means selling them to raise funds or them breaking through themselves it really doesn't matter to me. 

Mason Mount, one of only three players on that list we didn't sign ourselves when they were 16+, leaving for United was the end of any attachment I have had to our academy players. If he, of all players, can decide to leave for one of our biggest rivals then I couldn't care less about someone like Maatsen.

I think the key here is fully understating PSR and how it works. I don't pretend to know that much but I would imagine having players on low wages on long contracts means that the yearly book value is pretty small. You don't really need to make much money on the transfer fee to make it a viable revenue stream. DD Fofana cost £12m, his wages are probably £50k a week or less so a book value of around £4.5m a season. After 3 years we will owe approximately £13m. Sell him for £18m and that's £5m profit. Do that with 5 players and you can purchase a £75m player on £150k a week. It would invole a huge turnover of players but appears that is exactly what we are doing.

The players we have sold or have left, so far this summer alone have bought in £100m plus saved probably £300k a week in wages. Spread that out over 5 years and it gives us £35m a year for new arrivals. Just getting rid of Lukaku's £300k a week would allow us to spend £50m on one player and pay them £100k a week for the same yearly book value.

On paper it's a very good strategy, how well we spend the money is a very different debate.

 

[Bison]

21 minutes ago, martin1905 said:

The players we have sold or have left, so far this summer alone have bought in £100m plus saved probably £300k a week in wages. Spread that out over 5 years and it gives us £35m a year for new arrivals. Just getting rid of Lukaku's £300k a week would allow us to spend £50m on one player and pay them £100k a week for the same yearly book value.

On paper it's a very good strategy, how well we spend the money is a very different debate.

They've spent nearly 80m already this summer and haven't improved the team even a little bit. 

[Mark Kelly]

13 minutes ago, Bison said:

They've spent nearly 80m already this summer and haven't improved the team even a little bit. 

Giuiu (or whatever) looks an upgrade on Broja to be fair . 

[Bison]

Just now, Mark Kelly said:

Giuiu (or whatever) looks an upgrade on Broja to be fair . 

Pre injury Broja? Very much doubt that. He won't be a serious option and would be better served going out on loan. 

[Mark Kelly]

5 minutes ago, Bison said:

Pre injury Broja? Very much doubt that. He won't be a serious option and would be better served going out on loan. 

They were chalk and cheese last night , maybe Broja wasn't trying because he knows he's going but Guiu put him to shame in terms of movement , desire and understanding the role last night . 

[Morgs]

39 minutes ago, Bison said:

Pre injury Broja? Very much doubt that. He won't be a serious option and would be better served going out on loan. 

I have a feeling (and you can quote me on this) that Guiu will see a lot more minutes than many think. Looks customer made for the Prem and offers something different to Jackson up top. I can see him establishing himself and becoming a much better known entity at Chelsea in the coming season. Could be wrong of course! hahahaha

[martin1905]

1 hour ago, Bison said:

Pre injury Broja? Very much doubt that. He won't be a serious option and would be better served going out on loan. 

By pre injury Broja do you mean the one that scored an almighty 6 goals for Southampton?

He's nearly 23 and scored 8 Premier league goals in the last 3 seasons, for 3 clubs. He is and has always been absolute pony.

 

[martin1905]

1 hour ago, Bison said:

They've spent nearly 80m already this summer and haven't improved the team even a little bit. 

Well Dewsbury-Hall will. No doubt about that,  he's a quality footballer and a great signing.

But I feel you missed my entire point. The money being spent on the young players isn't being spent instead of investing in the first team. It's a revenue stream, a way of making money to then invest in first team players.

I'm really not sure why people don't get it. If it wasn't for the buying and selling young players we wouldn't have had the money we have been spending. If we hadn't sold Mount, RLC, Hall etc we wouldn't have spent half the money we have and I can guarantee it would be the same people moaning that we weren't spending enough on the first team.

It's the selling of academy players, the buying all these young players and selling them in the future which is allowing us to spend  hundreds of millions of pounds to completely rebuild the first  team and not breach PSR.

 

[paulw66]

6 hours ago, martin1905 said:

I'm just a train driver

 

so, it's your fault! 

[Bison]

4 hours ago, martin1905 said:

Well Dewsbury-Hall will. No doubt about that,  he's a quality footballer and a great signing.

But I feel you missed my entire point. The money being spent on the young players isn't being spent instead of investing in the first team. It's a revenue stream, a way of making money to then invest in first team players.

I'm really not sure why people don't get it. If it wasn't for the buying and selling young players we wouldn't have had the money we have been spending. If we hadn't sold Mount, RLC, Hall etc we wouldn't have spent half the money we have and I can guarantee it would be the same people moaning that we weren't spending enough on the first team.

It's the selling of academy players, the buying all these young players and selling them in the future which is allowing us to spend  hundreds of millions of pounds to completely rebuild the first  team and not breach PSR.

No I perfectly understood your point. You say that the selling of academy players and others allows us to spends hundreds of millions of pounds but my question is: what use is that if most of that money is being badly spent? It's a lot of work for nothing. 

Is Dewsbury-Hall better than Caicedo, Gallagher or Enzo? Is he better than 50m Lavia? Does he start? 

[Sleeping Dave]

6 hours ago, martin1905 said:

1. I have no problem with selling academy players to finance the first team, after all the academy is there to produce players good enough to play first team football for Chelsea Football Club. If that means selling them to raise funds or them breaking through themselves it really doesn't matter to me. 

2. Mason Mount, one of only three players on that list we didn't sign ourselves when they were 16+, leaving for United was the end of any attachment I have had to our academy players. If he, of all players, can decide to leave for one of our biggest rivals then I couldn't care less about someone like Maatsen.

3. I think the key here is fully understating PSR and how it works. I don't pretend to know that much but I would imagine having players on low wages on long contracts means that the yearly book value is pretty small. You don't really need to make much money on the transfer fee to make it a viable revenue stream. DD Fofana cost £12m, his wages are probably £50k a week or less so a book value of around £4.5m a season. After 3 years we will owe approximately £13m. Sell him for £18m and that's £5m profit. Do that with 5 players and you can purchase a £75m player on £150k a week. It would invole a huge turnover of players but appears that is exactly what we are doing.

4. The players we have sold or have left, so far this summer alone have bought in £100m plus saved probably £300k a week in wages. Spread that out over 5 years and it gives us £35m a year for new arrivals. Just getting rid of Lukaku's £300k a week would allow us to spend £50m on one player and pay them £100k a week for the same yearly book value.

5. On paper it's a very good strategy, how well we spend the money is a very different debate.

 

1. Sure. But that requires the club to make good purchases, at fair prices for players who will improve us. I really don’t think one could claim that to be the case with us. 

2. Omari Hutchinson (at Chelsea 2008-2012), Mason Mount, Loftus-Cheek, Hall and Hudson-Odoi. That’s 5. 

3. I don’t need to understand anything in regards to accounting. You should still be a able to understand that paying £30m for a player at £60k/w and then selling that player for £15m plus a tonne of agent fees etc isn’t a good deal. It requires that the players we buy at inflated prices (Kellyman at £19m is a great example) will be worth a lot more when we sell them. So far, I don’t think we have any good example of that despite trying that for a while under Roman. De Bruyne, Courtois and Lukaku may be te only exemptions but they were very much bought for the first team. That they left was primarily down to themselves and not that the club actively wanted them gone. The initial idea was never to buy and flip for a profit. The players we had that strategy for never worked and it will not work this time around either. We aren’t smarter than every other club. It’s a strategy that is doomed to fail. 

4. What use it is to sell academy players and buy over-valued young players from other clubs? What is the gain here exactly? We won’t flip a profit on those guys, they won’t strengthen the first team. So what exactly is so great with freeing up money so we can throw them into another black hole? And please don’t say PSR again. There is no value in accounting principles. It’s only a way to book revenue and costs. At some stage reality will catch up with you. 

5. On paper is a lousy strategy. In reality is it’s delusional. 

[Sleeping Dave]

6 hours ago, Mark Kelly said:

Giuiu (or whatever) looks an upgrade on Broja to be fair . 

He better fucking should be at £100k/week. Broja is on £40k/week. 

[ROTG]

8 hours ago, paulw66 said:

so, it's your fault! 

You must also work on the railways, judging by the timing of your response 

[ROTG]

11 hours ago, martin1905 said:

I have no problem with selling academy players to finance the first team, after all the academy is there to produce players good enough to play first team football for Chelsea Football Club. If that means selling them to raise funds or them breaking through themselves it really doesn't matter to me. 

Mason Mount, one of only three players on that list we didn't sign ourselves when they were 16+, leaving for United was the end of any attachment I have had to our academy players. If he, of all players, can decide to leave for one of our biggest rivals then I couldn't care less about someone like Maatsen.

I think the key here is fully understating PSR and how it works. I don't pretend to know that much but I would imagine having players on low wages on long contracts means that the yearly book value is pretty small. You don't really need to make much money on the transfer fee to make it a viable revenue stream. DD Fofana cost £12m, his wages are probably £50k a week or less so a book value of around £4.5m a season. After 3 years we will owe approximately £13m. Sell him for £18m and that's £5m profit. Do that with 5 players and you can purchase a £75m player on £150k a week. It would invole a huge turnover of players but appears that is exactly what we are doing.

The players we have sold or have left, so far this summer alone have bought in £100m plus saved probably £300k a week in wages. Spread that out over 5 years and it gives us £35m a year for new arrivals. Just getting rid of Lukaku's £300k a week would allow us to spend £50m on one player and pay them £100k a week for the same yearly book value.

On paper it's a very good strategy, how well we spend the money is a very different debate.

 

One would suspect with the club being owned by bean counters, there is more than likely an OPEX in place for overall salaries, therefore it will not be as easy as some think to just give out pay rises, some will be moved on first to release funds. e.g. Cole Palmer will probably get a pay rise once the club can move a couple of high earners off the books. However using this philosophy does leave the club vulnerable to heads being turned by teams willing to offer higher salaries to those who are improving, however the club does not have the wiggle room to give them a pay rise in the near term. 

Bit like your railway union promising 5% per year pay rise and in reality you get 5% over 5 years, hence you might get the desire to become a taxi driver 😃

Edited July 26 by ROTG

[paulw66]

7 hours ago, ROTG said:

You must also work on the railways, judging by the timing of your response 

No, delayed on the way home from work; again.

[Bison]

Just seeing it all laid out like this is actually quite depressing. Both the manager and the squad assembled for the amount spent. 

 *Sarr has moved on to RC Lens, contract terminated and walks on a free. 

[martin1905]

13 hours ago, Bison said:

No I perfectly understood your point. You say that the selling of academy players and others allows us to spends hundreds of millions of pounds but my question is: what use is that if most of that money is being badly spent? It's a lot of work for nothing. 

Two different subjects. The way we generate money is one thing, just because some may see us spending it badly doesn't mean the strategy to bring the money in is automatically bad.

Personally,  overall I think we have done well. I said yesterday I believe we have the best starting 11 outside of City and Arsenal and the best squad bar City. You may disagree which is fine but we have basically built this squad from scratch.

I'm not sure how much we have spent, on the first team squad,  not all the young players that will probably never play for us, i know its a lot, would guess around £800m. I'd also guess that is very similar to what Arteta has spent, albeit over a longer period. I doubt you could build a top 4 squad, from scratch, for much less. Especially one that has so much room for improvement. 

13 hours ago, Bison said:

Is Dewsbury-Hall better than Caicedo, Gallagher or Enzo? Is he better than 50m Lavia? Does he start? 

He doesn't need to be better, he needs to be a genuine option. We will use three midfielders this season. He will start plenty of games.

 

[ShedMiddle]

4 minutes ago, Bison said:

Just seeing it all laid out like this is actually quite depressing. Both the manager and the squad assembled for the amount spent. 

 *Sarr has moved on to RC Lens, contract terminated and walks on a free. 

Keeper - Needs improvement
RB - top tier
LB - top tier
CB - questionmarks - 1 or 2 could move to top tier(Colwill/Tosin)
CM - top tier (at least 5 are)
LW - Needs improvement unless Mudryk clicks
AM - top tier / Paez to join
RW - Questionmarks / we have Willian/Paez to join
ST -  Jackson potential to be top tier. Needs support.

[xceleryx]

11 minutes ago, martin1905 said:

I doubt you could build a top 4 squad, from scratch, for much less. Especially one that has so much room for improvement. 

For me this is an aspect that gets overlooked far too easily when it comes to critiquing the squad.

We'd be up to our ears in massive hard to move wages, paying exorbitant fees for established walk-in quality, then hope they still pan out and deliver. If they don't, which is a real possibility, we're left with similar situations to that of Ziyech, Lukaku, Bakayoko, Sterling, Drinkwater, Werner, Pulisic, Torres, Shevchenko, etc and being hamstrung.

With the nature of the market we'd likely get less bang for our buck. 

[Sleeping Dave]

3 hours ago, Bison said:

Just seeing it all laid out like this is actually quite depressing. Both the manager and the squad assembled for the amount spent. 

 *Sarr has moved on to RC Lens, contract terminated and walks on a free. 

Worst owners at any top European club. It’s not even a discussion. 

[ROTG]

3 hours ago, martin1905 said:

I'd also guess that is very similar to what Arteta has spent, albeit over a longer period. I doubt you could build a top 4 squad, from scratch, for much less. Especially one that has so much room for improvement. 

What evidence says Chelsea is a top 4 club or is this your assumption based on game changers being available this season and a championship head coach?

[Sleeping Dave]

Just now, ROTG said:

What evidence says Chelsea is a top 4 club or is this your assumption based on game changers being available this season and a championship head coach?

There is no evidence whatsoever that we have built a top four squad. When the squad consistently hits a top four position in the league is when you can say that. Last time we finished in the top four was 2021/22. We haven’t even been remotely close to doing that since. 

[Bison]

9 minutes ago, Sleeping Dave said:

Worst owners at any top European club. It’s not even a discussion. 

To be fair, I think where it went wrong is being unable to get a good sporting director to oversee the whole thing. After being rejected by the likes of Michael Edwards they ended up with two absolute charlatans as co-sporting directors and it's been an unmitigated disaster ever since. 

[Sleeping Dave]

3 hours ago, xceleryx said:

For me this is an aspect that gets overlooked far too easily when it comes to critiquing the squad.

We'd be up to our ears in massive hard to move wages, paying exorbitant fees for established walk-in quality, then hope they still pan out and deliver. If they don't, which is a real possibility, we're left with similar situations to that of Ziyech, Lukaku, Bakayoko, Sterling, Drinkwater, Werner, Pulisic, Torres, Shevchenko, etc and being hamstrung.

With the nature of the market we'd likely get less bang for our buck. 

Lavia €60m

Fofana €80m

Caicedo €116m

Nkunku €60m

Disasi €45m

Jackson €37m

Ugochukwu €27m

Sanchez €23m

Fernandez €121m

Mudryk €70m

Cucurella €65m

Sterling €56m

Badiashile €38m

Madueke €33m

Gusto €30m

Are you even aware of the stuff you write? 

[Sleeping Dave]

5 minutes ago, Bison said:

To be fair, I think where it went wrong is being unable to get a good sporting director to oversee the whole thing. After being rejected by the likes of Michael Edwards they ended up with two absolute charlatans as co-sporting directors and it's been an unmitigated disaster ever since. 

It’s been an unmitigated disaster from the day they took over. Hiring those two clowns aren’t the biggest mistake. It’s just another bad call among a sea of bad calls.