Chelsea owners and board

[thevelourfog]

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2023/04/10/Portfolio/premier-league.aspx

Interesting read on American investment in the PL.

[Chelsea_Matt]

Imo we bought too much too soon. I think Newcastle did it the right way - and recruited the correct manager. 

[Oslo blue]

At first glance, the new owners seemed to be doing everything right. They arrived with ambition, invested heavily in the club, and hired a promising coach. However, hidden underneath has been a series of questionable moves that have led to one of the most spectacular collapses in Premier League history. We have now gone almost half a year with the lowest number of wins in the league. Stunning!

To me the flashing red lights started popping with the departure of Petr Cech. The departure of Cech was a significant moment that signaled the new owners' willingness to strip down anything that did not meet their high standards based on objective criteria from the world of analytics and high performance. This was just the beginning of a series of losses for us, including the massive changes in backroom staff such as Maria's quick departure and the exit of Buck. This approach of making drastic changes may work in the business world, but football is not just a numbers game. The fabric of a club is built over years, and success is not just about buying the best players and making high-profile moves. Success is built upon day-to-day excellence and the people within the club who understand and embrace the club's history and culture.

By making so many drastic changes, the new owners ensured that the very essence of Chelsea Football Club, its people, was lost or at least changed for the worse, and there is no easy way to get that back now. If the new owners wanted to start fresh, why not buy a cheaper club like Nottingham Forest instead of paying billions for Chelsea and devaluing it with these moves? They did not even make sure a proper transfer of knowledge happened. They just chucked out a large part of the DNA of the club. 

The problem is not the players. It is not the coach. It is that our DNA has been altered. And that is the one thing that makes me very worried going forward. 

 

Edited April 15, 2023 by Oslo blue

[JaneB]

Welcome @Oslo blue

Great post

[thevelourfog]

11 minutes ago, Oslo blue said:

If the new owners wanted to start fresh, why not buy a cheaper club like Nottingham Forest instead of paying billions for Chelsea and devaluing it with these moves? They did not even make sure a proper transfer of knowledge happened. They just chucked out a large part of the DNA of the club. 

It's all just guess work, but I think they're big on "disruptor"/"shock doctrine" stuff. They genuinely think the way English football works is wrong and needs to be torn down, and that they know better. I expect their thinking is that everything has to change, so may as well do it all at once and get all the pain done in one go. Pulling off a plaster, basically. I doubt, though, that they anticipated this much pain and think they've drastically underestimated what it will take to recover. 

It's objectively remarkable how quickly they've made us so terrible. I'm not sure they could have done it if they actively tried.

[Bob Singleton]

@Oslo blue Interesting post.

Due to how close they were to our previous owner - and irrespective of if they were sacked, they resigned or left by 'mutual consent' - neither Granovskaia nor Buck could stay in-situ. You are right about Cech leaving, though... that rang alarm bells with many of us here at the time. I also agree that Boehly & Co seem to want to rewrite our DNA

[McCreadie]

1 hour ago, Chelsea_Matt said:

Imo we bought too much too soon. I think Newcastle did it the right way - and recruited the correct manager. 

Eddie Howe was about 5th choice… He has done brilliantly but let’s not rewrite history to make Newcastle’s owners look competent unnecessarily 

[Chelsea_Matt]

19 minutes ago, McCreadie said:

Eddie Howe was about 5th choice… He has done brilliantly but let’s not rewrite history to make Newcastle’s owners look competent unnecessarily 

I’m not saying that. But I do think Eddie would have been great for us. 

[RDCW]

2 hours ago, Chelsea_Matt said:

I’m not saying that. But I do think Eddie would have been great for us. 

Better than Potter, but not good enough for what we want to be.

[xceleryx]

6 hours ago, Chelsea_Matt said:

I’m not saying that. But I do think Eddie would have been great for us. 

Unlike Newcastle who have a balanced squad, we don't. I don't think Howe walks through our doors and makes anything more than some marginal difference. 

While coaching has been a big issue for us this season, a lot of the core factor to our struggles also rest on the personnel on hand. We were seeing this even under a good manager like Tuchel, and he addressed this several times over himself.

[Rob B]

4 hours ago, xceleryx said:

Unlike Newcastle who have a balanced squad, we don't. I don't think Howe walks through our doors and makes anything more than some marginal difference. 

While coaching has been a big issue for us this season, a lot of the core factor to our struggles also rest on the personnel on hand. We were seeing this even under a good manager like Tuchel, and he addressed this several times over himself.

Under Tuchel, I agree with you, we had a good coach with an unbalanced squad.  That is why we were languishing around 4th and not challenging for the title. 

Since then however, we have appointed two coaches who are below par, signed a load of players in January without offloading any, and they are our immediate issues and why we are 11th in the league. 

The players are on the beach.  We have an interim manager that they know is not going to be around next season, and I genuinely believe there are more than 15 players who do not know if they are going to be here next season.   We have players on loan, players with a year left on their deal, players with two years on their deal, and players that we tried to sell in January.  The whole situation is a mess. 

All of that said,  the situation can be solved by doing three things - all easier said than done, but certainly not impossible:

1:   Appoint a decent manager who is a strong character, command the respect of the players.   Nagalsman or Enrique are both huge upgrades.

2.  Clear out 12 - 15 players including Zakaira, Felix, Azpi, Auba, Pulisic, Kovacic, Ziyech,  very likely some academy players and a couple of recent buys that we might have to take a hit on eg KK or MC

3.  Sign a GK, DM and striker (ideally 1 or 2 leaders in there, which is one of the reasons I like Declan Rice)

If we go into next season with one of those two managers, a squad of 25/26 players having addressed the key positions we need to, no reason why we couldn’t have a good season. 

[Holymoly]

13 hours ago, Oslo blue said:

The problem is not the players. It is not the coach. It is that our DNA has been altered.

The players need to take responsibility for what they fail to achieve on the pitch. They take the wages that are probably twice as much as the opposition and are quite happy to be played off the pitch. That is not professionalism. That is greed.

The managers can only use the players are provided with I will accept however this squad has been unbalanced since Conte left and we have been calling for a root and branch restructuring of the squad since his final days. The managers since then have overseen players coming in that fitted their style while failing to sell the players that were a negative influence on the squad. Sarri was the epitome of this. Lampard Mk1 had his squad forced on him due to the embargo, Even St Thomas of Tuchel was guilty of freezing players out and latterly had his "pets" who would play whatever their form. He didn't have a huge interst in develping the squad.  Potter's influence on the squad has yet to be fully assessed but I would claim his biggest fault was that he failed to cut out the dead wood and kept trying to be everyone's best mate with the result that the players collective form sank to the lowest common denominator. The difference between him and Tuchel was that he had no strategy to coach these players. We now see under Lampard Mk2 the true state of this unbalanced, demotivated, uncoached, out of form squad of players. A squad that he is unable to get a bounce out of. Why? Because of @Oslo blue's final sentence, the one highlighted and underlined for emphasis. This is NOT the same club Lampard played at, or even managed at previously. He cannot demand they play for the club, for the badge that he did as it is not that club any longer. Aside from Billy the kit man every single other person who was here during Roman's reign has gone. Frank may as well be demanding them to play for Queen of the South.

It is not even as if we went out of business and have been resurrected as a Phoenix club, Chelsea 2022. If we ignore the questionable morality of the financing under the previous owner we can point to almost twenty years of stable success overseen by a benevolent dictator. That was thrown out of the window literally overnight. The new owners thought that they could just pick up the reins and continue on, however they failed to factor in the concept of continuity. I'm betting the older players, and certainly the new signings, drive into Cobham every day now and don't see themselves as being employed by a club with a rich history of winning trophies, they just see this as a job, albeit an insanely lucrative job. They no longer have anything to look back on, to look up to, they are playing for a new club with no history and they don't have the stomach to make the first steps in writing a new history.

They are no longer standing on the shoulders of giants, their feet are planted at ground level and everyone can now see (even themselves) just how small and insignificant they are.

[exiledblue]

1 hour ago, Rob B said:

If we go into next season with one of those two managers, a squad of 25/26 players having addressed the key positions we need to, no reason why we couldn’t have a good season. 

Yes, but will we be able to attract top players and coach without European football? Even if we dont beat RM this week we have to make a good showing of it to stand any chance of getting in the people we need otherwise the risk is that all potential incomings will see (and remember) is a poor league position and confused club

[Bob Singleton]

43 minutes ago, exiledblue said:

Yes, but will we be able to attract top players and coach without European football? Even if we dont beat RM this week we have to make a good showing of it to stand any chance of getting in the people we need otherwise the risk is that all potential incomings will see (and remember) is a poor league position and confused club

If we get the right coach in (and as far as I'm concerned either Enrique or Naglesmann will do, but nobody else) there's absolutely no reason why 'elite' players would avoid us. As for the coach himself... the fact that people like Enrique and Naglesmann are interested given that it's obvious there's no European football next season for us, sort of answers your question, doesn't it?

If we get everything else right (and it's a big if with these new owners) - sell the players that need selling, bring in the right manager, allow him a couple of players that he wants to help implement his style - then I think many would see us among the favourites to win the Premiership. Attracting players like, for example, Rice and Osimhen shouldn't be a problem per se.

This season has fallen off a cliff edge, but that doesn't mean that, in the right circumstances, we can't climb straight back to the top next season. The foundations are there. We just need the right 'builder' in charge.

[RDCW]

9 minutes ago, Bob Singleton said:

If we get the right coach in (and as far as I'm concerned either Enrique or Naglesmann will do, but nobody else) there's absolutely no reason why 'elite' players would avoid us. As for the coach himself... the fact that people like Enrique and Naglesmann are interested given that it's obvious there's no European football next season for us, sort of answers your question, doesn't it?

If we get everything else right (and it's a big if with these new owners) - sell the players that need selling, bring in the right manager, allow him a couple of players that he wants to help implement his style - then I think many would see us among the favourites to win the Premiership. Attracting players like, for example, Rice and Osimhen shouldn't be a problem per se.

This season has fallen off a cliff edge, but that doesn't mean that, in the right circumstances, we can't climb straight back to the top next season. The foundations are there. We just need the right 'builder' in charge.

Unless we are relegated. Having looked at the fixture list I genuinely believe it is a possibility that we won't get another point. If that happens relegation must be also possible (although I haven't done the maths based on  the other candidates' fixtures against each other) if unlikely.

Our fall has been as miraculous as Leicester's title win.

[xceleryx]

55 minutes ago, Rob B said:

Under Tuchel, I agree with you, we had a good coach with an unbalanced squad.  That is why we were languishing around 4th and not challenging for the title. 

Since then however, we have appointed two coaches who are below par, signed a load of players in January without offloading any, and they are our immediate issues and why we are 11th in the league. 

The players are on the beach.  We have an interim manager that they know is not going to be around next season, and I genuinely believe there are more than 15 players who do not know if they are going to be here next season.   We have players on loan, players with a year left on their deal, players with two years on their deal, and players that we tried to sell in January.  The whole situation is a mess. 

All of that said,  the situation can be solved by doing three things - all easier said than done, but certainly not impossible:

1:   Appoint a decent manager who is a strong character, command the respect of the players.   Nagalsman or Enrique are both huge upgrades.

2.  Clear out 12 - 15 players including Zakaira, Felix, Azpi, Auba, Pulisic, Kovacic, Ziyech,  very likely some academy players and a couple of recent buys that we might have to take a hit on eg KK or MC

3.  Sign a GK, DM and striker (ideally 1 or 2 leaders in there, which is one of the reasons I like Declan Rice)

If we go into next season with one of those two managers, a squad of 25/26 players having addressed the key positions we need to, no reason why we couldn’t have a good season. 

You realise how ridiculous it sounds to say the size of our squad is the cause of our 11th place standing, right?  

It has virtually zero impact on our inability to move the ball at speed, hit our passes accurately, finish chances, and all the other fundamental areas we are falling dramatically short in. 

Don't get me wrong, we've got far from a optimal sized squad right now and trimming that back is a priority in itself, but if you look at those who've played the most minutes for us this season they're the ones who'd still be in the side more often than not even in a reduced squad.

Regarding your points. 

1. This I agree with, even if I'm not 100% sold on Luis Enquire he's still better than what we had in Potter and Lampard. 

2. Again, I agree with this. A clear out is a must and the deadwood shipped out to pastures new. While sort the futures of a few of the others who's futures are on the fence. 

3. No issues with the positions in question that need addressing, however I do feel some think it's a matter of adding players for these positions and we're magically sorted. I think it's equally as important that we address the profiles of the players we have, those we want to recruit, and the direction we want to take our football. If we want to be a possession based side like we've tried to be then we need to make calls on those who struggle in the fundamental areas to produce this football. Right now a big part of our personnel issues is that we've got played that really do struggle on the technical side of things, then wonder why our play breaks down so frequently. It's just as much about filling those positions as much as it is getting the right profile of player in.

[Bob Singleton]

34 minutes ago, RDCW said:

Unless we are relegated. Having looked at the fixture list I genuinely believe it is a possibility that we won't get another point. If that happens relegation must be also possible (although I haven't done the maths based on  the other candidates' fixtures against each other) if unlikely.

Our fall has been as miraculous as Leicester's title win.

I agree that it's hard to imagine where the next point might come from (Forrest?) but it would take freakish results for us to get relegated. We're on 39 points. In theory, Southampton - currently bottom of the table - could get 44 points if they won ALL their remaining fixtures. That would mean winning 7 out of 7 having so far managed 6 out of 31.

 

[thevelourfog]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/04/17/todd-boehly-chelsea-dressing-room-team-talk-real-madrid/

[Mark Kelly]

Guys , you're a disgrace to Soccer-ball , why can't you get the ball to the score-zone more quickly and don't get me started on the defensive lock zone shield. 

[Sciatika]

12 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/04/17/todd-boehly-chelsea-dressing-room-team-talk-real-madrid/

RM are softening up the referee. Not sure they need to do that.

[Backbiter]

43 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

Guys , you're a disgrace to Soccer-ball , why can't you get the ball to the score-zone more quickly and don't get me started on the defensive lock zone shield. 

And if you don't, you'll all be traded for the top draft picks.

[thevelourfog]

53 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/04/17/todd-boehly-chelsea-dressing-room-team-talk-real-madrid/

Didn't watch the press conference, but apparently Lampard and Kepa said Boehly comes into the dressing room after every game?

Not normal behaviour.

[boratsbrother]

Some will question the wisdom of owners going into dressing rooms and bluntly speaking their minds. I think it shows they care and are hurting, so j personally am all for what they did on Saturday. Infinitely better than having owners like this over those who never even bother going to games.

Edited April 17, 2023 by boratsbrother

[Mark Kelly]

5 minutes ago, thevelourfog said:

Didn't watch the press conference, but apparently Lampard and Kepa said Boehly comes into the dressing room after every game?

Not normal behaviour.

As I said recently , appoint a new man and then F off back to the States. 

[Chelsea_Matt]

Not impressed with the Todd ‘n’ Eggy show I have to say.