SDs HAVE to go, Poch WILL go & I expect A LOT more chopping and changing before we see on the pitch improvements again

The manager will always get the blame and he does deserve elements of it, BUT the SDs are getting away with murder right now.

Good Afternoon Ladies and Gents,

I am sure you will be reading multiple reports, articles & stories of similar means today! All of us here at SPTC are probably all writing similar but differing opinions.

Here’s my thoughts on where we are at, what should happen and what needs to happen……..

Firstly, Poch is getting the vast majority of the stick and abuse from fans and the media and he does deserve some of it for his tactical and negligent approach to our last couple of matches. BUT he is far away from being the biggest party to blame.

Away from the Football side we have hired some of the very best people at their jobs in the world improved further today by the acquisition of Todd Kilne, but on the Football side we have hired 2 SDs that are undoubtedly very good at spotting raw, young talent but have awful squad building capabilities, which has left us back in the same situation they left us after the winter transfer window last year, with only a Carabao Cup final to differentiate.

Out of the 18 players we have signed since January 2023 they have a combined 108 senior international appearances (at 31st December 2023), at an average of just 6 per player, with Caicedo earning 38 of those, over a 3rd. 4 players have never played for their national team and only 4 have 10+ caps. This shows an incredible lack of experience.

This goes to show the absolutely awful job of squad building the SDs have done, there is not one natural leader in the list of 18 players and bar Caicedo the most caps any of those players had before joining Chelsea was 10, that is a staggering stat for me.

Before we get to this summer, we NEED to do the following things in my mind (not including Poch as will speak below on that);

1. Get rid of the SDs

2. Replace with Mitchell or Edwards, or anyone with proven squad building and project management capabilities

3. Pre-plan sales and loans for development

4. Make a plan with our 7 overseas loans, do not waste them

These things above, upon others need to be resolved/planned ASAP.

On to Poch…….

Like I have mentioned above, it is not entirely his fault but his negligent approach in the last couple of games is undefendable. We turnt up to Anfield looking like we would be happy to get out of their without a drumming and like we had already been beaten, we were very poor, the approach was awful, there was no tactics and the only thing I don’t really blame him for was the lineup, because there was nothing more he could do with the likes of Gusto, Carney & Nkunku all returning from reoccurring injury issues. The 11 on the pitch looked like they had been sent out their with one task and they couldn’t even do that……..

On to Wolves, and I have never been so happy (with hindsight) that my Fiancé had booked an afternoon out at the time of a Chelsea game, it meant other than goal notifications I managed to block out seeing any clips/highlights, the twitter meltdown and the performance as a whole. I’m not massively in to torture so I have decided against watching the entire game back and have only watched back the 3 minute highlights video that Sky Sports release and that was more than enough.

From what I have read it was pretty abysmal and you are probably all a lot more better placed to comment on that than me, one thing I will say which is incredibly frustrating is the only actual passage of play we seemed to have in the game was beautiful for the Palmer goal it was such a nice move. Our defending looked shambolic, Thiago Silva was defending the channel, 2 deflected goals is poor from everyone involved and the substitutions are as uninspiring as ever, YES I got all of that from a 3-minute clip. I FEEL for anyone who endured that 90 minutes yesterday.

Should he be sacked?

Maybe, when the pressure is on like it has been you have to be proactive and not reactive like he has been.

Is it all his fault?

Absolutely not, he definitely has a share of the blame and a decent size of that. However, multiple things haven’t gone the way of his requests or how he clearly wanted them to for example, we have one actual out and out number 9 who is now on loan at Fulham, he requested a replacement IF we were to allow Broja to move he hasn’t received one, this is ONE OF MANY things Poch has requested and not received.

Will he be sacked?

YES, at some point it will happen, it could be today, tomorrow or even next week, it takes a lot to come back from something like this and I just cannot see a redemption arc like that coming.

Would I sack him?

Yes & No, I have been quite vocal on Poch in terms of giving him bits of credit when I believe he deserves some, which he had deserved credit for certain aspects of his management. I will also be open and honest when he deserves to be questioned and right now he is definitely on thin ice, there is nothing I dislike more than when a team turns up to not lose or not get stuffed and away at Anfield last week was the first time I really really questioned Poch, with yesterday on top of that it puts him on thin ice for me.

Who replaces him?

This is one of the biggest issues for me, I hate the hire & fire approach it is so tedious and pointless to me, yet we have had such great success with it in the past. The HUGE difference now is that we don’t have a dressing room of seasoned pro’s. We have a dressing room of impressionable raw talent and the constant changes of managers and philosophies will only halt their development and see us go backwards in my view.

I wouldn’t touch De Zerbi or Brighton with a barge pole, I know next to nothing about Michel Sanchez, Alonso is all but set for Liverpool, Zidane (3 years out of the game) has only ever worked with incredible, world-class players which is far from where we are, Xavi is a big no from me and Ruben Amorim I know little bits about and he is a very good manager and I know the board like him but I am not sure he is what we need right now.

That brings us onto Jose…. I don’t want him to come back and I might be in the small minority, but my reasons are valid (in my mind), firstly I just don’t want him to come in to the middle of this shit show, He could tarnish his legacy more and more and I would worry about him requesting players etc and not getting them he will just end up walking away.

I am underwhelmed in terms of Managers being linked with us, I can’t lie.

I would seriously be considering speaking to Frank Lampard and seeing if he would consider becoming a DOF or something similar, also I would be asking the next manager if he would like John Terry as part of his backroom staff……

Thank you all for reading, as always I want to hear your views on everything so please comment!

Luke Rushbrook