Hi Score. Whereas I agree with the vast majority of what you say, I cannot agree with your undiminished support in Maresca. Whatever you say about the recruitment we had a squad capable of getting close to Liverpool last December and similarly to Arsenal this December. then what happened? At Leicester he had a team head and shoulders above the rest. They were flying until the end of December and playing good football. Then the familiar slump set in and they just scraped home almost blowing a 10 point lead.
It's F**ing groundhog day again. If it was just us I would blame the players, but this has happened at both clubs, that can't be a coincidence three years on the trot.
He is so unadventurous with his substitutions especially against United and Brighton which bordered on moronic. He has his badges and they teach you how to play against different formats, which should be basic knowledge anyway. Yet the Villa game after Emri's subs were beyond words. He is reactive rather than proactive and it is poor management. He is too defensive minded. He rotates far too much, I get the impression he just wants to keep everyone in the squad happy. Tosin has been horrendous, Fernandez is ineffectual and unbalances the side but he refuses to drop him. He plays too many players out of position and rotates far too much.
You say you want us to challenge for the title, yet we have a manager whose style is far more attuned to winning cups than titles. He can get them up for the big games, but doesn't have the nouse to plan for a season. Sorry I just never see us being serious title contenders with Maresca at the helm.
I think Sam from London is Blue has written a very good summary echoing many of Score's points. Extract....Maresca is not without his faults, of course. His lineups, rotations, his substitutions, and his press conferences have all come under fire. But something within the Chelsea fandom has changed. For the first time in the Clearlake era, there is more faith in the manager than in manufactured discourse.
It is a fine line though, and fan opinion is fickle. That Maresca and his side have lost as many up until now as they did at the same point in the Tuchel-Potter season is a stark reminder of where the nadir of this season could be. Should the Italian fail to stem the December rot, Chelsea’s hierarchy would simply have to keep to the shadows as fan unrest and the media do the rest.
This coming Friday, January 2nd, will be the 66th anniversary of my first match at Stamford Bridge (v Leicester 2-2). Jimmy Greaves played for us that day and Gordon Banks was in goal for Leicester!! The lives of those two were to change a bit in the next decade or so.
As The Score says, we've had a lot of ups and downs in that time so, even if it doesn't feel like it today, it could be worse. We're not Wolves, after all!
However, I agree with pretty much every word in his piece. The fact that Eghbali, and not Boehly, seems to be the big man on the football side is a problem. He doesn't eem to be not very good at it.
The appointment of the two SDs hasn't worked either (you could call it a disaster). They too aren't much cop, and that's being polite, but they seem bulletproof when staff performances are reviewed. So, we have three senior executives who seem to be inadequate but are answerable to no-one.
I also don't feel there's any "link between the current owners and/or directors of the club, and the supporters whatsoever, and never have done. OK, Abramovich almost never spoke to the media but I well remember that Bruce Buck went on Talksport a number of times and, from memory, even took calls from listeners. So, there used to be a closer connection between fans and club in those days. Now, that idea has been totally closed down which is a shame, but I guess if the owners think they know everything about how this "project" should work, why should they bother to consult with us, even if they've cocked it up like this lot have.
If you haven't read the article on here this morning reviewing every signing under the Boehly/Eghbali era, it's very interesting and condemns the SDs particularly.
What about the future?
At this moment, I'm not very confident. We'll be challengers for cups if we get decent draws but we're miles off a real Premier League campaign, by which I mean never being lower than third or fourth for pretty much every week of the season. If we lose to Bournemouth tonight and Liverpool beat Leeds on Thursday, we could be 7th, six points of 4th and 13 points off Villa in 3rd.
I good article but I will take issue with one particular thing. The project is to buy young players on the cheap and to sell them for more. That’s it. How can you support a project that’s never going to give you a genuinely competitive team. Any owners with that plan will fail 99 times out of 100. You need a balanced plan with players at various stages of their career and that’s not the plan of these owners. It’s a pyramid system to make them money. I’m 66 and I’ve seen some pretty poor Chelsea teams but this feels worse because it doesn’t need to be this bad because it’s basically management incompetence. Other clubs are overtaking us one by one.
With massive respect, this is such a disappointing response Umair. Anyone who reads this site regularly knows I've been criticising the Sporting Directors for years on this site, I've criticised a fair bit of the recruitment too. Last year I literally wrote a couple of articles for this site calling for Todd to buyout Clearlake, so I've been on their case a while, and as a reader of this site, you know all this.
I've had concerns about Clearlake for a while and I've not hidden that, I've also given them praise when its due, because if I don't do that, my criticism is just an agenda.
I don't regret believing in people and giving them a chance, because that's far better than having an agenda from the start and congratulating yourself when its been partially proved right. And I still believe in the model Todd and Clearlake had for squad building and achieving long term success. That's what I was singing the praises of, and I will always give credit where its due despite any misgivings I have.
I have always said, I bought into this ownership due to Todd Boehly, not Clearlake. I have wanted him to have full control for at least a year or more. And we've signed some good players, we've improved the scouting and medical departments, we've won some trophies, I don't believe its ALL bad. I believe the overall strategy is being executed wrongly and poorly, and the people in charge need replacing.
With respect, you've never hidden that you've had a public, almost pre-determined agenda against the lot of them from the start. I could be wrong but I've never seen you give them any credit when its been deserved. It often appears you have just been looking for confirmation bias to prove your argument.
And we HAVE got a good core of a squad, and won trophies and got ourselves back as a European level team IMO. I expect better than a comment which is basically "I was right all along and Score is an idiot". There's no need for it. Neither you or I were right all along at all. I was wrong to have too much faith in those running things, IMO you're wrong about this squad now as well IMO, with respect.
This model has literally worked at PSG because they had the right people in charge making the decisions. The model Todd and Clearlake has CAN work but they're executing it poorly and this post is basically saying that I don't see it changing with the current people making decisions.
Even if I had changed my mind to the degree you allege, isn't that what grown ups do? Admit they were wrong and own it, and change their view accordingly. You don't get brownie points for being right about certain things earlier than others.
I don't regret believing in this project, I still believe in the strategy, with some minor tweaks (ones Todd actually wants to make if he ever gets control), but I don't see any hope of us executing it well until personnel changes are made at the very top. I'm happy to admit I was wrong on some things, but I don't regret giving certain people a chance to prove themselves.
nah mate... no agendas... just concerns. They were my preferred group for the takeover and it was only in the first summer windows under the SDs (1 year after they bought the club) that i didnt like where we were going. Its fine to focus on younger players and its fine to have a structure in place for wages... whats not fine is the constant PR shovelled down our throats, selling better players for the same level or worse players, favouring the players from their ex-clubs and certain agents and running the club like a dictatorship overall. I was worried that Eghbali would be our own version of Moshiri... turns out he is even worse. The SDs are so out of their depth that they dont want a big character to be a coach who can question or criticise them. Poch did it and he is gone. Maresca got the job as he was a newbie but now even he is questioning them... and will be gone in the summer. The way the club is being run does not sit right with me. The way we buy / sell players does not sit right with me. People can scream all the like about these guys being financial savy but not having a permanent FoS sponsor for 3 years now is a disgrace.. and they keep making excuses for it and people keep falling for it. There is nothing financial savy about overpaying for avg players or player profiles we dont need. So unfortunately i will keep up my 'agenda' against them unless things change.
Perhaps a 10 points fine for previous financial irregularities and a bottom 3 fight might give Todd Boehly room to buy out Clearlake and get rid of the SDs. I would be content to see that scenario play out for Chelsea's longer term.
Hi Score. Whereas I agree with the vast majority of what you say, I cannot agree with your undiminished support in Maresca. Whatever you say about the recruitment we had a squad capable of getting close to Liverpool last December and similarly to Arsenal this December. then what happened? At Leicester he had a team head and shoulders above the rest. They were flying until the end of December and playing good football. Then the familiar slump set in and they just scraped home almost blowing a 10 point lead.
It's F**ing groundhog day again. If it was just us I would blame the players, but this has happened at both clubs, that can't be a coincidence three years on the trot.
He is so unadventurous with his substitutions especially against United and Brighton which bordered on moronic. He has his badges and they teach you how to play against different formats, which should be basic knowledge anyway. Yet the Villa game after Emri's subs were beyond words. He is reactive rather than proactive and it is poor management. He is too defensive minded. He rotates far too much, I get the impression he just wants to keep everyone in the squad happy. Tosin has been horrendous, Fernandez is ineffectual and unbalances the side but he refuses to drop him. He plays too many players out of position and rotates far too much.
You say you want us to challenge for the title, yet we have a manager whose style is far more attuned to winning cups than titles. He can get them up for the big games, but doesn't have the nouse to plan for a season. Sorry I just never see us being serious title contenders with Maresca at the helm.
Wasn't Boehly the one who told Tuchel to play 4-4-3 and then sacked him?
I think Sam from London is Blue has written a very good summary echoing many of Score's points. Extract....Maresca is not without his faults, of course. His lineups, rotations, his substitutions, and his press conferences have all come under fire. But something within the Chelsea fandom has changed. For the first time in the Clearlake era, there is more faith in the manager than in manufactured discourse.
It is a fine line though, and fan opinion is fickle. That Maresca and his side have lost as many up until now as they did at the same point in the Tuchel-Potter season is a stark reminder of where the nadir of this season could be. Should the Italian fail to stem the December rot, Chelsea’s hierarchy would simply have to keep to the shadows as fan unrest and the media do the rest.
https://londonisblue.beehiiv.com/p/the-clearlake-error-everything-wrong-with-chelsea-s-ownership?
This coming Friday, January 2nd, will be the 66th anniversary of my first match at Stamford Bridge (v Leicester 2-2). Jimmy Greaves played for us that day and Gordon Banks was in goal for Leicester!! The lives of those two were to change a bit in the next decade or so.
As The Score says, we've had a lot of ups and downs in that time so, even if it doesn't feel like it today, it could be worse. We're not Wolves, after all!
However, I agree with pretty much every word in his piece. The fact that Eghbali, and not Boehly, seems to be the big man on the football side is a problem. He doesn't eem to be not very good at it.
The appointment of the two SDs hasn't worked either (you could call it a disaster). They too aren't much cop, and that's being polite, but they seem bulletproof when staff performances are reviewed. So, we have three senior executives who seem to be inadequate but are answerable to no-one.
I also don't feel there's any "link between the current owners and/or directors of the club, and the supporters whatsoever, and never have done. OK, Abramovich almost never spoke to the media but I well remember that Bruce Buck went on Talksport a number of times and, from memory, even took calls from listeners. So, there used to be a closer connection between fans and club in those days. Now, that idea has been totally closed down which is a shame, but I guess if the owners think they know everything about how this "project" should work, why should they bother to consult with us, even if they've cocked it up like this lot have.
If you haven't read the article on here this morning reviewing every signing under the Boehly/Eghbali era, it's very interesting and condemns the SDs particularly.
What about the future?
At this moment, I'm not very confident. We'll be challengers for cups if we get decent draws but we're miles off a real Premier League campaign, by which I mean never being lower than third or fourth for pretty much every week of the season. If we lose to Bournemouth tonight and Liverpool beat Leeds on Thursday, we could be 7th, six points of 4th and 13 points off Villa in 3rd.
Is that what £1bn+ gets you?
Happy New Year folks.
I good article but I will take issue with one particular thing. The project is to buy young players on the cheap and to sell them for more. That’s it. How can you support a project that’s never going to give you a genuinely competitive team. Any owners with that plan will fail 99 times out of 100. You need a balanced plan with players at various stages of their career and that’s not the plan of these owners. It’s a pyramid system to make them money. I’m 66 and I’ve seen some pretty poor Chelsea teams but this feels worse because it doesn’t need to be this bad because it’s basically management incompetence. Other clubs are overtaking us one by one.
The private equity model. Positives in terms of cost cutting, but negative in sucking an orgs soul
Ὕβρις, you forgot the Ὕβρις; essential to any private equity project.
Finally we take aim at the man who has poisoned the well.
3 years too late... 😂
not long ago we had articles singing the praises of Clearlake
With massive respect, this is such a disappointing response Umair. Anyone who reads this site regularly knows I've been criticising the Sporting Directors for years on this site, I've criticised a fair bit of the recruitment too. Last year I literally wrote a couple of articles for this site calling for Todd to buyout Clearlake, so I've been on their case a while, and as a reader of this site, you know all this.
I've had concerns about Clearlake for a while and I've not hidden that, I've also given them praise when its due, because if I don't do that, my criticism is just an agenda.
I don't regret believing in people and giving them a chance, because that's far better than having an agenda from the start and congratulating yourself when its been partially proved right. And I still believe in the model Todd and Clearlake had for squad building and achieving long term success. That's what I was singing the praises of, and I will always give credit where its due despite any misgivings I have.
I have always said, I bought into this ownership due to Todd Boehly, not Clearlake. I have wanted him to have full control for at least a year or more. And we've signed some good players, we've improved the scouting and medical departments, we've won some trophies, I don't believe its ALL bad. I believe the overall strategy is being executed wrongly and poorly, and the people in charge need replacing.
With respect, you've never hidden that you've had a public, almost pre-determined agenda against the lot of them from the start. I could be wrong but I've never seen you give them any credit when its been deserved. It often appears you have just been looking for confirmation bias to prove your argument.
And we HAVE got a good core of a squad, and won trophies and got ourselves back as a European level team IMO. I expect better than a comment which is basically "I was right all along and Score is an idiot". There's no need for it. Neither you or I were right all along at all. I was wrong to have too much faith in those running things, IMO you're wrong about this squad now as well IMO, with respect.
This model has literally worked at PSG because they had the right people in charge making the decisions. The model Todd and Clearlake has CAN work but they're executing it poorly and this post is basically saying that I don't see it changing with the current people making decisions.
Even if I had changed my mind to the degree you allege, isn't that what grown ups do? Admit they were wrong and own it, and change their view accordingly. You don't get brownie points for being right about certain things earlier than others.
I don't regret believing in this project, I still believe in the strategy, with some minor tweaks (ones Todd actually wants to make if he ever gets control), but I don't see any hope of us executing it well until personnel changes are made at the very top. I'm happy to admit I was wrong on some things, but I don't regret giving certain people a chance to prove themselves.
nah mate... no agendas... just concerns. They were my preferred group for the takeover and it was only in the first summer windows under the SDs (1 year after they bought the club) that i didnt like where we were going. Its fine to focus on younger players and its fine to have a structure in place for wages... whats not fine is the constant PR shovelled down our throats, selling better players for the same level or worse players, favouring the players from their ex-clubs and certain agents and running the club like a dictatorship overall. I was worried that Eghbali would be our own version of Moshiri... turns out he is even worse. The SDs are so out of their depth that they dont want a big character to be a coach who can question or criticise them. Poch did it and he is gone. Maresca got the job as he was a newbie but now even he is questioning them... and will be gone in the summer. The way the club is being run does not sit right with me. The way we buy / sell players does not sit right with me. People can scream all the like about these guys being financial savy but not having a permanent FoS sponsor for 3 years now is a disgrace.. and they keep making excuses for it and people keep falling for it. There is nothing financial savy about overpaying for avg players or player profiles we dont need. So unfortunately i will keep up my 'agenda' against them unless things change.
Perhaps a 10 points fine for previous financial irregularities and a bottom 3 fight might give Todd Boehly room to buy out Clearlake and get rid of the SDs. I would be content to see that scenario play out for Chelsea's longer term.