You’re not wrong. To be worse than Gilberto takes some doing. It’s almost incomprehensible to have players this bad when we’re at the level and status we are now. He wouldn’t make Martin Jol’s squad that began our progression because LYP was miles clear of him, let alone Ekotto who would actually make our team today.
We signed a lot of dross in the last window under Pochettino and all the ones under Mourinho. We didn't have a DoF then. We have had one since and signings are much improved. Whether Paratici can survive is very doubtful but I think he will be replaced and hopefully we won't make the mistake of 'backing the manager' again.
I'm confused so could someone please tell me the actual rules. Under the BBC article on Doherty is specifically says (dunno if that's what it means but it certainly says): There is a Fifa ruling that meant a temporary exit was not possible for Doherty, with clubs only permitted to send out a maximum of eight players on loan per season - a quota that Spurs have already filled. Now sorry to mention Chelski again, but they appear to have 33 players on loan (I'm not exaggerating that figure for effect by the way). There is presumably a difference in what they have done.
I’ve just looked and only 6 of theirs are foreign based loans. The rest are domestic based. We had 8 foreign based loans which is the maximum permitted, hence the decision to cancel Doherty’s contract.
As I explained earlier, the rule on international loans is you can only have eight - unless the player is both U21 and CG, hence they used to have so many loaned to Vitesse Arnhem Chelsea have seven international loans
Thanks HBIC / DierH. It would not have been hard to specify that on the BBC comment I think. Yes they said "FIFA" but they could have made it more specific.
We'd have t qualify for the Champions League every year as he can't play on Thursdays cos he has to collect his pension.
I half agree with you. The problem isn't 'backing the manager' the problem is 'sacking the manager' before the backing bears any significant fruit, and then hiring the wrong manager, then 'backing the manager', then 'sacking the manager' before the…….. …..I'm sure you get the point. It's an absolute mess, but Conte right now is being backed. It's no bad thing. We just need to follow through and break the cycle of waste and pain. He has the best win percentage for us of any manager in recent history. We are in still the CL and in the runnings, just, for a top four place. We might even challenge for the FA cup, we have a better chance now than we've had in a while due to the teams that are no longer in the competition. (Yeah, I know. ) If Conte wins a cup and finishes in the top four I imagine the option to extend his contract will be taken up by Tottenham. These are quite realistic aims that I'm sure are targets for Conte. Next season is when we really get to see some fruits.
BBC is claiming this Jan window broke the record for money spent by over £400m. Someone best inform them that Chelsea actually spent £7.50 as the payments are spread over the next million years.
So, we have sold him - for nothing? No loan fee for six months? No transfer fee? Is that correct. Just basically jettisoned him?
We could not loan him, the new rule is max of 8 and we were at the limit. So it was stay, sell or cancel contract. I'd like to know Chelsea's number, they usually have a number loaned out and it seemed that they brought in way more than they got rid of?
Hopefully with it being a mutual termination Doherty may have agreed to leave for nothing but it’s possible we may have had to pay him a fee that either covers his remaining 18 months of wages or a percentage of that, we probably won’t find out either way though.
I can't believe that we will have gone for nothing 18 months guaranteed wages against the possibility of being unemployed in 6 months time, I bet he has been paid at least half of his remaining contract.
Just read Ally Gold’s piece. He says the club always targeted a RWB and attacker and got them, so club would’ve been happy but he knows fans saw glaringly obvious weaknesses elsewhere, so they (we) won’t be satisfied. We were happy to sell Lucas and Sanchez and even tried to find moves for them but nothing materialised. Lucas in particular had interest from the Prem and abroad but opted to run down his contract - thanks, we’ll just continue to pay you whilst you sit in the treatment room. He’s under the impression Doherty would’ve wanted to be compensated as he’s accepted a 6 month deal with Atleti but had 18 months on his deal here. Says some of the players were shocked at Doherty’s departure. The club were finding it difficult to shift Emerson hence the decision to then shift Doherty as Atleti came calling late on and as Ally has said, this in essence made the Porro deal even more expensive seeing as we’ve likely paid out on compensating Doherty to make room for Porro’s arrival, now if only we’d done this deal earlier we could’ve had more time to look at properly offloading Doherty… We’ll see Conte’s feelings on the window when he does his pre-match presser for the City game in a couple days. Edit: we probably won’t see Conte’s feelings on the window following his gallbladder surgery.
IMHO Conte has already blown a PL top 4 slot. 1. Just to MATCH the pts total of last season he will have to reproduce, starting from the NEXT game, the best results sequence of last season (W11 / D2 / L3) . 2. Which was done with NO CL participation. 3. I doubt that come May, 71 pts will be enough to finish 4th. 4. There is only leeway of 12 pts on the "season compass" . Given the apparent dogma hubris, Conte will probably have to ditch the CL ASAP in order to have the remotest of chances in finishing PL top 4.
One thing that's been mentioned in a few places: our summer 2020 window looks pretty dogshit in retrospect Pierre Emil-Hojbjerg - still here Gareth Bale - left at end of loan Sergio Reguilon - loaned out for 2022-3 season Matt Doherty - released January 2023 Joe Hart - sold August 2021 Carlos Vinicius - left at end of loan Joe Rodon - loaned out for 2022-3 season Alfie Devine - still in U21s Maksim Paskotsi - still in U21s Marcel Lavinier - released August 2022 Tobi Omole - sold July 2022 Keenan Ferguson - released June 2022
