Suspect Maddison will get pelters this evening - which I really don't agree with - he was very good for us throughout his time with the club and certainly didn't 'down tools' or run his contract down like some others - but football fans are collectively dim ...
Read somewhere that their actual first team squad numbers 53 - lots out on loan - absolutely incredible... Worst thing is how they treat those that have fallen out of favour - absolutely no need for the 'dehumanising' and isolation that pervades in that club ...
1.5 Bn spent in 2 years and a squad of 42ish "first team" players. If that was any of the other 14 clubs we'd have simply been given an automatic relegation and a fine. If it was us they'd be petitioning the government to nuke Saudi Arabia for the integrity of the game.
It all seems very scattergun, which would annoy me if I was a Chelsea fan. There are players who pulled them out of the **** last year (like Chalobah and Gallagher) who are frozen out whilst others are just given a free pass. I've read a couple of times that they are focusing on young players with high resale values, that doesn't really work if you're buying them for £100m in the first place (Enzo, Caceido, Mudryk). Seems utterly insane. You could make a team of players that Chelsea have disposed of that would do a hell of a lot better than their current lot.
Instead of having a go at him it would have been more honest from the pundits who are ex players in general to support his stance as I pretty much guarantee you those ex players would have been looking for a move in their playing days if they were in that situation.
They were showing some of the transfer fees last night on MOTD2 ... let's just say that they almost certainly have over 40 players that cost more individually than any single player in our current squad ... their home gates are 40k to our 32k - not vastly different - the wage bills / top earners on different planets ... (their reserve keeper reportedly earning twice as much as our top earner) and yet we're the ones facing 'iminent' FSP / FFP sanctions ... barmy..
We bought Isak for about £60m (worth every penny) and Tonali for about £50m (may be more with addons, not been worth it so far...). I think all our others have been £40m or lower, quite a few in the £30m-£40m region (Livramento, Botman, Guimaraes, Joelinton, Gordon*). So I'll have to see the list of their but suspect they've got at least 10, maybe 20 players that cost more than all but 1 of ours. It's not as bad for us as a few years back when we went to Anfield and our entire first 11 starting the match cost less than two of the Liverpool players had cost individually and had to listen to the radio commentary incessantly going on about how Salah was injured so Liverpool weren't at full strength (it was a draw). *Gordons fee is reported differently everywhere you look but seems to be around £40m flat fee and another £5m addons and a percentage of profits clause.
They’ve backed themselves into a bit of a corner because they’ve signed such dross now worth less than they paid. For FFP or whatever it’s called this week they need to flog Gallagher, Chalobah etc. even though they’re quite useful and popular with fans. Now you’ve got a £250m midfield three who can barely pass a ball and random centre-halves at best no better than Chalobah but they have to be prioritised so you can ship out ‘homegrown’ players to make the P&L acceptable. It’s a mental situation all of their own doing but clubs will keep finding a way around the rules e.g. swapping mediocre academy players with inflated price tags so you both get the full benefit in the revenue column but the cost of the player brought in is spread over five years.
Got to admit I don't either, will just enjoy the game, always hard to tell how the first game of the season will go - although I expected some upsets Friday/Saturday/Sunday, but don't think there was any, not a single one, which is all a bit boring.
Sterling featured in all Chelsea’s pre season games so I can see why he was disappointed and shocked to not even make the bench for their first game. That said, putting a statement out immediately is pathetic behaviour, especially starting it with ‘3 years left on his contract’ nonsense. Was that his way of saying I’ll just take the money if you’re not going to play me?
Why not put a statement out though? He's been screwed over there but should just accept it and not make a fuss? Look at the situation he's been put in by the behaviour of the club.
Was a mediocre signing. Was always going to be a mediocre signing. Now he’s behind their other 76 attacking midfielders on probably £250k a week so unless United or Saudi are stupid enough to take him he’s staying or at best a nice loan somewhere with Chelsea picking up 80% of the wages. Good luck to him.
Maybe I’m being old-fashioned but perhaps he could knuckle down in training and show Maresca he’s worth a place in the team. He isn’t but he could try.
