24 Jun 2024 22:48:22
ED01 how are you mate? Have you moved to Dubai yet? It is very hot out there at the moment but I will be back shortly. Anyway, Chelsea related and following earlier posts. Are Chelsea so far behind the other big clubs stadium wise that our revenue needs a boost from the academy? A lot has been said over the last 20 years that Roman only set it up to bridge the financial gap? Let's face it, we have sold some real gems over the years, all under Roman as well so nothing to do with our new owners. I, like you, find it strange that we have sold these players so why? Any insight will, as always, be appreciated.
{Ed001's Note - no, not back there yet, it is difficult to find a place to live in my budget at the moment. Most people are now putting their places on airbnb as they get more money, so rents are rising, as demand increases. Just need to keep searching. When do you go back there? I was there at the beginning of the month looking.
As far as I understand it, Roman set it up to produce players for the first team. The issue was thst he stepped back a bit with instructions that the club was to break even financially. With the stadium issue, it became an easy source of revenue, added to the constant churn of managers meaning none of them were interested in developing players as they would not get the benefit from them. It is much easier to use a ready made player than to develop a youngster when you know you can be sacked in a few months before the youngster has actually got to grips with adult football and the way you want them to play.
There just wasn't going to be opportunities for them to play, so they go out on loan for fees to raise revenue. After a while of that, players want to feel settled down and that they belong somewhere, rather than being on constant loan. So they will usually end up moving on to a club that wants them for their first team right then. So you end up losing them just as they are reaching the point that they are ready.
Personally I would like to see the loan system removed altogether. Stop the big clubs stockpiling youngsters and let them get spread out among teams they will play for. Right now teams in lower leagues find it too easy to just borrow players, rather than develop their own and it is lowering the quality level of the lower lesgues as a whole. People will always look for the easy way to do things over the best way sadly, or rather cheapest way I should say.}
25 Jun 2024 08:48:36
ED01 you are right about the cost of renting and demand is high. It is also too hot for me at the moment so likely later in the year. Thanks for your thoughts on our academy and the loan system and stock piling of talent in general. The Chelsea academy is a conveyor belt of talent and so many have moved on over the years and when I look at the likes of Musiala, Rice, Tammy, Marc G, Solanke, Tomorri etal we could have a starting 11 ready to compete for the title! Interesting though that none of the above were sold by the current owners. In fact only Mount, Hall and Maatsen. And Maatsen may well have stayed if Poch played him in his natural position?
{Ed001's Note - exactly mate, the churn of managers is the major problem as they don't have the luxury of time to develop players. Musiala though is a huge loss, even at like 12/13 years old he was incredible, well ahead of anyone else in his age group.
It is not so bad being hot as you don't really go out during the day during the summer, other than air-conditioned building to air-conditioned taxi/car/train/bus to air-conditioned building again.}
25 Jun 2024 09:13:28
Great point ED01 about the constant churning of managers and the pressure to deliver here and now. Maybe there is method in the madness with the appointment of Maresca after all? A coach who will work with young players, both from the academy and bought in rather than going out and buying so called ready made players?
{Ed001's Note - maybe, but whenever I watched Leicester last season, they were god awful. I watched quite a few of their games and always wondered how on earth they had managed to get away with a result there. They were defensively shambolic and an absolute mess. I am not sure I would want him coaching youngsters personally. I would rather someone taught them good positional sense and the basics of the game. But it seems they are no longer valued any more as teams would rather a defender can pass it five yards to the side to a goalkeeper over being able to defend.}
25 Jun 2024 09:57:06
Yes I agree ref defending. This trend towards inverting full backs can be rather frustrating if not done properly. Pep is brilliant at it and Klopp wasn't bad but Arsenal sometimes look all over the place yet still somehow keep clean sheets. It will be interesting to see how he sets us up.
{Ed001's Note - Klopp wasn't bad? I would disagree, and it was mainly down to Pep 'all about me' Lijnders anyway. The system was a mess and contributed to all those times Liverpool went behind. It was awful. The difference with City was that they never played full-backs to begin with. They had four centre-backs who could play full-back and so whoever was in place could just fill in. Liverpool would end up with the centre-back at full-back who wasn't capable of playing full-back, while a full-back who had never played centre-back was not sure whether to stay in midfield, get back to full-back or drop into the centre. Worse was that the left-back was ending up playing as a third centre-back most of the time when both left-backs were better attacking than defending. That is why it only really sort of worked when Gomez played at left-back, but even then Bradley was not inverting much anyway. Sorry got on a rant then, but I really hated the way we played the last two seasons. The system didn't work for the players Liverpool had. It was Lijnders trying to be a tactical genius when all he does is copy other people's ideas and try to claim credit for them.}
25 Jun 2024 09:57:20
Ed, I hope you’re wrong about our manager for obvious reasons. He wouldn’t have been my first or second choice but ho hum.
{Ed001's Note - I wouldn't even have put him on the list if it had 30 choices. He would be ahead of Southgate though, so at least you can be glad it was not Southgate!}
25 Jun 2024 10:17:06
Has Lijnders gone now? I'm hoping it works better for us as Reece James can play centre back as can Marc C and Levi if deployed at left back. Will be interesting to see but like you I prefer a traditional set up, 4-3-3 under Jose was brilliant with 4 proper defenders, a holding midfielder and everyone knowing their roles. Jose would of been my choice over any of these new era coaches with a tendancy to copy Pep.
{Ed001's Note - yes, he has got the gig as head coach of RB Salzburg. I hope he has learnt from his time at Liverpool and can go on to have success, but I feel that waltzing to an easy title in Austria will just convince him even more of his own greatness and he will end up like Jesse Marsch.
I do think Chelsea have a set of players better suited to inverting full-backs, but also I don't understand the need for it with the players you have. It just seems to be managers reinventing the wheel for the sake of it, rather than just improving on the wheel they have.}
25 Jun 2024 11:17:07
That’s not at all worrying regarding Maresca, and surprisingly g8 didn’t call you negative regarding us stock piling talent and wasting millions when we have better players st cobham, we have so many young talent now like you say there won’t be the chances so it is more business than football reasoning,
So how do you see league next season, hard predication with players still in and out, you see chelsea making top 4,