22 Jul 2024 17:54:00
I have to say I'm pretty upset with the news that Chalobah is being left out of the squad that is travelling to America.
Assuming he doesn't have a move lined up in the next few days this is pretty disgusting treatment for a player who was described as an important part of the first team when he signed a 6 year contract extension 2 years ago.
It's clear as day the SDs are trying to force out a player that has done all that can be asked of them from Day 1. Captain of a trophy-winning youth team, excelled on multiple loans racking up over 100 appearances before turning 21, scored on his debut, has never lost a Prem game he's started.
Hard to think this isn't happening because we wasted £40m on Disasi, who is btw an inferior player, as evidenced last season when Chalobah returned from injury and immediately took his place in the team and spurred us on to a run of results at the end of the season. By doing this you're tanking his value since everyone knows he is on the market. I mean, can anyone genuinely argue that Tosin is any better than Chalonah? The accusations that the SDs only want players who they can claim credit for in the team is becoming increasingly harder to ignore.
The ongoing shambles at this club is so depressing to witness. We wouldn't need to keep balancing the books by selling these players if we hadn't splurged a billion quid on utter dross. We're stuck in a death spiral of overspending on flops and then having to sell our better players to afford them.
If you want to argue that Chalobah isn't good enough, then why are players like Sanchez, Mudryk, Madueke, Disasi kept in the squad? You can't have it both ways.
This is what happens when you hire a load of academy scouts as sporting directors.
22 Jul 2024 18:17:57
RBD, I rate Chalaboa highly so I do NOT want him sold but I will wait a day or so before I make judgement on the SD’s or owners.
The media outlets are using language that is not necessarily accurate or helpful but that’s how they get “clicks. ”
There are so many alternatives to the story as it’s being portrayed in the media. If it turns out to be an accurate assessment I won’t be happy but I’m never happy when a player I rate leaves our club.
22 Jul 2024 21:22:04
Not saying I agree with the decision but 2 years is a long time in football. 2 years ago Rashford scored around 30 goals for United in 22/ 23 season and was one of the first names in the England team and this year he was left out of the Euros squad completely and Utd fans wouldn’t mind if he was sold.
Since signing the contract 2 years ago, Chalobah has played less and less under successive managers. Whilst I don’t disagree that Chalobah is better than Disasi, he didn’t actually displace him on his return from injury. Once back from injury, Chalobah started 4 games at RB, 3 at CB (where Disasi was injured and not in the squad) and played once together with Disasi at RB. Pretty sure there was only 1 game in which he started ahead of Disasi after he sat out the previous game injured ( FA game against City) .
Is it being led by the powers that be that simply want to sell him for ‘pure profit’ or is it down to managers not playing him? It’s probably a mixture of both. If it was me I’d keep him over buying Tosin but we don’t know the whole situation. If Maresca wanted Tosin or isn’t likely to play Chalobah then it makes sense to sell him regardless of what us fans think.
22 Jul 2024 21:36:42
I am not a huge fan of Chalaboa don't think he is top quality but he always plays his heart out and appears to be being forced out and treated badly. Not a good look for other players.
From the clubs point of view the problem of signing players on long contracts you can't complain if the player wants to stay
RBD would agree that Sanchez Madueke and Diasi don't appear to be good enough for some reason I still think Mudryk will be a top player.
23 Jul 2024 00:20:37
I think chalobah isn’t good enough he’s an ok player world class no the likes of mudryk have something it just requires work and a lot more of the players are going to require time I think if there plan works people will be eating there words we have a young squad who we must build round.
23 Jul 2024 01:09:00
Why don’t you tell us how you really feel RBD?
I’m sorry but as Chelsea fans we over rate our own. Chalobah is not better than Badiashile, he simply went through a rough patch after his injury (who didn’t have a rough patch last season? ) . Disasi was being used all over the pitch, constantly with different partnerships so again, not really surprised that he was in and out of form. He also had some absolutely rock solid appearances too.
23 Jul 2024 07:39:12
Laughable is the superlative I would use.
23 Jul 2024 10:28:34
Cech, in my opinion you are correct about BB. He liked class before his injury and then post injury he was shocking and for the end of the season looked back to his best. It will be interesting to see who the manager starts with out of him and Colwill.
Disasi is a concern for me. He went through a period when he looked very good but to often he seemed to lack concentration but as you say he wasn’t paired with any player consistently and we was asked to play out of position several times. On top of that he he did pick up an injury as well. He certainly gives it everything during a game and with a bit more control to his game I can see a way of him becoming a fan’s favourite.
23 Jul 2024 13:25:28
Cech, the point is that we didn't need to sign Disasi when we had Chalobah at the club. It's a wasted £40m. It's £40m we now need to account for by selling Chalobah, a superior player, who was already at the club having cost nothing.
Stewart was at Monaco and has sent them £70m for Disasi and BB.
Winstanley was at Brighton and has sent them £140m for Sanchez and Caicedo.
We only needed two of those players in Caicedo and BB. We overspent on all of them bar BB.
It's an accumulation of all of these signings and more that leads to large-scale problems. It needs to be called out for what it is.
This season we signing players on a free (ex-City no surprises there), selling players because they were good last season so we can make a profit (ambition? ), doing sweetheart deals with other clubs up against PSR.
As for the initial point of this thread, Chalobah is club trained player since age 8 who has been amongst our best CBs over the last 12 months who is being treated appallingly by the SDs. If you're a fan of Chelsea this should infuriate you.
23 Jul 2024 14:35:02
I cannot understand how anyone can say the new regime have been anything other than a colossal failure but we all see football in different ways. I'd think a billion spent to get worse is exactly that but looks like we still have poeole that think they're doing a good job. We will have too see this season also.
23 Jul 2024 14:43:29
RBD, at the time of signing Disasi I was still unsure about Chalaboa and it’s only having seen them both last season that I can say I prefer Chalaboa but there are lots of Chelsea fans on this site and season ticket holders who can’t have Chalaboa as a top CH.
It could well be that the manager and coaches just prefer Disasi to Chalaboa and it appears some fans agree with that assessment. Him being at the club since he was eight is just an emotional red herring. I’m only interested in him as a player today.
The club is a business. Mistakes will happen (as they did under RA) Players will be sold that fans aren’t happy about and players will be bought that fans are happy about.
You’re also making our signings of players from Brighton and Monoco sound like some sort of conspiracy. Im sure that isn’t the case and I’m also sure the owners would ask questions if they thought that was the case.
23 Jul 2024 15:14:07
RBD I disagree that Chalobah is a ‘superior player’. He has never filled me with confidence. Yes I like the passion he shows, and the fact he always tries. But trying isn’t always enough.
Caicedo was always a player we were going to be interested in regardless of Winstanley. As for Sanchez - we had been begging for a new GK for ages, we simply made an error with the option we chose. It happens to all clubs.
Badiashile is a player who hit the profile of what the club was looking for, young with a high potential ability. Again I doubt he was targeted purely for Stewart. Disasi I feel was mostly bought for two reasons, to help BB settle, and as an option to pair with BB given their previous partnership and the aging (now gone) Thiago Silva.
As for how Chalobah is being treated, how do you know how he’s being treated? Have you spoken to him? Have you spoken to anyone at the club who actually knows? It’s been reported for a long time regarding sides interested in signing him and that the club is open to letting him leave. Maybe he’s been left out of the travelling squad due to terms being close/ agreed and it’s easier for him and whoever the other party is if he’s in the UK.
23 Jul 2024 16:35:57
The problem is that the media make a mountain out of a mole hill. Then us as fans buy into the information being published as we think they have inside information.
Am sure the eds will say that most the publish is a load of rubbish trying to sell papers.
23 Jul 2024 18:12:32
Caicedo may well have always been a target, so why on Earth did the club constantly brief the media that we were going to sign him for £80m, get into protracted negotiations with Brighton, only to stump up £115m after Liverpool had a bid accepted for £111m?
If a player needs a former colleague to settle in and play well, I would argue that he isn't worth signing in the first place. However I do not believe that to be the case with BB. We bought Disasi because we dug ourselves into a hole with botched transfers like Mudryk and massive overpays like Caicedo, unnecessary purchases in areas of strength like Lavia and realised that Chalobah was a route to pure profit. As I have said previously, its a circular problem rather than any one poor transfer in isolation.
Maybe that is the reason why Chalobah is being left off, but all the reporting is that he is being frozen out with the threat of not even being registered for the Premier League despite being willing to fight for his place.
If all you want on these boards is blind acceptance of everything the club says, with no scrutiny over the decisions being made then fair enough, but I'm going to call it out for discussions.
23 Jul 2024 20:17:09
RBD, given the owners poor communication skill I would suggest there is no proof it was actually the club briefing anyone about an £80m fee for Caicedo.
I have no interest in being critical unless I have facts, all I’ve seen is guessing games from social media and poorly informed pundits.
23 Jul 2024 22:20:01
RBD I still don’t understand your point regarding Caicedo. You realise that bids can be made up differently? For example maybe Liverpool offered £111m but with £25m add ons however we offered £115m with £15m add ons? (These figures are completely made up and I have no idea what the full terms of each bid were - it’s just to make my point) So I don’t really see why you’re complaining that we’ve paid an inital £4m more than Liverpool had offered.
23 Jul 2024 22:52:07
The bottom line is RBD Liverpool would of won the league if they had signed Moises. Klopp wanted him. Klopp new how good he is, better than Rice. A superstar of a player. The sporting directors did so well to sign him. Trust me, the boy is a superstar in the making. You need to trust the boys who do this job for a living mate. Relax. We are coming back to the top table.
24 Jul 2024 08:03:20
Rubbish g8. Endo had a better season than caicedo did.
24 Jul 2024 08:55:35
Chalobah brings in profit, why the surprise? Is he better than badiashile? Yes! is he better than Tosin? Yes! Is he better than disasi? Yes, do you sell your best players before others? Not if you can help it!
Do you sell players who balance the books because of 2 years of underperforming and £1b spent and wouldn’t get the money back on the others wine bought? Unfortunately!
24 Jul 2024 10:36:35
I dunno how many times I need to repeat this, but I think Caicedo is great. We also massively overpaid for him, and this would be the case for any player that doesn't win you games. These two opinions can co-exist. Is Caicedo a good player? Yes! Is he worth more than £70m? Very debateable.
Amadou Onana moved for £50m this week, is he as good as Caicedo? It's close, but probably not. Is the additional quality that Caicedo has worth an extra £65m? Not in a million years. Would that extra money currently be very useful when we didn't have the money to pay for Olise, or Osimhen? Yes.
If you're paying over £100m for a midfielder, hell any player for that matter, who doesn't score or doesn't assist then you've been taken for a mug.
24 Jul 2024 12:42:02
RBD, Onana gave the worst midfield display by any player at Stamford Bridge last season. He was totally hopeless and got hooked at half time. Everton have done well to get £50m. Ugo is a lot better than him let alone Caicedo being on a different planet.
24 Jul 2024 13:29:30
Right, so one poor half writes him off as a player? I suppose the fact Mudryk had one good half on his debut means he is worth keeping around? Modric must be awful because he was voted as a flop in his first season at Madrid.
Nonsense.
You're so close to understanding my argument, but keep getting distracted. The questions is should we have spent £115m on Caicedo when we had Ugo, Gallagher, Enzo and Santos at the club and were about to spend £50m on Lavia as well? We've dropped £220m on two midfielders who don't score, don't assist and don't defend. It's a colossal mis-allocation funds no matter how good they are. Maybe you can argue one of them if you have a midfield partner who does the things they don't, but both?!
As individual players they are good, but in terms of trying to construct a coherent squad they don't complement each other at all. And this isn't even considering that we still don't have a top class GK or ST.
24 Jul 2024 17:48:40
I’m talking about seeing him at the bridge live. I have obviously seen him play plenty of other times and in my opinion he is overrated and Villa have bought a pup.
I think the reverse is true. I think you are so distracted by the fee paid for Caicedo that you’re missing how good he is and how wanted he was by a least two other clubs. The fee of any player is basically decided by “need. ” That’s the need of the buying and selling club, hence the fee and I do not see Lavia as only a DM.
Three players were top of my list last season as players I couldn’t wait to see. Nkunku, Caicedo and Lavia. All of whom I rate as top class.
I will go further and say Lavia will be seen as one of the best buy Chelsea have made in th least ten years. So yes, buying Lavia was a good buy.