Football: Bayern Seek the CHOsen One

[Jordan La Cabra]

The funniest thing about Chelsea's 6-0 defeat to Man City is that I've actually seen them play worse this season, at least three times - Tottenham (away), Arsenal (away) and Bournemouth (away).

 

[Mark Antony]

It’s funny how right Conte has been proven. He’s one of my favorite managers. Wonder where he will go next. 

[MercenaryChef]

Chelsea is a broken operation. they need to go back to the basics. hire a manager who will be regarded as long term. build a plan on what it means to play Chelsea football, and make use of their academy players. 

the team that got punished yesterday is full of talent. but, what on earth connects them? 

[mormont]

1 hour ago, MercurialCannibal said:

Chelsea is a broken operation. they need to go back to the basics. hire a manager who will be regarded as long term. build a plan on what it means to play Chelsea football, and make use of their academy players. 

Wasn't that actually Sarri's brief and why he was appointed? 

[Jordan La Cabra]

1 hour ago, MercurialCannibal said:

Chelsea is a broken operation. they need to go back to the basics. hire a manager who will be regarded as long term. build a plan on what it means to play Chelsea football, and make use of their academy players. 

I agree, but they have never done that. 

Chelsea's greatest successes in the Abramovich era has come with managers who played pragmatic, counter attacking football: Mourinho x2, Conte & Di Matteo. We had great success under Ancelotti, who had us playing a more exciting brand of football, but it was hardly Man City or Barcelona level. Eventually, though, Abramovich gets fed up of winning in a pragmatic way and decides to appoint a manager to completely change our style of play, such as Scolari and Villas-Boas, but neither worked and neither lasted a season. Sarri's style of play isn't working out, either, and he is even less likely to alter his philosophy, as he's even more dogmatic than Scolari or Villas-Boas.

After watching some of the football Conte's 17/18 season Chelsea served up, especially compared to what Man City, Liverpool and Tottenham were doing at the same time, I was hoping for a manager to come in and change our style of play, but I didn't think Sarri was the right option. Ideally, I'd have hoped we would have aimed for a manager that looked like a long term option, but generally, Chelsea don't look for a manager to come in for the long term, hence the token three year deals Conte and Sarri both received. 

I thought Chelsea were at a critcal point at the end of last season; we had lost our technical director midway through the season, we had finished outside the top four once again, key players had fallen out with the manager and wanted to leave, and we were about to sack another manager. That was the moment that I felt we were really starting to drift and the current principles the club worked off were failing. At that point, I felt the owner and board needed to sit down and reevaluate the long term plan of the club. Instead, we messed that up by letting Conte stay until the start of this pre-season before sacking him, and bringing in another flavour of the month manager on a three year deal.

Chelsea really need to realise that we our period of success may be on the verge of ending. What we never were as a team that looked easy to play against; we always showed up and gave a good account of ourselves. Now, we are starting to look like an easy team to beat. 'Score early against them and they'll give up.' Off the pitch, our best players want to leave and we aren't able to attact the same calibre of replacement.

The board, to their credit, did their utmost to keep Hudson-Odoi at the club, even though it means we could lose out on nearly £40m and lose him for next to nothing. Since he was kept, he hasn't even made the bench in some games. The board can't tell Sarri who to pick, but if Sarri isn't going to pick young players, which the club clearly wants, then they have appointed someone with different ideas to what they want do with the club. If Sarri doesn't pick Hudson-Odoi, he is going to want to leave even more, which the club clearly don't want.

I still believe the club need to sit down and define where they want to go. If they want to use youth players, appoint managers who will trust youth players. In terms of style, I think they need to stop wanting what Man City or Barcelona have, and adopt their own style, built from what this club has achieved success through, which is strong, hard working, counter attacking football. Despite our chopping and changing of managers, we have haven't gone longer than a season without a trophy in the Abramovich era, even if that hasn't always been done with the prettiest football. 

It baffles me, as a fan, that the thing Abramovic craves most that the likes of Man City, Liverpool and Tottenham has is that they play better football than us. The thing those clubs have that I would like Chelsea to have is stability, with managers that the clubs would surely love to continue there as long as the manager desires. 

 

[Heartofice]

Sarri seems to be trying to transplant his Napoli side onto the Chelsea squad, with little success. Seems to be a case of square pegs into round holes.

Kante is kind of wasted in the role he's been given and it doesn't play to his strengths at all.

Jorginho I think has been found out as a player that you can basically stop Chelsea from playing if you take him out of the game. I don't know if he wasn't being pressed in the same way at Napoli or if he was getting more protection but its not working for him.

There does also seem to be a case of the De Boers going on here. Chelsea have a squad and history of playing deep, counter attacking football, relying on the pace and trickery of Hazard to nick goals. Just like when De Boer tried to come in and turn Palace into Ajax overnight, sometimes you need to realise that a squad is better suited to your Hodgsons and Pulis's and that its going to take a bigger overhaul to get it to work how you want. 

Plus there is the Abramovic VISA thing, Sarri complained he never talks to or see's the guy and I wonder how interested Roman is in the side any more. 

[Consigliere]

 

[Mexal]

That salary is nuts. I guess he's getting more of the money due to no transfer fee.

[Mark Antony]

Even in this fucked up age of transfer/wage fees and even though it’s a free transfer that’s way too much for Ramsey lol 

[Philokles]

Given Ornstein’s Arsenal connections it seems likely they leaked it to him and inflated the figure to avoid criticism for letting Ramsey go.

[Mexal]

22 minutes ago, Philokles said:

Given Ornstein’s Arsenal connections it seems likely they leaked it to him and inflated the figure to avoid criticism for letting Ramsey go.

Yea, other people saying 250k/week. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

250k/w for Ramsey? That also takes some imagination.

[Philokles]

As they don’t have to pay a transfer fee, the amount Ramsey can demand in wages goes up. 250k a week sounds on the high side of about right. It is like paying 130-140k and a £25m transfer fee for a four year contract which would be pretty reasonable.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Hum, by EPL standards maybe, But nothing about Ramsey screams marque signing for a European top tier club. I can see an average (above average) EPL club (likesay Everton) throwing that cash at him as a possible upgrade, but for Juve I find this somewhat surprising.

[Consigliere]

It does seem like Ornstein's numbers are a way off. His figure of £400k per week = £20.8m (€23.7m) per year while both Agresti and Di Marzio reporting a figure of €7m after tax (not including bonuses). I think the tax rate in Italy is somewhere between 45% and 50% so you're looking at an annual gross salary of around €13.3-14m per year which translates to about €255-270k per week pre tax. He's also wrong in claiming that Ramsey earning £400k/week would make him the highest earning British player - pretty sure Bale earns more.

 

 

ETA. Dubravka really fucked that up. Tough on Newcastle to concede an equaliser in that fashion with virtually the last kick of the game.

[Iskaral Pust]

400k per week for Ramsey would be ludicrous.  I like him as a player but his injury record, the lack of competition for him and the lesser financial power outside the PL just make it seem far-fetched.  By comparison, Emre Can reportedly got 80k per week from Juventus when he signed last summer on a free transfer.

250k per week for sounds plausible at least, but still pretty rich for a club outside the PL to pay.  

Aside from Ronaldo, Juventus' other stars are on ~100k per week.  I can see how they might justify Ronaldo (~$500k per week) as a special exception -- although I still doubt the financial wisdom of that deal -- but how do they tell Dybala, Pjanic, Costa, etc that Ramsey should earn more than twice as much as them?

 

[BigFatCoward]

6 times world goalkeeper of the year, world cup winner, greatest save ever. Yet spent his career with Stoke and Leicester. RIP Gordon Banks. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

15 hours ago, Consigliere said:

It does seem like Ornstein's numbers are a way off. His figure of £400k per week = £20.8m (€23.7m) per year while both Agresti and Di Marzio reporting a figure of €7m after tax (not including bonuses). I think the tax rate in Italy is somewhere between 45% and 50% so you're looking at an annual gross salary of around €13.3-14m per year which translates to about €255-270k per week pre tax. He's also wrong in claiming that Ramsey earning £400k/week would make him the highest earning British player - pretty sure Bale earns more.

That one looks way more credible. 7m a year (after tax) is within the range a top club would pay for him. Nobody in their right mind would pay Ramsey 10m a year (after tax) or more.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Anyway, moving on to fan scenes and stuff.

This ones from Berlin.

I may (or may not) have mentioned it before, but in and around Berlin there are (historically) 3 clubs with a fan scene I either like or at the very least respect.

Babelsberg (I know, it's Potsdam, so not actually Berlin but close enough), Union Berlin and last but not least Tennis Borussia Berlin (TeBe in short).

This one deals with the least succesful one from the above (5th tier football). TeBe has traditionally been one of the clubs with a very clear anti-rascist, anti-homophobia and anti-rightwingdishittery attitude. Now some time ago, a new main sponsors and chairman joined the club, and he pretty much did everything in his power to upset their active fanscene (like him opposing raising a rainbow flag and shit like that). That culminated recently at the annual general assembly. The chairman got under much protests all his guys elected to the board of directors. The fans claimed those were mainly bought votes (short version chairman paid people to join the club in order to vote for his candidates) - I think the scenes were described as a lot of Bulgarians showed up to vote, who said their boss send them. The Ultras then paid for a contact ad in a local/regional football mag.

Quote

Small, active fan scene with a mobilization potential in the hundreds is temporarily looking for a club, whose values promote a democratic culture, [is] against racism, sexism and homophobia. We offer experience in merchandise and experimental chants and the organization of bus travels [to away games]. No drums.

They got responses from a few clubs, and opted to support Blau Weiß Friedrichshain, so they showed up with ~200 fans at a 9th tier game to support the team at the very bottom. Curious how this will end.

[polishgenius]

That wasn't a good performance at all, obviously. Just couldn't get any passing going and they beat the pressure too easily especially in the second half.

Ref needs to give his head a shake though. PSG getting the Liverpool treatment where you're not allowed to tackle them but they're allowed to boot you is the only reason I can imagine sending off Pogba while Kimpembe stayed on.