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It was great to see how much it meant to him.
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Very pleased for Musonda getting a goal, had a couple of class messages to everyone at the club for 'making his dream come true.' That celebration was sheer joy. Defo get the other teenagers on second half and probably no need for three at the back.
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Love the emotion from Musonda. and they say chelsea can't develp players.. Watch out England Christensen and Musonda are here to stay
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http://www.f1streams.com/?m=0 so excited I forgot to put the stream
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great stream. 2-0 already BATSHUAYYYYII
- Today
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Woo hoo
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The more news that comes out, the worse the FA look. The timing of this is so telling The little stunt during the game last night where all of the players displayed public support brought a strong reaction from Eni Aluko and another player who supports her. The FA investigated the racism allegations twice and cleared Sampson. In the lead up to the higher level investigation/hearing in October the FA clearly blinked today and conveniently sacked him for something they were already aware of that happened in 2014 when he was in charge of the Bristol ladies academy. What I don't understand is that if the FA knew what he did in 2014 (which sounds serious) how did he get the England job in the first place? Sampson looks very bad now but the FA look even worse. I agree with Mark in that the FA, like FIFA, needs to be disbanded and incepted again with all new people. Corrupt and incompetent.
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Ha ha, yes indeed. Always a fun read. Although I am enjoying the scum in crisis stories rather a lot at the moment. Alex who??
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I see Sampson has been booted by the FA , looks like he was the Bellend we suspected he was all along . That said , who but the most thick skinned money grubbing idiot would want to work for the FA , in one short interview they managed to absolutely hang him out to dry without actually saying anything of note . Personally I think they need disbanding and a new federation to be formed with a prerequisite to have never worked for the organisation in the past .
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We've done brilliantly , none of us can probably believe where we are now but Dave is right , the Idea was for Romans investment to , in their own words, make us the "Manchester United of the South" . We're better than them now but won't be if they continue to support their manager to the tune of £200 M per year whilst we're contributing £35 M.
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The generic club is badly run arguments I find are misleading. The truth is that the club gets some things right and some wrong, but on the whole has been very successful - particularly relative to its expenditure. Right investment in 20+ players with some experience. Timing of investment splurges pays up for top managers and dumps them early eases/squeezes out older players v quickly gone from last decades big squads of mixed abilities to only top class players Wrong Still a 43,000 ground capacity for a few years yet Squeezes the squad too thin leading to the 15/16 disaster (off the top of my head, probably a lot more good and bad things to list) I'd say just the opposite. Our recent success has been down to Courtois, JT, Cahill, Ivanovic, Azpi, Luiz, Alonso, Kante, Fabregas, (some will include Matic), Willian, Ramires, Pedro, Hazard, Drogba, Costa (and sorry if I missed your favourite). These are or were fine fine players. To pass on the credit to the managers is just plain unfair. JM deserved credit for the continuation of a very strong set of players and ethos from 2007 onwards, but not beyond 2012 when that team broke up. Chelsea's success this decade is almost entirely due to long term planning in player purchases (the adult/20+ ones, not the kids). I dare say now we are loaning players to PL clubs there may be some significant revenues coming in. But lending players on £5k to £15k a week to clubs whose best strikers earn no more was never going to cover much cost. The whole loan revenue story came from a blogger who started with a working assumption that players were mostly loaned at an average of zero subsidy, and then claimed that his spreadsheet proved it.
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Shouldn't they be looking at City and PSG's accounts? Wouldn't they be better employed that way?
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Compared to pre Roman, it absolutely has been. Longest trophy drought since he took over? One season.
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Caballero Rudiger Christensen Clarke-Salter Zappacosta Scott Bakayoko Kenedy Musonda Basthuayi Hazard Subs: Eduardo, Ampadu, Sterling, Moses, Fabregas, Willian, Morata Complete rotation! It'll never happen. I just hope that untouchables Azpi, Alonso, Kanté and Morata aren't needed in this competition and that Hazard won't be needed again.
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I didn't phrase it to make it sound bad. I phrased it to demonstrate a point. Some people here act like we have had sustained success ever since Roman took over. We haven't really imo. Yes we have won titles, but what I questioned was the long-term viability of our current strategy. I'd say the titles we've won in the last three years probably had a lot more to do with who the managers were (JM and Conte) and very, very little to do with the boards long-term strategy. Where United and City fell well short in previous years was with the managers they hired. Moyes and Van Gaal? Pellegrini and Mancini? Compared to Mourinho and Conte I'd say the gap is massive. So the board have broadly been very good at hiring managers. At the same time we've been lousy to give our managers a fighting chance at sustained success. I'd wager that the wage discussion uses figures on what has actually been paid out in wages. If we are unable to get the loaning clubs to pay the wages of the players they loan, the loan army strategy becomes almost comically bad. If that's the case, we are seriously hampering our ability to maintain a competitive first team said because Emenalo must have something to do during the week. If you are right, our strategy is even dumber than I thought because we are certainly not seeing the loan army strategy transformed into something that helps us keep a competitive first team squad, rather the opposite. Madness if true. As for your second paragraph, we have had the highest wage bill for well over a decade now. It may have changed last season after we got rid of a few high profile players. But then again everyone said the same when we got rid of Lampard, Drogba, Ballack, Essien etc and we still had the highest wage bill after they left. We can also stick our heads in the sand and pretend it's not true. That's also a strategy I suppose. I think you are looking at this from the wrong angle. If Usain Bolt cut his right leg off and ended up last in a race, I don't think he'd get much plaudits for being able to compete with a prosthetic leg. We are not a club who wants to compete. We want to be a European giant. And we should be judged on that goal imo.
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Well I tried. It's discussed in the Mourinho thread, the Conte thread, the squad status thread (probably the right place for it) and the match day threads to name a few. It seems that the only threads that squad size doesn't infiltrate is the quick jokes thread and the books I have read thread.😜
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Yes. We might have broken the rules (Leeds). Or we might just have an annoyed clubs wants to retaliate after a legitimate deal (like Kakuta).
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Fifa have confirmed they ae investigating the club for illegal transfers of non EU players under the age of 18. The club have claimed they comply with all Fifa statutes when making such signings. Third time we are being investigated, think we all remember Kakuta. A transfer ban, as were handed to the Madrid clubs and Barca could mean we see a lot more of the loan army utilized over the next couple of seasons.
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Caballero Rudiger Christensen Cahill Zappacosta Fabregas Bakayoko Kennedy Musonda Batshuayi Hazard Eduardo, Azpilicueta, Clarke-Salter, Moses, Ampadu, Willian, Morata Chelsea win 2-0, Bats and Willian off the bench
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jun/01/premier-league-finances-club-by-club 2015/16 wages (poor year for us and Man U) £m Man United 232 Chelsea 224 Liverpool 208 Man City 198 Arsenal 195 Spurs 100 (7th) Villa 93 ... (20th) Watford 58 So yes the available data has us and Man U close together but us at 67% or revenue and Liverpool (69%) stretching the budget most on wages. I'd guess 16/17 and 17/18 would have both Man U and City a lot higher than 15/16. But certainly it is fair for Dave to say we spend what we do on wages, and not much on transfer fees (and it is a lot like Arsenal too). Note the massive North London gap between Arsenal and Spurs, or the top 5 & the rest. Arsenal, bottom of the top 5, spent double what Spurs spent who were top of the rest. Are we a club with a massive squad and subsidised loans, or a tiny squad with massive pay for a few a bit of both I guess. Certainly you can see the rationale for having a skinny squad - though I still don't agree with it. Sorry Sea foot. But it is getting late for people to make predictions now, and it is an interesting topic. And we get told off if we go into the Match Day playground.
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It's more what I would like to see, than what I think will happen; so you're probably right. It'll be a shame if Ampadu doesn't start, I think we need to be pushing our young players more instead of protecting them; I also think it's a way to keep hold of good young players, a lesson needs to be learnt by Conte with Chalobah leaving. I think with Baka and Hazard returning to full fitness Cesc probably won't start for a while now, might as well give him this game.
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I don't see Ampadu starting. Last season in the EFL Trophy, Conte didn't even start Chalobah at home to Bristol Rovers. I don't see Fabregas starting either after the amount he has played recently
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It shows how well we have actually done to compete. I know inflation of fees over time also plays its part, but I think our net spend in the whole RA era is only around £100 million more than Utd's since their last title. I too would question our wages being higher than City/Utd. I would expect there is very little between them. Over the last few years, I have tended to suspect we have two standard pay brackets . One at around 75k per week for first team squad players, then 150k per week for the top players and up around 225k per week for the special players. No evidence on this, but it's how I have felt we have paid players over the last 5/6 years, may change now the dynamics of transfers have changed. I struggle to see City or Utd being below this, specially when thinking of Luke Shaw, Falcao, Yaya Toure projected wages as examples in recent times. Questions over the sustainability of this strategy as the dynamics of transfers change, but we have been more succesful than both of these clubs for a good decade now. So I would say we are out performing our peers, who ironically for one of those clubs, are clearly trying to buy the title..........something they used to accuse Chelsea and City of in previous years . One of many reasons why JM has coveted his current job for a long time.
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I think, and I may be wrong, that our wage bill is so high because of the amount of young players we have that are of a certain level. We have a lot, and pay them a lot. Some of this is no doubt paid for by the loan clubs but I doubt we will know for sure how much. I can't imagine for a second that our first team squads wage bill has been anywhere near United's or City's for the last couple of seasons. We have also got rid of an awful lot of high earning players in recent years and we don't seem to pay our top earners anywhere near what other clubs now do. I doubt Morata is on as much as Lukaku, Alonso/Moses/Zappacosta as much as Mendy or Walker, Kante/Bakayoko as much as Pogba or Matic. In fact the only one of our recent singings that is probably paid more than our rivals in the same position is Luiz but he is by far and away the best centre half any premier league club has signed in a long time.
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He needs to lose a bit of bulk and become more wirey and athletic IMO. A year of playing regularly should help with that, I've watched a couple of the palace games and he already looks more physically up to speed than he ever did playing for us something which is essential when playing in CM which is where I see him settling. Defensive side / work rate of his game has improved and doesn't seem to stroll about as much, will need to improve that considerably more to come back and play in our 2 CM's though as it seems Conte prefers ball winners to play there. Basically needs to become more like Baka appears to be and he has the attributes to do so if he can combine with a lot of hard work.
