The College Dropout

It’s the job of the transfer team to identify players and convince them to come. They kind of failed on both counts. Eddie shouldn’t have complete control on whether we keep or sell players. I’m not going to criticism him for having power that he shouldn’t.

Goalie looks weak. And Adingra is toasting the fullback. But aye they’ve played well. Dominated Sunderland for most of this game

Would’ve taken Xhaka over Ramsey. Just another midfielder who can put his foot on the ball and find a forward pass.

Aye won’t forget that. They aren’t good off it mind.

This is a good game. Adingra has the Leeds fullback on toast. Leeds have the Sunderland defence on toast.

He was fucking awful last season tbf. But he’s got his mojo back.

Leeds aren’t bad on the ball at all.

Leeds have split these open time and again. Got Sunderland double up on FPL and no way they were keeping that clean sheet. Fortunate to keep it at half time.

And that was naive by all parties. This is a multi billion pound industry. The big players won’t just let new guys stroll in and take their lunch. BUT Staveley had the vision and the stomach for the fight. I can take naivety if there’s ambition, hustle, drive and ability to mobilise people.

Tacticos are too frequently on overlook the mental side of the game. And the PFMs get ignored when they talk about it. The pundits are right when they say Chelsea lack leadership and experience.

It’s not true though. A team or player can ride a crest of a wave for an entire season or more. Overachieving Xg isn’t luck either. Players like Son regularly over achieve Xg because they are elite finishers. And a team can over achieve Xg for a season or longer due to team spirit, belief, confidence, determination etc. a David Moyes team might have comparable Xgc stats to a Marco Silva team but the Moyes team will get more clean sheets when that’s the case 9 times out of 10. That’s not luck. We’ve become a weak side that under performs Xg in both directions. It’s not bad luck. We’ve rarely had our defensive leaders fit together in Trippier, Burn, Schar and Pope (can include Joelinton too) and we lost a clinical striker in Isak. The players that have replaced them might not be technically or physically inferior but they are inferior mentally which means we lose in the tight margins.

Has nowt to do with anything tbf

I wanted to see us Tonali-lise the squad. Stil have physical monsters but get players technically a level above what we had. Wingers like Mbeumo or Semenyo. Midfielders like he Ederson or Gallagher. A attacker the profile of Etikite. Let’s see what we look like then. I think that squad has us in the chase for 4th-5th. We didn’t do that. We only bought 1 arguable upgrade from 6 signings. Of course we’ll go backwards.

This guy is a dickhead. He quoted his own tweet from March 2024 when we were fighting to finish 7th. Where was he March 2025? Howe has his issues and limitations as a manager - sure. But this team isn’t poorly coached. It’s just not very good or optimal for his style.

Had they won the Europa league he would’ve been sacked by now. They would be sitting with us or lower. Howe has that Man U squad and no Europe up there with points close to Vila and City.

They sold Grealish 6 years ago man. That PSR profit has been written offf for years. I respected their gamble last January. It almost worked. When they were in PSR trouble they got Maatsen in a dodgy deal last season. Ashworth had 2 plans to avoid FFP issues one of which was closed after he left. Staveley and co. weren’t perfect and June 2024 was a shitshow and a mess. But they (along with Ashworth, Howe etc) still built the squad that got us Isak, Tonali, Bruno etc. They wanted Emery then got us Howe. They convinced PIF to buy the club ffs. They got Ashworth. They convinced PIF to open the cheque book and sign Isak - convinced Isak to sign. Tonali, Bruno, Trippier. They extended Tonali and Bruno. Since they left we’ve had 1 major re-signature in Gordon. maybe 1 signing that’s been considered a coup - routinely failing to land high reputation players going back to Marc Guehi 2024. Im not having a bad week. I’ve said this all summer and most of last season too. I’m bringing it up again now because all the attention is on Eddie Howe when it should be on the owners. We aren’t midtable because of an underperforming coach(Eddie has made mistakes). We are midtable because of rudderless leadership since July 2024 at the latest. It’s caught up. It’s not a change of opinion or being emotional. I said in September i would have no issues with this squad finishing 8th. The squad isn’t good enough to compete in CL and be meaningfully better than most teams in this division

We are in desperate need of a Staveley like leader(s). People that can galvanise and energise PIF and the playing squad. It’s unlikely. currently we’ve been rotating between suits. Maybe one will be that galvanising force but it’s unlikely. I think a lot of PIF’s interest was driven by Staveley.

Sounds like a threat

Hall is similar to Reece James. Both primarily played CM in youth sides. Both pure footballers. James played CM in the championship and at times under Tuchel and now Maresca. Hall can play CM. Just does he have the physicality to dominate there. TAA is a wonderful passer/crosser (up there with the very best too) but not great at anything else. Not his touch. Dribbling etc. James and Hall have more rounded footballing ability.

I have my doubts that employees can drive success without skin from owners. We’ll see. SF o much focus on Howe. His coaching is the least of my worries. The most important thing at a football club is the competence, ambition and drive of the owners. Ours don’t have drive. Lacking competence by the looks of it too.

Under Staveley we were regularly signing players heavily linked to big 6.

I think we are better off than that. The excitement Staveley had for the project helped us land players with profiles above our level like Trippier, Tonali, Isak. i don’t think it’s a coincidence Staveley left and we suddenly struggle to land targets. From Guehi to Sesko we couldn’t land them. But we did convince Tonali and co.

The momentum was lost in the summer. That was the monumental setback. Spent a lot of money on players that aren’t as good as we needed. We are also going to suffer from not adding top quality for 2 years. We need a pipeline of players to develop and sell and that pretty much stopped in 2023 with the TinoHall summer.

I think we’ll uptick at some point. But I’m also now thinking 8th/9th

Monchi has left no?