Chelsea. Lol. What a roster disaster. We literally gave away 3 academy grads who are lightyears better than the transfers we brought in.
How can a team with a spine consisting of Hazard, Courtrois, Morata, Kante, Willian, Azpi, Christensen, and Fabregas be so unspectacular? Easy, when you've erred in a couple positions so badly that it affects the entire team. Rudinger? Good signing all together. Alonso? Good signing for the money. Zappacosta? Bleh. Moses, Bakayoko, MIchy? All horrendous. And by that, I mean sooooo bad, the team can't function correctly with them screwing up constantly. Cahill? You kidding me, Clark?. He's atrocious. Luiz? Atrocious this year. Pedro? So out of position it's like he all-the-sudden can't link up with anyone. Has anyone watched Chelsea's midfield? At this point, I'm praying for Fabs, Drinkwater and Kante every game because any combination that includes Bakayoko is a loss leader. Bakayoko, if you can't tell by this point, is the worst central midfielder I've even seen get regular time in a Chelsea uniform. Now, I haven't been watching for 25 years, but there can't be many worse. Moses is almost as bad. But not quite. Has any player forgot to play defense as many times as Moses when playing fullback? Ever? Even Dani freaking Alves plays 10X better defense than Moses.
What is it with Chelsea and NOT giving their academy kids real chances? Think of the wasted money on Bakayoko when they had a better player in Loftus-Cheek already there. Ake? Chalobah, Abraham, Musonda, Traore? All just as good of opportunities to shine compared to who they've brought in. Listen, I actually like what Drinkwater brings to the roster for depth. But you can't tell me bringing in Barkley or Bakayoko trumps some of the names above. No chance.
I think teams not ready to spend like City, ManU, PSG, Real and Barca need to reconsider how they do business. You can't make a living signing a bunch of 30M transfers and expect to compete for CL spots in the EPL. You have to splurge on a couple All-World players and then develop the rest. Bayern has been quietly doing it pretty well for a couple years. It's also imperative to keep your stars once you have them. Cheaper to pay wages then pay wages + transfer fees. Chelsea wasted about 150M on players that brought them nothing more than they already had in their system. Would have made much better sense to splurge on one world-beater and one depth player and keep the rest. Now? They have no depth, no creativity, no ability to control midfield and lost many of their better youth players, though hopefully buy-back clauses can correct the massive errors that led to this sinking ship. They may be sitting in 4th, but we all saw how Watford played them even up. That wasn't a lucky game. Teams know that they can control midfield against Chelsea unless Fabs is in the lineup. It ain't going to get better unless Conte works some magic and I'm pretty sure Conte is fed up with Roman and the Chelsea board. So would I. I would have been making an exit strategy after that summer transfer window closed and it was clear this team couldn't compete in the EPL and CL with the roster he was dealt.
How can a team with a spine consisting of Hazard, Courtrois, Morata, Kante, Willian, Azpi, Christensen, and Fabregas be so unspectacular? Easy, when you've erred in a couple positions so badly that it affects the entire team. Rudinger? Good signing all together. Alonso? Good signing for the money. Zappacosta? Bleh. Moses, Bakayoko, MIchy? All horrendous. And by that, I mean sooooo bad, the team can't function correctly with them screwing up constantly. Cahill? You kidding me, Clark?. He's atrocious. Luiz? Atrocious this year. Pedro? So out of position it's like he all-the-sudden can't link up with anyone. Has anyone watched Chelsea's midfield? At this point, I'm praying for Fabs, Drinkwater and Kante every game because any combination that includes Bakayoko is a loss leader. Bakayoko, if you can't tell by this point, is the worst central midfielder I've even seen get regular time in a Chelsea uniform. Now, I haven't been watching for 25 years, but there can't be many worse. Moses is almost as bad. But not quite. Has any player forgot to play defense as many times as Moses when playing fullback? Ever? Even Dani freaking Alves plays 10X better defense than Moses.
What is it with Chelsea and NOT giving their academy kids real chances? Think of the wasted money on Bakayoko when they had a better player in Loftus-Cheek already there. Ake? Chalobah, Abraham, Musonda, Traore? All just as good of opportunities to shine compared to who they've brought in. Listen, I actually like what Drinkwater brings to the roster for depth. But you can't tell me bringing in Barkley or Bakayoko trumps some of the names above. No chance.
I think teams not ready to spend like City, ManU, PSG, Real and Barca need to reconsider how they do business. You can't make a living signing a bunch of 30M transfers and expect to compete for CL spots in the EPL. You have to splurge on a couple All-World players and then develop the rest. Bayern has been quietly doing it pretty well for a couple years. It's also imperative to keep your stars once you have them. Cheaper to pay wages then pay wages + transfer fees. Chelsea wasted about 150M on players that brought them nothing more than they already had in their system. Would have made much better sense to splurge on one world-beater and one depth player and keep the rest. Now? They have no depth, no creativity, no ability to control midfield and lost many of their better youth players, though hopefully buy-back clauses can correct the massive errors that led to this sinking ship. They may be sitting in 4th, but we all saw how Watford played them even up. That wasn't a lucky game. Teams know that they can control midfield against Chelsea unless Fabs is in the lineup. It ain't going to get better unless Conte works some magic and I'm pretty sure Conte is fed up with Roman and the Chelsea board. So would I. I would have been making an exit strategy after that summer transfer window closed and it was clear this team couldn't compete in the EPL and CL with the roster he was dealt.
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