Villa fans all love him. Love affair between Wigan and Reece James was amazing as well. Same with tomori and mount at derby. I just don’t remember any of our youth enjoying the admiration of the fans who go to the games and watch all the games. Those are the ones who know. Some of these guys just need a shot.
Honestly, how it turned out is really the best case scenario once it was clear he was leaving. Got one more year out of him after he wanted to leave last summer in which the club got top 4 and won a trophy. If he’s a success at Madrid (as we all assume he will be) then Chelsea get a ton of cash and if he’s not then Chelsea dodged a bullet not paying a 30+ y/o winger 350k per week. Now just need to get the right club hierarchy in place to get the purchases right...
Tell me about this Hazard guy? In all seriousness, good piece of business for both sides and he handled it much better than Cortouis. I could see him playing CAM behind Jovic and Benzema or LW depending on situation.
Still going to impact his preseason but at least he will at worst he ready by the time the cup games start being played.
I’m the biggest Zola fanboy in the world, so I would love it. Not sure how good of a manager he actually is though.
I’d be against it. Love the player but I don’t think he is a good manager. His purpose this season was to bridge the gap between sarri and England/Chelsea and he didn’t do that. Choosing Zola over lampard makes no sense to me. If they don’t want lampard then go for a veteran manager for a season. Zola doesn’t make sense to me at all but I’ve seen the rumors.
Always tough to tell. I didn’t like some of Zola’s press conferences even with sarri setting the bar pretty low. Was he instructed to say certain things? We will never know. I would have liked our assistant manager who’s one of our 5 best players ever to help bridge the divide between sarri and the fans more but maybe sarri is just beyond saving from that standpoint.
Was hoping we could convince him to stay. I doubt Alonso moves now. Like with Willian the last 2 summers, we will regret not getting rid of Alonso when we had the chance this summer. I don’t think we will have the chance again and he’s signed for 4 more seasons at wages that only maybe 8 clubs will match.
That Christmas fixture list is awesome. If the venues were reversed and both Arsenal and Tottenham were home I would book flights to England ASAP. Need to find out more info on ability to get tickets to away games before I would go. Was trying to go to England around that time and catch 2 games. Southampton home/Arsenal away would be an awesome combo.
It's better than nothing plus no AVB type massive buyout. Not sure how Lampard will work out but hopefully his legendary status will buy time.
Sarri was getting canned by December anyway so that's great news. For the record I want him to stay but I'm operating under the normal Chelsea assumptions.
I'm nervous about Lampard right now because I don't want it to go tits up before he really has a chance. If he is appointed though, fuck it, I'll ride that train to Hades. I love that man. Rio made a good point on Twitter. If anyone is suited to leading Chelsea during a transfer ban, it's Lamps. He already knows the talent at the club, and he's definitley more knowledgeable about our youth than another more qualified candidate.
This season is probably going to be a train wreck regardless of who is in charge. Super Frank will get leeway. The youth will get a chance, assuming they don't all get got like RLC, CHO, etc. If we bring in another mercenary we're just going to be back at square one this time next summer, looking for a fourth manager in four seasons.
The club is laying down and not bothering to fight the ban. Chelsea have made plenty of dumb decisions but they are usually out of a false sense of strength. Our summers after mourinho and conte title wins are an example of that. This feels different. I understand skepticism but I think lampard gets a chance if he plays youth and keeps the fans on his side. Unless we are actually in danger of getting relegated, I don’t see how he doesn’t get at a minimum next summer to buy and fix whatever issues we have. It’s a risk but it’s our best chance of integrating youth and building a real core for our next title contending team.
We were 16th when mourinho got fired a second time and we had hazard. I agree with you that I don’t see that happening but I was just making the point that I believe it would take that level of extreme failure for frank not to get a second year.
Guys, it's Chelsea. 4 draws in a row against the top 4 while playing our U-17s is liable to get Frank canned.
Serie A is now on ESPN+ which I have. Might be watching a decent bit more than I did this year as the second game in the mornings
I'd recommend listening to the Calcioland podcast with David Amoyal and Alex Goldberg. Amoyal works with DiMarzio and Goldberg is a big Chelsea guy. Ends up with a bunch of Chelsea related discussion.
Derby owner came out and said they want to keep frank (obviously) and that Chelsea have not made any kind of formal approach yet. I figured the holdup on the sarri announcement was getting things squared away there but apparently not. Maybe the holdup was Roman making a decision. Either way, would like to get that settled ASAP so he can start planning for the season and get into an early preseason with whoever is around. I’m still convinced sarri coming in late and not having a proper preseason hurt us a lot last year.