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Chelsea fan gives up on ‘dumpster fire’ as Manchester United optimism explained
By EditorF365,
21 hours ago
What are Chelsea cooking?
Chelsea’s £6bn plan has been figured out but that makes it no easier to see how they will execute it – especially if Trevoh Chalobah doesn’t play ball.
Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.
Goodbye, Chelsea Chelsea have been my club since I started watching them with my dad in the early 80’s and I’ve finally given up on them. I’m fed up with the decision to completely dismantle our unbelievable squad of home grown young talent which has come through over the last few years – Chelsea are now unrecognisable in my eyes and a ship without a rudder.
Even if Maresco does get results, at what cost will that be if it means selling every player who doesn’t fit into his style or every youth player who is pure profit for that Cowboy owner.
Once upon a time, you brought in a good manager to get a talented squad playing like a team, now it seems managers have lost that skill and they are all budding Guardiolas needing a full team rebuild in order to bring boring Tiktak football to the club. Players like Enzo will be running the team despite being a rubbish defensive midfielder and an ineffective attacking midfielder… (but I guess everyone gets really excited either way his silky passing despite the lack of any decisive qualities.)
Are Chelsea smart? No, they aren’t. But, I seem to have figured out why they are buying anyone & everyone from the world over. It’s quite simple if you remove the football out of it. Todd Bohely is not a billionaire by chance, he has his own strategy which he thinks is smarter and better than everyone else (It is not). For him, football is a business, and he is here to make money. He looks at players as assets, the same way we would look at the stock market. Keeping in mind the growth of inflated player fees and overall transfer fees in the space of 5 years, what his expectation is that he is buying an asset for X amount with the aim to sell him at 1.5X or 2X in the future. This is a simple trading game for him, with assets worth millions. He is assuming that most of the players will be sold at a profit (They will not) & that inflation will cover the costs of even below average players who will go for a good amount (Smith Rowe type of transfer).
This is his endgame, earn money by being the middleman buying and selling talent. Think of him as a VC but instead of startups, he is buying and selling players hoping to enter early and exit at the peak. Its a risky risky game to play, but this is where his head is. If his buying is 1.2B currently, he will be hoping to sell and turn a profit on the smaller and fringe players to recoup most of it as a profit at the same time unearthing a gem player by simply playing the odds that if there are 40 players, some are bound to be great players.
We’re all missing the point of Chelsea and their owners.
This is a financial pure play by a US Private Equity firm, that frankly has very little to do with football.
They bought Chelsea as an undervalued asset for X (£1.5bn), are investing Y (£1.5bn), and want to sell for Z (£6.0bn) – buy an asset, invest in the asset, sell the asset.
The football operation (league position, titles, glory, etc) holds very little value to them in this equation.
The “talent factory” (basically Football Manager – Brighton/Shaktar/etc) is a find/buy, incubate, sell business model that on face value would have to be worth at least £1.5 to £2bn, having spent well over £1bn on new talent plus existing players, including the Academy. 40 first team players is the least of it…60+ by next year seems likely. Assuming depreciation of the book value of current assets, a strong sales funnel, and new assets appreciating this could be worth £3bn within 5 years?
The rest (£2bn+) must surely be a real estate play involving Stamford Bridge or some other asset – hotels, apartments, etc. attached to the club.
As for the football club, frankly, it’s just a money sink with high wages, depreciating player values, high-maintenance coaches demanding balanced squads, and uppity fans demanding results. They’ve been binning off all the older and high-wage players as fast as they can. Surely, all the club needs is access to the unlimited supply of talent and everything sorts itself out?
Of course, reality is starting to look a bit different. Chelsea FC is a dumpster fire, with an unbalanced squad and cheap, pliable managers completely undermining the brand (which is what attracts the talent).
As for the talent factory, is it really that scalable, and can you really get a return on investment on the smorgasbord of untested talent that’s been bought in at a premium price? Already, it’s very hard to see how they get a return on the £1bn they’ve spent, particularly as £250m was spent on three massively overpriced young midfielders.
Private Equity guys generally back management teams with a plan. These guys hired Frank Lampard and sacked off Pochettino.
I think they’re going to do their dough… Matthew (ITFC)
The solution is to make the PL way more exciting, introduce way more jeopardy and expand the league so yoyo clubs can establish themselves.
Turn it into an even bigger bohemoth that makes more money, works for more clubs, solves the huge gap between the championship and PL and also the wastage of big clubs in the lower leagues.
The solution is a split season, spend as much as you have, 32 team Premier League.
FIRST HALF OF THE SEASON: Two 16 team leagues (either seeded or split by geography – Or alternating these 2 versions anually) Teams play each other once, home OR away.
SECOND HALF OF THE SEASON: i) The top 6 in each league play each other home AND away in a 12 team league to decide the champions and European spots (results from Part 1 are NOT carried over). These are THE PL PLAY OFFS: Highly lucrative world class football, better than anything that isnt a CL semi/final or the Spanish superclassico.
ii)The bottom 10 in each league play each other home AND away in a 20 team league APART FROM matches that were already played in Part 1. Results of games already played in Part 1 count in Part 2. (Eg In part 1 Wolves beat Forest 1-0 at home. Wolves keep the 3 points in Part 2 and only play Forest one more time (away)). The bottom 5 are automatically relegated. The 12th – 15th placed teams enter the relegation play offs where the 2 losing semi finalists play off to see who stays in the PL.
This would make the PL way more exciting, even more marketable with many more big/high stakes games, spread the (increased) PL money more widely, make it easier to get into the Premier League, easier to stay there and reduce the gulf between the PL and the Championship.
In terms of marketing it would be a combination of the current PL and the NBA play offs PLUS all the relegation dog fights on top of that. PURE BOX OFFICE!!! High drama, maximum excitement and a lot of extra cash. It would P all over the Champions League and become the greatest show on earth. Ben
It’s been about the owners since 2005. There were protests about the owners even when we were winning league titles and reaching champions league finals. I’m surprised Dion didn’t notice but perhaps he was too busy frantically reading United message boards about whether Fosu-Mensah could play in centre mid (he couldn’t) because apparently following Liverpool hasn’t been interesting enough over the last decade. Which I must admit seems a shame for Dion. Feels like he’s missed a lot.
Thanks. I can try and spell it out more clearly like when Homer Simpson goes into witness protection but I don’t know how. Perhaps the Mailbox editor can help. Jonny, MUFC.
PS: I should add that Ratcliffe’s interview this week was extremely disappointing for several other reasons, so he’s not the messiah by any means. But at least he will fix the roof.
I read with interest Man United fans optimism for the 2024/25 season . Yes, major changes have occurred in football administration at the club and player additions have been made with indications of further signings. While many of my fellow fans have high hopes for next season, I tend to see the situation differently and hold little enthusiasm for the upcoming season.
I agree with our legend, Paul Scholes. I believe rather strongly that the changes in the administration of football matters at the club and the new player signings are not adequate for the club to mount a serious challenge for the EPL title. With Sir Ratcliffe assuming control of football operations, I thought initially that things will be done differently, especially the type of players the club would be signing. Alas, I was very wrong. Man United continue to sign 3rd and 4th tier players while the competition is making quality additions. How are we going to challenge them, especially Man City and Arsenal?
The other major concern is that United continue to focus on signing Dutch and Ajax players albeit football is the world game and staff and players from all countries should be considered as appropriate. The point must be stressed further that the Eredivisie (Dutch Football League) is of lower quality than the EPL, L Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and League 1. Sight should definitely not be lost of the performances of Anthony and Van de Beek for example. Needless to say that the 3 top coaches at United at the moment are all Dutch. Professor (Dr) David Achanfuo Yeboah
Liverpool pessimism In troubled times it is okay to ask for help.
I admit to being concerned about the state of Liverpool Football Club. No player has been signed. The existing players appear indifferent, poorly trained, exhausted.
Urgent action is required. Do you agree?
There is every chance Liverpool Football Club and their supporters are suffering from a condition known as Liverpool Insignificant Male Performance (known as LIMP). This is no laughing matter.
Stop sniggering. Performance anxiety happens. Stiffen up, take yourself in hand, shuffle your pack, quicker, quicker, nearly there… and relax. And dab. isn’t that better?
Lots of Solitary Love, PopularPete.
Community service I don’t know how you people can argue whether the community shield is a trophy or not. If you’ve ever watched the game or seen the post match reviews in the paper you might notice that the winners literally get a trophy. It’s pretty clear, every year someone gets it, there’s pictures of it across the back pages. Yes, it is the least appealing of all trophies on offer but it is still a trophy.
It is also not a glorified friendly. Clubs clearly want to win it, it is a competitive one off game that has very little bearing on how the season will pan out but if you’ve ever watched your team play in it you won’t say it is a friendly. For a start, Utd v City will never be a friendly. Teams aren’t at full strength but many won’t be until at least 5 to 10 games into the season but you wouldn’t say those matches aren’t competitive (maybe look up the definition of competitive if you’re still confused).
I’m sure fans of both clubs at the weekend were happy to see their players play in a competitive game as opposed to the other pre-season friendlies that are generally made up of fringe players and have 10 substitutions in the second half. Jon, Cape Town (feels like a pointless email responding to the stupidity that has gone before – this mailbox really has become as toxic.as the comments below have always been)
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