Chelsea

[Pepe79]

Originally Posted by danperkins

One of the most under rated prem defenders in the last 7 or 8 years imo. James is still bit raw but looks a talent. Kante staying put is huge for them.

Used to be very good. He was pretty poor most of last season. He often gets targeted by the opposition now.

[danperkins]

Originally Posted by Pepe79

Used to be very good. He was pretty poor most of last season. He often gets targeted by the opposition now.

Their best defender last season by an mile and playing beside 3 knuckleheads and a poxy keeper behind them. Thought he done well last season myself and even surprised in an attacking role too. Agree to disagree I suppose

[Sus]

James is the one that is built like a cruiserweight, right?

[Pepe79]

Originally Posted by danperkins

Their best defender last season by an mile and playing beside 3 knuckleheads and a poxy keeper behind them. Thought he done well last season myself and even surprised in an attacking role too. Agree to disagree I suppose

The honour of being Chelsea's 'best' defender last season is not exactly a high one at all.

He struggled last season, especially in the first half.
Lampard's football has not suited him, though there may be some natural decline kicking in too.

[Irishnev]

https://twitter.com/swissramble/status/1300321535178289152

[Maxiedge]

Chelsea signing another one of our targets, Havertz, for an initial £72m.

That's Pulisic, Werner and Havertz now that have been Klopp favourites

[BobTheCharmer]

Originally Posted by Maxiedge

Chelsea signing another one of our targets, Havertz, for an initial £72m.

That's Pulisic, Werner and Havertz now that have been Klopp favourites

They had the wrong attitudes. They would have all wanted guaranteed first team starts. They aren't hungry enough. They're chasing the money.

[BigChief]

Originally Posted by BobTheCharmer

They had the wrong attitudes. They would have all wanted guaranteed first team starts. They aren't hungry enough. They're chasing the money.

Thankfully, the one thing Klopp has a keen eye on is this. Look at the mess Barcelona are in now.

[Scratch]

Fee agreed for Havertz, according to Sky.

[danperkins]

Looks an outstanding player, unfortunately now I have to hate him because he joined Chelsea. Some attacking side the are putting together.

[spud_gun]

Originally Posted by danperkins

Looks an outstanding player, unfortunately now I have to hate him because he joined Chelsea. Some attacking side the are putting together.

Their attacking core of Pulisic, Werner and Havertz is sickeningly young.

[Sus]

Wonder what happens now to the likes of Mount, Abraham, Hudson Odoi and Loftus-Cheek?

No idea if they are all good enough long-term but it must be pretty frustrating to have a breakout season in the PL, one in which the defensive deficiencies are on display all season and Lampard comes in and buys young German attacking talent

Morale must be a bit crap at the moment - good

[danperkins]

Originally Posted by spud_gun

Their attacking core of Pulisic, Werner and Havertz is sickeningly young.

[Phoenix07]

Originally Posted by spud_gun

Their attacking core of Pulisic, Werner and Havertz is sickeningly young.

I think it'll benefit them massively, depending on how long the financial implications of Covid restrictions last. If they have to start tightening their belts, then they won't need to splash big. Just let the team grow.

[Baracus]

Originally Posted by spud_gun

Their attacking core of Pulisic, Werner and Havertz is sickeningly young.

But can they do it in Stoke....

[BobTheCharmer]

Be interesting to see how the new players will bed in, whether they will gel straight away or if frank can keep them all happy.

I think with that squad they are more than capable of beating us home or away just like they can to any team. I just don't think they'll have the consistency soon enough to bridge a 30 point deficit this season. Although our lack of signings concerns me, if we can keep our main players fit all season, our team ethic and workrate should see us stay ahead of them.

I don't see Werner or Havertz flopping as they are excellent players, but I don't see them both hitting the ground running. Although the lack of intensity that having a full opposing crowd baying for blood might make it easier to settle into the league. Hopefully Chelsea are just battling utd and arsenal for 3rd and 4th.

[Irishnev]

Originally Posted by BobTheCharmer

Be interesting to see how the new players will bed in, whether they will gel straight away or if frank can keep them all happy.

I think with that squad they are more than capable of beating us home or away just like they can to any team. I just don't think they'll have the consistency soon enough to bridge a 30 point deficit this season. Although our lack of signings concerns me, if we can keep our main players fit all season, our team ethic and workrate should see us stay ahead of them.

I don't see Werner or Havertz flopping as they are excellent players, but I don't see them both hitting the ground running. Although the lack of intensity that having a full opposing crowd baying for blood might make it easier to settle into the league. Hopefully Chelsea are just battling utd and arsenal for 3rd and 4th.

It’s not the necessarily the new players he needs to keep happy. They supposedly were going down the route of young home grown players and building for the future. Seems that FFP has been eased then they binned that and hoovered up most of the available top players. If you are one of the lads below how are you feeling now.....James may be ok

- Tomori
- Reece James
- Mason Mount
- Tammy Abraham
- Calvin Hudson Odoy

[BobTheCharmer]

Originally Posted by Irishnev

It’s not the necessarily the new players he needs to keep happy. They supposedly were going down the route of young home grown players and building for the future. Seems that FFP has been eased then they binned that and hoovered up most of the available top players. If you are one of the lads below how are you feeling now.....James may be ok

- Tomori
- Reece James
- Mason Mount
- Tammy Abraham
- Calvin Hudson Odoy

I was referring to the squad when I said keep them all happy.

Hudson Odoy hasn't really kicked on and seems to have an attitude. He'll probably sulk.
Mount will play plenty of games imo.
Abraham will have to settle for being a sub maybe.
James will play.

[Norbs]

Originally Posted by Irishnev

It’s not the necessarily the new players he needs to keep happy. They supposedly were going down the route of young home grown players and building for the future. Seems that FFP has been eased then they binned that and hoovered up most of the available top players. If you are one of the lads below how are you feeling now.....James may be ok

- Tomori
- Reece James
- Mason Mount
- Tammy Abraham
- Calvin Hudson Odoy

That's a great subs bench

[Irishnev]

Originally Posted by BobTheCharmer

I was referring to the squad when I said keep them all happy.

Hudson Odoy hasn't really kicked on and seems to have an attitude. He'll probably sulk.
Mount will play plenty of games imo.
Abraham will have to settle for being a sub maybe.
James will play.

CHO was wanted by Bayern last summer, they battled hard to keep him and gave him a massive salary.....then he got the bad injury and now is way back in the pecking order. Let’s see how his ego handles that

[S-RED]

Tomori off to Everton
Abraham will be off too

[labourRed]

Originally Posted by Irishnev

It’s not the necessarily the new players he needs to keep happy. They supposedly were going down the route of young home grown players and building for the future. Seems that FFP has been eased then they binned that and hoovered up most of the available top players. If you are one of the lads below how are you feeling now.....James may be ok

- Tomori
- Reece James
- Mason Mount
- Tammy Abraham
- Calvin Hudson Odoy

Callum Hudson-Odoi.

Anyway, he should get plenty of game time when Pulisic is injured. He's on over 100k and isn't even twenty yet.

Chelsea should be title challengers with that squad but they'll need to understand each other and tighten up at the back.

[spud_gun]

Originally Posted by labourRed

Callum Hudson-Odoi.

Anyway, he should get plenty of game time when Pulisic is injured. He's on over 100k and isn't even twenty yet.

Chelsea should be title challengers with that squad but they'll need to understand each other and tighten up at the back.

With the attacking element yeah but their defence is shocking.

Shades of us under Rodgers. Can score 100+ goals in a season but will concede 50

[Buzzo]

I think Lampard has his work cut out balancing and keeping that squad happy.

We also exposed how easy it is to get under his skin. He’s is a really inexperienced manager (though undoubtedly a promising one). We will see but they have a lot of players coming in with no Prem experience.

[Irishnev]

Originally Posted by labourRed

Callum Hudson-Odoi.

Anyway, he should get plenty of game time when Pulisic is injured. He's on over 100k and isn't even twenty yet.

Chelsea should be title challengers with that squad but they'll need to understand each other and tighten up at the back.

Damn typo

[Shaggy]

Good read this

Twitter

Danny Drinkwater exclusive: 'I've made mistakes but it's not as simple as me just picking up a wage and not playing'

Drinkwater, in his first interview since 2016, opens up on Chelsea, drink driving, headbutting Jota and falling out of love with football

By
Matt Law,
FOOTBALL NEWS CORRESPONDENT
10 September 2020 • 10:00am
Exclusive Danny Drinkwater interview

Danny Drinkwater, by nature, is not inclined to trust people outside his family. It is why he has pushed his body too hard in a bid to turn around what he describes as a "sticky" four years and it is also why he has not told his side of the story during the same period.

But Drinkwater recognises it is time to start trusting the right people, which is why he agreed to give his first interview since 2016 in which nothing was deemed off limits.

During a candid hour-and-a-half in a fashionable central London hotel, Drinkwater opened up on what has gone wrong for him at Chelsea, his drink driving charge, being beaten up in a nightclub while on loan at Burnley and headbutting Jota during his six-month spell at Aston Villa.

The Premier League title winner also tried to add context to what has contributed to some of his bad decisions, why he fell out of love with football, after which he visited a sports psychiatrist, and why a pay cheque will never be any substitute for playing regularly - no matter how big it is.

Tanned from time spent abroad on holiday this summer and looking fit, Drinkwater said: “It is a trust thing, for me. I’m definitely a closed book and that’s extended through most of my life, not just football.

“That’s 100 per cent cost me in terms of what people think of me and it’s cost me in terms of my injuries and fitness over the past few years because I haven’t put enough trust in what the experts have been telling me.

“Look, I know my Chelsea move hasn’t worked out how anybody would have wanted and I’ve made mistakes, but it’s not as simple as me just not playing football or picking up a wage. Money doesn’t solve anything. The pay cheque doesn’t really help at all, you don’t even think about money.

“There have been things that come above football that have not been as simple as I’d like. I’m not looking for sympathy, fuck me I don’t want that, but I suppose I’d just like people to understand it’s not all gravy when you earn so much money and that I do care.”

Drinkwater had recently become a Premier League champion with Leicester City and was rated one of the best midfielders in the country when he last spoke publicly. Four years later, he has been through an entire season for Chelsea in which he did not make a single appearance and played in just six games last term during two loan spells at Burnley and Villa.

He has also landed himself in trouble at all three clubs and asked to describe the past four years, Drinkwater replied: “Sticky.” He went on to reveal that the problems started ahead of his £35million move to Chelsea in the summer of 2017.

“Chelsea came in the first time in the window after we won the League, but Leicester didn’t want to lose me and (N’Golo) Kante at the same time,” said Drinkwater.

“I decided to get my head down and give it a go in the Champions League, but once that was over I felt like I had nothing, I was deflated as anything and then I felt like I was just plodding along in the games. So when Chelsea came back in for me, I wanted the challenge and I was buzzing for it. I did everything to try to make it happen. I needed something new.”

Having arrived injured, Drinkwater’s first season at Chelsea under Antonio Conte didn’t go as well as he hoped, but it was no write off as he made 22 appearances and featured heavily in the club’s FA Cup run, despite not playing in the final victory over Manchester United.

Having flirted with the idea of leaving, Drinkwater was persuaded to stay and hoped to push on. But the arrival of head coach Maurizio Sarri sent his career into a nose-dive.

“We had a meeting on the last day of the summer transfer window, one hour before it closed,” explained Drinkwater. “It was Sarri and Gianfranco Zola translating. They told me I could go on loan and I was like ‘what the fuck? You’ve given me one hour to get a move’. I didn’t even call anyone because I was so angry and there was no chance I was going to get a move in an hour. Giving me an hour was a joke.

“He said I would get frustrated. That would have been fine, me battling behind three or four players is frustration. Me not being involved in any matchday squads, that’s just crazy. Weirdly, me and Sarri got along off the pitch, but on the pitch it was totally different.”

Drinkwater did not make a single appearance during Sarri’s solitary season in charge and his treatment by the Italian saw him fall out of love with football. It also coincided with him being charged with drink driving after crashing his car in April last year.

“I don’t regret staying and not leaving in that hour or not going on loan in the January because I still wanted to give it a go,” said Drinkwater. “But now I reflect on it and think it is a bit embarrassing that I’ve been at Chelsea and not played for a full season.

“Once I knew I wasn’t going to get a chance I treated it like a job. It meant I fell out of love with football because at that point it just becomes a job and fulfilling your hours. Mentally, it’s a killer. For a full year knowing that was hard to cope with.

“I won’t use Chelsea as an excuse for the drink driving. Obviously, my mental state wasn’t the best, but it was ridiculous and it should never have happened.

“There were a few things going on then away from football, my nan and grandad passed away quite close together and, this might sound daft to anyone who doesn’t have a dog, but my dog passed away and that hurt me. It was all part of the sticky patch.

“For everything to come in a short space of time with my career not going to plan was too much for me. It hit me.”

Drinkwater is separated from the mother of his three-year-old son and travelling north to see him added another layer of complexity to his situation.

“I wasn’t able to see my son as much as I wanted,” he said. “I thought it would be easy living on my own, do what I want and then travel up to Manchester to see my son, but it wasn’t like that. I was sat doing nothing, or I couldn’t see my son or there were problems with the trains so I couldn’t get back or I was delayed.”

Drinkwater opened up to his friends and family over his problems and also visited a sports psychologist in a bid to help kick-start his career ahead of last summer’s loan move to Burnley.

But he only made two appearances for Sean Dyche’s team and less than a month after joining the Clarets he was assaulted inside a nightclub.

“I was pinching around the team then,” said Drinkwater. “Someone said I had tried to chat up some footballer’s girlfriend, but that just wasn’t the case. I got jumped and beaten up. It was an international break, so I wasn’t breaking any rules by going out and having a drink. But the timing was awful and the fact I twisted my ankle was the worst thing. I went in for a scan the next day and found out it was to do with the bone and I couldn’t believe it. It was just like ‘could this get any worse?’.

“I needed to find some enjoyment and have some release. If that happens the year we won the league at Leicester then nothing happens and you have a great night. Looking back now, I should have known it was the wrong time to take the risk, however small it was.

“I didn’t have any stability in my life, so I was probably a bit lost as a person. I didn’t know where I fitted in professionally and I didn’t really know where I fitted in with my personal life and seeing my son, and it was really confusing. I think if you have one solid, then the other one you can manage.”

Once again impatient to play, Drinkwater returned to Chelsea in January and moved on loan to relegation-threatened Villa where it dawned on him just how far a year-and-a-half without any football had left him off the pace.

“Villa was the biggest wake-up call in terms of my fitness,” said Drinkwater. “I was catching up three pre-seasons, a full season with no football and half a season where I’ve played two games. And I’m thinking ‘eight games, I’ll be fine’. I was trying to rush it and, to be fair, Dean Smith was quality. He didn’t put any pressure on me, but I felt like I had no time. I played four or five games and I didn’t manage to do anything. The fans were waiting for Danny Drinkwater and this loaf of bread turned up in midfield.”

The frustration boiled up inside Drinkwater again and eventually spilled over following the club’s 4-0 defeat against Leicester in a game in which he did not get off the substitutes’ bench against his former club.

“I was thinking ‘Jesus, I’ve just been back to somewhere I had so much success and I couldn’t get on the pitch. This is fucking embarrassing’,” said Drinkwater. “I got some stick from the fans and I woke up and I was raging. After training I planned to go and speak to Dean Smith about things, but then I went and headbutted Jota.

“We were on the same team, that’s how stupid it was. I’ve never done that, I’ve never laid someone out before. It was ridiculous. I apologised straight away and I had to go home. I texted him straight after to apologise and take full responsibility. I Google translated it into Spanish as well to make sure he’d understand.

“I told myself that I needed to clean myself up big time. I must have taken a good look at myself shit loads of times. I had a wake up call after the drink driving, another wake up call after the nightclub and then another wake up call after the incident at Villa. Then it’s like, this has got to stop. Drink driving, I’ve not driven since, because I can’t, the nightclub incident, I’ve not really been in an English nightclub since and I don’t plan to and I definitely can’t put myself in the situation to fight with a team-mate again.”

Now back at Chelsea, where he is training away from the first team group, Drinkwater still believes he can turn his career around and is desperate to show his son what he is capable of.

“There’s nothing more important in my life than my son,” he said. “I obviously don’t want him to read anything bad about me, but I know I will have to explain and be honest with him about this period of my life. I want him to see me playing week in week out.

“I’ve got loads more to give. I’m open to going abroad, even though it will be difficult with my son. But I would hope to still see him and, hopefully, he would understand that for a year I needed to get my career sorted out again. I need an anchor and I need to sort out one side of my life, so if I can sort my football out, even if it is abroad, then that will help in the long term. I need something to grasp.

“It probably all comes down to patience and trust with me. I need to change for it to work, otherwise I’ll be stuck in this vicious circle. If I can trust people who are good at their job and be patient then I can only see me building my career back up now. I can’t see me staying in this situation. No chance.”

[labourRed]

I Google translated it into Spanish as well to make sure he’d understand.

[Norbs]

Good job it wasn't the Portuguese Jota

[labourRed]

Originally Posted by Norbs

Good job it wasn't the Portuguese Jota

Ah ffs.

[Mr Pink]

Chelsea certainly have the potential to be contenders, on paper. Just a bit of uncertainty about who hits the ground running etc.

One thing that is certain though, is frank will be under pressure. You can’t spend 200m and not be challenging- especially at Chelsea, who have a record of sacking managers very quickly.. as soon as they hit a rough patch, I reckon that pressure will be his downfall.

[Norbs]

Originally Posted by labourRed

Ah ffs.

[Norbs]

Originally Posted by Mr Pink

Chelsea certainly have the potential to be contenders, on paper. Just a bit of uncertainty about who hits the ground running etc.

One thing that is certain though, is frank will be under pressure. You can’t spend 200m and not be challenging- especially at Chelsea, who have a record of sacking managers very quickly.. as soon as they hit a rough patch, I reckon that pressure will be his downfall.

He clearly has it in him to suffer a big breakdown too

[Shaggy]

Twitter

[S-RED]

still an upgrade on kepa hahaha

[Buzzo]

How far off his line was he on 1min 16 FFS ???

[Scratch]

what the heck was that music???

[Maxiedge]

This is a bit of a nonsense article imo. It's not a transfer policy, it's an oligarch subsiding a club. I don't agree with the way the BBC are normalising it. It should be stated what it is, it's playing outside the realms of a level playing field.

Chelsea are an absolutely horrible club, that seem to go under the radar and are given a free pass. I've already explained previously in this thread why it's a myth that they had a transfer ban over the summer (which is being used as some sort of reasoning for their spending).

Anyway, can't wait to smash these c*nts on sunday

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54156698

[craigdanny]

Originally Posted by Maxiedge

This is a bit of a nonsense article imo. It's not a transfer policy, it's an oligarch subsiding a club. I don't agree with the way the BBC are normalising it. It should be stated what it is, it's playing outside the realms of a level playing field.

Chelsea are an absolutely horrible club, that seem to go under the radar and are given a free pass. I've already explained previously in this thread why it's a myth that they had a transfer ban over the summer (which is being used as some sort of reasoning for their spending).

Anyway, can't wait to smash these c*nts on sunday

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54156698

Isn't the majority of what they've spent from the sale of Hazard and Morata?

[spud_gun]

Originally Posted by Buzzo

How far off his line was he on 1min 16 FFS ???

That'd have made for a great 'spot the keeper competition'

[Maxiedge]

Originally Posted by craigdanny

Isn't the majority of what they've spent from the sale of Hazard and Morata?

Not really. They've taken £440m in owner's loans in the last 5 years. To put it into perspective, that's 6 times as much as us.

They should just say it for what it is, an oligarchs plaything. Even Man City have more financing morals.