ExpectedChelsea

I'll be pinning this thread and include my best works in it so that it will be easy for newcomers to read. Hopefully I'll be able to update this thread on a regular basis. :-) As always, RTs will be genuinely appreciated.

This is also why England usually tends to underperform in international competitions, which usually happen at the end of a season. The likes of Palmer, Rice and Saka go through wars every weekend in the PL, is it a surprise they're less sharp than players who are well-rested?

Other European teams can afford to rotate and even take weekends off ahead of CL games. They have a maximum of 6 "CL-level" league games across a season. No more. By my estimate, every PL team plays at least double that. Fatigue accumulates.

This point cannot be emphasized enough. Premier League teams aren't "declining" - they're just playing a private version of the Champions League in their own country. I don't think the common fan understands the level of the league, and just how demanding it is.

Lampard, Potter, Pochettino, everyone "earned" their right to manage Chelsea one way or another. They might have not had the CV of a Conte or a Tuchel, but they had a combination of track record + gravitas to warrant chances. Respectfully, who is Rosenior?

It's not surprising to see this. Rosenior was hired because he was at the same club as our directors at some point in his career. His assistant (McFarlane) was hired because he's mates with Joe Shields, even if he's not qualified. The same virus stretches down to our academy.

Saying this with maximum respect, it's genuinely insulting to see Rosenior as the Chelsea manager. I still cannot believe it's real. The cringe quotes, crap tactics, the general air of being clueless - I get so much second-hand embarrassment.

I know data enough for some big football clubs to pay me for insights, and I know people 10x smarter than me, and not a single "data" person ever thought what Chelsea are doing makes any kind of sense. We're not even signing players based off lazy fbref scouting.

Data cannot be attributed to most of our signings. Jorgensen, Sarr, Hato, Gittens, etc. had data that could politely be described as "average" and more honestly, was terrible. You cannot give me 3 worthwhile metrics explaining why they're good.

Maresca was arguably a 2010s Arsenal coach. Rosenior is like Roberto Martinez/Mark Hughes/Garry Monk - a commitment to playing "possession" football, but doesn't understand anything about it. I don't think he's a PL-calibre coach, sorry.

Like I keep saying, it's incredibly hard for us to access Hall/Acheampong/Ngumoha-level talents on the open market. Their talent will drive up demand, demand will drive up prices and wages. None of the players we've signed in their positions are close to them in ability.

And how does this impact the first team, you ask? An unnecessary young signing for big money (Lavia) forced us to sell one of our best talents, and currently arguably the best LB in the league, for pennies on the dollar. Can we sign a Hall-level talent for 35M now? Nope.

It's ironic that Madrid (the "high standards" club) are launching their own academy revolution, following several other high-profile clubs like PSG and Barca. All while Chelsea (the club/fans) are brainwashed to think everything academy-related is bad. espn.com/soccer/story/_…