Chelsea

I don’t think what he said was outlandish tbh. Newcastle are on 38 points from 19 games. That’s 66 points for 4th place. These type of shock contenders for the top 4 tend to get the jitters. Again I wouldn’t rule it out

Before today Chelsea were a laughing stock and I don’t see much changing with them until next season, most teams above them are already in their stride so I’ll wait a few more games before I change my judgement on them.

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They were a laughing stock in late 2020, early 2021.
Newcastle went from relegation favourites to a Top 4 candidate in a year.

It’s unlikely they’ll turn it around sure but there’s lots of talent in that team and they’re looking to add more too. Odds are, at some point shit will stick.

No doubt their fortunes will change I was doubting that they will make the CL this year

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They have? Other than him who have they bought for peanuts? It’s either been expensive transfers that succeeded like Hazard, Mata, Diego Costa and Fabregas or expensive transfers that failed like Torres, Werner, Pulisic and Havertz.

Ivanovic was less than 10m, that was great value.

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Good shout. Maybe Kante? He wasn’t especially cheap but value for money is pretty clear.

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Ivanovic and Willian gave good service over a number of years.
Paid the necessary for Cahill and maxed out and Cech really.

Yeah although I never rated Willian too highly.

Not exactly recent transfers for them though. We know what they’ve been about.

He didn’t say recent though he said “over the years”

You’re right. I should give Chelsea more credit for those transfers completed more than ten years ago.

Chelsea makes 100 or so transfers and can afford to have 70% of them be flops. I see no logic in praising their occasional transfers that didn’t cost a fortune.

I referenced Azpi as good business as a direct comparison with a few others.
There’s plenty said about the poor ones. Just making the point not everyone has been a fantasy football signing.

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That’s 76 points for 4th place tbh

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Okay Martyn. I’ll believe it when I see it.

And then we’ll see 10+ year contracts :slight_smile:

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I wonder if Boehly and Clearlake would prefer a baseball type system where you aren’t signing a player for Chelsea. You sign a player for Clearlake Football Group Ltd and that contract can be assigned to any number of different clubs over the term. In baseball you can do what’s call “designate for assignment” and send a player to a lower club in your team’s farm system. That player gets reps at a lower level and is subject to recall by the parent team that plays in the MLB.

It would be a way for an entity like Clearlake to leverage the hell out of these long contracts.

yeah change the rules after someone takes advantage with no punishment

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