Why Frank Lampard’s Chelsea signings are a ‘bit odd’…
chelsea #chelsea
Send more of your brilliant mails on Chelsea and anything else to theeditor@football365.com…
Chelsea transfers…
Frank’s choices of new players seem a bit odd, albeit of high quality. Werner and Havertz are pacy counter players but not expert at unlocking the tight defenses most teams present to us. Neither is in the Eden category. Malang Sarr is a great prospect. Our defense problem boils down to an inability to defend corners and crosses. Hard to see how the 6′ tall Sarr could possibly help. Surely Frank must have a great plan and I for one would be so curious to hear it.
Radu Tomescu, Taipei
According to Sky Sports, Chelsea had a transfer surplus of £173.2M after signing Kovacic. This was mostly due to the sales of Hazard and Morata. Man Utd had a deficit of £74M that same summer, then proceeded to sign Fernades in January for close to £60M.
Put the tired sugar daddy narrative to rest. Chelsea is currently one of the best run clubs in England. It is exploiting a unique circumstance brought about by luck (the ban,not is pandemic) and planning. It just hurts you because the club is signing Werner (for £54M!)and targeting Harvertz instead of Maguire, James or Minamino.
Speaking of Minamino, there is no way Liverpool fc with the success they’ve had recently don’t have enough to sign a Werner or Thiago, after spending almost nothing last summer. Maybe your club is being run as part of an American conglomerate and not the proud independent entity you think it is.
To fans of all big six clubs; leave Chelsea out of your complaining. It hasn’t even spent as much as Villa did last summer but Villa’s spending didn’t seem to hurt you this much. Why?
Lawrence, CFC, Abuja
Poetic justice in football
So, Lionel Messi is likely on his way out from Barcelona after handing in a transfer request (or did he do this to force the Barca’s current president to resign?)
Well, I can only sympathise for Barcelona fans at such ‘difficult’ period (it’s all relative, they are one of the richest clubs in the world and just finished second in La Liga. Try to imagine the situation of Bury or Wigan fans, for example). However, I feel this is a rare, cruel yet poetic justice that is currently happening in football.
I remember how Barcelona loves to unsettle players from other clubs and lure them to play at Camp Nou, only to see a lot of them wasting their potential. Just recall the saga of Barcelona luring Arsenal players (Fabregas, Henry, Hleb, even Alex Song!), Liverpool players (Suarez and Coutinho), and a lot of other talents such as Griezmann, Dembele, Malcom, Arthur, etc. It is one thing to do transfer business, but it’s entirely another thing to unsettle the players and potentially jeopardise the selling club. And this is coming from a club who was only a decade ago proud of its famed La Masia football academy and not putting a shirt sponsor due to beautiful tradition (but now sadly soiled by a Japanese brand who is allegedly selling illegally-poached whale meat). What has gone wrong? Now after being trophyless this season, wasting billions of pounds, seeing their most expensive signing scored twice against them in the Champions League quarterfinal, and now seeing their greatest player of all time leaving. And it seems that next season ain’t gonna be better!
What I’m saying is: it’s nice to see poetic justice like this still happens in football. I am not trying to be childish by cheering on one club’s misfortune, but hell karma does happen even in the football world drenched with (possibly ill-gotten money). Sadly, the favour most always goes to the riches’ favour…
Vincentius, London
Can he ‘do it’ on a rainy Tuesday night at Stoke?
The thing with Messi is that the one question he has never answered is whether or not he can ‘do it’ on a rainy Tuesday night at Stoke. Thinking about it, it must really grate with him and, at 33 years old, time is really running out to prove the doubters wrong. Could he possibly even look at his own reflection in the mirror having not even tried to succeed at the bet365 Stadium despite the perennial global debate? Can he handle the flying monkeys on social media drawing incessant reference to his perceived weaselling out of wanting to prove the doubters wrong? His current situation is possibly his one and only chance to confront the questions marks by standing in the face of adversity and signing for a Championship outfit.
So, an immediate glance at the fixture list offers Norwich and Barnsley as the obvious options for his destination with their respective Tuesday night fixtures against Stoke City. To me, this would be a mistake. Norwich should get promoted and Barnsley will no doubt be relegation contenders. In either eventuality, the Argentinian maestro would only get a single attempt at validation. Thus, choosing a team such as Middlesbrough who, let’s face it, like Stoke, are destined for an eternity in the Championship could be the optimum choice and would proffer several opportunities for glorious affirmation over the next few years. In any case, there is not really much between rainy Tuesday nights and rainy Saturday afternoons in Stoke-on-Trent.
Furthermore, a quick conversation with fellow South American legend, Juninho, would surely convince Messi of the many benefits of living in area. Middlesbrough may not be a Big Club but he could have the luxury of living in a Big Housing Estate – Ingelby Barwick is actually the largest housing estate in Europe! From a footballing point of view, the competition for the right-sided attacking midfield berth with Marcus Tavernier would be an intriguing internal face-off. Additionally, Messi would have the opportunity follow the path of Argentinian megastars such as Carlos Marinelli (once dubbed ‘the New Messi’) and Emmanuel Ledesma, while former Boro star Julio Arca could use his connections to offer him a spot at South Shields FC of the Northern Premier League in retirement if he fancies prolonging his playing days. If that’s not an attractive proposition, I don’t know what is.
Sometimes in life, the solution can be staring right at you. Hopefully, for Lionel’s sake, he’s able to make the sensible decision and send the doubters packing. Ryan Shawcross won’t know what has hit him!
AC in Milan
A fax?
Phil, a fax is official correspondence between a club and a player. You must be the type who gets dumped by text…Sean, I’d like to think Messi would have more pride than to join a club that tore him a new one…
Keg Breezy in Nairobi Kenya
Messi sent a fax to inform Barcelona of his desire to leave? What a hipster! Such is his love of antiquated technology, I bet he has a cassette walkman to listen to his beloved Oasis. Well, Messi is apparently a big fan of Oasis, having been introduced to their sound by then-City player Carlos Tevez at the 2010 World Cup, or so I remember reading somewhere. It is therefore inevitable he will finally join City, rocking up at the Etihad in a snorkel parka and a feather cut to once again link up with mentor Guardiola and best buddy Aguero, all the while belting out some classic mid-90s Britpop together, an image tailor-made for David Squires.
Seriously, Messi has looked a bit out-of-sorts for a while, agitated, restless. Maybe it’s a sad case of Father Time catching up with him, as it does to us all eventually, but he’s certainly no longer as carefree as he was. I don’t think he’s been quite the same since THAT night at Anfield. Andy Robertson ruffling his hair has destroyed him, it seems. It made him look mortal. It’s sad to see one of the all-time greats looking like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders and falling out of love with Barcelona. But he does look like he needs a change. That 8-2 humbling was just the last straw, the straw that broke the camel’s back.
There is nothing to do now but hold our breath and see how the cards fall. But if the Messmeister can resist the obvious pull of the Cityzens and the Gallaghers, we can but hope he prefers the red side’s less-obvious allure of Ole and Ed. No laughing at the back! Maybe Adidas can have a word in his shell-like…
Lee, owner of a cassette walkman
Mourinho and Spurs fans…
Matt Stead’s article, perhaps unwittingly, highlights the problem with certain factions of Tottenham’s supporters; Hojbjerg might be bobbins but he might be the solution to the problem we have had since Dembele’s departure, which is to have a functioning midfield that doesn’t have the willing but limited Sissoko at it’s base. What we have lacked, and have done for a seemingly long time, is players that make the team better – which requires scouting.
Some of our more successful signings haven’t exactly been mind-blowing. Son nearly left after his first year, now he’s one of the Premier League’s best attacking players. Dele was a signing from League One, Toby and Jan, whilst acknowledged talents weren’t bought for silly sums, which for some is the signature of an exciting signing.
Meanwhile our ‘big’ signings have often underwhelmed or flat out failed going right the way back to Rebrov. Paulinho, Soldado, Bent, Bentley, Lamela, Aurier, Sanchez, Sissoko, Ndombele, Sessegnon and Pavlyuchenko all arrived for significant sums and, Ndombele and Sessegnon aside – although for how long, not one left, or will leave, having justified the fee.
Without the right scouting the players price, where they arrive from, and what their position is irrelevant. I’d take £15m Doherty over nearly any right back in the premier league, and certainly over Aurier every day of the week and twice on Sunday, for what it’s worth.
The players I’d love to see Spurs go for, realistically, aren’t going to blow anyone’s hair back but if you put Grealish into our midfield or Watkins was the player to take the load off Kane then great. I like both a lot and both have something that the club, squad and first team need that we lack.
Scouting over money works.
Dan Mallerman
A word on Grealish…
While many Irish fans can’t hide their glee over the fact that Jack Grealish still has not been capped for England, the sad fact is that he most likely would have been our captain by now if he had stayed in the Irish setup. Given that he played Gaelic football as a child and even graced the hallowed turf of Croke Park playing the sport for Warwickshire GAA (and scored a point that day), even more so than Declan Rice he seemed destined for great things in a green shirt. Though Rice did play three times for the Irish senior team, which really should have been the end of that story, but that’s another email’s work.
Maybe Grealish was always an incredibly patriotic Englishman beneath all that, and was just holding out for the chance…but it just seems to me someone got in his ear about which country would be a better career move to declare for. Keeping your child involved in the GAA while living in England requires a strong sense of your roots, so Grealish representing Ireland
In the part of Galway where his paternal grandfather came from (Gort), there is a Jack Grealish currently turning out for the local hurling team. Of all the English born players that have represented Ireland over the years, he would have seemed like a very natural fit. It’s hard not to feel smug that he still hasn’t gotten capped for England, but even more so, we have a huge feeling of what might have been.
Luke M, Furbo, Co. Galway
The King…
In response to DC, BAC, there are different rules for different countries. SO he did get a medal for his first 2 seasons for PSG as Ligue 1 says that 1 minute of football gets you a medal. Think he played 39 minutes in 3 games across 2 seasons and went on to pick up 2 medals! Not certain if he got one in his 1 game for Juve before he headed to Bayern, but the fact remains that he definitely has 8 titles from 8 seasons played.Rules have changed on various competitions down through the years so you now dont have to be included in the squad in a final to receive a medal. Paul Scholes and Roy Keane didnt get a medal in 1999 but if the rules from 2019 were in place back then, they would have got a medal.
Dont think anyone is painting him as influential in any of these – its more so that his haul of medals is huge for a 24 year old. There isnt many players out there that have 8 titles to their name – he has more titles than Cristiano Ronaldo. Just like Kane/Ronaldo would say about goals – doesnt matter how you get them – same could be said for Coman and his trophies.
johnnybruff
Harry Maguire…
I’m sure had it been Sterling instead of Maguire the media coverage would have been just as favourable…
Karim Jallad
Absolutely here for Maguire’s defence team citing Harry’s love of Ancient Greek culture.
In the pantheon (geddit) of Footballers Talking About History As An Excuse, it’s right up there with Wayne Hennessy’s WW2 lessons.
They should start a book club.
Tom, (Sterling’s mistake when leaving Liverpool was clearly not citing Henry VIII and the Reformation; amateur stuff) Walthamstow
Best Premier League player to not win the Champions League…
That would be Dennis Bergkamp Alex, London. Shearer might not even be the second best.
James, Kent.
Alex, London is basically saying Shearer was better than Gerrard right?
I’m not wound up, you’re wound up.
Culk the Younger
Johnny Nic I’m disgusted
Dear 365
I can’t believe Johnny Nic’s a fan of Chris Sutton.
He comes across to me like a borish Rotarian, Masonic ex policeman.
Lawrence (perhaps somewhat biased against Sutton by dint of being a Chelsea fan)