Chelsea squad is ‘expensively assembled mishmash of children and sh*t’ | OneFootball

Is Chelsea’s biggest problem that they have a squad full of children? Or are they all knackered from the Premier League?

Send your thoughts on the Champions League – watch Wednesday night’s games – to theeditor@football365.com

A Football365 fan writes

Pandering as fu@king normal to your American owned red shirt mardar@e masses, editor my 3 year old granddaughter could edit this sh*t red shirt click baiting site , back under your stone you pri@k , we can smell your urine boiling and taste your salty tears , yours a proud Mancunian and Mcfc season ticket holder for over 50 years. Mr S Jones

Chelsea squad is full of…

Do I like Chelsea? No.

Do I like Rosenoir? Also No.

However the Chelsea squad is an expensively assembled mishmash of children and sh*t.

A few appropriate players in the right positions, a preseason of coaching, get rid of the performative respecting the ball BS and I’ve no doubt they will be irritating the league’s fans again.

In the meantime, Spurs to stay up at the expense of Forest (team dismantling to Utd and Chelsea). And Arsenal to win at least 2 trophies. Nick (moved to the shires), Tonbridge

Meanwhile, Arsenal on for zillion-uple

It’s on. Arsenal are nailed on for the zillion‑uple — we will win the Premier League, the Champions League, the FA Cup, the League Cup, the Club World Cup, the Europa Conference League, the Intertoto Cup, the AFCON, the Oscars, the Brits, and I’m a Celebrity this year. Well done, Arsenal, for being the best‑ist worst team ever, ever.

Honestly, this talk of a quadruple (mainly from non‑Arsenal fans) is frustrating, and it diminishes each individual competition.

Unfortunately for Arsenal fans such as myself, we must admit that only Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea, and Man City have consistently won all the major competitions in my lifetime. Arsenal have never won the Champions League or, if we’re honest, any significant European trophy. We’ve only won the League Cup twice, and no player in our current squad was even born the last time we lifted it.

Yes, we have more FA Cups than anyone, and only Liverpool and Man Utd have more league titles, but to think we will go from winning nothing other than a few FA Cups in 20‑odd years to winning everything is extreme, especially considering no team has ever done this.

For me, the League Cup final is huge, not just for confidence but because we really need to win the actual League Cup, like I said, something we’ve barely ever won. We have lost more League Cup finals than any other team. We got smashed by City in 2018, suffered the embarrassment of losing to a soon‑to‑be‑relegated Birmingham in 2011 (when, by the way, we were supposedly on our way to a quadruple, we won zero trophies that year), and worst of all, we narrowly lost to Mourinho’s Chelsea in 2007 in a game where Wenger decided to field a youth team (average age 21) and dropped the likes of club captain and legend Henry (not even in the matchday squad), Gilberto Silva, Lehmann, etc. all of whom were part of the unbeaten Premier League‑winning team a mere two years earlier. Inexplicably, Wenger picked only one player (Kolo Touré) from the Arsenal team that reached the Champions League final in May 2006 for this League Cup final in February 2007. Mourinho, by contrast, picked his strongest team, with Drogba, Lampard, Makelele, Terry, and Čech starring in a genuinely world‑class squad.

In the Premier League, we are rightly favourites, but we have a massive next two games. Drop points to Bournemouth and lose to City, and the pendulum swings back to City again assuming they win their games. Equally, if we win those two games and City drop points at Chelsea and Palace (if that game can be played), then we can start talking about when we win the league, not if.

In the Champions League, I don’t think we are one of the favourites. Reigning champions PSG look better than last year, Bayern look the best they have in a decade, and Real Madrid are always underestimated. Sporting will be no pushover, we’ve lost to worse teams in two‑legged European ties recently, and then there’s the potential of Spain’s best team, Barcelona, or a Newcastle side that dumped us out of the League Cup last year.

Depending on how all this goes, it will shape the team we play in the FA Cup, where there are still the likes of City, Liverpool, and Chelsea all of whom may be doubly focused on this competition as it could make or break their season.

As an Arsenal fan who has seen many competitions slip away between February and May over the last 20 years, “just” winning the Premier League would represent a truly remarkable season. However, finally winning the League Cup would be the cherry on the cake. For me, the Champions League, as always, is a distant dream (although we are getting closer), and let’s not talk about the FA Cup until next month. Paul K, London

Are Premier League players just knackered?

After the thrashings of Man City and Chelsea in the CL and with Spurs and Newcastle about to join them the Premier League critics are sharpening their knifes ready to decry how bad the league is.

This is the same league that had six of the top eight teams in the league phase. So what has changed.

Football fatigue from an accumulation of games is the answer.

We keep burying our heads in the sand as if this is not a real thing.

PSG asked their league to postpone their match against Nantes before the game against Chelsea yesterday and this was granted. While Chelsea had to play a tough game against Newcastle for CL qualification at the same weekend. The Chelsea defensive mistakes in the game cant be attributed to fatigue but it was evident how fresh PSG were compared to Chelsea. The question is why will PSG ask their league for such treatment? The irony is they could have fielded a reserve team and still beat Nantes who are near the bottom of the league but instead they wanted the luxury of resting their whole squad. This should not be allowed in my view as this is an unfair advantage. PSG knew this as well.

Now let’s cast our minds back to June when Chelsea wiped the floor with PSG. What was the difference. And no the answer is not just the Chelsea manager. PSG had played Real Madrid and Bayern Munich back to back before the final and had played so many games prior to it. They were exhausted and you could see it in their play. The pressing and dynamism was off.

Back to the Premier League. After the league phase the PL teams match load was ramped up over Xmas and the new year while most of Europe were on a mini break. In addition the top teams in Europe have a relatively easy league compared to the PL so they can rest players at will.

I will say it now. If Arsenal continue to progress the way they are at the moment, Declan Rice will not have a good World Cup for England as he will be absolutely shattered. The silver lining for England could be Harry Kane who normally is shattered by the time tournament football comes around but this time he has had a nice winter break and he is playing in a team who are walking their way to the title. Michael Odeku, Chingford

Liverpool fan ponders Pep v Ferguson and emerges with predictable answer

It is routinely stated and accepted that Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola are the two greatest managers we have ever seen.

Who could argue with their longevity, dominance and styles of football. Yes there are some gripes around City’s financial advantage and Pep always having the best backing but as this website has shown before managing that is also a challenge and a skill in itself.

But there is just one haggling doubt for me, their records in Europe.

European football is and has always been the proving ground for managers, players and the style of play their are playing. It is where we see the most advanced and progressive football and by and large whoever is at the forefront of thinking in European football usually does the best. All the way back in my memory to Arrigo Sacchi, through Mourinho’s triumph with Porto and more recently Ancellotti and Enrique, these managers outthought and outfought Europe.

Like Hawaii’s north shore in surfing, the Champions League (and European Cup prior) is the ultimate proving ground to see where you stand against the greatest minds, managers and teams in Europe.

Don’t get me wrong, Ferguson and Pep have done well, winning 5 European cups between them is nothing to sneer at but…across a combined 4 decades of competition in Europe does it suggest that they were at the top of the table for their 20 years each of domestic dominance. Not a hope. Pep’s Barcelona were one of the greatest teams we have ever seen with glorious players and tactical dominance for sure. But since then, yes he has dominated Germany and England domestically but not Europe, he has been out thought, out fought and out foxed time and time again.

Ferguson won two cups with his own style of fire and brimstone but was routinely outplayed and out thought across his tenure in Europe. Back to surfing, it’s all very well being the local hero on your back door wave but how to you do with the big boys, I would stay Ferguson and Pep both did well, but are not the greatest of all time.

And if not them then who? You could make a case for Ancelotti in terms of sheer numbers of wins but I don’t think he won with a team that were not expected to win eg like Mourinho, but for me there is only one shout, the quiet genius of Hetton-le-hole, rarely mentioned, overshadowed in his own club by Shankly, his record of 3 European cups, 6 leagues and 1 UEFA cup between 1975 and 1983 is unparalleled, he went to the north Shore pulled out his gun and owned it, while Pep and Ferguson more often than not ate sand. Dave, LFC

Somebody doesn’t like assist stats

It’s been mentioned by a few recently how Bruno Fernandes should maybe win the Premier League Player of the Season award this year so my interest was piqued when Sky Sports was doing a piece on Bruno’s potential to break the Premier League assists record.

They displayed a table showing the top 12 assist records in the league with a second column showing how many of these assists were from open play. Bruno was at the bottom because although he is one of four with 16 assists only 7 of his were from open play. Similarly Henry was top with 20 assists of which all 20 were from open play, putting him ahead of De Bruyne with 20 and 17 respectively.

Seeing this made me a bit nostalgic for seasons past so I then spent the next hour or so watching assist highlights from many of these records seasons. And you know what? The Sky Sports list and assist stats in general are absolute bullshit!

Were Henry’s 20 assists all from open play? Were they bollocks, two scored were from corners. Did De Bruyne get 20 assists in 19-20? Nope, one registered for a Rodri goal was actually scored by Laporte, another was a scuffed shot spooned directly into a teammates path to score. The current dubious committee would definitely have taken both of those away. One of Salah’s from 24-25 was him running in on goal when he was brought down by a defender, the ball bobbled away and was collected by Darwen who then ran into the box and scored.

If you look deeper into this there is dispute over what constitutes an assist by the very people who records the stats. Was the pass intended, was the pass deflected off a defender, if it was deflected did it still reach its intended target, if a shot rebounds then scored is that an assist, is a shot or pass that results in an own goal an assist? The whole thing is a complete mess and the mess gets messier every season.

If Bruno does reach more than 20 assists this season it doesn’t mean he’s more creative than Henry or a better passer the De Bruyne or more impactful than Salah. It doesn’t really mean anything in comparison to other seasons, especially those 20 years ago. All it would mean is that the current tactical meta, the unique dependency of a struggling team, and the way stats are recorded have all contrived to suit Bruno Fernandes particularly well this season.

The assist stat has so much background noise that it only really provides context to performance when it shows a clear superiority. Saying Henry was a better assisting player than De Bruyne because he has one more open play assist in completely unrelated seasons is nonsense. Saying Bruno is the best assisting player in the league this year is obvious because he has double the next guy.

Bruno breaking Henry’s assist record might be the only thing that gets him the Player of the Season award but it shouldn’t make a difference. He’s unequivocally the most impactful player for his team in this league. The stats provide context for this but shouldn’t be a deciding factor. Dave, Manchester

AFCON decision pleases nobody

The AFCON decision is an interesting one. It is almost certainly the correct one given the terrible behaviour of the Senegal team and manager during the final. And this kind of enforcement of the rules will certainly deter future behaviour of this sort which is a positive. And yet, it’s another one of those decisions that pleases no one. Not even Morocco can be particularly happy to become champions in this fashion.

To be frank, you can’t change the winner of a tournament like this. You can’t change who experienced the ecstasy of scoring the winning goal in a stadium full of screaming fans. You can’t change who fell to their knees in triumph at the final whistle. You can’t change who lifted the trophy aloft for the world to see before partying into the night.

They can change the name in the record books but they cannot change the winner on the night. That is what people experienced and what they will remember. It is just unfortunate that Senegal were allowed to strop their way to that experience and that Morocco had it stolen from them. Because they can never have it back.