Daniel Levy - Chairman

[thfcsteff]

What was Lo Celso and Ndombele?
Very expensive players brought at a premium price
I think people still want to judge on the spend before the ground not after too much

Ndombele was bought in pre-season, yes, after Levy and Poch had decided to go for it together. Lo Celso was a final day loan to buy. Having agreed to work together, the manager was undermined from the first day of that season (Mourinho as guest at the club). Shoddy.

 

[glorygloryeze]

What was Lo Celso and Ndombele?
Very expensive players brought at a premium price
I think people still want to judge on the spend before the ground not after too much

Lo Celso and Ndombele were the exceptions on the whole aren't they?
Most of our signings are not like that (and yes, i can see why Levy/ENIC might think to stay clear given how those kind of premium signings tend to work out for us vs the cheap/relative punts)

But then again, we can look at January 2020 when Kane was injured and Jose said publicly he needed a number 9, or what @Grays_1890 said about some of our signings last summer only really getting into gear after seeing how poor we were in our first game vs Everton.

Ultimately, things continue to reek of not striking whilst the iron is hot (in football terms) with the odd exceptions here and there. People should bear that in mind when we find out we aren't as attractive to coaches as we think we are...

 

[DubSpur]

Narrative/non-narrative, as is. No-one has ever said Poch didn't turn players down, but WHO did he turn down? Was it another Njie? Another Nkoudou? The comment lacks any context.

What is crystal clear to me, is that the work he did was so utterly beyond the realm of reality that it will never be fully appreciated.

Levy did amazing work delivering the stadium.
He is not a "player" man.
He needs a DoF and his attempts to work as one in the committee set up have simply not
worked very well.

One player that was widely reported from many sources as being offered was Tielemans. If Poch was turning down players like that then that is more than enough context.
Anyway, starting to go off on a Poch shaped tangent here so...

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Lo Celso and Ndombele were the exceptions on the whole aren't they?
Most of our signings are not like that (and yes, i can see why Levy/ENIC might think to stay clear given how those kind of premium signings tend to work out for us vs the cheap/relative punts)

But then again, we can look at January 2020 when Kane was injured and Jose said publicly he needed a number 9, or what @Grays_1890 said about some of our signings last summer only really getting into gear after seeing how poor we were in our first game vs Everton.

Ultimately, things continue to reek of not striking whilst the iron is hot (in football terms) with the odd exceptions here and there. People should bear that in mind when we find out we aren't as attractive to coaches as we think we are...

I’d wager the average cost of our signings is about £30m
That’s not cheap

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Ndombele was bought in pre-season, yes, after Levy and Poch had decided to go for it together. Lo Celso was a final day loan to buy. Having agreed to work together, the manager was undermined from the first day of that season (Mourinho as guest at the club). Shoddy.

Your trying to mix two things
That’s a combined outlay of over £100m on unproven players
I’m not opening the debate as to backing managers, purely that since we have finished the stadium we have spent more money than we did previously, by some way

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Narrative/non-narrative, as is. No-one has ever said Poch didn't turn players down, but WHO did he turn down? Was it another Njie? Another Nkoudou? The comment lacks any context.

What is crystal clear to me, is that the work he did was so utterly beyond the realm of reality that it will never be fully appreciated.

Levy did amazing work delivering the stadium.
He is not a "player" man.
He needs a DoF and his attempts to work as one in the committee set up have simply not
worked very well.

Robbie Keane and Glenn Hoddle both commented they were stunned that Poch turned down a number of players. But they also added that was him having confidence in his own players at the time. So it wasn’t a negative spin.
I don’t know who the players were but why should Poch just accept players if he believes their inferior to what he had
In hindsight the new faces may have helped but they easily could have stunk the place out

 

[glorygloryeze]

I’d wager the average cost of our signings is about £30m
That’s not cheap

Not cheap, but probably also not the justification for rebuilding WHL etc

 

[glorygloryeze]

Ok, so who else did Poch turn down that Summer other than Tielemens?
I don't see that as a big deal in or of itself. Useful player that i'd have ben happy enough with. But was that what we needed? Was he a Dembele, Wanyama or Eriksen replacement?

I'd like people to throw more names if they know of some.

I don't count Grealish as one Poch turned down btw

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Not cheap, but probably also not the justification for rebuilding WHL etc

It was the sole justification
If we hadn’t built the ground we wouldn’t be able to afford the players we have brought
We would be smaller than Leicester and Everton now

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Ok, so who else did Poch turn down that Summer other than Tielemens?
I don't see that as a big deal in or of itself. Useful player that i'd have ben happy enough with. But was that what we needed? Was he a Dembele, Wanyama or Eriksen replacement?

I'd like people to throw more names if they know of some.

I don't count Grealish as one Poch turned down btw

He didn’t turn down Grealish
He wanted him and the club did but the circumstances changed
But I think any throwing names in may well be speculating
tieliemans was a string rumour at the time
I know Poch wanted Maguire but Maguire didn’t fancy the completion and went to Leicester. Poch also met with Morata but a gun he didn’t fancy competing with Kane

 

[Robspur12]

For me (assuming ENIC don't want to sell up to another set of owners)....

1. Make a capital injection - £200 million right now could secure our future for years. Lots of clubs will be extremely hard up this summer and it will be a buyers market. While that capital injection would be a short term pain in the wallet for the owners it could well end up being a medium term gain as doing this and then continually just investing our profits from then on should see us remain in the CL (especially considering the coefficient rule that is coming in in 2024) and thus boost the value of the club. If ENIC cannot fund that capital injection (they should be able to do so simply by ENIC borrowing money secured against its stake in THFC) then let somebody else make that sort of injection for a share of ownership.

2. Go out and get Campos as DoF. Give him as much control on transfers as he desires. He has proven that he is a brilliant operator at Lille. Get him in and let him operate.

3. Set aside a separate moderate budget to sign talented English youngsters from lower league clubs. Reinvest any profits made from signing players from this route into this budget.

4. Choose the new manager in conjunction with Campos. Give Campos the main voice in this selection.

@Finney Is Back, this doesn't sound a million miles away from the model under which Chelsea operate now after the initial Abramovich splurges?

 

[glorygloryeze]

He didn’t turn down Grealish
He wanted him and the club did but the circumstances changed
But I think any throwing names in may well be speculating
tieliemans was a string rumour at the time
I know Poch wanted Maguire but Maguire didn’t fancy the completion and went to Leicester. Poch also met with Morata but a gun he didn’t fancy competing with Kane

Yeah, but weren't Maguire and Morata in the previous summer and not the (infamous) summer of 2018?
Either way, neither of those are examples of Poch turning down players offered to him by Levy/ENIC.

I'd love to know who else apart from Teilemens was...

 

[DeanoAustin]

Ndombele was bought in pre-season, yes, after Levy and Poch had decided to go for it together. Lo Celso was a final day loan to buy. Having agreed to work together, the manager was undermined from the first day of that season (Mourinho as guest at the club). Shoddy.

I more or less agree with your overall position steff and I’ll always absolutely love Poch for what he did here. He gave us our best series of league finishes in our history which was remarkable given that he inherited a brickshow and was working at a massive disadvantage compared to other clubs. And inviting Mourinho was a bit bricky not a million miles away from the way BMJ was undermined. That was the most shameful episode in my time supporting the club and I lost a lot of time for Levy around then for that.

But...

Poch didn’t help himself. The stuff he was saying before the CL final and his utterances in pre season were clear signs something was wrong and he was having second thoughts. You couldn’t really blame Levy for lining up a replacement at that point.

 

[Robspur12]

Let’s not forget that appointing managers is a football decision, and that we’ve had more hits than misses under ENIC.

There is a disconnect between praising Levy for the training complex/stadium/appointing managers like Redknapp and Poch and saying he should having nothing to do with the football side.

There is no football side and no business side, just a football business, where decisions made flow in both directions.

Redknapp and Poch were bought in after Levy's first choice didn't work out in Redknapp's case, Ramos or Levy didn't get his first choice in Poch's case, Van Gaal. Also Jol was a stroke of luck as he was appointed assistant to Levy's first choice Santini.AVB and Mourinho were inexplicable appointments on the basis of their immediate history before their appointments. I think part of this was him wanting to prove Chelsea got it wrong.

So mostly Levy does his best managerial appointments when he is forced into a corner. If he had to think about it then they aren't the best. I agree with posters saying he should leave appointments to a DOF.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Yeah, but weren't Maguire and Morata in the previous summer and not the (infamous) summer of 2018?
Either way, neither of those are examples of Poch turning down players offered to him by Levy/ENIC.

I'd love to know who else apart from Teilemens was...

They were
No their examples of players the clubs wanted but couldn’t get for varying reasons

 

[glorygloryeze]

They were

Eh? Pretty sure Morata joined Chelsea in summer of 2017 and we tried for him BEFORE he signed for them. Similarly, Maguire joined Leicester that same summer. I'm pretty sure we didn't try to sign them in Summer 2018...

No their examples of players the clubs wanted but couldn’t get for varying reasons

Which i don't think anyone has an issue with tbf, you can only try...it's the 'try' that people often wonder about...

 

[Robspur12]

Poch didn’t help himself. The stuff he was saying before the CL final and his utterances in pre season were clear signs something was wrong and he was having second thoughts. You couldn’t really blame Levy for lining up a replacement at that point.

The Champions League utterances? I think those comments were lost in translation. The problem when you are saying things in a language that you have learnt is that you do not have nuances and idioms of someone who has spoken the language for a long time in its native country. I am not aware of any utterances in pre season. But if those are reasons to sack him as @Spur of the moment claims then I think we are reaching a bit.

Redknapp reminds me of Boris Johnson. He was allegedly as bent as a six bob note. His mind was clearly not on the job in his last season (speaking to Brendan Rodgers about the England job and tax evasion case). The drop off we experienced while he was thinking about England and his court case was unforgivable given the quality of the squad at his disposal. His sacking was absolutely justified imho.

 

[thfcsteff]

I more or less agree with your overall position steff and I’ll always absolutely love Poch for what he did here. He gave us our best series of league finishes in our history which was remarkable given that he inherited a brickshow and was working at a massive disadvantage compared to other clubs. And inviting Mourinho was a bit bricky not a million miles away from the way BMJ was undermined. That was the most shameful episode in my time supporting the club and I lost a lot of time for Levy around then for that.

But...

Poch didn’t help himself. The stuff he was saying before the CL final and his utterances in pre season were clear signs something was wrong and he was having second thoughts. You couldn’t really blame Levy for lining up a replacement at that point.

Point well taken mate.
Indeed, hindsight tells us that if a break was to be made, it should've been that summer. Our stock was huge, Poch could've left with dignity and we'd have had the pick of managerial talent.

Levy's greatest mistake was to agree with Poch that the two would continue on a project, buy an expensive player, have a second on deck coming in at the deadline, only to have this mysterious Mourinho guest/courtship thing going on.
It was a huge mistake.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Eh? Pretty sure Morata joined Chelsea in summer of 2017 and we tried for him BEFORE he signed for them. Similarly, Maguire joined Leicester that same summer. I'm pretty sure we didn't try to sign them in Summer 2018...



Which i don't think anyone has an issue with tbf, you can only try...it's the 'try' that people often wonder about...

I was agreeing with you

 

[glorygloryeze]

The Champions League utterances? I think those comments were lost in translation. The problem when you are saying things in a language that you have learnt is that you do not have nuances and idioms of someone who has spoken the language for a long time in its native country. I am not aware of any utterances in pre season. But if those are reasons to sack him as @Spur of the moment claims then I think we are reaching a bit.

Redknapp reminds me of Boris Johnson. He was allegedly as bent as a six bob note. His mind was clearly not on the job in his last season (speaking to Brendan Rodgers about the England job and tax evasion case). The drop off we experienced while he was thinking about England and his court case was unforgivable given the quality of the squad at his disposal. His sacking was absolutely justified imho.

Come on..the last thing poch's words re the champions league and leaving us afterwards were lost in translation