Chelsea (Ownership Change)

[K]

[Jezza]

^ The FA Cup has lost some prestige to it over the years.

Among older supporters, it still ranks very highly in importance. In contrast, much of the younger generation prioritizes Champions League football and the Premier League, which is where most of the money is these days.

For example, there's greater financial incentives finishing 4th and losing the FA Cup final than winning the FA Cup but finishing 5th on the ladder.

There's been suggestions that if a team who doesn't finish in the top 4, but wins the FA Cup should be given automatically qualification into the Champions League. This could be one way to provide greater incentive to clubs to take the competition more seriously.

Personally, I love the FA Cup and place great importance on the competition, even more so than the League Cup. Chelsea has performed well in the competition in the last 25 years, even before Abramovich purchased the club.

[K]

Liverpool's "quant" (to borrow words from the financial world), who was lured there partly because he was a Liverpool supporter growing up, said previously that the EPL title probably meant more to him than the Champions League title, although the latter was worth more money. (It sounded like he gets performance bonuses.)

Well, now he has both, though I wonder how many Liverpool fans even know his name.

[Jezza]

Top 4 secured!

A successful season for Frank.

- Lost Eden Hazard
- Played the youth
- Transfer ban
- Top 4 finish
- Last 16 of the Champions League
- FA Cup final, with hopefully a victory to come.

Well done to the great man. Lots of positives, and plenty of improvement ahead of us.

Winning the FA Cup would be the icing on the cake.

[K]

Do you believe Chelsea can make a genuine challenge for the title next season?

If not, who could threaten Man. City and Liverpool, the two favourites?

[Jezza]

^ No, but they will close the gap on the other two teams. I'm of the view that Chelsea is still a season away from contending, mainly because it hasn't addressed its defensive issues yet especially with them focusing on its attacking power with the signings of Ziyech, Werner and soon Havertz.

Chelsea's aim will be to get 80 points next season. In the last three seasons including this one they've attained 70, 72 and 66 points. I think the club is in it's best position for a number of years to contend for the years to come. There's a lot to be excited about but the progress is evident.

I think Chelsea might have a season equivalent to the one Liverpool had in the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 seasons.

I expect Liverpool and City to be strong again, but whether they can recapture the form that got them points in the high 90s and 100 is one I have doubt on as it's very hard to sustain that form as City showed this year with a drop from 99 to 81 points.

United are another contender that are building their squad nicely under Solskjaer. Fernandes was an excellent signing in January, and if they can obtain Sancho from Dortmund they will improve as well, though I still think they will fall short of Liverpool and City.

Generally, the strength of a team lasts for three seasons. Liverpool have had two very strong seasons (18/19 winning the CL and 19/20 winning the PL) so I think they have one more season in the bag to add further silverware before others start catching up with them.

For interests sake, this was the PL ladder (excluding relegated teams) since the start of new year:

1. Liverpool = 44
2. Man City = 40
3. Man United = 35
4. Arsenal = 32
5. Chelsea = 31
6. Burnley = 30
7. Southampton = 30
8. Wolves = 29
9. Tottenham = 29
10. Sheffield United = 25
11. Everton = 24
12. Leicester City = 20
13. West Ham = 20
14. Newcastle = 19
15. Brighton = 18
16. Aston Villa = 17
17. Crystal Palace = 16

[K]

sb odds for Bayern Munich v. Chelsea:

Bayern 1.40
Draw 5.00
Chelsea 6.50

[Jezza]

We're no chance. Just hope we keep it competitive.

Bayern is my predicted CL winner.

[Jezza]

^ Well turns out I was right on both counts

We've made some big signings lately. I think this has been our best summer window since 2014, and one of our busiest windows since Roman took over as owner.

Ziyech, Werner, Chilwell, Silva, Havertz and Sarr. Whether it's enough to propel to title contention, time will tell.

[K]

Jezza, did the red card have a lot to do with Chelsea's 2-0 loss to Liverpool, or does it look like Chelsea, despite their big spending, are still miles off Man. City and Liverpool?

[Jezza]

We were struggling before the red card, but hanging in there.

Once the red card was issued to Christensen, it was game over. Thankfully, the scoreline wasn't as bad as I feared.

Too early to say whether we're miles off from competing with Liverpool and City. We've only seen two of our new signings play so far (Werner and Havertz), so I want to see what Ziyech, Silva, Chilwell all bring to the table before writing the team off completely.

[Jezza]

4-0 win against Palace.

It's been a good night

[K]

Highlights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-As6YuIQgM

[Jezza]

Frank is having a good run.

We're through to the knockout stages of the Champions League, and with the PL race wide open this season we're a chance of winning it along with multiple other clubs.

[Pies4shaw]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2021/jan/22/does-frank-lampard-genuinely-deserve-to-be-fired-right-now