Pompey Yid
Vital Champions League
TQ that query did make me laugh! the funny thing is "I have no idea why!"
Antonio Conte - (Sacked) Manager Thread
- Thread starter muttley
- Start date
SmithAndJones
Vital 1st Team Regular
I think that Poch as our next manager is a certainty. Other Clubs will have sussed out he's not a winner, we won't mind that too much.
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Departed
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SmithAndJones
Vital 1st Team Regular
Not mediocrity, just best of the rest. That's where we've been for virtually all of the past few decades now, and despite numerous high profile appointments and changes in personnel it's still where we are at, with a real danger of coming up some way short of even being best of the rest this season.
I'd love to be more optimistic, but temper my views with a dose of realism. It's a very difficult cycle to break when the Club has fallen too far down the pecking order as to attract the better players that become available. There's no possibility of us attracting the modern day equivalents of Gascoigne, Lineker, Sheringham, Ginola, let alone a Greaves, and it is imperative to be able to compete for players of that quality for the Club to reach a level where we would all like it to be.
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Step 1 is CL.
That makes us viable from a commercial revenue standpoint and additional CL revenues. That is very attainable either this year or next. Especially, financially next year.
We need everything in place for next season while still holding onto that barest of hopes for top 4 this season.
If we get back to that level we will rock it.
We are not that far away. The money matters.
That makes us viable from a commercial revenue standpoint and additional CL revenues. That is very attainable either this year or next. Especially, financially next year.
We need everything in place for next season while still holding onto that barest of hopes for top 4 this season.
If we get back to that level we will rock it.
We are not that far away. The money matters.
SmithAndJones
Vital 1st Team Regular
I agree entirely that CL qualification means everything, that's why it has been so disappointing to see us fall out of contention this season from a strong position. If and when we get there, and manage to do well, we will need to capitalise on that far more effectively than when we reached the final a few years ago.
Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
CL qualification would be a facade if we don't sign some top players. Europa is more realistic trophy wise.
D
Departed
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CL is much more lucrative.
SmithAndJones
Vital 1st Team Regular
I've pretty much written CL off for next season, but a chink of light keeps appearing. Whether Arsenal and United screw up sufficiently, and we perform sufficiently well to get in via the backdoor remains to be seen.
Whilst playing in the CL is for me what it has to be all about, I'd be a bit concerned at this stage if we qualify for next season, as to whether we are or will be ready for it, in what is very much a transitional phase.
Certainly the CL is a far more lucrative competition to be in, but I would think that that evens out if you go out in the group stages, as compared to going deep into the Europa. For that reason I don't think that it will be a bad thing if we contest the Europa League next season. Not only, with the right investment in the summer, would it be a trophy we could target, but Europa League winners would certainly be a decent springboard for upping the quality of our potential signings.
TQ2Spurs
Vital Champions League
It's still worth aiming for 5th on the off chance Chelsea end up being sanctioned for whatever reason. The two crunch games are this Sunday against Wet Spam and the home game against the Gooners, win both of those and things will look somewhat different as we have on paper a far easier run in. As I said on another thread, we have a small advantage over Wham as they have to play in the EL tonight and are 1 goal down so need to field their best eleven who will have 24 hours less recovery time.
Spursex
Alert Team
UK sanctions imposed on their current owner, (even with a quick sale process being conducted to appoint a preferred bidder), still might take months and months to complete given that the legalities needed to adhere to the UK government granting a special license for the sale - which will somehow have to be tied to Abramovitch diverting the funds to a recognised charity under the charity commissioners oversight, may not be as simple as some think...
But as always we will see, so there is most definitely a real risk that the deal isn't finalised by the end of the season.
If a deal isn't struck and concluded before the end of the season, and isn't in accord with how the funds would be committed to this government's satisfaction, then bankruptcy could still be a possibility and given the myriad of political and legal complications that could ensue to get it over the line, it would be a fitting outcome.
Let's not forget that the owner writing off the mountain of debt attached to the club now would be handing the new owners an incredible sporting advantage, one that would be akin to administration and then being allowed to start again with a clean sheet - when this happens to clubs now, they'll get as a minimum a big points deduction... so what will the PL and UEFA make of it?
Gary Onedaysoon
*Prediction Champion 20/21 & 21/22*
How did Chelsea manage to bypass the FFP with a £1.5b loan anyway? Surely City could have done something similar?
Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
It seems unfair to other clubs to have an owner writing off debt and absorbing losses out of his own pocket. That's not a level playing field and allows the club to sign and pay wages to expensive players disregarding sustainable gate revenue.
It stinks.
Spursex
Alert Team
the debt was piled up over 19 years - for much of that the FFPR didn't exist, when they did, they were at first very weak and sanctions for over-spending, small. In recent years all were relaxed because of Covid - along the way Chelsea found they could literally break youth rules and sign young up and and coming players from everywhere and anywhere - and they did (much talk of and even some evidence or serious dodgy dealings to get them to sign), then they'd loan them out and at one point I think they had something like 27 loans out that turned into some serious player sales they used to subside their operations - just before the pandemic this financial doping was coming to and end and the pandemic allowed the owner to once again pump in enough to buy time and space to operate.
City have 'cheated' mostly by having commercial deals (sponsorship) from companies that their owners either had stakes in or were related to in some form or another and arguably none stood the commercial test of being arms length - but this 'financial doping' was only recently closed down even then the £50 mill fine they got was mitigated...so in both cases poor governance allowed them to get away with financial cheating and so won them much of the success they have; one very much has victims blood on all the silverware they won.
freundorfoe
Vital 1st Team Regular
I mean... this is what many of us have been saying since 2003.
Levy's biggest mistake as chairman was believing the playing field would be leveled by FFP. Was sort of Wenger's downfall too. Think they both believed that running the most successful sustainable clubs bar United would put them right in the mix for silverware when the sword of Damocles fell on Chelsea, City & etc. But it never really fell. Even these sanctions will most likely be relaxed enough to allow them to carry on flaunting the rules or best case a sale to some other deep pocketed poorly regulated owner
Spursex
Alert Team
Part of the issue (as always) is money - the European clubs have largely satiated their need for regular influxes of cash from the likes of Chelsea and I was reading an analysis of what the state of some clubs in Europe would be if Chelsea hadn't been spending money like confetti....so that's a big reason why the pressure on UEFA and FIFA to look the other way to some of their shady practices has happened the way it has.
An interesting question that maybe deserves its own thread but I have no idea how to do it!
Given Pochettino is stalling with PSG and doesn’t appear to be getting the best from some of the more greatly acclaimed players in the world would we prefer him or a committed Conte whose persistence and coaching is starting to get the best from the largely similar group of players that other ‘top’ managers couldn’t get a tune from.
So preferences Conte or Pochettino?
Given Pochettino is stalling with PSG and doesn’t appear to be getting the best from some of the more greatly acclaimed players in the world would we prefer him or a committed Conte whose persistence and coaching is starting to get the best from the largely similar group of players that other ‘top’ managers couldn’t get a tune from.
So preferences Conte or Pochettino?
Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
What is the longest Conte has stayed anywhere and is he using us as a stepping stone ?
Real Deal
Alert Team
I wonder if the club have been talking to him about a new deal?
Or are they holding back to see if we get CL?
Both Bentancur and Kulu have said they came here because of Conte.
If you are a potential player coming in, would you want to join us if Conte leaves a year later?
I don't particularly like the situation we are in regarding his contract.
Or are they holding back to see if we get CL?
Both Bentancur and Kulu have said they came here because of Conte.
If you are a potential player coming in, would you want to join us if Conte leaves a year later?
I don't particularly like the situation we are in regarding his contract.
