Nothing to do with Potter, hes never heard of some of these players. 
Oddly the one position the really needed - a striker - they didnt get. But they did buy a 4th right back.
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That’s not true. We can compete.
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Yeah maybe. Then again maybe Madueke can’t get on the pitch because of his injury record, maybe Mudryk - would didn’t crack the starting line up at Shakhtar until he was nearly 22 years old - isn’t as good as the hype suggests. Maybe Felix is just as ineffective as he has been for his entire career to date.
I’m not really angry that Chelsea spent so much money to get great players - I’m irritated they soent so much money to get not great players. Consistently resetting the market to one where six months of decent football now makes you worth £80m or more… I understand the complaints about our inactivity but when Chelsea keep shifting the standards of “normal” then its obvious we can’t compete - and no legitimate business will be able to.
We aren’t going to be able to target top players anymore unless we get lucky with timing or are able to convince the player to choose us ahead of much richer teams. When the standard is £80m for 12 career goals, or £105m for seventeen games in Portugal then its just not going to possible to compete with that level of furious and reckless spending.
Its financial doping of the kind that has destroyed the transfer market for everyone - I just don’t even understand being stressed about it now. The game is rigged.
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Liverpool very rarely got what you’d call top/shiny product players on paper, so that’s really nothing new. We are one of the champions of spending often serious prices in a market for players who are not top/great on paper (so far at that point in their careers), but are at least just a little below. Though of course, it’s not like Real’s every signing is a Ronaldo.
As for prices, they’ve gone considerably up ever since Neymar’s record, which was more than twice as the last one.
I was also surprised with Mudryk’s fee. But won’t be the first nor the last time that we get (potentially in his case) new excellent players who, when you look at their CV, by the age of 22, it was just an ordinary career on paper.
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It’s all over for Ziyech then.
Hakim Ziyech’s loan move to Paris Saint-Germain from Chelsea has collapsed with Ligue 1 unwilling to ratify the transfer following the late submission of documents.
PSG had lodged an appeal to the Professional Football League (LFP)’s legal committee, alleging that the Stamford Bridge side had initially sent through the incorrect paperwork after the terms of an agreement had been finalised.
When it was flagged, they claim Chelsea sent the right documents twice but without a signature. When the correct version was received, the deadline had already passed.
Fuck ups!
Potter’s going to have fun with him and a number of other players now surplus to requirements.
He will only be able to add three of his shiny new toys to the CL squad - Enzo, Mudryk and one of Felix, Badiashile, Fofana, Santos and Madueke.
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Question how much he’d even play at PSG with Messi there.
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Todd Boehly tried to hijack the Jorginho to Arsenal deal before realizing he was a Chelsea player.
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More players doesnt make it easier. And they failed to do the one thing this side had been missing - a real striker. It’s not just about goals, but having a focal point of your attacks you can build around. It has something that has undermined every manager there since Conte kicked out Costa. Since then they have flitted between the right sort of player who just couldnt hack it (Morata, Higuain, Lukaku), The wrong player who couldnt thrive there, and the right player they oddly overlooked (Giroud).
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I think most of understood that Bohely would seed a significant investment on players. It was needed after the effects of the Abramomovic sanctions, it was specifically earmarked as part of the acquisition deal, and it makes sense for the business model. His motivations are unclear, but Clearlake at least are in this to make money, and they can only make money of they are competitive.
I don’t think anyone expected this though. I was talking to a friend this week about the dangers of accepting Venture Capital money because from the moment you get it you have to grow and grow quickly. You’re given money and the expectation is it gets spent immediately so it can start fueling the growth the VC needs to see. There is no long term. There isn’t even a medium term, there is a horizon of just 12 and 24 months. That’s what he’s turned Chelsea into. Except as one of the bigger clubs in the world already there really isnt much room for growth I dont get what he was thinking.
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There are multiple reports PIF have billions invested in Clearlake… More dodgy fucking money flowing into the game…
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Chelsea has signed more players (16) than wins (12) in all competitions this season. 
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Nottingham Forest sheepishly laughs
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But we need to SPEEEEEEEND.
WHY AREN’T WE SPEEENDINGGGGG
Yup, I did expect one or two signings this period but then expected we would see a few outgoings and that the promised “data revolution” would kick in.
What we saw was some kind of game of FIFA where you’ve taken over another club and they’ve bought a 16 year old off you for 400m and then spent that on players who they saw while picking their arse during the world cup or whatever your rivals were after.
Marcotti’s take on this are normally good, but here he is oddly on the fence, unable to stake his flag in any explanation. Instead he does a good job of laying out what they have done, puts it into historical context and describes the avenues they have to navigate in the waters they have now dived into, but seems at a loss to explain their thinking.
I think this maybe can only be made sense of by examining Eghbali’s comments about European football being 10-20 years behind American sports in key operational practices. What it looks like is they care not for what normal is because to them even the best of the best in football are rubes, and they have special sauce, by virtue of their experience in american sports, to accelerate everything. I hope the hubris fucks him.
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So basically he believes in American exceptionalism. They’ve built leagues where the owners have all the power and failure is practically impossible - then believe their own hype about being great businessmen.
Reminds me of the absolute nonsense valuations they put on their own teams. Doesn’t the Cowboys owner value them at something like 3x more valuable than Real Madrid despite, and I say this as a lover of American Football, almost no one outside of North America knowing who they are?!
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They’ll still win fuck all.
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