11 Mar 2026 10:27:28
The question asked of me about the players being better or worst than Arsenal and City.
We have equally better players but not better coaching. We have had four different right full backs, four different center backs, three left midfielders, two center forwards. so in short, no cohesion over the season which in fairness has not helped the head coach, but that does not give him a get out of jail card.
we have a squad full of quality players that in reality should be winning the Premier League and cups, but a lot of the fans don't believe in the coach and the players. they think we are like a rudderless ship floating in and out of games and we have become reliant on two players to win us games; VVD and Salah, but they are waning with age so we need new leaders coming in to the club from the top to the bottom, we will leave that with FSG.
YNWA
11 Mar 2026 10:53:07
I think it was 6 different RB's - Bradley, Frimpong, Szobo, Endo, Gomez and Curtis.
11 Mar 2026 11:22:28
Honestly, our playing 11 is just not balanced.
The midfield isn't sorted.
The defence has not adjusted.
The attack just misfires.
You can run from it as much as you want, but we should have bid farewell to Salah and VVD last year and really started out from zero, especially when money for an astute rebuild was available.
Cuz we will be doing that next year anyway.
11 Mar 2026 12:11:50
@Cafu, did you mention we should sell VVD and Salah on here this time last year?
11 Mar 2026 13:17:15
I can't agree with any of that, Cafu.
The squad is balanced. All we've really done is replaced the players we lost.
Trent - Frimpong
Tsimikas - Kerkez
Quansah - Leoni
Darwin - Ekitike
Jota - Isak
Diaz - Wirtz.
Yes, we lost Elliott and Doak too, but did they really need replacing? Neither were good enough anyway.
Now, if you'd told me we would do that business in the summer (apart from the Jota tragedy, obviously RIP Diogo), I'd have said we have improved the squad massively.
I watched Sky's review of last season the other day, and I think people forget just how important Gakpo was. He was brilliant last season, scored loads of really important goals for us, so there was no reason to expect him to be as poor as he's been. Don't get me started on Salah. He was unbelievable last season, but this season he's lost any football talent he once had, and he was one of the best in the world.
We've lost a good £250-£300m of talent (maybe more) and signed £450m of talent. All different types of player to what we had, but there is no other Trent out there and you'd be hard pushed to find anyone who wouldn't have swapped Diaz for Wirtz in the summer or Darwin for Isak.
£200m of the talent we signed have barely played due to fitness and injury, and others have struggled to settle.
It was absolutely the right decision to keep Mo and VVD, as we were already losing Trent and Diaz through their own choice, so what message would it send if we'd also lost VVD and Mo? We had to keep them for at least another season, it was imperative, and they were both imperious last season, so why would we believe they'd drop off so much?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but at the start of the season we had a great squad on paper which we all believed was an improvement on last season. Football isn't played on paper though, and with the injury issues and basic poor coaching we've been really poor.
The Jota tragedy has had an impact, but we'll never know how much.
Ultimately though, Slot has been given a squad that should at least be challenging for the title, and for whatever reason he's fluffed it. I think there's much more to it than we know, but the buck stops with Slot, he knows that, and it's very likely it will cost him his job.
{Ed001's Note - we replaced Elliott and Doak mate - Rio replaced Doak and Nyoni is the replacement for Elliott.}
11 Mar 2026 15:21:55
I agree, Carry, and it does my head in that people are blaming the players still. I'm not saying they have no responsibility, but all the calls for getting rid of so many that were instrumental to winning the league last year when the whole team looks lost this year is short sighted.
I would like all the players that want to stay to get a new look by whoever is the next manager. Slot has used players out of position and with tactics so ill suited to them, it makes no sense to get rid based on this season.
Salah is the best example, but, unfortunately, because of his age, he may get moved before being given a chance/new role to prove that he still has what it takes to compete at the highest level with us. Because the whole team has been a long way off from that level all season this year.
11 Mar 2026 15:27:35
Think back to summer 06. Chelsea had just won two leagues in a row, then signed Shevchenko, Ballack, and Ashley Cole. It just doesn't work out exactly like a video game.