THOMAS TUCHEL SACKED BUT HOLD THE CELEBRATIONS
Ahhh, you guys, so damn kind on the birthday of Le Grove. Is that going to last all year? Of course not you total savages.
The Chelsea FREAK show kicked up a gear last night. Auba put in a disaster class that we’ve seen many times before and Chelsea lost to Zagreb in their Champions League opener.
Todd B did what he needed to do after the game, sacking one of the best managers in the world in September, so sharp.
What’s that tho? Arteta sees off another ‘WE FAILED BY NOT SIGNING HIM’ manager? Quite something.
I’d feel more hopeful about the sacking if Todd B was going to chase down some old relic of the past to take on the Chelsea mess – like a Capello or a Zola… but it sounds like he’s going to make moves on Graham Potter and pay the £15m release fee.
I’m a massive fan of Potter, the man got a suit sorted, upgraded his hair, and trimmed the Brighton beach surfer beard. Now he’s gonna be hanging with Todd B forcing him to do Instagram stories at Chiltern Firehouse.
‘Whose bitch are you Big G? TODD’S BITCH. Like my post.’
Potter is a problem going to Chelsea if they have patience with him.
I’ve read some people say that he hasn’t dealt with BIG players before, and yes, that is true. Don Unai had trophies, but he was a beta male in the dressing room and was rolled for it. Chelsea has had most of its success predicated on beast managers with BIG reps and HUGE egos.
Jose… Conte… Carlo…
When they go for upstarts, it doesn’t end well.
We’ve seen AVB come in and tank, we’ve seen watched Frank Lampard get the big seeee yah, and we’ve seen Di Matteo come and go at breakneck speed.
Graham Potter lives more in the world of AVB for coaching talent, but the problem with the Portuguese man is he was a bit of a dickhead, I don’t think Big G has that issue.
Potter made his name in Norway, hoovering up difficult to work with players, and making them more than the sum of their parts. Remeber when he beat us with Ostersunds? He’s personable, he has great ideas, and if he’s given time, he is going to make Chelsea a tour de force.
Why might this NOT work for him?
Todd B doesn’t really know what he’s doing if his transfer business is anything to go by. Chelsea isn’t really ready for JdP. They are further ahead than Manchester United squad-wise. But really, they need more players that can play his way and there will need to be a lot of money spent to get there.
Great managers are NOTHING without good people around them. Potter isn’t a technical director, Dan Ashworth was the brains behind the Brighton operation before he went to Newcastle, Chelsea have been hemorrhaging staff all summer.
So who knows how this pans out, but for me, this is a really, really good hire for them IF Brighton let him go.
Ok, how about some more ref juice?
OK, so still hearing it doesn’t matter that 60% of all referees hail from the NW of England – there’s no bias. So I thought I’d take a look at penalties stats. I went back across the past five seasons including this one – 1,580 matches. Guess who comes out top…
— Matt Scott (@Matt5cott) September 6, 2022
Matt is one of my fave people I’ve met through Le Grove. He’s gone hard at uncovering the correlation between mostly refs from the North West giving North West clubs better decisions… and boy oh boy is there a hard correlation.
United gets more penalties via 45% less touches in the box… WOW.
That is the difference between someone like Matt and someone like the guy from the Independent who said fans were wack jobs for refusing to believe that the talentless crop of refs we watch have no bias.
One investigates a curious oddity… the refuses to dig a little deeper.
I know who I’d rather read.
Arsenal have taken a big squad to the Europa League tie. I hope we’re doing that to have a massive bench. My fear is Arteta wants to crush the early games so when things get spicy fixture-wise before the WC, he can rest hard then.
I do worry though…
We have had a lot of injuries so far this season, more than we normally do, and putting these kids on a plane feels reckless.
But we’ll see, I don’t have the data, I’m not qualified, so until I have something to whine about, I’ll keep it SHUT.
Bernd Leno has gone BIG on Arteta.
“When I realised that it wasn’t about performance or quality, I knew I had to go,”
“During the preparation, I saw that it’s not about performance, it’s just about politics. It was clear to me: I have to get out of here.”
Ooof… there might be SOME truth to Aaron Ramsdale getting games when his form dipped. There’s also some truth around the problems with the keeping coach who chose Ramsdale. BUT if his performances were that good, wouldn’t he be at a better club than Fulham and wouldn’t he have caught that cross against Arsenal?
Oooohhhh… birthday bitch over here.
Right, short one today. Get on the On The Whistle stuff and subscribe to the Patreon. Next one is going out on Friday!