Paul Merson has ripped into Chelsea labelling the club a circus and saying it looks like they’ve built a squad based on YouTube clips.
The Blues slipped to a new low on Tuesday night when they got thrashed 5-0 by rivals Arsenal at the Emirates, with their expensively assembled squad unable to get anywhere near the Gunners on the pitch.
Since Todd Boehly and Clearlake took over the club almost two years ago and spent £1bn on new signings, it’s safe to say not much has gone right at Stamford Bridge, and there’s been little signs of progress.
For the second consecutive campaign Chelsea will be without silverware, and they once again face the prospect of having no European football next season.
Mauricio Pochettino’s men sit ninth in the table three points behind Newcastle in seventh and six behind Manchester United in sixth, but do have a game in hand on their rivals in the race for Europe.
Chelsea’s expensively assembled squad has come in for a lot of criticism this season with players performing nowhere near the standard required, with some looking like they aren’t good enough to play for the club.
Sky Sports pundit Merson has savaged Chelsea’s squad building process saying “I don’t even know who would sign half of them.”
Merson hasn’t been impressed with Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo in the Blue’s midfield claiming for the money spent they should be dominating every game.
“Enzo Fernandez for £100m and £115m on Moises Caicedo. Who’s gone out with the vision that these are going to be the best two midfield players in world football?, the 56-year-old wrote in his Sky Sports column.
“Because they should be for nearly a quarter of a billion pounds. They should run the show every game.”
On how the Blues put together their squad the former Arsenal man didn’t hold back on his thoughts.
“It almost seems like agents are sending videos of a player, five-minute clips, and Chelsea have gone, ‘I’ll take him. Oh my God, how good is he? Look at his clips. Look at him’.
“They’ve just got a YouTube team together. Like they’ve looked at clips and put it together and gone, ‘this team can play. Look at these.’ But it’s a million miles off.”
Pochettino takes his side to high flying Aston Villa on Saturday night knowing a win is crucial for Chelsea’s chances of Europe, but also his chance of still being at the club next season.
This has everything to do with Jackson, just as we’ve seen games after games. When a team works so hard to create chances that are supposed to be put away but instead are being frustrated by an individual’s lack of professionalism and poor mentality in front of goal, the team tends to lose a bit of confidence and fighting spirit as the game progresses. Had Jackson utilized his chances, we would have had a better season. Infact, we might have won or drew the match with arsenal, and would have certainly won against Man City. Jackson’s best performances came when he was having competition from Broja and Nkunku for minutes, I think it’s best we drop him for two games and allow Deivid Washington start ahead of him, probably it will ginger him and bring back the Jackson we saw after the Africans Nations Cup. Jackson is mainly the catalyst that brings setback to the team every match day, plus the coach’s team selection and subs most times shows he does not really have it in him to lead this team to the promised land. Ny now the coach should know that Badiashile has nothing to offer playing as a center back, cuz every match he has been involved this season, we’ve concerned nothing less than 2-3 goals, why drop the current best pair of chalobah and Silva for the pair of Disasi and Badiashile always full of mistakes and uncertainties? It really baffles me a lot. Aston villa will demolish Chelsea just as arsenal did if the coach is senseless enough to start Badiashile in defence again, Jackson really needs to be subbed in in the last 20-30 minutes every game from now till the end of the season. It’s time to give Deivid Washington a chance, afterall, what more havoc or ridicule can we expect from the team at this point of the season that we’ve not seen already?
I totally agree with you but my greatest concern is the coach. Against an Arsenal side fighting for the title, he decided to play the worst possible combination of individuals in our defence. His line up, substitutions, tactics and body language is terrible. He does seem to have the gut to even reprimand players after terrible performance. These same players will seat up with a better coach.
I been saying that all along why this coach not dropping Jackson to the bench and try Washington, how could this madman drop chalobar and silver to play badiashile and desasi, to many mistakes by the coach