Can Chelsea make the top 4?
Hello and welcome to todays podcast where we will be discussing Chelsea Football CLub’s current situation. In particular, we’ll be focusing on the odds of the club finishing in the top 4, top 6 or qualifying for the Europa League. Additionally, we’ll be touching on some news regarding Chelsea’s owner, Todd Boehly, and his recent ultimatum for players to commit to at least three years at Stamford Bridge. I’m your host Jack, sit back and relax because here is what’s going on at Chelsea Football Club.
Where Chelsea will finish:
Currently, Chelsea don’t look to be in the best spot of form in the Premier League right now. They are languishing in 10th position and are in the midst of a horrible vein of form since Potter has joined the club with only 9 wins from their 25 matches under the English manager. Chelsea look to be fighting a losing battle this season, with Chelsea faltering under him as he struggles to implement his style of play onto the players and the teams around them seemingly kicking on and becoming significantly better than ever before. Teams around them such as Manchester United and Arsenal have hit new levels, with United becoming resurgent under new boss Erik Ten Hag and winning the club’s first trophy since the Jose Mourinho days at the club, and with Arsenal’s project finally coming to fruition under Mikel Arteta with them making an unlikely title charge. This has left the Premier League being a lot less open and it being significantly harder to break into the top 4, as with the gap that Chelsea have to make up this season in order to get into the Champions League spots (which is where they should aim to be )being extremely wide, Chelsea would have to be immaculate and go on a ridiculous winning streak in order to have any semblance of a chance of breaking into the top 4 this season. And so that is all but out of the picture, with bookmakers putting Chelsea at a 0.12% chance to finish in the top 4 this season, and rightly so I believe given the current state of affairs at the football club. But what about something slightly more realistic, such as the Europa League? Well, Chelsea will face stiff competition, with teams like Manchester United, Tottenham, Liverpool, Newcastle and even Brighton all fighting for the Champions League places and the losers being left in the Europa League. All of these clubs have massive points advantages over Chelsea will prove difficult to catch, with even Brighton having a 7 point lead on Chelsea, which really shows what the foundations that Graham Potter lays can do for a club. Chelsea’s odds of finishing in the top 6 range from about 4-1 all the way up to 7-1 which shows the job that Chelsea must do in order to get their season back on track. Anything less is not acceptable.
Having said all of this, I don’t necessarily think our entire season should be judged as to what competition we finish in as a result of the Premier League table. As long as we see the side growing as one and getting better and better every week i think that Chelsea should be fine in the long run as Arsenal were with Mikel Arteta after finishing outside even the Europa League spots two years on the trot. If Chelsea can build from their win against Leeds this weekend, I think that it is achieveable. We have seen glimpses of how POtter wants his team to play for example in the Champions League against Borussia Dortmund in which Chelsea absolutely tore the team apart away from home in terms of expected goals and how we actually played, with the team being unlucky after conceding from a counter attack from Karim Adayemi. If that calibre of performance can be replicated and there is signs of improvement, I genuinely wouldn’t mind us even staying on 10th if it meant we were fully ready to go. We need to give Graham Potter time to grow as Chelsea boss as he was given at Brighton in his first season.
Todd Boehly’s Ultimatum.
Moving onto the recent news that has just come out of Stamford Bridge, reportedly Todd Boehly has offered an ultimatum to many of the team’s star players who are running down on their contracts. This affects 15 of the first team players whose contracts expire before the year 2025, with Boehly supposedly telling players that they must commit to another 3 years at Stamford Bridge or they will be sold. This is an attempt to stop the PSG like way of doing things in which Kylian Mbappe last summer and Lionel Messi this summer have and will hold them to ransom for ridiculous sums of money as a result of their deals expiring and them becoming free agents. This drives up the demand for the player from other clubs as they have to pay no transfer fee and as a result of this the player’s wages go up exponentially. The players that i think specifically this will be targeting are mason Mount and N’Golo Kante, who are two of the best players in this squad as well as the fact that both have deals that expire soon. Both are currently in renewal talks and hopefully this could prove to be the deciding thing in negotiations as it takes away the power from the player and gives it to the club. I really hope that both resign as both have been great players for the club in their time here, and both have a lot to give in both the present and the future. Kante’s current deal expires this summer, but negotiations for a new deal on lowered wages in order to reflect his patchy injury record are being discussed. Kante is currently on about 350,000 pound per week, which is the joint highest in the Chelsea squad with new signing Raheem Sterling and given the fact that most of the time this season and last Chelsea have been without him, perhaps those should be lowered to around 200,000.
As for Mason Mount however, it is quite the opposite. Mount is still on a relatively small contract relative to his talent and how much he actually plays for Chelsea, and the club are looking to get him resigned for a long period of time on good wages of about 200,000 per week. However, seeing as Mount has somewhat become the face of the club in recent years as a result of him being a Cobham graduate and a good personality to put on TV as well as probably being captain material in the future. And so, he is holding the club to ransom somewhat for them to pay about 400,000 pound per week, which would break the wage structure, although with Mount the issue is not as urgent as Kante’s with Mount’s deal expiring in the summer of 2024. Manchester City and Liverpool are reportedly looking to sign the young Englishman this summer for a fee of about 50 million pounds and he could be tempted by the allure of European Football next year should Chelsea not make it.
Anyway thank you for listening (or reading ) todays podcast episode, I hope you enjoyed, if you did don’t forget to leave a like and subscribe if you are on YouTube and if you are on my website then don’t forget to check out some of my other works. I’ve been Jack Rigby, thank you and goodbye!
