Mauricio Pochettino was pretty spiky in his press conference today. He had a friendly exterior, but wasn’t taking any nonsense. He was asked whether it was going to be harder to motivate his players now, given that there are no trophies to play for, just the questionable promise of a place in the Conference League. He gave an interesting response – he puffed his cheeks out and gave a grunting “wow,” then explained that he didn’t think it was on him and his staff to motivate the players. They should be motivated themselves by the fact that they’re playing for Chelsea. “It’s difficult to accept ..read more

Mauricio Pochettino has just had his press conference at Cobham, where he gave a little more detail on some of the injuries listed (and not listed) on the club’s injury report this week. Let’s start with the good news. After getting the night off in Chelsea’s 5-0 defeat to Arsenal on Tuesday night, Cole Palmer is going to be ready to go this weekend. “We assume he is going to be available and part of the squad, yes,” the coach said, not exactly filling us with confidence but a green light nonetheless. Then we came onto the medium news: Levi Colwill and Reece James are training, as we saw in ye ..read more

Even Chelsea fans who are very pro-Mauricio Pochettino have grown tired of a lack of progress in Chelsea’s play on the ball through this season. Those who want him out and replaced by Sporting manager Ruben Amorim will love the goal that the Portuguese coach’s team scored on Sunday. There were 23 passes as they built from the back, found the gaps in Vitoria Guimaraes’ team, then pounced. It was then finished off, of course, by reported Chelsea target Viktor Gyokeres. Wouldn’t you like to see a bit of this down at Stamford Bridge? Of course Amorim won’t find his team getting this kind of space ..read more

It looks very much like Arne Slot is going to be the new Liverpool manager. Things have been progressing in that direction all week, and today the man himself has openly admitted that he wants to join the Reds, and that his club Feyenoord are in negotiations about releasing him to become Jurgen Klopp’s successor at Anfield. Arne Slot: “I’d like to become new Liverpool manager, my decisions is clear”. “Feyenoord and Liverpool are in talks to negotiate, I’m waiting to see what will come out of it”. “I am confident, waiting for the clubs to reach an agreement”, told ESPN. pic.twitter.com/7ktvR ..read more

Our predicted lineup for Tuesday night’s game against Arsenal had Carney Chukwuemeka starting. We knew Cole Palmer would be out, and we suspected Enzo Fernandez would be too, clearing space for Chukwuemeka in the starting lineup. But he didn’t feature at all, deepening the mystery about what his status is. To remind you of his injuries this season – he started the first two games of the season, coming off injured after 45 minutes of the second. That knee issue kept him out until mid-January. We finally saw a few cameos off the bench, then a new problem kept him out from the start of February u ..read more

John Terry’s appearance on a podcast this week has certainly generated a few interesting headlines and storylines. We particularly liked his take on Conor Gallagher, the current player who has had the dubious honour of taking the armband which JT once proudly wore in happier times. Terry insisted that he was happy with the decision to make Gallagher happened, and admitted there weren’t many others in the squad that he considered up to the task of captaining the Blues. “I like Conor. I’ve known him since he was a young kid. Seeing him now as a Chelsea fan, I look and go ‘if there’s one player I ..read more

It looks like Chelsea will once again be without one of their most important players when they travel to Aston Villa this Saturday night in the Premier League match. The Blues have been struggling with injuries for a long time now, and they just seem to keep coming and coming. I’m fed up with talking about them to be honest and trying to diagnose what the big problem is at the club with injuries, because there are clearly big issues there. THREE sources stories: Chelsea drop U25 rule, Player sales – club ready to push through a large number of departures, Chelsea eyeing four new wingers with t ..read more

One report today has suggested that the future of Mauricio Pochettino will rest on one key thing for the rest of this season with the Blues head coach under huge amounts of pressure now. Most Chelsea fans want him sacked, many wanted him gone months ago, and any who don’t want him sacked yet, are still pretty keen to see him gone at the end of the season. It’s important to say that not all Chelsea fans want him sacked though, but it is certainly the majority that do. THREE sources stories: Chelsea drop U25 rule, Player sales – club ready to push through a large number of departures, Chelsea ey ..read more

Chelsea have finally confirmed the big rumours that were going around for the last couple of days via their official club website. It was all very official down the lines of a club announcement, and it is actually nice that they have finally come out and confirmed all the talk that has been going around this week. THREE sources stories: Chelsea drop U25 rule, Player sales – club ready to push through a large number of departures, Chelsea eyeing four new wingers with two up for sale! It was suggested last week that midfielder Enzo Fernandez might need to go ahead and have surgery on his hernia ..read more

Simon Jordan has got so deep into defending Chelsea’s ownership that he was really left high and dry by the battering the Blues took on Tuesday night. This meant on TalkSport he had to make excuses for the game, and had Danny Murphy on his side to do so. They both pointed to the improved results and performances of the last few months, and dismissed the result againts Arsenal as basically “just what happens against a top team.” “Not ideal,” Murphy called it in what might be the understatement of the season. In his usual patronising manner, Jordan decided to explain to fans who watch every game ..read more