[Albion] Paul Winstanley joins Chelsea as Director of Global Talent and Transfers

[highflyer]

I probably won't boo, it's not really what I do.

But if I do, and by god I'll be tempted, I'll not be booing specifically at Potter. Or Bruno. Or even Chelsea.

I'll be booing in frustration at the whole sordid mess that is top level football. And underneath that, at the whole sordid system that football is now just one part of. A system that treats everything, no matter how important, or dear, it is to us as individuals, as a way to suck yet more money upwards, to people who are already too rich for their own good. A system where economic inequality has led to inequality of power so profound that there live amongst us a group of people that can do almost anything, safe in the knowledge that they are protected by their wealth and privilege.

I am watching a successful team, which itself has been built on the back of extreme wealth (because there's no other way to do it) being asset stripped by those with even greater wealth. I am watching the media praising Newcastle and giving airtime to joyous fans to celebrate success while studiously ignoring the background story of murder and oppression that has enabled that success. I am watching excited preparations for the football we want to watch to be stopped for six weeks so that corporate sponsors and pampered media darlings can fatten their bank accounts on the back of a tournament, won through corruption and built on suffering and death.

And actually yeah. I might boo a bit.

 

[raymondo]

Sanchez is above those two in just about every goal keeping stat this season.

Fair enough!

 

[Justice]

This is getting beyond a joke! Why not take Paul Barber as well and make it a full set? I have no doubt that players will leave in January. What’s the point in trying to succeed? Any glimmer of success and the big clubs tempt away our coaches and players. O K we get the message, they are telling us to “get back where we belong in the lower leagues “

I noticed on Saturday evening they had bottle tops on their cola, Barber wouldn’t put up with that nonsense #firstjob

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

Sanchez is above those two in just about every goal keeping stat this season.

He isn't at all. In fact Sanchez is actually near the bottom for goalkeeper stats this season. Kepa is third at the moment based on the stats below (obviously based on Kepa's limited appearances this season)

Premier League Goalkeeper Stats | FBref.com

Check out Goalkeeper Stats for the 2024-2025 Premier League season.

fbref.com

 

[Beanstalk]

The fact we were going to have to have Crofts and Lallana take over the team shows how unexpected and unprepared they were for what went down. Suggests the opposite of being completely prepared.

But hard to be prepared for something that big so not their fault.

We undoubtedly got lucky there was a manager out there who wasn't contracted to a team which helped us find a replacement in a relatively short time. It made him a more favourable candidate to bring in over others who were contracted to other clubs.

Both are true (though more your point). The club were very surprised at the timing of Chelsea's sacking of Tuchel/approach of Potter, they didn't have anything in place to immediately bring in RDZ. They were also expecting that Potter would leave the club at some point so had a contingency plan in place for that occurrence and were able to enact that very quickly. The club understand the position of hiring people who are good at their job and losing them to much bigger clubs.

RDZ was the only candidate we spoke to and he was very keen. We were lucky in the sense that it was a good fit for all parties and we were able to bring him in very quickly.

 

[redoubtable seagull]

Chelsea think they can quick-fix, fast track their development by throwing significant money and ultimately over-pay to cherry-pick our best talent from the playing, coaching and recruitment staff. The talent that has taken Bloom and Barber many years and a lot of Bloom’s money - and a lot of patience from the fans - to achieve a steady level of incremental ‘success’ and that elusive top 10 finish last season. Timing is everything in most walks of life and that can certainly be said in football. The first hint of being on the cusp of something special and the vultures at Chelsea have circled over dangling large sums of money to recruit key people and rightly compensate the club. Money talks and they’ve had to pay handsomely, nearly £90m, to pick up our playing and back room talent. I don’t begrudge Potter et al wanting to take up the opportunity to work at a higher level, work with better players, test themselves amongst Europe’s elite and be paid very well, but I detest the manner in which Chelsea’s new owners have ransacked the club for its best talent. I hope Chelsea’s model is too simplistic that by just buying up the talent from the smaller rival, it will guarantee them the level of success they aspire to as a so called big club in Europe.

 

[Justice]

kk

Unexpected? I heard the phrase blindsided, and to be blindsided you’re usually pretty sure that things are very settled I.E. you’re all in agreement on strategy for the forthcoming season and things are going great after SIX games. Boehly caused the upheaval and he’s now emboldened to go after other talented people. I’m sure absolutely nothing football related is unexpected (now) in the Brighton boardroom.

Potter was having private conversations with Boehly over the summer about Cucurella which seems wrong to me, he was impressed with Potter then and then he swooped.

He isn't at all. In fact Sanchez is actually near the bottom for goalkeeper stats this season. Kepa is third at the moment based on the stats below (obviously based on Kepa's limited appearances this season)

Premier League Goalkeeper Stats | FBref.com

Check out Goalkeeper Stats for the 2024-2025 Premier League season.

fbref.com

I would rather believe the PL official site.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

The Yanks probably think they’re getting Paul Stanley. These are crazy, crazy, crazy...

 

[Trigger]

Potter is a w. anchor, deserves to be booed big time, shame I'm working.

 

[Justice]

Potter is a w. anchor, deserves to be booed big time, shame I'm working.

That’s life

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

I would rather believe the PL official site.

The PL official site has fairly limited stats for GK and even then it doesn't show Sanchez as above Kepa on most of the head to head stats.

​

 

[Braggfan]

kk

Potter was having private conversations with Boehly over the summer about Cucurella which seems wrong to me, he was impressed with Potter then and then he swooped.

I would rather believe the PL official site.

I not really getting into the debate about who's better, but I will point out that the premier league site's stats aren't very informative.

It has Sanchez ranked higher on clean sheets, because he has more but he's also played a more games. Kepa for example has much better clean sheet %. It's a bit like saying a team who are top of the table by 1 point but have played 5 games more than the team in 2nd, are much better.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

I’m not going to keep arguing with you - clearly we have a different emotional response to Potter/Chelsea mine stripping our staff and players - you’re not saying anything anybody doesn’t know so no need to keep repeating it - I’ll just refer you back to post #161 and leave it at that

Sorry if that came across as me arguing, I was basically just thinking straight onto the screen, hence the rather unfocused nature of my replies.
I say unfocused, a more honest assessment would be meaningless dreck.
If we set the bar for posting at "things people don't already know" then we might have to dump most of the forum

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Potter sees an asset at another club and wants his new club to buy it?

What's wrong with that?

Some people seem to be hankering for football to be re-imagined as some sort of socialist collective.

If you want socialism, try moving in with Herr Tubthumper.

I never had you down as red in tooth and claw. Shall we form a commune together? The free Geriatrics?

Corrected for you.

 

[AmexRuislip]

The Yanks probably think they’re getting Paul Stanley. These are crazy, crazy, crazy...

Thats another fine mess they've left us in

 

[chaileyjem]

kk

Potter was having private conversations with Boehly over the summer about Cucurella which seems wrong to me, he was impressed with Potter then and then he swooped.

This is quite the exclusive. And your source for this story ?

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

Bit like Bruno, we couldn’t give him any assurances because I suspect we already knew we were bringing in DeZerbi and his entire team.

This Chelsea owner, classic big business - I want everything that made that successful. People blaming Potter - ridiculous really, this guy has wanted the complete setup and he’s gone for it. Unless people in the room know Potter has gone to him and said ‘we really need Winstanley’ it’s just guessing to fuel some anger at the perceived injustice that can be targeted at a visible individual.

Kind of disagree re Bruno, it was clear there would be a role for him IMO, now picked up by Crofts. We are very good at looking after our ex-players, and I see no reason to suggest this would have been different. He chose to go, in my view, doesn’t make him a bad person or anything like that, but really disappoints me (mainly because I liked him so much). Me, me me -

Re Potter yes, with you 100%.

 

[Stat Brother]

I'm gonna take a sign, written on the inside of a box of wheatabix:-

POTTER - DO YOU WANT THE SHIRT OFF MY BACK?

 

[BLOCK F]

I probably won't boo, it's not really what I do.

But if I do, and by god I'll be tempted, I'll not be booing specifically at Potter. Or Bruno. Or even Chelsea.

I'll be booing in frustration at the whole sordid mess that is top level football. And underneath that, at the whole sordid system that football is now just one part of. A system that treats everything, no matter how important, or dear, it is to us as individuals, as a way to suck yet more money upwards, to people who are already too rich for their own good. A system where economic inequality has led to inequality of power so profound that there live amongst us a group of people that can do almost anything, safe in the knowledge that they are protected by their wealth and privilege.

I am watching a successful team, which itself has been built on the back of extreme wealth (because there's no other way to do it) being asset stripped by those with even greater wealth. I am watching the media praising Newcastle and giving airtime to joyous fans to celebrate success while studiously ignoring the background story of murder and oppression that has enabled that success. I am watching excited preparations for the football we want to watch to be stopped for six weeks so that corporate sponsors and pampered media darlings can fatten their bank accounts on the back of a tournament, won through corruption and built on suffering and death.

And actually yeah. I might boo a bit.

Yep, that is football at the highest level and why I keep an interest in what is happening further down the pyramid. I have a healthy interest in Stockport County as my second team. I have followed their ups and downs for quite some time and it is a refreshing contrast to take such an interest in the less ‘glamorous’ end of professional football.

 

[attila]

Booing? Certainly. I have always loathed Chelsea anyway, and am sickened beyond belief by the whole episode. But it is the logical result of the way modern football operates. Everyone's feelings about it will obviously be different. These are mine: two posts on my Facebook page over the last couple of weeks.

Post 1
This Guardian article reflects my own feelings exactly. https://www.theguardian.com/.../football-must-remember-it...
I spent over a decade of my life passionately involved in the battle to save the club I love, was the stadium announcer for 14 years and saw us rise from the bottom of Division Four (as it should be called) with no ground, playing our home games at Gillingham, to 7th in the Premier League, playing beautiful football, acknowledged as a brilliantly run club.

Now we have hit a glass ceiling, a Groundhog Day of fandom. Three of our best players, our manager and entire backroom staff stripped away by MONEY. And we are fully aware that in the next transfer window MONEY will come back for more. Not sport. Not superior footballing brains, not better planning: just MONEY.

And the most ridiculous thing of all is that we have enough money of our own, indeed far, far too much for the way I'd like football to be run. Our chairman and club set up doesn't need the money that MONEY will give us in exchange for our best players. But what makes their money MONEY, and ours just money, and what makes our players want to play for them, is that they are 'one of the six big clubs' and we're ‘one of the other small clubs'.

And if a 'small club' (so small that we nearly went out of existence in our case) can't become a 'big club' the way we tried to do it - years of campaigning, good stewardship, careful recruitment and one of the finest managers the game has ever seen - because MONEY trumps not just all that, but MONEY trumps money itself if the money is not in the hands of those who make it MONEY...then football is, as the article says, no longer a sport.

Post 2
Juergen Klopp has got nothing to apologise for in pointing out that brutal oligarchic and state owned regimes ‘owning’ football clubs is a huge part of the reason why the modern game is simultaneously obscene in its excesses and predictable in its outcomes.

We have had an incredible 25 year rise from the bottom of the 4th division with no ground to 7th in the Premier League. It has been a roller coaster of wonder. Now we have reached the glass ceiling, it’s nowhere near as interesting. The football is beautiful, but the game is sick.

The Potter episode sometimes makes me want to walk away, if I am honest, and given my passion for the Albion that is saying something. Brilliantly run club, great recruitment, unique manager, everything ripped away by the power of money. And not just any money but Chelsea money, money stolen from the Russian people, leaving millions living in misery.

As I have said before, I feel like a goldfish owner who loves my pet as much as ever but utterly loathes the water it is swimming in now.

Something fundamental has to change. If someone like me - who spent years of my life battling to save the club he loves - feels like this when we are 7th in the Premier League, there really is something wrong with the game.