Carlos ⭐⭐

Autodidact. Polyglot. Runner. Blues supporter. Obeys none of Grice's maxims.

[Mark Worrall @gate17marco]

Unfortunately, nobody representing Chelsea on the pitch, in the technical area, or in the boardroom, seems to understand the significance of this fixture.

[Carlos ⭐⭐ @mavrossport]

Every single player and the manager haven't showed up for this game. THIS game 🤯🤷‍♂️

[Carlos ⭐⭐ @mavrossport]

Brentford are a team that can deal with crosses all day long, so we've attempted 25 of them - great tactics 👏 shambles from top to bottom

[Carlos ⭐⭐ @mavrossport]

Lamine Yamal is an unlikeable little wanker isn't he. Plays for the right club

[Carlos ⭐⭐ @mavrossport]

Is this a huge socio-psychological experiment to help Arsenal remake reality & see how people react? 'Cos the only ones who think this are Arsenal fans and PGMOL. So they're either not fit for purpose or complicit in corruption. Astounding

[The Athletic | Football @TheAthleticFC]

Arsenal centre-back Gabriel did not commit “an act of violent conduct or serious foul play” when appearing to kick out at Chelsea goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez, a Premier League panel has said.

The incident occurred in the fifth minute of the league meeting between the sides in north London earlier this month, which Arsenal won 2-1.

📝 @Millar_Colin

https://t.co/m8fpspBUy0

[Simon Phillips @siphillipssport]

England are serial bottlers, proving this competition after competition.

[England Athletics @EnglandAthletic]

Having started ten years ago with a Facebook post from the founder asking if people would like to go for a run, @WidnesRC have grown year on year, now with a total of 348 members on their 10th anniversary 🎂

Read more ⬇
https://t.co/Wk59U2I0PE

[CooperBaggs 💰🍞 @edgaralandough]

Lukewarm take: we need to stop using mental health/therapy buzzwords in day to day life. Not everyone you dislike is a narcissist. Being sad doesn’t mean you’re depressed. There’s a resounding difference between being nervous and having anxiety. You’re not ADHD because you don’t like to sit still. You’re not autistic because you’re quirky. OCD doesn’t mean you’re organized. And for the love of all that is holy, not every situation that made you uncomfortable is “trauma”.

[Adam Grant @AdamMGrant]

What really drives leaders to resist remote work isn't productivity. It’s ego.

Our new data: Ordering people in full-time is a power & status move. Bosses want to be worshiped at the office altar.

Policies shouldn’t be vanity projects. Hybrid is better for people & performance.

[Ollie Glanvill 🏆x6 @OllieGlanvill]

No front of shirt sponsor to start a PL for 4 consecutive seasons. Still “talking to multiple companies” though. An absurd record of abject failure.

[Bobby F. 🍁 @bobbyfairview]

Dear @ebehdad

RE: The Conflict of Perverse Incentives

I want to be fair to you. You had less than a month to structure a complex billion pound transaction, so some mistakes were always going to happen. But the mistake I’m describing isn’t an execution error. It’s a conceptual flaw baked into the deal from day one, and it has permanently poisoned your strategic position.

You built a structure with three stakeholder groups, and you only have a fiduciary duty to one of them. That was always going to end badly. Let me explain why.

A man came to you and said he had £300m and wanted to buy a business for £4.2bn. Two of his mates would chip in £300m each. You lent him the rest. To their credit, they’ve been matching cash calls ever since. But here is what you actually agreed to: you needed Boehly’s money, which meant Boehly got something in return. What he got was influence over the sporting operation. And the first thing he did with it was sack Thomas Tuchel so he could have his dressing room access.

That decision, made to protect your financial relationship with a co-investor who couldn’t actually afford the asset, is what set everything else in motion.

Roman left you a blueprint. He won trophies, built a global brand, and maintained a fair value that always exceeded his cost basis. Central to that was Cobham. Fans across England sing “he’s one of our own” for a reason. That bond between a club and its homegrown players is not sentiment. It is enterprise value. You dismantled it. You sold the graduates and killed the pipeline, not because it made sporting sense, but because your financial model required short term asset monetisation over long term brand construction.

You have now spent more on transfers than any ownership group in the history of football. Chelsea are currently 9th. Below Brentford. Below Brighton. That is the sporting output of your model, and those fans who sang “he’s one of our own” have noticed.

Here is where your conceptual flaw becomes permanent. Boehly has £100m of interest accrued and payable to Ares. You have at least £600m sitting in the Cayman Islands, accruing and payable to COP III. Across the group the interest bill is approaching £400m this year. That means you have no choice but to run this club for one purpose: to make debt service payments. Managing a football club to pay interest has never worked in the history of this game unless you’re Manchester United. Your problem is that you don’t have their revenues. So you are flipping players to fund cash flow.

There will be no properly experienced signings. No manager with real authority. No trophies. You’re caught in a sell-to-buy death spiral and fans have worked out exactly what is happening.

If you’ve made it this far in my letter, this is the part I’d encourage you to sit up and focus on. You need the fans more than they need you. Every day more of them are learning what this structure actually means for the club they love, and they are making a rational decision: do not buy the brand of an owner who is just here to pay interest.

Your perverse incentive is to balance the books, manage the asset, and extract the best possible valuation before the debt matures. Their perverse incentive is to make sure you never get there, because the only exit that actually serves their interests is Ares foreclosing and forcing a sale to someone who can run this club properly.

Think about what that means. The fans who generate the revenue you need to service your debt are now rationally incentivised to undermine that revenue.

You created a structure where your key stakeholder group is rooting for your creditor to take the club from you. That is not a communication problem or a PR problem. It is a structural conflict with no resolution inside your current ownership model.

I’m not sure what the long term prognosis is for a business in that position. But I think you already know.

Yours truly,

bf

[Carlos ⭐⭐ @mavrossport]

There is absolutely no urgency, no running, no movement off the ball. Anathema to everything you like about watching football #cfc

[Carlos ⭐⭐ @mavrossport]

@poetwithpace Chester?!

[Carlos ⭐⭐ @mavrossport]

Marc Cucurella 👏👏👏

[Kieran Doyle @Statford_Bridge]

If an architect and an engineer design a building that collapses every time a construction company tries to build out, how many times do you sack the construction company before you look at the architect and the engineer?

[Dr Mark Williamson @markwilliamson]

❌ Things outside of your control: the past, other people’s behaviour, the overall outcome 

✅ Things within your control: today’s choices, how you treat others, your contribution to the outcome

[Carlos ⭐⭐ @mavrossport]

Wasn't perfect but what a result. Some big performances in the end - Enzo, João Pedro, Sanchez. Big win! #cfc

[Carlos ⭐⭐ @mavrossport]

Physically just not up to the fight. Literally like watching kids play. Caicedo has been shocking

[Carlos ⭐⭐ @mavrossport]

Man for man we're shocking so far. Thank god for that gift and little bit of quality from Steve! #cfc