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This is Joe Cole and you're listening to the London is blue podcast. All right, Chelsea fans. Welcome back to another episode. The London is blue podcast. As always, here's Brandon Jim, my coach, Nick and Dan and gentlemen, we got the Born of the Match review. Chelsea, after another dumb international break far too early in the season, Chelsea are back and it's a little bit more of the same, unfortunately, not the most productive break for Pots in the Boys, but I'd say we enjoyed it, Dan, didn't we? I mean, look, yeah, I went to Cincinnati. I got to go see the national play over two nights and a bunch of other bands. I personally had a great time watching Chelsea on the back end of this was not a very, very good time, Nick. And look, I don't know. I mean, there's not a lot of happy people right now. I mean, that would be the best way to put it. No, no, there is not. And yeah, I mean, I spent my weekend like building furniture and cleaning, and that was more enjoyable than the match this morning. But I think for all of these skies falling narrative, the five and five narrative, the weekend scorer goal narrative, things are not as bad or as bleak as they may seem. I would agree that it needs to be fixed and there's plenty of ways to do that. But some of the absolute ridiculous takes on Twitter this morning, it's just reeks of desperation for people who are desperate for engagement. So that's my little rant to start the show. All right, set in the tone early, but obviously look, we're going to jump in. We're going to tackle this born with match wise. We always do because you trust us. You trust us to do that. And we appreciate you. There's a little bit of praise in there. We'll talk about, you know, some bright spots as we stop, but there's no sugar coating. We don't need to do that. So anyways, let's kick it off like we always do the highly regarded three word match review. Dan, the people, what did they say? Winbernator with the cherry wasteful again. Nice. Yeah, I figured you'd like that one. Derek with the another XG triumph, Alex with the announce coach prime looks three. You know, college football might be worth the cross board option. Awful. If it works, Jason with, where's the aura? I think we're all asking the question there, Brooks with frontline finishing follies, Claire with lacking in vitality. Wonderful pond there. That was great. Yeah. Sam Berger with the same old Chelsea, who also recommended we actually just drop an old pod with a new title. And no one would know the difference, which we're not going to test that theory yet, but maybe something to save if it gets really, really, darkest timeline and then Craig with the pied by cherries. Oh, yeah. Lots of fruit puns. Yeah, yeah, understandable. Well played by many. As always, if you want to get involved, Twitter, mainly discord, right? Through Patreon, I'm put, who's stepping up? It's there pieces of their opportunities are there. Nobody has seized. And that is not where we need to be. So I want to know who's next, Dan, what about you? It's the definition of insanity, the Einstein. You're expecting different results doing the same thing. And it doesn't happen. So like, we're all insane. We clearly are all insane as Chelsea supporters right now. Nick can't slice cherries. Is that like the fruit ninja game or whatever? Yeah. Yeah, let's let's call it that sure. Is that like a game on the iPod touch like a personal problem? That was like, that was like 2010 vibes that you're throwing out of that. That is, uh, yeah. The first iPhones, what a time. Look, we're going to get into this one. But we always want to just shout out all of you out, uh, they've dropped five star reviews for us on Apple podcasts and Spotify. If you do that free way to support us, reach a new Chelsea members. You love it. And if you want it, I'm more of a tangible way to support, subscribe on YouTube. We're journey to 30k on that platform. And then lastly, Patreon, right? Discord's bumping if you want a community that's not Twitter, which Nick talked about, uh, come over. We're not saying everybody in there is sane and rational. We're just saying it's better is far better. There's definitely a myriad of ideas. Uh, and then obviously previously, a lot of content to catch up over the international break. Uh, we've been busy, Matt, Nas, uh, blue royalties, been pumped and stuff out. And we're even dusting off the, uh, the good old famous CFC to spin some stuff as well. So if you want some to take your mind off, it, uh, go to the archives, a ton in there. Uh, and even look ahead, Nick, we got Blueco and JJ back. Is that right? Was struck? Yeah. So we, we hope to, we're still working on schedule, uh, but we hope to have our friends, uh, uh, at Strauss, working update with them, uh, via our friend, JJ, uh, who covers the French League and then, uh, always updates with Matt Law, because, uh, that's what we do. And, uh, he's a friend of the pot. And we are always curious about his insights during times like this. Always, always, always. So anyways, let's jump into the match it was, born with this past Sunday, the 17th of September in the permanently at the tiny little vitality stadium, born with nil, Chelsea, nil, in case you missed it, uh, goals again, Chelsea, nil, born with nil, which means there are no fist and highlights. Did you all get the push notification from Chelsea? Hey, watch it back. See the, see the highlights. Yeah, I don't know about who's man in the match. Like, not a question we ask after Dan Sills said, what is this a jiff? It's, uh, it's a bit rough. Anyways, Dan, rush through the lineup, uh, T the off. Let's dive in. Well, it was, uh, one Bob Sanchez between the sticks with Levi Colwell, Tiago Silva, uh, Bob, Bob, Bob, we're going fucking Bob. No, we're just, we're just going, uh, we're going Bob now, uh, and Gusto, as you're back for, it was Connor Gallagher, Oguchukwu and Enzo as midfielders with Rahim Sterling, McCabe Moodrick and Nico Jackson as your attackers. And look, Col Palmer, Ben Chilwell and Ian Matson all came in as substitutes, uh, Petrovik, um, Berksdroom, Gilchrist, Matos, Stutter, Washington, those, that was the bench. That was the bench. It's not a randomly assorted, connecting names. It was the actual bench that Chelsea fielded in this match against Bournemouth. Dan, Dan, can I just say from our, our Friday preview, both of us were right about this lineup. Like we, we predicted, you predicted that the back four would remain the back four. And I thought there would be another attacker brought in and you know what? We were both right. Uh, it didn't really work, but we were both right. Look, two halves of a spear, make a circle. I tell, I tell you what, uh, Nick, what is the one thing Dan missed in this attacking lineup? Beside, you forgot to put some respect on somebody. Bob, well, yeah, but I'm saying it's Captain Connor, Dan. Oh, man, yeah, Captain, which was an interesting choice. Uh, you know, I mean, Silvus on the pitch, Enzo's on the pitch, Sterling's on the pitch. Like Bob's on the pitch. So I mean, that's a massive. Oh my God, at least I'm fun with it. You know, um, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of players on the pitch that could have been Captain. And I think that's a huge, huge, huge level of trust in Connor, uh, the guy that everyone wanted sold this summer, it becomes Chelsea's captain, not only in the, uh, care about Cup match against Wimbledon, but now in a Premier League match against Bournemouth, shows his leadership qualities. And I think how much he's rated by Podge. So that is a massive deal for him. Uh, and he played like a captain to it. I wonder if it was a little bit of like club, uh, politicking as well by Podge, right? You know, because obviously the owners were like, look, we'll take the cash. We are good to take the cash for Connor and it seemed like Podge liked him. So I wonder if this is a little bit of like, hey, I like him. Let me put my money where my mouth is gave him the captain's arm band, which again, there was multiple people that could have done it. Is he third in line then? Is that, is that kind of what we're picking up here? No Reese, no chili and then it's condog. I look, that would be, that would be a big, big call. I think that we need another data point in this sample to really understand. Second pop quiz, uh, what all three of the subs haven't common, Nick? Uh, that's a really good question. They're all dominant left footed players. Oh, yeah, that's true. Nothing like sub in on two left backs at the same time to save your game. It's my, it's my favorite thing about us playing Colwell as the left back is like, you bring in then two left backs. It's, I mean, we were, we were basically playing without any defense at the end. We were just trying to throw everyone forward. So yeah, that's what it is. It is. All right. Some of the top line sets, Chelsea with 1.85 XG to, uh, Bournemouth's 1.04 with 65% of possession away. We had 14 shots to their 13. We had six on target. They had four, we had six over off target. I mean, two that were blocked now for Bournemouth. What I do like is they had three off target, but they had six blocks. So the commitment to defending was there, uh, which is good to see not much getting to, well, just calm Sanchez for now, uh, you know, outside of that, a lot of just like back and forth, uh, add another big chance to the tally, uh, big chances missed by Chelsea. We still have not converted any this season, hit the woodwork twice. Right. And so that was the story of the day. We did 12, 12 big chances created 12 missed. Is that right? Wow. Estonishing. Yeah. In the worst way possible. Uh, one random set up to Joe five. Chelsea've only scored five goals in the Premier League so far this season. They're fewest after five games of a top flight campaign. Since 1995, 96 when they finished 11th tentative. All right. Uh, huh. And pet shit house on the moment of the match. Nope. Yeah. I can't even like no, yeah. All right. Well, we're going to take our ad break. When we get back, though, we're jumping right in to the emotional reaction to the match. Take the sponsors and we'll bring it back with the busy fall season. Already in swing. You might be looking for wholesome convenient meals for jam packed days. Factor. America's number one ready to eat meal cake can help you fuel up fast with chef prepared diet. 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They've got bacon and egg breakfast skillet, bacon and cheddar egg bites, potato, all this good stuff. Like I said, it's going to energize you throughout the day with clean, healthy energy. So anyways, this September, get factor. Start enjoying it. Use our code, go to factor meals.com for slash London is blue 50 and use code. London is blue 50 to get 50% off. That's no joke. Right now use the code London is blue 50 at factor meals.com for slash London is blue 50 to get 50% off. What are you waiting for? All right, so we just want to kind of break it down emotional side of this. How are we feeling about the result? We can update our general feelings over, you know, Chelsea, the moment. I kind of, I got this, which is kind of interesting. So I think we all saw the CFC piss, pice, whatever, sigh, tweet that like if we lose tomorrow it's a sackable offense, I engaged, I bit, right, my bad, I bit. But then someone was like, well, your tweets dumb, because essentially I was like, this tweet is dumb. He's like, cause you didn't offer anything up. And I was like, my man, I record two to four hours of podcasting a week. I'm well on record. We did an entire preseason on what we thought was accepted. The street, the streets will never let you forget the dove of Louise take the records are there. They're, they're openly available. I had to educate and credit to them. They're like, well, I'm subscribed now. So I'll check it out. I was like, I appreciate you. I was like, but trust me, I've said it. But I think most of the people here know where we stand from that preseason pod dance. So I don't think we need to rehash that and go back to that compare. Let's just say where you're at after five games and an international break in 12 players injured. A lot of context. You can put a lot of different threads through this. But you know, what's your, what's your update on this, on this team? Yeah, it's bad. It's really bad in terms of just the, the, the feel. So I think the things that concern me is like this overall standard for performance. You know, I think they're Lou Benementay others have pointed out that the, you saw more fight and passion in the legends match recently that Chelsea played versus what we saw to the men's team performance again, sport myth and forests. So that was, I think a very telling thing about where the, the fight of this team is. I think today, you know, Sanchez was probably our best performer and son outfield player. I love it. It's great to have a goalkeeper that you feel safe with at the moment. But I would prefer that our best player was someone in the attacking lineup. I'm empathetic to the situation that Pachatino is in. Three of the players that are injured right now would be starters in this lineup and would dramatically change the way that this team plays. I don't think there's necessarily the right senior goal scored to back up Jackson, who is trying, but is not perfect, not the finished article. I think we are looking and pointing out all the things that don't work for us. There's a lot of moments where like, hey, if this went in or this happened or this hit the word work, we don't have luck, but if our strategy is luck, like that's a really terrible strategy to work over a series of games and like the stats, the underlying stats are only going to buy everyone in the hierarchy from the owners to the coastboarden directors, to the manager to the players time for hey, there's a, there's a line. There's a connection to or a path to success for this team. But the wins have to start coming in line with where the stats are. You have to start bringing those closer to closer together. And today felt like a step away from that with the total performance. And so I think Pach has questions answer for. I think players have questions answer for like all of the combined elements, Nick in my mind. Like no walks away. We're like, oh, man, this isn't on the, you know, this isn't on the manager. This isn't on the players, you know, everybody owns a part of this and like, it's is not of the standard that it needs to be, particularly after, you know, the investment. And again, there's a lot of things that we can couch with the, the injuries or the luck or the underlying stats, but you still have to start manufacturing wins. Yeah, I mean, I think first thing is like just the atmosphere around the club is awful. I mean, it is not helped by the fact that the media takes every second to hit us over the head with the financial numbers and shit like that every, every time we play let alone if we ever win, right? So I think that plus I think the distinct roller coaster that we have been on as a club of the last two and a half years, you know, Roman selling last season, this season, right? So I think it's just been a wild couple of years for the club and the fans has just made it really poisonous out there. Now, that'll be countered by something that we, that we read later from Mr. George Smiley about, you know, actual feelings at the ground today. He was one of the, the very few that got to make that trip just because of allocation. But it's just, yeah, it's tough out there. And I can't be too mad because I, I predicted that we would struggle. I mean, this is an incredibly young team that has had very little time to gel as a group. This is only our second match since the window closed, broken up by two weeks of international break. And a lot of those players as, as Potch will say, you know, as he said in his post game, some 12 injuries in the team. So these guys are just trying to gel with the unit that they have and some young, you know, you know, academy kids, they don't even have a close to the full squad to go up again. So the injuries are tough and the fitness issues have been tough for a very long time. Bad luck is a part of it. There's no doubt about it, you know, we've seen Connor put the ball in the back of the net before. He had a wide open chance today. I think goalkeeper actually made a pretty decent save there and, and that's it, you know, Sterling's two inches away from having an exquisite free kick goal, right? Some of this stuff is bad luck and it's okay to say that. But look, the attack is really with the issue, right? We're not showing the directness that we showed in preseason where we were really excited at some of the stuff that we were watching, you know, kind of the dynamic passing forward through the lines, trying to get Mujerkin to space, all that sort of stuff. Jackson is streaky and he's just in a tough moment right now. It'll go, it'll go the other way and we'll be really happy and then it'll go the other way again. And we'll be mad. That's the way that's going to go this season. So just prepare your brain for that. Sterling is not Edden Hazard. He's not a match winner every match. He's probably 50% of that. And so if you're going to rely on him to be the match winner, it ain't going to happen. The other attacking play has been completely and utterly lacking that includes Mujerik who had a better performance today than he has all year. But it's just not there. We're not getting goals from anywhere else. Connor, Enzo, any one of our other wingers, Paul or Matt Awake, right? So it's all of this stuff is combined into a really bad moment and the other thing is that appears to me that we're protecting Silva defensively because of I think just the speed and pace at which we want to play knowing that he brings a lot of great qualities to the team. But it means it means to me the balance of the team is completely off as Dan and I talked about in our in our preview on Friday brand. And so last note on this is like, I don't think the sky's falling. I think it's a tough moment. I didn't enjoy watching today and I'm not going to sugarcoat how I feel about this performance because I think it was a lot of the same past, past, past, huff and puff but never blow the house down bullshit and I hated it. But at some point this team will have to make their own luck. It doesn't happen by accident. Liverpool doesn't get lucky scoring goals. They make their own luck, you know, city make their own luck. They were up against a stubborn West Ham team on Saturday made their own luck, right? The self belief will then follow once the luck is there and the team feels a lot more confident. I think it's just going to take a while and it's not going to be a fun season because of it. I'm trying to pull up McLaughbot to see if they've got the past reports. Have you seen it, Dan? I have seen the past reports. I retweeted the past reports from the official podcast. I figured you did. You probably did it from the the airplane too. Burn David. Oh, come on. Look, that game was over. I did. I was out of there. Here we go. Yeah, average position was looking for. When you talk about that, Nick, our defense was deep on this. And then our boy, football con Asia, Kier, was saying essentially the same thing that Silva, you know, we're playing so deep, maybe to help, he took a bit of a knock. But normally you would see, especially in a game when you have 65% possession on the road up to like half within the bottom of the circle, right? We are much closer to our own 18 than the halfway line. And there was no reason for that today. So I do think that's an interesting thing you said. I was like, hmm, let me see if I can mirror the eye test with the data here and that does line up. I think the frustrating thing is that like when you look at the stats, again, one XG again, all these things, it's just really frustrating because like a lot of the pieces are there in a terrible situations, which like, oh, yeah, the system is working, like poached the communication to the players is working, they understand what they should be doing. But then it's like they get to the match and it just something clicks, right? Something turns off where they kind of lose their mojo, they lose that killer instinct. And I think Liam to me even said that about Cole Palmer, he's like, he wouldn't have hesitated at Man City. All of a sudden, he comes to Chelsea, he's hesitating and I don't know if he's just not bedded in the bad situation with the players is affecting them. But I mean, Matt Laws talked about how poches is all about the energy, all about the vibes. My man needs to do something, right? I don't know if they need to pull a lasso and burn some stuff in the middle of the training picture. What? But it's getting to the point where now the mental side is messing with the players and they, and that's what's preventing them, like you know, Moodrick is in his head. There's no way about it. Niko Jackson is definitely thinking about scoring goals, right? I think the defense is fine. They weren't really challenged today. So like I'm not really worried about them because they didn't have to do anything. But here's little things like Enzo Fernandez not playing to the left side of the pitch because when he opens up, when he's on the left side of the midfield and he opens up, he just looks to his right. And so there was like nothing that he plays down the left side, which is interesting if he were on the right side of a midfield because everyone's healthy, he could play to the right and the left. I know it probably to those who didn't play sounds dumb. But when his back is to Levi Moodrick, he's just naturally not going to play there. So like there's just a lot of players out of position. Like whoever Enzo and Connor are with, Kaisato, Nauguchoku, like that balance isn't there yet. We still don't have an understanding of what our midfield is doing. And I think that creates a lot of miscommunication and attack. And so we've got these really good players, but we've got to be able to play without Kaisato. We've got to be able to play without Lavia. We've got to be able to figure this out with Connor and Enzo in there because that's what we got. And it hasn't worked. There's times Enzo shines. There's times Connor shines, but they don't shine as a group. And I think to me, that's the big thing that's standing out is like a concern of where that engine and machine comes from. I mean, did, you know, just kind of clip in a couple of poch quotes from the post game press conference, he noted, well, he was spicy today. I think he was pretty pissed off and these are not the affable, warm quotes that we got from Preseason, right? I think I think he knows the pressure is on, said one thing I'm disappointed is the full backs trying to go forward too much and create confusion to be offensive players and give opponents chance to score. Also said Jaguoseva was frustrated as teammates for losing discipline. I think that is accurate, Dan, in the way that the full backs operate. Isn't that his job to figure out how to balance them though? Like, that's where I, I don't know if I, maybe I'm not reading that correctly or something, but isn't, isn't his job to show the players how to engage forward? Yes. I think that they're the decision of what to do though when you're on the pitch after the instruction happens is maybe where some of the challenge comes from, and maybe there were times when Gusto got a little caught out today after having, I think, about a series of pretty, you know, successive game back to back where we rightfully have given him praise. You brightly can point and say, hey, at times you had a really head back very quickly and that made life really tough for Dizassi, which made life real tough for Jaguoseva. And similarly Levi Colwell and Silva as a left combo just to me does not feel like it's working out well for either of them. So it would be interesting to see if we can make changes to the starting 11 as people get healthy and allow us to give certain players time off or breaks or rotate through. But any of the other quote you have here too from Pach was that why is it different for us? Why is it because of what? We don't have all the squad available from the beginning of the season. What could we do for me? I have nothing to say the fans could do whatever they want. And this was a little in relation to the fact that I think the reporters rightfully noted that some people booed at the end of the game. And look, it's not a massive allocation. So even a small number is a larger representation than the typical amount of people who would be at an away game. But the point that you made and the nickname brand and was that Mr. George Smiley was at the game and he had a couple of truths that he pointed out, which number six on that list was that a very small minority booed and he re-emphasized in all caps very small. There's no, I think the standard and the level are a lot of the things that come to this. This is a good group. I think Nick where I'm going to kind of anchor is we had the privilege of watching this team come together this summer and they look good. And we know that when they're relatively fit, when they're all healthy, this team can do a lot. The fact is the player, we've lost not only a ton of players, but some of our best players. There's a lot of people playing out of position and we're trying to make it work. I think the flip side is the fair criticism is shouldn't this team be able to beat a Bournemouth? And when you look at the stats, when you look at the things that happened today, they were there. But we didn't have the moment of clinicality to get there. And I think that's definitely going to be a lot of the frustration in the soreness. I mean, 12 big chances created in five games isn't mind-blowing numbers, but you would have thought that at least two of those would have gone in. I mean, missing 12 out of 12 is actually harder than making them. That's a really ridiculous number and a ridiculous statistic. And I think if you were to look at how Chelsea spend their money, which is the argument that everybody makes if after a bad result or whatever, the one area where I can't fault anyone for saying this is, why didn't we buy a top level striker? It can put the goals in the primary league. It's a good question, right? And it's something that we still aren't 100% sure of. But if we're going to go the route that we have, the final ball has to be a hell of a lot better than it's been in the first five games of the season. Nads called out and many others have called out that even if we had Victor Oseman in the team, if he's not getting the ball where he can score, it doesn't really matter if you haven't been a team, right? You have to run service there. And I think maybe part of that quote that I'm interested in is the balance moving forward. If they try and keep the fullbacks a little bit more reserved to allow the offensive players have a little bit more space. So it's not overlap, overlap, overlap all the time and they get congested. I think that's something in the past that I've seen just a part of the way that we play. So I am a believer in the fact that this can work. There's been a lot of decent play. I think we started this game very brightly. It just needs to gel and for it to gel in the final third, you need to play the same players in consistent places for a stretch of games, which means that there are going to be players who are left out of that scenario. And that's just a hard fucking call, but that's why they pay in the big bucks. Yeah. Is it kind of like maybe look at recalibrating expectations, which again, I, we're really five matches in, right? It's early days. There's a lot of context that we've kind of pulled in, but do you, I think I said top six in a domestic cup was my, I wouldn't say expectations, but that's why I wanted to see the club. Dan, I think you were similar. Maybe you were top four even after all the signings. So you say that like five games in is, you know, like that's 13% of the season, 13% of the season is done. All right. That's 10%. We can update this. Look, just think about it like a course that you had in, in school, whether that be, you know, high school, you know, college trade school, whatever it is, like at a certain point, like your grade starts to solidify, like this is cement, right? And the longer it goes, it's going to be harder to change what the maximum trajectory of this team is. And so Chelsea at current trajectory, top four is not going to happen. Top six is likely not going to happen. And getting into a European spot is going to be difficult, not impossible, but very difficult because now you need to win more of the remaining games than you needed to previously if you could have won some earlier. And so I don't want to, you know, it's not a doom and gloom scenario because there are other clubs who have similar stature, like Manchester United who are sitting at the same number of points that we have with a worse goal difference of minus four, like, so ultimately, they are there, sorry, they're six points, we have five. So like there are other clubs also experiencing this challenge. They're still an opportunity to make up time, but it is, it is a bad situation to be in knowing that this was the start of the season where you could have put a little bit of distance between last season and the memory of last season. And now where it feels like it's just a repeat cycle of what we saw across multiple managers last season. That to your point, like at some point, there's not enough room to make up the gap, like absolutely, like totally, totally get that. So it's a good, it's a good sticking point, Dan, you know, from Dan Nick, but I think that there's, there's more room to, to this one. I, I was in the sixth range, you know, and I think top six was, was where I thought we'd finish with a, with a care about cup at the end of the season. I think the league play, league, league place was too optimistic. So I think eight to 10 now, that is going to infuriate a lot of people. It's going to lead to increased friction with the board. It will mean that people have less patience in the project, but I just, if we don't convert chances, we can't be a top 16. I mean, they're just math. I mean, they're, we have to be able to score goals and win matches to be in the top six. And right now, we're, we're trending a long way away from that. I mean, just, just call a spade a spade. It is only five matches and there are 34 left in the season or 33 left in the season. Sorry. Math isn't math in there, obviously, but, but I think that is, that's just kind of the reality situation. And unless there is a magic bullet in this team that we haven't tried out or formation that we haven't tried out or, you know, Broya comes in and starts being in the goal or whatever the case might be or Reese James is the linchpin to it all, then I think we're going to be in a, in a really, really difficult spot. I still think a cup run could happen because we should happen in cup runs and the team sometimes can play better in those because they feel like a one off. But yeah, if we, if we don't increase our big chances created to at least half, we're in a world of hurt. And they mean converted, right? Yeah. Yeah. Look, this is, I'm still going to hold on to top six. The fact that Arsenal or Liverpool got there last year and they were with us in the middle of the table shows that the runs can happen, right? It's all comes back to, can we be healthy? I would say that I'm a little bit of concerned with, again, some of the, the personnel decision. I know Pots doesn't have a lot of people to choose from, but like playing Enzo is a 10, you know, Connor, Connor could have, you know, so I just, I'm a little bit concerned with that, but hopefully people come back and we're a little less press on injury. So I'm still going to hold out for top six because United are struggling massively. Newcastle are not lighting the world on fire whatsoever. Now you've taken two of those teams out now. It's like, okay, can you beat a bright in our West Ham or Villa to get into the top six? God only hopes we could do that, but hey, you never know. So we definitely want to hear in social, let us know where you think that the team is going to land. So we know where we're at, you know, I want to hear where everybody's at. Are we crazy or we off the rocker or are we starting to kind of settle as a, as a group here? So we're going to take a last ad break. 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Just go to indeed.com slash blue wire sports and support the show by saying you heard about it on this podcast indeed.com, forward slash blue wire sports terms and conditions apply need to hire you need indeed. Reese's peanut butter cups are the greatest, but let me play devil's advocate here. Let's see. No, that's a good thing. That's definitely not a problem. Reese's you did it. You stumped this charming devil. All right. So now that we got to get all that out of the way, we can go back to the match. Finally, we're going to do this in reverse because that's the way the day was. Dan, you kind of brought up Robert Sanchez earlier. He didn't have a lot to do save 0.99 XG made for saves, which is good. It seemed pretty comfortable for the most part. Obviously, the big save coming off that free kick in the first half when everybody else had switched off was not paying attention. Dom's like at the back post. He gets big. That's where you love a big frame goalkeeper. Open up, cover as much of the goals you can and let it hit off you. And he did perfect in that moment, distribution, you're still kind of then not really sure. We have to see what's going on with him. No one is like, yep, Sanchez is the man for the future. We got it. So he's still got some work to do, but today he saved us from losing. And so credit where it's due, again, I still am not quick to hang my hat on that. Well, I mean, he was the difference between Bournemouth scoring and not scoring. So to me, you know, in a game where you're forwards, you're midfielders, you're defenders. Who had a chance to get a shot on goal weren't able to get the job done. And you allow Bournemouth to have shots on target. He ends up being the guy who ends up getting to be like, I didn't run it down the match, but he is the match. Like, Bob is the winner. Absolutely. 1,000%. He was the guy today who delivered when called upon and, you know what, we obviously have talked a little bit about Petrovich and when he might get an opportunity and it looked like if Sanchez, hopefully he's not under pressure like that moving forward. That's something I would like to see less of, but if he is and he continues to do things like that, he'll be in a situation where Petrovich will have a harder time making it into the starting lineup. All right. Well, I thought he was good today. Right. I mean, I think this is easily his best performance on a Chelsea shirt. Yeah. And it was still pretty comfortable as my point, right? One big, one good save other than that pretty, pretty quiet. You had Connor Gallagher marked out, Nick, which I think is important. He was 93% pass accuracy was 67 past 62 of 67 and he was by far the most involved from a passing feature. Even Enzo was at 46 passes today. So again, you just want to talk about, we did not get him involved the way we needed. And then also pulling from McLaugh bot here, he actually was the most likely, he was the second most likely to score or create an assist based on his performance today as well. So the hard part is when nothing comes off in the final third, it's hard to appreciate the players that are creating stuff because it fell apart every single time. I don't, I mean, I agree. Like I think he will rule the mischance that he had in the center of the box. And we've seen, again, we've seen him put those away before and I would guarantee you he'll be working on his finishing all week to try and make up for that, right? But I had so much slander for him in the first half and I could not understand it. I thought he was by far and away our best player in the first half. Passing was crisp, moving the ball around, staying away from Enzo who was clearly on the left. Like Ugu Chuku was kind of playing a holding role and both of them were kind of bombing up into the attack a little bit more. This is, I think it was his best passing performance in a Chelsea shirt maybe. And I think he's really becoming a linchpin player for this team. Like I see this happening for him this year. I think getting Captain Zornban is huge. I think the fact that he is able to move the ball and I think some of the off the ball movement for him today was fantastic, trying to create space for others in the attacking third and we just read the poch quote about the fullbacks, maybe congesting stuff. He doesn't do that. He really, I think, gives space to the other attackers as well. I thought he played really well. I think everyone fell off in a second half. So if you want to say, but Nick, you didn't play well in a second half, all right. No one fucking did. So there you go. I thought he was 8.5 out of 10 today. I think he probably should score if you're in 8.5, but you know, he was probably the second best player. Chelsea shirted player on the pitch. Look, that's your opinion, Dan. Tough day out. Right. Tough day out in general. So we'll kind of see how these things shake out, but yeah, I mean, there's not, there's not a lot, you know, I can continue to go about the referee's NBC slated them all weekend. They're shocking, but we just have to accept that at this point, right? And just say, I've like, I was looking at some of the other things which we'll touch on. But it just is a day of malaise, right? And you're just like sure enough, come back from the international break, Bournemouth away. Some players from South America are fatigued, right? Some players play, they came back with knocks and the fact that we went into the international break with more player salty than we came out of it is the worst. And as the absolute were, hopefully, Kaisato is fine. No big deal. But anyways, we're going to continue to distract you with awesome stuff. So Nick, instead of continuing on about this and that and the game and kind of ripping apart, we have a little bit of a surprising delight for everybody, don't we? That is right. We're going to talk to Raff, who is the CEO of the Paul Canneville Foundation. And just kind of do a quick update on all the good work that those guys are doing. If you know anything about Paul or if you've listened to the famous CFC over the last year, this is an incredibly important figure and incredibly important cause for Chelsea football club. And they are hosting an awesome event coming up. And so it's a quick interview. It's only like 13 minutes, but he really displays the mission and the values they're trying and still around the club. And I think it's worth your time. So take it away, Nick. That's right. Just, just myself, close it out the pod today as we recap it, disappointing draw at Bournemouth. But we do have some really great stuff to talk about here at the end of the show. I know that while the result is disappointing, we're going to end on a high here. A bit of a special interview today. And for their first cap on the show, we're joined by the CEO of the Paul Canneville Foundation, Raffiel Fresconia. Raff, how are we doing, man? Aside from the game, doing very well. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, we're recording this right after the result just for those who want to peep you on the curtain and we just got on, we were just like heavy size the entire side. But, but look, man, we're going to, we're going to talk about something near and dear to your heart. And that is the Paul Canneville Foundation. We've had Paul on the London's Blue Podcast before and so we are aware of his story. So many of our listeners are aware of his story. But let's pretend that everyone listening to this part of the interview is listening to the show for the first time and who needs a little bit of a primer on who Paul is and why he matters. Can you tell a bit of that story for us, please? Sure. So Paul made his debut in April 1982 as Chelsea's first black player in the first team. For those who aren't familiar with Paul's story, he made his debut against Crystal Palace. As he was warming up on the sideline, incredibly proud. Had lots of his family in the stands. This is the moment every football has been waiting for to finally make their debut for the top-level team like Chelsea and he started hearing racist abuse behind him as he was warming up. So he's like, I'm just going to, I'm just going to try and crack honest just those Crystal Palace fans trying to get on to me and as you continue to war up, you've got worse and worse and worse. He's like, these guys, they must really have it in for me and then he turned around and he realised that the racial abuse was coming from his own fans from Chelsea fans. So Paul's first experience of pulling on that Chelsea jersey was hearing racist abuse from his own fans. So his story continued with, obviously, he went onto the pitch, couldn't really do a lot, got the ball, gave the ball back, went into the change room after the game and for those who've played team sports, you know, when you go back into the change room after a win or a loss is kind of a hub of action, of interaction, of noise, of banter, but is absolutely silent. He just looked around and he could just see his teammate shaking his heads and the manager came in. It was like at the end of the day, Paul, those are the people that pay your wages, unfortunately. And from there on in, he encountered the same racist abuse for quite a long time in his career with Chelsea to eventually turn, kind of turn things around. I think it was probably the way Matt Shephel Wednesday where he scored a brace and from there on, he first heard his name being chanted in the stands. So then the story continues, I'll kind of skip forward towards the end, he had an altercation preseason with another player who had given a racist abuse to him and to other younger players who'd started to come up through the team underneath Paul. Paul had an altercation with said player very shortly afterwards, the way that it was dealt with was that Paul was sold to Reddit. And this, this story is this kind of well documented in black and blue. So if you're looking for an app and it is an epic book written by our very own Rick Glanville with with all Paul's anecdotes and stories as a part of this, cannot recommend reading this book enough. It isn't that long ago, right? I mean the 80s were not that long ago. I know it seems like it's some days as I as I creep up an age myself, but it is it's 40 years ago. And so he's been an instrumental part of Chelsea's work to combat racism. He has a suite at Stanford Bridge now, which I think if you would ask a 1982 Paul Cannibal, if you ever thought he'd have a suite at Stanford Bridge, that's probably a good, good bit of come-up ins for his work. And he's a man who's had a tremendous impact on the club on and off the field. I mean, do you have a favorite anecdote of working with him throughout the years and what kind of makes him tech as a human? So you're using the word human is probably the best way to describe him. So I think testament to Paul as an individual is his resilience and his determination. Number one, to go through what he went through, the guy's still a Chelsea fan. To have gone, I wouldn't still be a Chelsea fan if I'd been through that can tell you now, but he is. So he understands the power of his debut and then what happened afterwards when you look at the incredible players who've come through, so people like Paul Elias, Chelsea's first black captain, when you look a rude hurlick come into the club, desi, and the impact he had on that fateful game when he scored or we went through to the Champions League before Roman came, then you look at Drogber, you've got Mendy, all of that came because of Paul and he recognizes that that was a minority of fans within Chelsea. That wasn't just Chelsea. You do get a bad rap as a club, but that happened at many clubs and it happens online across many clubs now as well. The point is, as a human being, that's what Paul is and I think there's probably not one single anecdote I can think of because it happens quite regularly, it's quite a funny guy. Yeah, I mean, he is out in the community, I mean, say what you want, I mean, he is out there every single week doing the work in the community, can you kind of talk about how you got involved with Paul and how your work started with him, you're the CEO of the foundation, he's obviously a face of the organization, like, how did this happen? It was about 10 years ago, so I was involved in putting together a team of local community people to represent lots of different backgrounds, so different religious denominations, nationalities, people from different countries, different kind of heritage, and then they were playing against a celebrity team with players like Lutha Blissett, Paul being one of them as well and they needed to get Paul up from London, I said, well, I'm a Chelsea fan, I'll go and pick him up, so I did, so I picked Paul up, we struck up a friendship, he's managed other charity teams that I've helped set up since then and we just became good friends, and then the past two years or so, he's like, look, I want a bit of a push on my foundation now, let's try and really get the story out there, really use this as a force of good, and that's what we've been working towards now, so you mentioned about his book, Black and Blue, that he co-wrote with Rick as well, we're now on the cusp of looking to get that book out to an initial 20,000 students in the next year or so, as not just a diversity book, but as a book to help teach literacy, so we know those themes, we pass through, not just as, oh, here is your token book, you have to read because it's about a Black guy, but here is a book that's going to help you read, and it has really important themes, not just about races, but also about the multitude of other stories and scrapes that Paul's been through, including kind of being homeless, going into a correctional facility and his battle with drugs and with cancer as well, and most recently, we were just working with a school this week in the shadow of Grenfell, so if those people don't know who what Grenfell Tower is, and fortunately it was a building a burn down because of the claddingers around it, not too far from Chelsea, in the Royal Barrow Kensington Chelsea as well, and we had some young kids there and Paul was using his story to teach these kids for probably about 10 years old before they go into high school, the dangers of drugs and telling it from his perspective, and I think it's really powerful when you've got someone that's willing to lay their life bare, to kind of open themselves to criticism like that purely because they want to help someone else to probably or possibly avoid going through the same thing. What are the goals and objectives of the foundation? I mean, let's talk about what you guys are actively trying to do, obviously sharing knowledge through the book and that sort of program is fantastic, but maybe talk through the broad strokes of the activities and the work that you guys are trying to do. Sure, so first and foremost, we're quite a small charity in a minute, so we're mainly supported by a really good bunch of volunteers as well, so people like Marcus, some other people who'd be familiar with our carefree jam and Surrea, who do some work around Chelsea as well. First and foremost, we're trying to spread Paul's message, which is a message around determination and resilience, and that anyone can make it, so Paul came from a Windrush family that came over, a single parent family, under-privileged family, and he still made it through as a pro, so helping children to understand that whatever they look like, wherever they come from, that they can make it through, so trying to get Paul's story out, trying to work with a bunch of schools as well, through about 120 were looking to work with over the next year, and then using Paul's story to help people to know, but young people to know that they can achieve. You guys are putting together quite the event in a little less than a month now. Let's talk about it. Let's go through the run of show and what you guys have going on, so pertinent details if you want to hit the part with those. Sure, so first we're really proud that the event will be opened by Lord Finkelstein, so he's the chair of the Chelsea Foundation now as well. We're really happy to be working more closely with the Chelsea Foundation and the Chelsea Football Club as well, building those relationships. Naturally, his story correlates with Paul's in that he's been a fan for the time that Paul went through, what he went through, and now he's a director of the club when we're in this multi-cultural age too, so and also the story of his mother and what she went through in Auschwitz, and the kind of showing that it's not about anti-black racism, but about discrimination across the board. We're still putting the final bits to the agenda as well, but we've got some other cool people coming on, so there's a poet and spoke, spoken word artist called Duke Aldaram. He did a piece on BT4 around Lewis Hamilton as well, so he's put together a very special piece all about Chelsea's Black History with lots of familiar names in there. We've got a special edition of Copyright Being Carefully called The Race, which will feature Sean Wallace, who's famous for doing online quizzes. Big Chelsea fan as well. Rick Glanville's helped us to put together a quiz that we've now going out to the public with so they can be part of it. They can win a Chelsea shirt, they can run a couple of VIP tickets to that event, and also to an upcoming Chelsea game too, so they will take part on stage in our version of what we're calling The Race. We've got a live scar band playing some some classic tunes as well. We've got some some current Chelsea player content that I can't give too much away about now, because the launch of a project we're working on through Paul and the Chelsea won't be launched until just after our event, but you'll see some really prominent names that were on there as well. I wish a few of them were available today. And also bring in some of the legends from the women's team as well, which we've not been able to touch on in previous events as well. So the very first Chelsea women's manager Tony Farmer has given us some detail. In their very first Chelsea women's team, there were players of colour there as well, so we want to try and shine a little bit of a light on them too. And hoping Paul Elliott can get back in time from his away match, because he's a director of Charlton now. They're away at Derby to come back and give his thoughts around Chelsea's black history. And also some Chelsea legends. Again, I'm not going to name them just yet. We've got a couple in there, but I just want to be sure that they come in 100%. But we've got some Chelsea legends that will be on stage too. Yeah, I mean, if you have listened to the famous CFC, which is our Chelsea history podcast, so we do with Rick and Gary Brown. Last fall, they published an epic episode with Paul Elliott, who is as eloquent and fun and light giving as you can, as you can be, as a human being, to have both polls at an event like this is, is pretty fantastic. So let's hope it makes it down just in time. Sure. Where is the event taking place? What time is it? How can people attend? Definitely, very quick. What a funny anecdote about Paul Elliott last year. So this is a guy I grew up being half Italian watching football, Italian. So he used to host a show he played for Peter, captain of Chelsea. So he's like an idol of mine. We'd put on the last event a quite short notice after the sanctions, the club in place against we couldn't confirm. So we only had a few weeks to put it together. But we thought we did quite a good job of celebrating the Chelsea's Black history. I was in the toilet doing what you do as a man standing up in the toilet. Then Paul came in again, he could slap on the back and said, like, just telling me how wonderful the event was as well. So that was my little funny anecdote about Paul anyhow. But this year, we're under the bridge 14th of October. Tickets are on sale via our website and via Brent Ventbright as well. So our website is poolcannivalfoundation.co.uk. We're under the bridge. We're left to late to 1am. So we've got a couple of guest DJs as well doing back-to-back sets. We've got some reg A, we've got reg A DJ and some soul funk and blues coming on as well. So tickets are there. They're available. There's limited number because of the capacity under the bridge. So please get them before they run out and you won't be disappointed. We've got some fun guests are on on stage as well. And again, you have to be there to see who they are. But there's some people from legends from other football clubs and some celebrities in there as well. It sounds like a who's who of Chelsea Football Club is coming to this event, which is awesome. As you know, we're in the States. So we will not be attending this as we've talked about before. How can people support the event or the work that you guys do if they can't attend this awesome event that you guys are putting on? So thanks for asking us. We're really reliant on funding and donations from people. So there's limited number of grants we can go to. We've got support from Chelsea. I must say as well. Thank you to the football club. They're helping support with this event as well. But we still have cost to cover for this event and for what we do throughout the year. So on our website, there is a just giving page there. You can click on there. I think it says donate now at the top of the page. Please just donate. And if you're based in the UK, please also note you can give gift aid as well, which kind of the government will then contribute in addition to your donation. So please do that if you can. What else do our people need to know about the foundation, about the event and all the work that you guys are doing to I think bridge history with current events that are happening around the world. We know there's an uptick and racist abuse that's happening still in football in 2023. What else can you tell us about the foundation that people need to know to close out? Sure. So it's important that you know now that people have a platform that didn't have before. The platform before was being in a crowd or saying someone's face and sometimes there's a repercussion for that. And as we're going out now, there aren't many repercussions for people doing the same thing online. So football is a microcosm of society and it's a lens that people look at society through. So it becomes amplified as well because of the emotion and the alcohol sometimes around it as well. But that stuff hasn't gone away. You think that the problem has been dealt with. You've washed your hands have been it's gone. People die. People get born again. The process starts as well. So this isn't a one off thing. This is a consistent program of education that needs to go out. And it's through the work that Paul does. And then he's enjoying work through the foundation that this stuff will continue to get educated about and people will continue to fight against discrimination and not just against race discrimination, but all forms as well. Absolutely. Again, Paul Countyville Foundation.co.uk is just giving page. It's a part of that. If you're in the UK, you're able to go to the event. Obviously the tickets are there as well. It could do before they sell out. Raf, thanks for joining the podman. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Have a man. I'm a listener too. So it's a pleasure to be here. Great job, Nick. Excellent interview, man. Just absolutely killed it. Well, again, just so humble and really things like charity are about humility. And it's great to see Nick just displaying that in the finest possible way. But credit to Paul and the entire team, Raf and everyone who's been involved with it, the work that they're doing is definitely worth recognition. Definitely we're checking out. There are links in the show notes to go figure out how you can get involved. But clearly an important thing worth doing. Spreading awareness around and worth celebrating a Chelsea fans because Paul is a part of Chelsea's wonderful history and tapestry brand. And we're glad to be affiliated with him in any way that they are willing to take us on. Again, you're welcome for bringing new things to the table to remind you about what is good going on with Chelsea and right around it. So anyways, look, as it stands, Chelsea in the Premier League, we're 14th, right? That's where we are. United to 13th born with her 15th. That's where we're squeezed in on this one. Man City top of the table undefeated 15 points out of 15 Tottenham. In second, all right, Liverpool third, Arsenal fourth, Brighton fifth, West Ham, relegation threaten, West Ham sixth. Then at the bottom, it's Everton Burnley, Lutentown, Burnley, Lutentown have no points. So line, line them up the sooner, the better, shuffle them Everton on one point. The good news, if you want to consider good news, Dan, is where five points were one went away from being in and amongst it. But that seems to be a bit elusive for us right now. It is going to be who's next? Let me scroll, scroll, scroll, taken on Villa at home next week. Turns out they're doing pretty good. Look, a winning against Villa would be a wonderful cure for the condition that the Chelsea community has come down with. So, you know what, Dr. Potsch, just, you know, prescribe a little bit of win there. You know, there you go. Problem solved. You can say it'd be a wonderful tonic and just a splash of gin perhaps in there that we're off and running really. They can have that after they win the game. Yeah, seriously, lock up the liquor cabinet. No party until we get to on the trot, I would say, is reasonable. Anyways, look, we hope that you are happy footballs back after a business more international break. Wasn't the way we wanted to come back. Didn't lose question mark, but hey, we're here. We're chopping it up again. If you want to continue to keep the conversational or social media is a great way, but Discord through Patreon is even better. Like I said, we've got a lot more content coming at you this week. So, go ahead and check it out. Make sure to subscribe to YouTube. But anyways, that's going to end it for here. So until next time, until she finds you know what to do, keep the beef flag flying high.

#1113 | International Break Blues Against Bournemouth #CFC