What went so wrong at Brentford?

It's straight out of the column. I show about Chelsea FC from the athletic. Coming up, a bludgeoning in Brentford, a long wait to bounce back and a lot of issues to resolve in the meantime. And Palmer injured again, not ole ole. Not living the prospect of stewing for three weeks. This is straight out of the column. And we'll try and inject some cheer into the start of your week. Chelsea's supporting despite what happened on Friday night in West London. We're going to break down Brentford. There's plenty more to talk about as well. I'm going to do it in the company. I'll be athletics two very finest Chelsea experts. The M2Me was at the GTEC on Friday. How you doing, Lim? Yeah, good goods. Just about recovered. It's always a bit of a late finish these night games. And they seem to sting a little bit more when it's a Friday night. I can't quite explain why. Because it ruins the entire weekend before it started, I would pause it. Simon Johnson, did you manage to recover by, I don't know, Saturday morning from what you'd seen on Friday night? Well, I think thanks to some of the other band-to-clubs in the Premier League, shout-out Tottenham. There were quick Chelsea's ineptitude just quickly overtaken by that of others. Most surprisingly, Arsenal, I have to say. Chelsea, Chelsea listeners, Chelsea viewers might prefer that rather than talking about that three-neil defeat rather than one Friday night. Yeah, I can see the three goals as all the rage for top-end London Premier League clubs this weekend clearly. Right, let's get some plugs done, shall we? You might be watching us on YouTube. Thank you. If you are, if you'd like to do subscribe to our YouTube channel, then please do go ahead and do that. If you want to subscribe to the athletic, just go to theathletic.com/chelsipod. And if you're an audio head, then leaves a nice review at the podcast Spotify, wherever you get your pods. There are lots of ways you can get in touch with Essex and Blue Sky at S.O. Cotton Pod, or email S.O.C. at theathletic.com. And we've got some correspondence to run through. Before we do that, though, Simon, Cole Palmer has pulled out of the England squad this morning. All right, Thomas, now you're interested in Morgan Gibbs White again, are you? What can you tell us about Palmer and load management specifically? Well, I mean, to echo the World Cup or pre-World Cup, this is great for Chelsea. Once again, the sort of Cole Palmer, Israel Pedro, Rhys Jones. I mean, Kassada, I thought she went to the World Cup, but yes. Yes, I, yes, he isn't, I mean, to be honest, the Kassada thing, I've been, I can't remember if I've said it on here before, but I think I did that I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't see Kassada until after the international break. It felt like Chelsea, yes, they wouldn't, they weren't keen to risk him beforehand. Do you want to rush his return? But I think I do sort of suspect, it's just a theory, I do suspect that the international break was also semi on their minds because if he comes back for say Brentford, then he has to go away with Ecuador and there's an element of putting him through the ring. But anyway, you asked about Cole Palmer, yeah, a minor sort of muscular problem, a sort of reported by David Olmstein earlier this morning. Yes, load management. I mean, the cynics will inevitably be out in force. There's got to go, well, Cole Palmer's played in pretty much every game and played the majority of the 90 minutes as well. And suddenly he's got a problem. Does he really want to play for England? Conversely, he could sort of point back to his injury issues of all of last season. You can understand why niggles are going to come up and why sort of there would be a desire to, if any slight twinge occurs, Chelsea in particular wants to protect him. This is, this is only Eofonation's league, don't forget. It's not sort of major qualified stuff. People will still sort of think that Palmer's missed a lot of England squads on the Thomas Tucco. And and these kind of thing does send another message to him, whether it whether Palmer is someone that he wants involved later down the line. So there could be a bit of a risk involved in that regard or a price to pay as far as that's concerned. We've already seen him left out the well cut squad because Tucco had reservations about whether to include Palmer. But with my Chelsea hat on, I just think this is the the best outcome. All right. So only Morgan Rogers in the England squad from a Chelsea perspective then. He wasn't very good on Friday night and neither were Chelsea. That's my way of linking to our Brentford match review. Ouch. Brentford three Chelsea. Another tooth for this first half gave way to a spineless second as the blues crumbled in Westland and to leave more questions and answers as we head into the extended international break. James says found out up front over on the midfield defensive fragility. Another James, I don't know what to think feels like all three goals had an element of smash and grab felt deflating however it's a long season. And for the hat trick is another James pathetic display. Very mereska slash Rossini slash McFarlane level effort. Is it going to take six months for the players to behave like a Lonzo wants them to. John's given us a bit of perspective though. He says a numbing performance from the 46 minutes shame to see such a collapse after a promising yet toothless first half of the season is long Liam your peace is live on the athletic now about Chelsea's brutal Brentford bullying. You write in it a defeat like this one had been coming and boy did it come in that second half on Friday. Yeah. It had been coming in the sense of Chelsea defending or not defending against Premier League opposition that are more than well equipped to take advantage of the mistakes that they make. And the funny thing about this game is that we saw the best defensive half under a Lonzo and the worst in in one game. I thought in the first half that there wasn't much to recommend it as a game as a spectacle. But I was reasonably impressed actually with how Chelsea had played given the team selection from from a Lonzo given that this was Jordan Henderson's first not just his first game for Chelsea his first game for anyone for 83 days. Should I should I should I start booing at this point. As long as you don't use the word beginning with W they used quite with abandoned when he went to take corners Henderson was yeah Henderson was visibly shocked by that and then gratefully applauded the the smattering of Brentford fans who applauded him. But yeah his his first game for Chelsea his first game in months Valentin Barcos first Premier League start for his new club. I actually thought that central mood field pairing worked quite well in the first half Chelsea rattled the ball around Brentford were trying to press them not really getting much joy. And the problem Chelsea had not only the fact that Brentford defended really well but also when Brentford had the ball it's quite hard for Chelsea to press them partly because of Chelsea system which we can talk about a bit but also because Brentford hit the ball long it's all very well trying to press them but they hit the ball into the channels for Igor Tiago to chase or someone else and then play off the second balls and that's a very difficult style of play for anyone to deal with let alone Chelsea who have had problems against that type of football for quite a long time but I thought the first half the lack of chances for both teams was actually to Chelsea's credit and if the game had continued like that you may have thought even without Xiao Pedro Chelsea might be likely to get a chance that one of their attackers one of their informed attackers could take and Morgan Rogers was close to getting a chance like that in the first half but instead it all fell apart around the hour mark and it was a set piece five foot seven Valentin Barco marking six foot three Yannick Schuster didn't even have to leave the floor to win the header I don't really understand that I I've seen that John Terry has already raised this point about zone or marking and he seems to be able to score of just put your big guys on their big guys and compete for the header but yeah it wasn't it wasn't a great moment for Austin McFee I don't think the fact that Barco was in that position but maybe it also speaks to the limitations of Chelsea's personnel it was a very very simple goal to give up I think we saw Jordan Henderson having words with Emmy Martinez afterwards suggesting that he could have done better and he he was kind of a bystander to the whole sequence didn't come for the ball didn't stay on his line didn't position himself to save the header nothing really and then Chelsea just kind of got picked off from there by what we have to say as much as this is a Chelsea podcast aimed at Chelsea fans was an excellent Brentford performance all around and they were really good defensively in and they picked off Chelsea expertly when they came forward to try and chase an equaliser. And Chelsea really, if they didn't quite crumble at 1.0, they certainly crumbled at 2.0. Well, it was an excellent bremp of performance for about half an hour. I'm not sure they need to be that good to beat this Chelsea. Let's go back to the start Simon and the team knew specifically five changes from the whole game. We've got Pedro and Reese James injured, Lavia, Gusto and Hato dropped to the bench. So LaQua, Chavaria, Henderson Barker and Wellbeck come in. That's full Premier League debuts for four of those five players and back to a back three. It all kind of suggests A, that Chelsea have got some injury issues and some holes in their squad. But also that Jabil Santos may be still scratching around trying to find the best fit for the players that he does have available. Yeah, and I have to say, look, I'm not going to go too fit. It isn't on a Lonzo yet because I'm still with the, he's a good appointment and so on. But some of his aura is rubbing off. He looks a little bit like a bit of loss of what to do at the moment and perhaps the bonus of this international break, the time of it, normally sort of like the last thing you want is to go into international break with the defeat and of course, that is still the case. But this three week enforced break does put a sort of automatic stop to the negative momentum that Chelsea suddenly find themselves on and and Alonzo's got time to go away and think about a lot of things about what he has to do to fix this because what concerns me at the moment is that despite having full weeks on the training ground, he's worked with the players for quite a while now that there still doesn't seem to be, it's early days that the old caveat, but it doesn't seem to be a balance. There doesn't seem to be Chelsea's games all sort of roll of chaotic, I mean, funny enough as sort of Liam intamates Friday was one of their least chaotic games to charge until they fell behind. And this is the old Achilles heel of Chelsea, of course, something that Alonzo's inherited this inability once something bad happens for this group of players to have the, what's the what's the polite term of putting it, the character to respond. It was a very poor goal to concede, I appreciate Williams coming from but I didn't think Brentford were excellent. I thought, I was actually saying to my unfortunate person that I was washing the game with that I could sort of see that Brentford, I could just sort of see the game plan from the start. It was like, let's, from Brentford's point of view, let's nullify Chelsea like this famed attack, staying it and then essentially then hit them with the sort of physical stuff more in the second half and sort of just try and out, out sort of, out mentality them. And once they went one in up, it was a case of then stopping crosses, I mean, did it ever look like Chelsea were going to get on the receiving end of a cross that both ends, you can keep it, but it was taken into the tack in, I think the sky sports flashed up a stat just as I posted about it in the live blog that I think Chelsea had tried something stupid amount of like 30 crosses or something and there'd only been two successful, they put it down as successful, which basically meant the Chelsea play got ahead on it, I think Liam you about to say something. You know when it looked really unlikely, it's for anyone to get on the end of a cross, so when Alonzo took off Danny Wilbeck for Giovanni Quender from then on, there was zero chance of any crosses finding a Chelsea head. The up to, up to predict it could be super computer, suddenly dropped a few more percentage point. But yeah, this feels like a rather long-winded answer, as is my, my, you know, stick, but yeah, I just, I just think, I just think it has been, you know, I have to say it's been a very underwhelming start, I mean one more point than it switched town, the worst defence in the league, that's very disappointing after what was very exciting, the football's better to watch, but if Chelsea can't stop conceding goals, then you do wonder what they can actually achieve this season. The Athletic FC. The Athletic FC. Seven points, tenth position, which is of course where Chelsea finished last season. A bit of talk there about defending setpieces and crosses, et cetera, Liam, and obviously that first goal, I mean, is one of the worst goals you will see a team conceding in a Premier League football game. Hugh says there's multiple bigger problems than him at the club, but I'm wondering what exactly the new setpiece coach has been up to. And now this is obviously the much-lauded Austin McFee, and I think it's always fair to caveat this with he's not on the pitch at the time. You can tell them what to do, but the players have still got to do it, but it's got to be alarming that Chelsea are conceding so many setpiece goals. This is the fifth of the season in the Premier League alone. Yeah, it is concerning. I mean, he may not be on the pitch, but Austin McFee is very visible every time there is a Chelsea setpiece, attack or defence. He's out there. He gets the freedom of the technical area to shout instructions and make sure people are in the right positions. He did look visibly annoyed at a number of the setpieces that Chelsea took and defended against Brentford. I remember one free kick, which I think Pedro Netto just floated over the heads of everyone straight into the arms of Prevenkele and McFee's face was a picture full of that way. Levi Colwell alluded afterwards in his quite candid interview. That was where the word bullied came from. It wasn't from me. It was from Levi. But in the same interview, he referenced that we're adapting to some new principles at setpieces. It's inevitable that just as when a new coach takes over a team, you switch setpiece coaches from Benado Quaver to Austin McFee. They're going to have slightly different ideas. What to do when you're defending, what to do when you're attacking. Chelsea worked great at setpieces last year, certainly not great defensively. They had big problems last year. They were actually quite good at attacking setpieces and quite creative, which I think most people looked at as to Quaver's credit. But then you switch all that up with another setpiece coach in Austin McFee, who is very highly regarded within the game. His work with Austin Villa was universally well viewed, I think. It's going to take a bit of time. But beyond that, I think the more concern, anything than that with setpieces, is there a hard ceiling in terms of the limitations of Chelsea's personnel? They're not a very physical group. In some cases, they are a very small group. People like Valentin Barco, Pep Chavarillo, when they're on the pitch against the team like Brentford, they are always going to be targeted, whether it's open play or dead balls. And you can do all these fancy things like blocking and screening and playing the man, not the ball and doing it in such a way that maybe it doesn't trigger a VAR. But ultimately, if the ball is right, six foot three beats five foot seven every single time, that is a law as old as football. And I think just as damning about that first goal was not just the Schuster versus Barco mismatch at the back post, which was actually very similar to the goal that Chelsea gave way against Leeds, if you remember in the cup, Murahemovich, I think, at the back post up against three tiny players. So Brentford clearly looked at that. But then it's the fact that when the ball comes back across, Jaden Antony standing in between three Chelsea players who are marking no one. And in the mean time, Martin has come off his line, gone from his front post to his back post and has managed to not influence the play at all. So it seemed like a failure on multiple counts. And it's not the only time that's happened from set pieces with Chelsea. So I think it's partly execution, which should improve with time, you would think, and coaching on the training pitch. But more concerningly, it may just be that there's quite a low ceiling to this group from set pieces. All right. Well, somebody you might be able to help that would be a very tall defender who came off the bench here. Here's one for you to tackle Simon. It comes from Elliott. How is Wesley for final starting games for us despite a champ on being the more informed frankly better option at RCB. I know it's still early days but Japan. really needs to sort out our defensive issues. I don't know if it's just personnel or tactical at the moment. Do you think that a champong should have been favored ahead of Fafana and not just for this game but going forward or are we just saying that because Chelsea lost 3-0 and considered some bad goals? No, I can understand why Fafana's understanding because of all the baggage he carries. He's basically the longest serving new signing in terms of this era. Now he did have a very good preseason and I think that that undoubtedly has put him in terms of a Lonzo's mind ahead of Achimpong. Achimpong is getting more minutes which I think is encouraging because at one stage he looked like he was very much in the B team certainly in preseason and maybe the friendly performance against AC Milan where he got a surprise to start probably because Lonzo was thinking of Fafana's opening two game ban and sort of thinking right it needed to make sure that Josh is good to go but he had a very good gaming experience. My frustration with Fafana is that he can look good but it's a bit like Chelsea in general. He can look good but that there's always a switch off and focus or that there's always a mistake during a game. He could have the best game ever for 90 minutes but in that time he'll lose his man and the goal is scored. I mean we saw his weak challenge or nonchallenge in the build up to the whole opening goal last weekend and it wasn't just him as Lim rightly pointed out but it is very frustrating when an opposition player can be stood there on mark and you can see it like he had a great view he was the one that could see what was unfolding and he's a standard it it it it understandably it frustrates Chelsea's pauses he came for a lot of money he's on he's on a very good salary and patience is as worn out and and quite rightly I interviewed him in preseason he comes across great when he speaks in and he wants to sort of prove himself and sort of make his Chelsea career success he's very frustrated that he's not been part of a trophy winning team because he didn't play a part in the conference league he wasn't he was injured for the club World Cup but at the same time you listen to him speak and go well action speak louder than words and and in some ways he sums up what Chelsea are defensively you know this this inability to to just sort of keep at it for the full game not not just look good in parts he got to look good for the whole game now for Achim Pong I think I think that he will get plenty of game time but perhaps it's just that classic scenario of here's the expensive signing the one that sort of automatically put ahead of someone in the pecking order and Achim Pong may sort of be in and out the side because obviously he's an academy player and perhaps isn't didn't cost as much well he's a young defender Jordan Henderson is a much older midfielder he ended up playing 90 minutes Liam on his Chelsea debut I thought he actually did okay I mean there was the the misplaced pass that led to to the second goal that's his Chelsea have searching for an equalizer but generally I was quite impressed given his advanced years and lack of game time and you could see his kind of rabble rousing abilities which is something that that Chelsea need do you think we're going to see much more of him going forward now they may have to with the with the central midfield situation it depends where Moises Kaisido is physically when we get back from the international break but I did think yeah I agree Matt I did think Henderson played well certainly first half I thought he was a big reason why Chelsea were quite stable in possession and why they were actually a bit harder for Brentford to play through out of possession I think he did a good job when Chelsea had the ball of dropping into that defensive line and dictating from deep there seemed to be a nice balance between him and Barco who would move up a little bit higher go a little bit closer to Chavoria and Rodgers and those three guys made some nice little passing triangles but it was it was Henderson in the middle who was kind of dictating things a little bit I wouldn't say he was dictating the game because no one was dictating the game in that first half but he that that central midfield pairing was certainly not the point of failure that you feared it might be heading into the match and maybe the reaction from the G-tex bird him on who knows I mean he's a proud veteran isn't he Henderson and I would imagine that yeah he wouldn't wilt from that sort of thing second half is inevitable yeah that he might start feeling the pace I think the second goal was was bad for him not just because it's a real no-hoper of a pass you're you're trying to thread like well they call them in NFL a hell-married don't they say like when everything's on one play yeah so when Henderson plays that pass if you freeze frame it there's one player behind him which is Laquois and six players standing on Brentford's defensive line if the pass gets through maybe Chelsea are in business but it was just very very unlikely through the middle of the pitch to ever get there and of course once Brentford cut it out they counter attack so well Laquois makes their job a bit easier by playing on side and then stepping up at exactly the wrong moment to take himself out of the game and Henderson didn't have the legs to get back you could see that but he's I think he showed enough to suggest that he can be useful for Chelsea this year I think if they're in a position where he has to play big minutes there's trouble because he you know he wasn't necessarily even playing every minute of every game for Brentford last year so he shouldn't have that kind of prominence at Chelsea but I think he he showed in his performance the kind of intangibles as well as the football inequality that he can bring what about the front three then Simon CPR on on life support given that Jal Pedro wasn't there and Cole Palmer it turns out was actually injured that was Roger's poorest game for Chelsea by by some distance as well it was this all related to the fact that Jal Pedro wasn't there is it that different playing with Danny Wellbeck or is it just one of those things where some people had a bad day at work which we've all experienced in the past and maybe we shouldn't be reading too much into it well as someone that's had many bad days at work I certainly think that that the latter is a possibility I actually thought Cole out of the you know out of the attack I thought he had he was the most threatening and and look the most likely to do something he actually had some really nice touches really not but inevitably Brentford were going to try and close his his his his threat down as much as possible so then you relying on other people to to step up yes Roger's I think inevitable you know he was gonna come off the ball at some point you know he set such a incredible pace to start his Chelsea career still could have had a there were a couple of moments that that he could have made the difference even then you know particularly in the first half perhaps one of my biggest disappointments though would be Pedro Netto he got the ball in a lot of good good positions on that right hand side and was just very ineffective and one of those moments was when he was slid in beautifully by by Cole Palmer lovely the kind of past that kind of quality that we didn't see really from either side in terms of invention um and for whatever reason Netto hesitated uh didn't put a ball across or get a shot in and until he was closed down and then he tried something it was it was all sort of rather sort of one second too late with with with Netto and and his delivery was was was very disappointing um the other question mark you and sort of going back to Alonzo just generally is is just his substitutions it it sort of seems a sort of common theme now that that he makes very late subs sort of went when sort of after the fact that the game's gone wrong Estava again bemusingly left left on the bench to the final few minutes he you have to say that that is a situation that is increasingly ringing alarm bells um because if you really trust the player and you really sort of want a player to be part of things you get him you get him on the picture a lot earlier than that if you're not starting him um it was interesting that Kwenda came him on first and he had hadn't played since the opening day against Fulham. Didn't really do anything, which is no dig at him. I mean, you can almost just say the answer to that is what I've just said. It's not, it's not played for several weeks. Actually, I've more minutes in pre-season. But we, I don't know whether we're going to get on to Maddie, Nicole just really, I mean, I suppose that was, that was another eyebrow raising moment on one hand at a real positive, but, but quite, quite sort of, again, surprising that in such a dire situation, Alonso turned to a, to a 16 year old academy player when there was some like Romeo and Lavier was just sitting there on the bench. I don't know whether Lavier had some kind of knock or something. It was only there for, in case of emergencies, but it was quite a surprise that he turned to such an inexperienced player rather than the, the guy that costs 52 million quid. I wasn't close enough to the Chelsea bench to see whether it was a cardboard cutout of Romeo and Lavier rather than the real thing. You never know, you never know, but I mean, no substitutions were, yeah, eyebrow raising, as I says, three teenagers and a 20 year old, coming off the bench as the four subs, and quender being the first off for World Cup, a genuine stunner. I mean, I'd seen quender warming up in the final minutes against Hull, despite the fact that Chelsea had already made all their subs. So it may be starting to warm up for this game super early, yeah. But apart from that, he's barely been involved. I mean, he wasn't even in the squad for the lute and game, which was the first game of the season you thought he would play in. And then all of a sudden, he's trusted to come on and, and kind of strengthened what was clearly a rejigged front line without a conventional line in a game that Chelsea were chasing. The Esteveau situation is, yeah, developing. Let's keep an eye on that one. Absolutely. I wouldn't surprise me if there were some noise over the international break because, yeah, he didn't look delighted, shall we say, and he hasn't done for the last couple of games coming off the pitch. To me, it's, it's pretty concerning that it hasn't taken that many injuries to put Chelsea squad in this position. Yes, they've got two of their three number nines out at the moment. And that's slightly unfortunate. But Kaisido is the only central midfielder who's not fit. And, and you're already kind of holding on by the whites of your knuckles when Chelsea have the ball in central midfielder these days, or whenever you see a paring in that area of the pitch. And it's, yeah, given, given how many players Chelsea own, how many players Chelsea trade, it's quite bizarre that so few problems can put Alonzo in a position where he feels that, yeah, these are talented young players coming off the bench. Of course, they are, they're playing for Chelsea. And in a lot of cases, Chelsea paid a lot of money for them. But it's interesting that Alonzo already feels like he's in this position where he has to dig so deep into the well in a game where Chelsea are trying to come back. The Athletic FC. The Athletic FC. Yeah, so congratulations to Maddie Nicole Juzuli, though. The fourth youngest ever player for Chelsea. And the first player to feature in a Premier League game, having been born in 2010. That's pretty depressing, Simon. But also congratulations to Maddie. Yeah, for being in 2014, yes, congratulations. I can only sit here and be rather jealous. Makes me feel even older than I already feel. No, but I almost sort of, I think you're right to sort of come back to Maddie, you know, because I don't want it to be sort of wrapped up in a negative, in a negative conversation. Because it is some achievement to already be in the first team. And of course, shout out Reggie Watson as well who made his first start in the league cup. Was the league cup, wasn't it? Yeah. Just thinking out loud. Yeah, please. Just checking myself. So, you know, a Lanzone preseason made it pretty clear how much she admired both Maddie and Reggie Watson. There was one answer, I remember a Maddie that, yeah, it really struck me how much of an impact he'd already made on Lanzone. Of course, given a very lucrative contract in the summer, something that Chelsea had been working on for over a year, which sort of speaks volumes. He was being pursued by a number of top clubs. And of course, Chelsea have got a lot of alarm bells as far as losing top young talent to a Tyler Clubs. A young age is concerned. So, this is perhaps sort of backing up what Chelsea would have said to him, which is not just a financial incentive, but there would have been some kind of pathway conversation. And to be brought on in such a significant game, not just sort of token, sort of five minutes when Chelsea are five in the lap, but for him personally, to be brought on with Chelsea in a losing position. That has to give him a massive fillet, because that is quite, it's not like it's a token run out. He was actually given an opportunity to try to earn things around. So, I think this is definitely not the last week we see of him this season. The fact he's involved this early. So, yeah, I think get ready to see a lot more of Malian in future months, but of course, with Kassado's return, that will inevitably reduce the ability for midfielders and reach James as well to get regular run outs. I was very happy for Maddie and absolutely devastated that there's now a Premier League player born in the 2010s. Time is merciless. Incredible stuff. Nicole Gisele by the way, pulled double duty play for the under 21s, actually played the full 90 minutes on Saturday. Last one then, Liam, as we wrap up the Brentford chat, Jabil Enzo's post-match press conference. It seemed rather short. What kind of mood was he in and was the brevity because of a lack of questions or because he didn't want to be there? Two minutes 45, I timed it up on my recording device. It's not the first time that that sort of thing has happened, typically when Chelsea lose again badly away from home, they want to get out of there as quickly as possible. That is a shared desire, I think, from the coach, from the players, from the assorted staff, particularly, well, the further away they are from West London, they didn't have that excuse against Brentford. He wasn't really in the mood to engage much beyond what I think he'd already said to Broadcast. He had a message which was that they'd allowed their level to drop. He called it competitive mentality that had been allowed to drop in the second half. That's not a million miles removed from what Liam Resinio was saying last season. That's slightly concerning after a full pre-season and another summer of quite extensive transfer activity and a new leaf under a new coach and all of that. You'd think Chelsea might have made a bit more progress on that, but Alonzo still seemed the need to emphasise that particular aspect of Chelsea's problems. Beyond that, I don't think he really wanted to discuss many individuals or getting to too much of the weeds. Fair. I wonder if you had the maddest weekend out of all the Chelsea managers at Liam Resinio, giving it large to the Strasbourg fans or Joe Zeymerinho bringing actual printouts to a press conference. Maybe we could do with a bit more of that box office magic from Alonzo. Well, a long way to wait then until the next game, October the 10th, Brentford coming to the bridge. Chelsea will have to improve significantly on their not Brentford. Is it? It's Bournemouth. Well, a long way to wait then until the next game, it is October the 10th, Bournemouth coming to Stamford bridge. Chelsea news the women's team played Birmingham on Saturday. They picked up a very useful win as well. 2-0 victory came courtesy of goals from Academy grad Lexi Potter and a first in the WSL in Chelsea Blue for Melvin Mallard ducking great, et cetera. It means the blues are third in the table. Behind second place Spurs on goal difference. Yes, listener slash viewer, you heard that right. There's a Spurs team that scores goals. The under 21's hosted full and beaten 3-1 thanks to goals from Harrison Patone, Reggie Watson who's been banging them in and Leo Black. Simon, you mentioned Reggie Watson. I mean, he's having some season, isn't it? It's worth remembering he's 16. I think he's played like five games in PL2 for the under 21's. And he's played for the first team. But I always think that's an interesting test of character and it would be the same for Maddie when you get a taste of the first team. And then you go back down into the under 21's. But that's all part of your education. If you come through at Cobham, right, then you have to. You have to be able to go from the highs to getting back to the day job sort of thing. Yeah. And yeah, you're right to flag what a very good start to season. I mean, yeah, he had a very good first season in Chelsea's Academy last year. And as I already mentioned, you know, caught the attention of Alonso. I'm not too surprised that he's a pro, though, and showing that that sort of pro mentality because he's got a great mentor in his father, Ben Watson. He had a fine career and a score of a winning goal and an FA Cup final. So you can imagine he's having a few words to say to him that, you know, he's not done anything yet. You know, keep going. All that focus. I mean, Ben Watson actually broke through as a teenager himself from Crystal Palace's Academy. So he knows that the sort of journey that he's on is on. But yeah, just just keep going. I mean, inevitably, if he keeps sort of turning it on for Cobham next gen, it still sticks in the, in the throat, that one, then, then, then inevitably he will get more chances for the first team as well. So I just think he, he's ticking so many boxes, you know, in terms of not only what he can do as a player, but he's mentality and that sort of looks back into what I was saying earlier about players in that Chelsea dressing room, having a mentality issue and not being him up too much. But whatever he goes on to achieve, I don't think a lack of mentality is something that you'll, you'll throw up Reggie. Yeah. Well, he was a staff of the under 18s, last season, they took on Bournemouth at Cobham on Saturday. They smashed him five nil, five different goal scorers, Greenwood, McGilvary, Daco, Perez, and Shah. They've got a son of in their team as well as Argo Silver, Tiago Sun. We also got Matisa Bouet, son of Immanuel in the under 21 squad, I swear, there are more sons of than they used to be in football these days or maybe I'm just getting on. Anyway, that is just about where we're going to leave things for today. I wanted to word they'll leave me if I could, please, for your and Simon's joint big read on the Todd Bowley era at Chelsea. That's live on the site now. Tell us a bit more about it. The big farewell Todd read. It was something that we were working on for a while because the direction of travel was pretty obvious. We just didn't know when and what exactly the particular, particular of the deal would be. But there was a lot to be revisited about Todd Bowley's action-filled four years in at Chelsea. I'd say the action was quite front-loaded, wasn't it, say, into the kind of the first year or two, certainly that first transfer window, which was an entire section of the piece on its own, Bowley as Interim Sporting Director, but he's a unique character who was the face of Chelsea's ownership for a lot longer than he was the power of Chelsea's ownership. That was something that was good to reflect as well. I like to think we did a thorough, nuanced job of it and, yeah, it'll be interesting to see where Bowley goes from here because he's still very active in sport. I wonder if he gets involved in football somewhere else because I get the feeling he maybe wasn't completely fulfilled by the way that his Chelsea investment went, even if he ends up leaving with a profit. Okay. It's a fascinating read. I would encourage everybody to go and check it out. If you're not a subscriber, go to theathetic.com/chelsipod to sign up and a reminder that you can subscribe to our YouTube channel and leaves a nice to-be-wappel podcast, Spotify, wherever you get your pods. We'd appreciate it. We've got an FPL League as well. I don't want to talk about that this week, though, because I made Liam Delapme, Captain, if you want to sign up for that, the link will be in the show and eight notes and it's the pin post on our X page as well. So we're going to leave things for this week, though. International break means we are down to one show a week, so we'll be back next Monday to round up everything that's happened in the world of Chelsea until then. Thanks to Liam for signing up to guest producer Tom Antey for listening. Slash watching. We'll be back with you a week from now for now. From all of us, it's goodbye.