Chelsea and Manchester United make huge staff changes

Big news yesterday, where two of the most successful academy managers in football were confirmed to be moving on. And despite updates from some reporters, ChelseaYouth confirmed that Bath is not leaving amicably.

There were a lot of oddities in the first team at Chelsea over the last two decades, but the one thing that was consistently great at the club was the academy. (Okay, and the women’s team under Emma Hayes.)

I’m not a Chelsea fan and don’t have much to say about it directly, but academy production is the past, present, and future of well-run teams. It saves you huge money on first team recruitment, provides a great planning pipeline when done well, and if your academy is good, it contributes to the bottom line of the club. Chelsea’s Academy was among the best in the industry, even if the players they produced were rarely used by Chelsea to their full extent.

The entire football world will now be curious as to where these guys end up next.

Sky are reporting Manchester United are going to make 250 staff redundant in a cost cutting exercise. It always sucks when people lose their jobs, but we’ve discussed the insane bloat that existed at United before, and from the perspective of both a football club and a business, this just makes sense. They had too many people with weird bureaucratic fiefdoms, unclear reporting lines, and generally awful outputs as a whole… something had to give, and sweeping changes is probably the place I would have started as well.

—TK

Rumours and News

• We’re very sorry that we can’t be one place you can go and not hear about AI, but we should probably debunk something dumb that’s going around. You might have seen that Manchester City are close to signing Theo Hernandez for £51 million, but it’s a joke. Someone asked an AI chatbot to come up with “realistic” transfers and that one is getting spread around as if it’s been reported by humans.

• Paul Mitchell has been hired to stabilise the Newcastle United project. He feels like a name that has always been lurking on the outskirts of every big Director of Football position, but hasn’t had a prolonged run in charge anywhere to be able to judge him properly. Maybe Tyneside is it?

• Real Madrid appear to be on the hunt for a center back, with separate rumors linking them to Marc Guehi and William Saliba. If Madrid have enquired about both, it sounds like they’re looking for a defender who’s equal parts tidy on the ball and athletic, without much regard for aerial ability.

• Tottenham have been linked to Rennes youngster Desire Doue, a tricky right-footed left winger. His dribbling and pressing numbers are nice, and he’s got some truly nutty highlights. His shooting numbers are a pretty significant red flag though: xG, xG per shot, and shot volume are all looking below par. He clearly has the talent to improve that area of his game, but teams would be buying a lottery ticket.

• 19-year-old Boca Juniors center back Aaron Anselmino moving to Chelsea for £14 million feels like a transfer AI could predict. Just one more South American wonderkid. I swear one more will fix it. Just one more South American wonderkid bro.

• Melanie Leupolz has moved from Chelsea to Real Madrid women. he 30-year-old was one of the best box-to-box midfielders in the world when she arrived in London, but injury issues have slowed her down a bit. Leupolz was still a good ball-winner and passer when she got on the pitch last season, and might extend her career at the top level by moving to a slower paced league.