₦airaland Forum

Griffon:
There are many determinants. Form, importance to team, ability, position, age, contract etc

Very good.

So is it safe to assume that Marina has to evaluate all these criteria you mentioned before deciding to pay for a player?

Griffon:
I know those reports are true b'cos Emenalo hasn't sued any of those organisations for defamation.

It's a report that has been dragging on for years, which lowers Emenalo in the estimate of the right thinking members of the society and which also discredits him in his office. It's an injury to his reputation.

For the fact that he hasn't sued makes it a fact.

I believe i've treated this, shall we now focus on Marina?

LVG did not sue. But the papers were wrong.

Now lets proceed to Marina

Ibime:
You can imagine this stewpid niggas thought process.

It came like a light bulb in his head in the middle of the night:

"Oh I've just found out that Marina is involved in financial negotiations"

"So I will use it to prove that Marina is the reason why Emenalo has developed a team with a weak spine."

SMH

I actually posted this like 4 pages ago....

But why cant you answer the Yes or No question?

Griffon:
Sure she can. Just like in every other business, if the price isn't right, the talk goes cold.

But then, that doesn't in anyway put Marina in the position to decide whom we sign, it remains the TD. Marina doesn't know who we need, it is the TD.

You cant tell me that Marina's negotiations goes successful each time Emenalo recommends an attacking midfielder but gets to stall each time a CM is recommended, is it?

Very good.

At least you have the balls to put your neck on the line for this.

Now how does Marina decide what the right price for a player is? What Criteria does she use in evaluating a players financial value?

Ibime:
You no dey tire for this eediocy?

You think you are discussing with your fellow double digit IQ niggas asking foolish questions like the above.

It seems that before this discussion, you did not know that CEOs do handle financial negotiations, from Ivan Gazidis to Marina to Ed Woodward.

You maybe thought you were "educating" us when you stumbled across such information on Chelsea website not knowing you were exposing your childish stupidity like a child who learnt to spell for the first time and couldn't wait to tell every adult about it..

In answer to your question above, if the price is reasonable Marina will not walk away from the negotiating table for any player Emenalo recommends.

It is just unfortunate that every time Emenalo recommends a winger, the price is fair to Marina. . . .but every time he recommends a midfielder, the selling club starts asking fir £100m.

That is why Emenalo has been unable to strengthen his midfield.

The question I asked you was very simple.

Does Marina have the power to NOT sign a player that Emenalo recommends based on financial perspective?

It's a yes or no question.

Let's start with that first. Then you can abuse all you want.

When we establish that, we can discuss HOW Marina decides the price is 'fair'

Griffon:
When you have virtually the whole news organisations across the globe writing on a particular subject at the same time, then such report is sure to be factual.

The consistency in the report is all you need. Independent, Guardian. Telegraph, Dailymail etc can't be drunk at same time. Most organisations are guided by certain rules, believe me their reporters wouldn't want to cross certain lines hence they choose what to report.

Each of those papers has been sued for false reporting.

Afterall, Many papers falsely reported that LVG had been sacked at christmas, leading to the "Enjoy the wine and mince pie rant"

How do you know this is not the case here?

I'm not asking why you chose to believe. I'm asking how you know.

BTW I would love to hear your opinion on the second question I asked you sir.

I will honestly not be surprised if these guys duck this very simple question...

Because if Emenalo has no say in how much should be paid in transfer fees and wages for a player, then what control does he have over the recruitment process?

Griffon:
The technical director of course. He recommends the player that must be signed. Marina is just there to negotiate the deal.

Wheather we're transferring in or out, Marina is the one vested with the power of financial negotiations. How she goes about negotiating the deals is what I don't know, she is a woman and could use that which lies between her legs to our advantage. The mega bucks we recieved for Luiz, Lukaku, KDB et al are her works

I posed this question to Ibime. I will pose it to you.

Are you suggesting that Marina can decide that a suggested player is too expensive and decide NOT to sign him?

Ibime:
Not only that but Emenalo is the one with the power to make signings, unlike what anyone is telling you.

Technical Director na Technical Director, never mind some clueless ninja inventing powers for Marina that she does not have. Marina is there to do financial negotiations, not to scout and recommend no phucking players.

Very good.

So basically Emenalo can recommend a player, but Marina can choose NOT to sign him? Yes or No please

Griffon:
News beat is a special interest area or place where reporters are assigned for the purpose of continuous coverage. If Dailymail decides to assign me to cover every development at Chelsea, I'll get my arse there and dig and dig removing the top soil to reach the one beneath.

While at my beat in this case Chelsea, I'll know the right person or group of persons to meet in order to obtain authentic information. Most times, these persons i.e my sources would prefer not to have their names on my report, so I'll simply leave them out of it but still get to report my findings.

So a journalist must not necessarily quote people before his report passes as authentic. I know this 'cos i'm a budding journalist.

The question was "how do you know they are telling the truth?"

Afterall, we've seen that these same papers have been guilty of false reporting in the past.

raumdeuter:
2010/2011 season midfielders for Chelsea were Essien, Ramires, Lampard, Benayoun, Mikel, Malouda Mceachran.

Minus Lampard who among these were quality as at 2010/11. Take note of the player form in around that time

That was the midfield before Emenalo stepped into Chelsea oo

Now you have Matic, Mikel, Fabregas, Willian Oscar, Pedro RLC

Tell me sincerely was the midfield above better than the below?

Dayo thank you for this!

I can post interviews with AVB talking about the team 'we built'

Ray Wilkins said that he knew for a fact that Ancelotti wanted Torres and Luiz so the club went out and bought them....and Ray Wilkins should know...he was the assistant manager.

Why didn't Ancelotti want a midfielder?

diggz:
Matic and fabregas in how many years dayo? Is that the way a club should be run?

Your team had schweni yet they bought Alonzo, got thiago and Martinez (abi what is the Spaniards name). Sold schweni got Vidal. Just at the end of the season, you guys have gotten another body in the same midfield.

Take a look a CFC, who replaced makalele essien,ballack,lampard and co.? I sincerely doubt any of our present midfield players can fit into any of the top clubs in the entire Europe at the moment.

I don't even want to bother about our defence.

See how your team is trying to replace robbery for example, not stockpiling young players all over Europe.

The question here is whether Emenalo is the sole reason Chelsea don't have midfielders.

I've posted direct interviews from the owner of the club, to the Director of Football, to the former assistant manager all stating that the Chelsea managers have a say in who gets bought.

I've posted the chain of command describing who is responsible for what during the recruitment process.

Even the biggest hater, posted an article quoting Emenalo stating that he could not be sure if the player he was scoutinho would be signed by Chelsea.

I can post an interview with Emenalo who confirms that the club went in for Stones but Everton refused to sell. And we all know Jose was the one publicly courting Stones in the media


So if all these people are involved with a transfer at any given time, why is it Emenalo that is to blame?

diggz:
Bro, I highlighted your point number three because I think that is were you are getting the entire thing mixed up.

Ibime,Griffon and co. havent made any claim on Emenalo not making any good signings over the years. Their issue is with him not addressing or refusing to address key areas in the team over a long period.e.g. the midfield. In this, he is completely culpable.

I didn't get a single thing wrong.

You need to re-read the debate from the beginning.

The claim was that Emenalo was responsible for "destroying" the team. The claim was that Emenalo failed to present a clear vision for the manager. The claim was that Emenalo was deliberately sabotaging try first team managers by poor signings.

Hence Dayo's question just now.

I think I've been very clear on my Emenalo stance.

1. You can't blame for him for a team's slump from 1St to 16th. That is quite daft as he doesn't manage the first team.

2. You can't blame him exclusively for not signing the players you want. That is also quite daft because the Chelsea board clearly outline their internal structure and chain of command on their website.

3.If you insist that Emenalo was responsible for the teams slump due to poor recruiting, what happened to the likes of Lukaku DeBruyne, Costa, Courtouis etc?

4. If you insist that the Chelsea website contains false information, how do you know that the papers are right?

If that constitutes jumping from pillar to post, then we really should mourn for your mind.

Griffon your last post is funny sha. It's like you don't remember Jose'said comments on the Falcao signing

FBS:
Read about 3 pages and got me thinking, do you guys believe everything you read?

Get out of my head!

Griffon, you're not based in the UK so you probably don't understand how media operates here.

Where do you think transfer rumours come from?

One of the articles Ibime posted here was from a journalist that has been sued multiple times, most recently by Rafa Benitez, and his paper had to publish an apology.

And that paper is one of the biggest in the UK.

News of the World was one of the biggest in the UK that was forced to close down due to phone hacking. They were sued by many for false reporting including Wayne Rooney.

Even the Daily mail you quoted as a credible site is currently in court getting sued by Drogba for false reporting. Google Daily Mail lawsuits and see how many are pending or have been successful.

Until the court decided otherwise, the articles prompting the lawsuits would have been treated as 'credible' by yourself.

You made an interesting point about how most fans don't know about the internal politicking at Chelsea.

So how does the journalist reporting all this politicking know? Is he invited to the board room? Is he a fly on the wall in the dressing room? Without any direct quotes from the people they are reporting about, how can you be sure that what you read was fact and not fiction?

I would really like you to tackle this question.

timbros:
After carefully going through this debate, I humbly submit that Nihilist is on point.

Maybe we have been giving Emenalo way too much blame in this thread.

Roman should take the largest chunk of blame here.

Forget what Chelsea says on it's own website.

Keep Calm and blame Emenalo

diggz:
Morata!? I see him struggling in CFC especially with the kind of midfielders and wingers we have.

I also think if we can't get a better option to compete directly with Diego then we should make do with traore.

Wijnaldum though, is one guy I won't mind us getting.

Morata can play up front and across the flanks. Traore has not impressed me at all, and I've kinda lost hope in Costa. That midfield conundrum though.

I remember watching Fabregas on Monday Night Football a few weeks back, and Carragher was asking him if he would be willing to play the 'Pirlo' role at the base of Midfield for Conte. The guy started yarning dust about ' he doesn't know' and 'he's not the most mobile midfielder'...etc.

I'm very interested to see what Conte does with Fab. Wijnaldum can play in Central Midfield and would be a fantastic Box-to-Box option, and may allow us to switch to 433.

Another option is Coquelin. That guy wasnt seeing shirt towards to end of the season, and with Xhaka, Ramsey, ElNeny, Wilshere, and Cazorla, Arsenal are well stocked in that department.

I didnt even realise Morata is still a Madrid player. Mehn we should go for that guy.

My main personal target this season though would be Wijnaldum. I love that dude so much.

If Emenalo wasn't the main guy buying players between 2011 and 2013, then his traducers will at least want to hold him to his 'abysmal record' betwen 2013 and 2016.

Let's see what Chelsea have to say about that. From the Chelsea website Today.

Marina Gravaskaia, Director:

since 2010 has acted as a representative of the owner at the club and in support of the board of directors. She joined the board of Chelsea FC plc and the Football Club Board in June 2013 and is mainly responsible for player transactions.

It's even more instructive to note, even though he is now the highest ranking Tracksuit at the club, Emenalo is still NOT on the board.

Couple this Knowledge with the Interviews I posted, especially Carlo's...and the picture becomes clearer.

Emenalo has way less power at the club than we give him credit and/or abuse for.

I'm out yo!

Next let's hear from Emenalo himself on Roman.

When it comes to decisions, we feel confident we have an owner who has a very good track record, who is astute at making decisions of this kind at the right time to get us to where we want to be.

"We have never put ourselves in a position where we second guess him. Part of the reasons he can make those decisions and be successful is because he has the information a lot of people don't.

"He has the whole picture of what is happening at the club, not just from certain individuals but every sector of the club. When he needs to make a decision, he can make it.

This is echoed by Ray Wilkins here:

! was surprised when Mr Abramovich dispensed with the services of Carlo a year after we won the double and when he sacked Robbie Di Matteo a few months after winning the Champions League.

But the owner doesn’t hesitate when he thinks it’s time for a change and you don’t get much warning that it’s coming. In my case, it was literally ‘crash, bang wallop and off you go’. That’s the way he works.

And when you think of the money he has spent on Chelsea, he’s entitled to do what he wants. If I’d spent £1billion on something, I wouldn’t have too many people telling me what to do, either.

Nobody is allowed to question Roman at Chelsea. Nobody.


And that is where our problem lies in my opinion.

Anyway Moving on to my final submission on this Emenalo subject...

Loading.

Dayo was instructed to stick to matters of his club only when he posted a contrary opinion.

Now A40's opinion from 3 years ago counts.

Ahhh the delicious hypocrisy.

Anyway we stay loading...

Who's interview should I table next sef?

I think that at this point, we need to try and figure out what is going on at Chelsea.

I lean very closely towards what Tng said here:

tng:
In all of this, the recurring decimal is Roman. He creates the enabling environment for "spies" . Unfortunately, he is the one we cant do without.

Now let's examine this with facts:

Starting with Ancelotti.

Firstly, Griffon, and this should be important to you. Roman told him straight away that he wanted a possesion based team. So it wasn't Emenalo that had a Barcelona-esque Vision. Emenalo was only still a scout when this happened back in 2009.

Hear him.

On one of the first occasions I met Abramovich he told me, “I want to find a manager that gives my team an identity, because when I watch Chelsea I’m not able to find an identity. When I see Barcelona or Manchester United, I find an identity in the team — when I watch Chelsea I cannot find an identity.” So we changed the style of play — we played with more possession.

Logically, you can see the irony of a possession wanting owner later hiring Jose Mourinho can't you? We''l come to this later. All i wanted to point out here is this Vision you attribute to Emenalo actually came from the top, a full two years before Emenalo became TD.


Next, we have a situation where Roman aggressively questions his manager's selections AND in some cases tells the manager who he wants in the squad

During that great run of games, we lost 3–1 to Wigan. It was just a blip, to my mind, something that happens in football, but Abramovich came to the training ground the next morning to demand answers...

I was asked to promote five young academy graduate players into the 25-man squad, which I did. We won the first game of the new season 6–0, but I was still summoned to Abramovich’s house that night to receive a “dressing down”...

It was a new type of relationship for me with an owner — even Berlusconi had not been so demanding.

On the appointment of Emenalo as assistant coach.

I didn’t have any personal problem with Emenalo, but he was not comfortable in his new role. He was not used to being an assistant manager — his experience was in scouting — but the club put him there anyway. He was certainly not comfortable in front of the players, because they knew him from his time in a certain role, not in his new position.

Ancelotti didn't have a problem with Emenalo, but he rightly felt he wasn't qualified to be an Assistant Manager. Cue TnG's post here.

On Roman's aggression:

In April we played Manchester United in the Champions League quarter-finals, with the feeling that we would have to win to save our season.
The night before the second leg, Abramovich addressed the players, telling them they had to win or there would be huge changes to the team. He told me individually that if we lost then I was not to bother coming back to work. I wasn’t sure if he was serious. We lost and I did go back to work, though I felt like a dead man walking. Again, I suppose I could have confronted the owner, but it seemed pointless.
We lost, 1–0 away at Everton, on the last day of the season. I’m told that the CEO was driving away from the stadium when he got the call to say, “Turn around and tell Carlo he is fired.”

His final Verdict?

The relationship with the owner, however, was not so good. To break a relationship there are little details that all add up...

I believe his main reason for letting me go was that he thought the management of the squad was not right. He thought that I was too kind in front of the players and he grew sure that it was causing something to go wrong within the group. He would try to convince me, with all my experience to the contrary, to be stronger, tougher and more rigorous with the players.
I’d heard it before and I’ve heard it since, but he was wrong — they are all wrong. I don’t change my character.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-won-6-0-and-i-was-ordered-to-abramovichs-house-for-a-dressing-down-wbpvpwz85


So in Ancelotti's view Roman was an aggressive meddler. This doesn't sound like Emenalo actually doing anything to undermine Ancelotti. Roman was pretty openly bullying Ancelotti.

The Chelsea board has always consisted of two kind of people whom for sake of discussion I will call the 'Suits' and the 'Track Suits'

The suits are the business people who provide the business perspective at the board meetings eg Eugene Tannenbaum, and Ron Gourlay.

The track suits are the sporting people who provide the football perspective at the board meetings eg Arnesen, Forde and from 2013 Emenalo.

Emenalo is accused of ruining the team from 2011. Between 2011 and July 2013, he was not a board member.

Does it sound plausible, that a lower ranking member of the managing cadre would be making decisions that completely bypass the highest level of management?

Is it possible that Emenalo would sideline the committee listed by Chelsea as in charge of running day to day activities, and make decisions with the highest level of impact on his own?

I've worked in corporate environments in the City of London since 2011. I can assure you, that bypassing the boardroom and strategy level management manner is impossible.

So what does this mean for the theory of Emenalo the club ruininer since 2010/11/beginning of time?

Loading.

The Chain of Command.

Now someone asked why Benitez did not take his list of requirements to Mike Forde. The reason is simple. There is a chain of command.

We all know that Roman is the one who ultimately cuts the check for players. Yet what we find is that many managers were unable to access Roman directly....and what's more, this is actually the standard procedure

Hear AVB.

I have not spoken to him [Abramovich],” said Villas-Boas. “I have spoken to persons near to him. He is disappointed about the result and asking questions about how we set up the team and they were duly explained.
“I spoke to the people close to the owner to transmit the message. People like Emenalo and these people. That is the normal way we communicate. He just wants to know the thought process.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/chelsea/9102184/Chelsea-manager-Andre-Villas-Boas-admits-owner-Roman-Abramovich-quizzed-him-over-team-selection.html

Hear Benitez

Benitez says he has not yet met or spoken with Roman Abramovich - his link is with technical director Michael Emenalo - but he thinks he will meet him later today.
'T[b]he main thing is that I have spoken to Michael Emenalo, the technical director, and he's my link[/b].'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/chelsea/9696291/Rafa-Benitez-unveiled-as-new-Chelsea-manager-live.html


Now if we know that the managers dont get to take their lists directly to the guy who cuts the cheque, why should we expect the manager to be able to take his list directly to to DoF?

The things we know for sure are the TD collects the list from the manager. And we know that the DoF is directly in charge of the TD and first team affairs. So its pretty clear from the Chelsea website that the chain of command is:

Manager presents list to TD. TD presents to DoF to ratify at board level. Owner signs off. And it goeas back down again

sigh.

Still loading.

Griffon, Mike Worral does not not work and has never worked at Chelsea either at lower level, or at strategic level.

At best, all the man is giving us is his opinion based on his observations. I want to strip past all of that. I'm painstakingly pasting these facts as listed by Chelsea Website direct.

Let us focus on that for now first. Let us draw our inferences from the information we can verify, rather than 3rd hand information from a writer who is speculating in the same way that you are.

Anyway, I'm still loading...

Before we move forward with the Emenalo case, let us step back in time to 2010, and consider his predecessor Frank Arnesen.

Frank Arnesen had a completely different remit to Emenalo as exemplified by his slightly different Job Title.

Again This is lifted directly from the Chelsea website in 2010

Frank Arnesen, Sporting Director.

Continues with his previous roles relating to the Reserves and Academy but now also takes on responsibilities relating to the co-ordination of first team activity and supporting the first team manager.

Note the small difference in Emenalo and Frank's job description...They both handled youth teams and they both supported the first team manager....

However ONLY Frank coordinated first team activity.

To further exemplify this difference in authority...Frank sat on the Board. Emenalo at least until 2013 did not

Griffon:
Between August 2007 and June 2013 Forde was Director of Football Operations and Executive Club Director at Chelsea - FACT!

1n 2011, Micheal Emenalo was appointed the technical director - FACT!

I don't see how this changes anything. Emenalo started the damage upon being appointed the TD in 2011. His job as the technical director was to produce a team that will win trophies from 2011 whilst also looking to the future (vision). But he was incompetent to handle the task. He is just a phucking scout for pete's sake. He has no business planning a squad, his only job is to recommend good players. A technical director should help strengthen weak areas but Emenalo failed in that regard.

He built a squad which was slanted toward playing high up to get the best out of MaZaCar with no regard given to the dearth of steel in the CM area. I've said this over and over again. That underlines his inane tactical knowledge of the game brah.

He never bothered to sign a good CM, his major concern was to stockpile the team with tiki-taka kinda players. The only time we bothered about having a good CM was last two seasons when Jose arrived and demanded for Matic, you of all people should know better.

So I'm right with the assertion that Emenalo did more than scouting back then, he was in charge of creating a major imbalance in the team.

Treat this as fact!

Hahaha...

I'm coming to this. Just chill.

It's important to note that I am quoting directly from the Chelsea website.

There are no phrases like 'Is Believed', 'Suggestions of' or 'Fingers are pointed'.

This is not the third hand description of a journalist who was told something by someone we cannot identify. We will not quote people who are on the outside looking in. All my information will be quoted directly from Chelsea website or interviews with Chelsea current/former staff.

Griffon and other readers, please stay with me.

Griffon, I think what I would like to do now is try and outline the strategic hierarchy of the Club at the time based on information from the Chelsea Website.

As at August 2012, This was the information on the Chelsea Website.

Roman Abramovich - Owner, Board Member

Chelsea FC plc is the company which owns Chelsea Football Club. The ultimate parent company of Chelsea FC plc is Fordstam Limited and the ultimate controlling party of Fordstam Limited is Roman Abramovich.

Manages

Mike Forde - Director of Football, Board Member

Mike is responsible for all areas of performance and team operations relating to the first team, including player recruitment; medical; sport science; psychology and performance analysis.

Manages

Emenalo, Technical Director, Non-Board Member

now supports the work of the first team manager, leading the club's international and domestic scouting network, and assists in driving the technical programmes of our Academy and international youth network.

And Then RDM, Manager and First Team Coach, Non-Board Member

Roberto Di Matteo was appointed on a permanent basis in June 2012 having acted as interim first team coach following the departure of Andre Villas-Boas the previous March.

I think this is very important while we delve further into the discussion....

raumdeuter:
I wan go sleep, no one should interject or invite any mod

By the morning I want more blood, more gore, spill the guts you morrafuckas

This isn't about abuse, and after that response I'm done responding to that embecile.

I will wait for Griffon to come, so that we can discuss the Emenalo issue amicably.