The London is Blue podcast are in London to see some games live, and having come all the way across the Atlantic you can imagine why they’re not too happy about what happened in the Villa match they were at.
Recording in their hotel room after full time, presenter Nick Verlaney went in again on the BlueCo strategy after its latest failure.
Chelsea’s win-never model continues to frustrate trophy hungry fans
Antoine Semenyo plays for Bournemouth. (Photo by Steve Bardens/Getty Images)
Antoine Semenyo plays for Bournemouth. (Photo by Steve Bardens/Getty Images)
“The biggest problem with the strategy is that you prioritise asset value over anything else,” Verlaney explained.
“If you went and bought an Ollie Watkins, let’s use the Villa example as it’s so fresh in our minds. You can’t sell Ollie Watkins after he’s done playing here for three years for any real value. You lose that value. So it’s not an asset It’s not a commodity you can trade.
“What are you gonna do in January? What are you gonna do to fix it? The deals have already been done. The strategy has already been implemented. You don’t go and find an Antoine Semenyo now for £65m pounds. That’s not the strategy.”
This kind of discontent is only going to grow as the years pass, and we had better hope the owners have something up their sleeve to deal with it.
You can see them make their point in the clip embedded here:
🤑 @nickverlaney: The biggest problem with the hierarchy's strategy is it prioritizes future asset value over anything else. It doesn't make sense for the model to get Ollie Watkins because you can't sell him in 3 years.
🎧👉 https://t.co/DgD3TyZGAt pic.twitter.com/uRRLwJsa3J
— London Is Blue Podcast ⭐️⭐️ (@LondonBluePod) December 29, 2025
In other news…
Chelsea could easily have had a penalty in the second half when the ball hit Ian Maatsen’s arm, and on Sky Sports news today they were trying to explain away what was clearly just a bad decision.
We wrote before kick off that Maresca was taking a risk by picking Badiashile over Wesley Fofana, and so it proved when the Frenchman made a crucial mistake.
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David Ornstein talks on NBC Sport about top transfer potential for Antoine Semenyo.