‘Atlanta, come run with Gary Cahill.
‘We’ve partnered with Nike and Atlanta Run Club for a special event tomorrow night. All abilities welcome.’
This was the latest post from Chelsea on X as they landed in Atlanta ahead of the next pre-season friendly in the early hours of Thursday morning UK time later this week.
Cahill still does quite a bit or marketing and promo stuff for the club, and it’s great to see it.
The former Blues captain was criminally under-rated when he was playing for us, and he was one of those all time heroes from 2012 and a club legend. I loved watching him play, his no nonsense style of defending, and I love his heart and passion. He clearly still completely adores this club and wants the very best for them, like all of us. And I also really enjoy hearing his views on current affairs at Chelsea.
I love my club, I love my club enough to continue banging this drum, the drum of concern, the drum of desperation for the remainder of the transfer window.
Gary Cahill has recently been banging the same drum as me, as other former Chelsea players such as Joe Cole and many more, and the majority of the Chelsea fan base.
So I’m not going to write what I basically feel I am writing at least once a day right now during this transfer window. Don’t listen to me, but maybe listen to Gary Cahill. And I’m not talking to our community here when I say that, I am talking directly to the club.
So what exactly has Cahill said then?
Cahill believes the smartest piece of business the new manager could do before the transfer window closes is to land a few ‘veterans’.
Cahill said: “I’d like to see a little bit of experience added in the window, to be honest.
“That would be a sensible play from Chelsea, from my personal point of view, to try and build that spine and knit together some of these young players.
“Obviously, the tactic has been to buy exciting young players to then develop over the next two or three years. That sometimes takes time, especially when you get players from different leagues, different countries. It’s not always easy for them to settle.
“For me, a good transfer window for Chelsea would be to have two or three experienced players that are not phased and potentially know the league but have been around a little bit.
“That would be vital in terms of getting the squad together and helping these young players to progress and almost set the standards and the levels.
“Like with Thiago Silva, he had a big impact there, didn’t he? Even at the age that he was at, it was a huge impact. That’s a big loss in terms of not just playing but also in the changing room.
“Adding that experience will help this team on and off the pitch.”
Pressed on who he had in mind, the 61-cap ex-England defender and 2012 Champions League winner joked: “Me, mate! Did you see me in Soccer Aid?
“But that kind of pedigree, an experienced player, a top player and a player that’s been around and knows the standards and knows what it’s like to compete and be at a big club and try and challenge for trophies.”
Cahill is not necessarily expecting Enzo Maresca to add to his personal collection of medals in 2024-25.
He added: “Time will tell. It’s quite, what do you say, risky. It’s an appointment where I think people are unsure how it’s going to go.
“The new manager has got his philosophies and ideas. It’s difficult for that to all hit the ground running and be uber successful straight away.
“It needs a little bit of time and patience.
“Patience can’t be a mid-table. I think patience has got to be definitely competing to get Champions League football and pushing on in the last stages of the cup competition.
“They’ve got a lot of potential in the squad. It just needs to knit together. I think it still needs a year or two to develop and get to the stage where they want to be because you’ve got such a young, average-age squad.”
He’s absolutely spot on with his drum playing here, SPOT ON.
Cahill is a man who ‘knows ball’ – maybe listen to him and the many other former players and fans who have said the same, yeah?
