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Marina Granovskaia leaves Chelsea

This is just one example of the many changes being made upstairs, maybe people who are impatient about transfers can finally understand that there are a lot of changes going on at the club this summer and ahouldnt expect things to go as quick as our rivals.

 
Marina's "Director of the Year" award is often quoted on here in her defence .... 

Here is the link to the article about it on the club web site: https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2021/11/22/marina-granovskaia-wins-prestigious-award 

I quote: "Granovskaia, who has been a Chelsea director since 2013, is mainly responsible for player transactions and contracts"

I hope that clears up what her role is ... 

Also amusing that this director Award is part of the Golden Boy awards, organised by the Italian newspaper Tuttosport. Given the number of Italian clubs that have hugely benefited from dealing with Granovskaia, you can certainly understand why an Italian panel of judges would be massive fans of hers LOL

 
HazardousChoice said:
Another post of no value.  I'm not sure what your point is?

Generally players command higher wages when they move to a big club because they're moving on the back of good performances and they can they command a higher fee.  All the players you had listed had done that aside from Zouma who while good for us really needed the pay rise to be encourage him to move to West Ham who likely weren't the most appealing option for him

Some of our players like Havertz and Werner are in that category even though we pay them a huge amount for what they've shown. They had leverage prior to us signing them.

But that's very different to signing people like Pulisic, Kepa, Drinkwater, Zappacosta, RLC etc to big money contracts.  These players sucked at their previous clubs or had no leverage and were incredibly lucky to be considered by us, no other top club would ever have looked at them and they know that.

Why are we then offering them huge salaries?  Liverpool sign quality players like Diaz and pay them less than 60K a week because the players are desperate for the opportunity to play at the top level.

How does Marina manage to pay someone like Kepa 170K a week when he was average at Bilbao, no other club wanted him and he was on £35K a week there?

There's absolutely no way he'd have turned down 70K and the opportunity to play at a level he'd never get the chance to play at again.

Why is master negotiater Marina consistantly offering such ridiculous wages particularly to players that have no leverage or other options to earn half the amount we offer them?

It's the hallmark of her Tenure.
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Diaz was on €20k/w at Porto, & got bumped to £56k/w at Liverpool. Drinkwater was already on £90k/w at Leicester after their PL win.

A very recent one is Darwin Nunez who was on €15k/w at Benfica getting bumped up to £120k/w at Liverpool on the back of 1 good season in the Portuguese league. It isn’t a unique situation, every club bumps up contracts to entice players. We are only focused on it because these transfers haven’t worked out. That isn’t on Marina.

 
ducavis said:
Diaz was on €20k/w at Porto, & got bumped to £56k/w at Liverpool. Drinkwater was already on £90k/w at Leicester after their PL win.

A very recent one is Darwin Nunez who was on €15k/w at Benfica getting bumped up to £120k/w at Liverpool on the back of 1 good season in the Portuguese league. It isn’t a unique situation, every club bumps up contracts to entice players. We are only focused on it because these transfers haven’t worked out. That isn’t on Marina.
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Why do you embarrass yourself tying yourself in knots to claim things aren't on Marina?  She's the head negotiator ffs if us vastly overpaying for contracts isn't on Marina who is it on?

Who's responsibility is it in your world?

Nunez is coming off the back of a great season and has leverage to command high wages because there's so many clubs interested.  If Liverpool didn't want to pay him more than 50K a week he'd have just joined United and got what he wanted

Nobody wanted Kepa, there was no battle,  He wasn't coming off the back of a good season.  He was on 35K a week and no one was offering more.

There's no feasible reason why Marina would offer him 170K a week on a 7 year contract or why Kepa would turn down 70K a week because he has no hope of earning that elsewhere.

From a financial, business and football stand point it's an insane contract that no one with any kind of negotiational skills or understanding of either basic finance or the game would sanction.

How many clubs in the world can pay 170K a week to a goal keeper? Not many and those that can often have top class goal keepers so when you offer a keeper 170K a week you create a situation where it's next to impossible to get him off the wage bill if he isn't world class which is where we are now.

It's just terrible by Marina and I'm not sure how you can attempt to defend it with "If Kepa was the best keeper in the world it would be a good signing it isn't her fault he's not been good on the pitch"

 
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She drove hard bargains up until we signed Morata, there was a clear £32m limit and clubs would sell us players for that amount and no more.

Maybe because we make big sales and agents know how much we have in the bank so they refuse to accept anything less than market rate, her job becomes difficult to bargain when we haven't challenged for the league in years as well.

 
Athletic are saying that she will be leaving this week - it was expected that she would leave after the window. Something must have happened. 

 
HazardousChoice said:
Why do you embarrass yourself tying yourself in knots to claim things aren't on Marina?  She's the head negotiator ffs if us vastly overpaying for contracts isn't on Marina who is it on?

Who's responsibility is it in your world?

Nunez is coming off the back of a great season and has leverage to command high wages because there's so many clubs interested.  If Liverpool didn't want to pay him more than 50K a week he'd have just joined United and got what he wanted

Nobody wanted Kepa, there was no battle,  He wasn't coming off the back of a good season.  He was on 35K a week and no one was offering more.

There's no feasible reason why Marina would offer him 170K a week on a 7 year contract or why Kepa would turn down 70K a week because he has no hope of earning that elsewhere.

From a financial, business and football stand point it's an insane contract that no one with any kind of negotiational skills or understanding of either basic finance or the game would sanction.

How many clubs in the world can pay 170K a week to a goal keeper? Not many and those that can often have top class goal keepers so when you offer a keeper 170K a week you create a situation where it's next to impossible to get him off the wage bill if he isn't world class which is where we are now.

It's just terrible by Marina and I'm not sure how you can attempt to defend it with "If Kepa was the best keeper in the world it would be a good signing it isn't her fault he's not been good on the pitch"
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You keep banging on about Kepa and saying how other posters embarrass themselves, when it’s you who is embarrassing. Kepa was sought after by Real Madrid, not having renewed his contract with Athletic. Finally, he renewed until 2025 and would become the highest earner in the club, 4.6m €. He was their starting keeper and was seen as a quality keeper by Athletic fans and other clubs (Real Madrid interest was genuine), going to the national team. He had a new contract, had a rescission clause of 80m and Courtois left us with few choices. It’s known that Sarri wanted him. Marina got him having to pay the clause as Athletic would not have sold him to us. It hasn’t worked out for him at Chelsea, but get the facts right instead of embarrassing yourself with fake news. And grow up and stop with your Marina obsession, she may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and she may have got  it wrong with some targets, but stop pointing the finger at her at every opportunity, it’s childish.

https://www.marca.com/futbol/real-madrid/2017/11/30/5a1f2ef8e2704e7e368b464e.html

https://athletic.elcorreo.com/kepa-renovacion-athletic-20180122095951-nt.html

 
RMH said:
You keep banging on about Kepa and saying how other posters embarrass themselves, when it’s you who is embarrassing. Kepa was sought after by Real Madrid, not having renewed his contract with Athletic.
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What are you talking about?

Kepa was linked with Real Madrid 6 months prior to us signing him when he had an £18m release clause because he was seen as a potential young home grown backup to Navas/Courtois.

Zidane and the Madrid execs then decided against the signing because they didn't think Kepa was good enough to be a back up for them and didn't think he was worth his £18m release clause.

The rest of your post is irrelevant waffle, him being a waste of money and his position in the Bilbao squad has nothing to do with how poorly Marina negotiated to give him 170K a week.

I'm not even commenting on the transfer fee or what a monumental disaster must have occurred within our scouting department that we even looked at Kepa who was average for Bilbao.   People scapegoat Courtois but we really shouldn't have been so poorly prepared when it came to signing a replacement.  For a club of our size not having a backup plan in such a key position was embarrassing.

As for pointing fingers? It's the Marina thread and she's been disastrous for us.  Hopefully she's gone within the week and we can all put the nightmare of her being associated with the club behind us.  

It's going to take a lot longer to undo all the damage she's caused though many of the contracts she signed we won't be able to shift.

Actually Kepa's ludicrous contract will likely be the last Marina masterclass left staining the squad.

 
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Sindre said:
You can call it whatever you want but she absorbed the sporting director role into hers since 2017. And we've all seen what that have led to in the transfer market. Now, maybe it was Roman who made that decision or maybe it was Marina (they clearly work closely together) but it was one sh*te decision either way to not get a replacement for Emenalo.

She's been in charge of running the club for a long period of time right now. What has she done that's that great?

Do we have a good wage structure? No it's shambles.
Do we have a good transfer structure? No it's shambles.
Do we have a good scouting structure? See above
Have we done great commercially during her reign? No we have fallen behind our competitors here too.
Have we competed for Premier League titles since 2017? Not even close once.

What excactly has she done that's great?
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Not quite. The sporting director role was split with more responsibilities going to the managers and scouting departments. 

Since Emenalo's departure it's pretty much worked like this - manager reports on what he wants, scouting identifies potential targets, manager picks preferences, Marina finds out which of those targets are doable/feasible tries to get it done. 

Wage structure - it's as good as can be expected given how much we've won over the last 18 years. It only looks poor given recent transfer failings. 

Transfer structure - not bad, but severely impacted by short-termism culture under Roman. Not much different from the structure in place at City (acquisitions aside). 

Scouting structure - pretty much the same as it has been for a long time. 

Commercial success - Nothing to do with Marina, but we're fine here too given the club size and reputation. 

She's had some very good dealings with incomings and outgoings (specifically related to her role) - Luiz, Hazard, Havertz, Kante to name but a few. And pretty much been the best selling club during her tenure. 

But instead of me telling you what she's done that's been great, you can instead read some quotes from people who have actually worked with her - on both sides of the table. 

 
Marina is someone who misses the forest for the trees.

She is great at optimising individual transactions, so she probably gets 10-20% more for our player sales than otherwise, but her talent scouting is terrible, we get mostly the wrong players in.  In the long run she has hindered us more than helped us.

 
“It's definitely over between Marina Granovskaia and Chelsea. The separation is imminent with an official statement expected very soon - agents and clubs in talks with Chelsea have been informed too. 🚨🔵 #CFC 

New owner Todd Boehly is taking care of the negotiations.”

 
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Whiskyjack said:
Marina is someone who misses the forest for the trees.

She is great at optimising individual transactions, so she probably gets 10-20% more for our player sales than otherwise, but her talent scouting is terrible, we get mostly the wrong players in.  In the long run she has hindered us more than helped us.
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You think Marina is scouting players??

 
bisright1 said:
You think Marina is scouting players??
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The scouts give the report but she's the one with the biggest final say on transfers.  Or do you think it's the scouts that sign the players?

If she can't execute on say scouted option 1, then she should be showing more patience, instead of panic buying option c or d.

Liverpool waited 18 months for VVD.

City didn't get a striker last year, so they waited a year.

We didn't get what we wanted, so panic bought the likes of Kepa and Lukaku just to plug holes with expensive but suboptimal pieces.

She is the one with the most authority outside of Roman on transfers, so it's on her.

 
HazardousChoice said:
What are you talking about?

Kepa was linked with Real Madrid 6 months prior to us signing him when he had an £18m release clause because he was seen as a potential young home grown backup to Navas/Courtois.

Zidane and the Madrid execs then decided against the signing because they didn't think Kepa was good enough to be a back up for them and didn't think he was worth his £18m release clause.

The rest of your post is irrelevant waffle, him being a waste of money and his position in the Bilbao squad has nothing to do with how poorly Marina negotiated to give him 170K a week.

I'm not even commenting on the transfer fee or what a monumental disaster must have occurred within our scouting department that we even looked at Kepa who was average for Bilbao.   People scapegoat Courtois but we really shouldn't have been so poorly prepared when it came to signing a replacement.  For a club of our size not having a backup plan in such a key position was embarrassing.

As for pointing fingers? It's the Marina thread and she's been disastrous for us.  Hopefully she's gone within the week and we can all put the nightmare of her being associated with the club behind us.  

It's going to take a lot longer to undo all the damage she's caused though many of the contracts she signed we won't be able to shift.

Actually Kepa's ludicrous contract will likely be the last Marina masterclass left staining the squad.
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Kepa renewed with Athletic and Real Madrid lost interest. It's also true that they were going for Kepa because of our reluctance to sell Courtois (Zidane preferred Courtois but was adamant that he did not want Navas). Now, it was Sarri who wanted Kepa, and Marina had to pay the 80m to get him his target, there was no other way. As to what you say about him being mediocre at Athletic, well, you basically have no clue about what you're saying. Athleticzales were annoyed about him leaving but happy about the money the sale left to the Club, they were saying that going to Madrid for less money would have been really bad. They weren't devastated because they had Simon coming up, who's turned up to be a good keeper and now is in the Spanish national team too. So get you facts right before you speak.

 
RMH said:
Now, it was Sarri who wanted Kepa, and Marina had to pay the 80m to get him his target, there was no other way.
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She didn't have to do anything. We don't hire managers, we have hired head coaches and the real power have been with Granovskaia. She was the one who didn't want to pay Roma what they wanted for a far superior goalkeeper in Allison and when Liverpool swooped in she panicked and decided to pay far more, a world-record fee for Kepa.

Zidane himself was the one who blocked Real Madrid from signing Kepa on the cheap btw. He said so himself.

 
Whiskyjack said:
The scouts give the report but she's the one with the biggest final say on transfers.  Or do you think it's the scouts that sign the players?

If she can't execute on say scouted option 1, then she should be showing more patience, instead of panic buying option c or d.

Liverpool waited 18 months for VVD.

City didn't get a striker last year, so they waited a year.

We didn't get what we wanted, so panic bought the likes of Kepa and Lukaku just to plug holes with expensive but suboptimal pieces.

She is the one with the most authority outside of Roman on transfers, so it's on her.
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She doesn't do the scouting. As @venom2011 has pointed out, the coach indicates his needs, scouts identify targets, and most likely they identify a list of potential transfers for the same position (as any good business would do, they need a plan b in place), she then negotiates and decides based on the financial aspects of the transfer list. Sometimes the coach gets their no 1 choice and it works out (Kante, Kovacic, Chilwell, Jorginho to name a few recent ones), other times she gets the no 1 preference but they flop (e.g. Kepa, Higuain and not sure if Bakayoko or Lukaku, but that is another debate), and then there are the plan b and c cases that have failed (Drinkwater, Lukaku ?, Saul...).

But to say that Marina has a "terrible scouting talent" is just wanting to get the blame on Marina for even something she's not responsible for at the Club.

 
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