Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Tifo Football podcast. I'm Joe Devine and I'm here today to introduce Seb Stafford Bloor and Dom Fifefield of the Athletic.

Later on today, we're releasing our second episode of State of the Club. State of the Club is a video series where we look at one club per episode

and diagnose them in several different ways. We look at their tactics, we look at their finances,

we look at their recruitment, we look at the management and the coaching, and we try to analyze

all of the most interesting themes related to that club. And today's club is Chelsea.

Chelsea are a fascinating club at the moment.

The team once associated with Roman Abramovich and Jose Marino has ushered in a new era,

where we're more regularly hearing names like Marina Grav-Skyer, and obviously Frank Lampard

has returned to be the coach. What you're about to hear on today's podcast is the extended

and full version of a conversation between Seb Stufferblot and Dom Fifefield.

Seb and Dom take us back to 2017. They talk about the money that was spent on a sacking

Conte. They talk about the decision-making behind a Marizio Sari's appointment. And finally, they

talk about Frank Lampard and his network at the top of the club and what the future might hold for him and for Chelsea. It's far-ranging and fascinating and a shorter version of it appears in the video. So I hope you enjoyed today's conversation. And I also hope that you will visit our YouTube channel. If you just search for Tifo football on YouTube, you'll find us. And our most recent video will be this State of the Club episode. It'll be about an hour long, maybe, full of contributions from people like David Ornstein and Matt Slater. And they take us a really long time to make. So if you can show your support and give us a like and, you know, go and watch it and give us a view. That would be fantastic.

And I should emphasise as well that it's not just for Chelsea fans.

The idea behind making episodes like this is that we make them with a broad interest in mind

so that fans of different clubs can enjoy watching an episode

about a team that they don't support.

So thank you for downloading today's podcast

and I'll leave you in the warm embrace

in the cool hands of Don

Fyfield and of course Seb Stafferblah. When I think back to 2017, the memory I'm left with from Chelsea's season is bashaw-wise

celebrating at the Hawthorne's, Conte rushing down the touchline, and Chelsea looking like a picture of health.

...