Qaz

If an overpriced Callum Wilson or over 30 on huge wages Higuain are our only options, then we really are missing Emenalo or some other scouting/planning support. I'll say it again, after the Torres debacle and up to Mourinho version 2, we made better decisions in the transfer market. Not perfect, but better. We bought in the likes of Lukaku, De Bryne, Salah, Oscar, etc. Players that weren't known about at the time and while we screwed up developing them at Chelsea, they all went on to either give a transfer profit or embarrass us by turning out really really good at other clubs. We need to go back to that system. The one that scouts and buys players before they reach potential. It won't always work out, but bang for buck we were doing better before Mourinho and Conte came in and made generally horrible decisions in the transfer market that is responsible for the mess we are in now. I know this view still probably isn't very popular, but the director of football model where the manager wasn't making so many decisions in the market worked for us (for the most part). But anyways, in the meantime, Higuain might be a decent stop gap.

I was about to say the same. He's having a shocker

Pure speculation on my part, but I have a feeling that the club are trying to find a new home for Conte (Real Madrid?) to avoid paying out his contract. Before signing a new manager.

Look at https://www.transfermarkt.com/fc-chelsea/alletransfers/verein/631 See the period before off-season 2011 (before Emenalo became technical director). Then the period off-season 2011 till off-season 2013 (the time Emenalo was technical director till the period Mourinho joined and Emenalo offered/asked to resign). Then the period from off-season 2013 till now (off-season 2018). Like actually look at it. I'm serious. Go through line by line and look at every single transfer (in and out) and how it worked out for the club long term. Taking into account transfer fee paid/wages paid/performances/transfer fee received/etc with an eye to value for money. Then come back if you still believe what you posted above. If your mind hasn't changed, you either didn't really look or you really do look at....reality differently to me. And if you actually do have a perspective different to mine having done your homework properly then great. But at the moment your post betrays that you haven't really looked into this properly.

If you look back at our transfer history there's a definite trend where the more power the manager/head coach has over transfers, the generally worse decisions we've made in the transfer market*. While it goes against my usual instinct of "back the manager and let him decide", at this point, the data shows that we are better off bringing in a head coach who is tactically flexible, gets along well with the players and is happy to work with what's available. Rather than push the club to spend hundreds of millions of pounds building a squad that suits his whims. Especially when it looks as if we never stick with a manager more than 3 seasons in a row. The identity of that manager?...i don't know. * most posters here won't agree with this, but if you actually go back and look at the data. It's clear after Emanelo was promoted to technical director till Mourinho joined (and Emanelo offered to resign), we did better in the market. And then under Mourinho and Conte we've been really poor in the market (Costa, De Bryne, Lukaku, Matic, Salah)

We have far more ads and far less content than the other fan's channels

No half time update. Just 15 straight minutes of ads

a side note but...... my god Chelsea TV is disappointing with all these ads.... what little i've seen of the other fan channels, they are no where near as bad. This is an embarrassment to our club

LOL. Now i know you are taking the p*ss :P Good one :) You definitely had me there

At the risk of spelling out the absolute bloody obvious, Tottenham and Chelsea are not operating on the same financial level/resources and such comparing the two directly is misleading. But surely you are smart enough to know that already and hence my keystrokes were pointless despite what you've written, right?

Would you rather the trophy cabinet of Arsenal or Burnely? They are operating on different levels financially and should be judged on different standards

If we continue to out work and out muscle liverpool, we will win If we let them over run us, then who knows....

Half time thoughts: I'm happy. We started a bit too defensive (more of a back 5) and it invited pressure on us. But that said, i do kinda get it as Liverpool are all pace and no height/strength going forward so it kind of makes sense to play a bit deeper. But I did like the way we worked into the game as the half wore on. Alonso and Moses both had very good first halves. Alonso was surprisingly good defensively and Moses looked far more dangerous than he has for most of this season. The cross for the goal was great. Bakayoko was actually really good. Possibly his best game for us thus far. His tackling has been really good and his cross field ball for Moses before the goal was fantastic. Fabregas was too quiet. I must admit, i wanted to look to see if he was being particularly closely marked by the liverpool midfielders and that was maybe creating space for bakayoko and kante or if he's just having a down day. I will watch closely 2nd half. Kante was his usual solid self. Some really great stuff Hazard skillful but nothing has come off yet. Could break out any moment. Loving the workrate of Giroud. He's a proper trier. Chasing lost causes. Conte's got his tactics right thus far today. I wasn't sure about Alonso over Emerson but he's been very solid defensively. The 5-3-2 has worked. While the start was a bit slow, it looks as it that was deliberate to slow Liverpool down at the start and then start to squeeze as the half went on. 2nd half we will need to out work and out muscle liverpool again.

There's so many ways you can judge a manager, most of them really subjective. Like does he motivate well? Is he good tactically? how does he handle the media? how does he do in the transfer market? All interesting but very subjective value based ideas of what may or may not be accurate. Or many or may not be relevant to our (or any other club's) specific situation. But.... If you try to take a empirical analysis of what a club's performance is in terms of league position/win-loss over an extended period of time relative to the team's total player budget relative to other teams. Then you can build a somewhat decent empirical justification for whether a club is over or under performing where it should be. The book soccernomics goes into long run analysis and finds that wages paid is the biggest and most consistent determinant of final league position across several leagues in several decades. This is never 100% but is far more solid for objective reasoning than "feely" subjective reasoning. Based on budget, Tottenham have been very much a relative outperformer relative to other teams. Maybe the biggest outperformer alongside Burnley and Bournemouth over the last few years. I can quote all sorts of stuff around bringing through youth, making (mostly) good decisions in the transfer market, making his team very fit and motivated, having good relations with his squad, reasonably attractive (high pressing) style, etc, etc, etc. But really, the most objective measure i can measure relative performance is wins/loss relative to player payments (wages/bonuses and to a lessor extent net transfer spend). It's always possible I lack your imaginative flair @yorkleyblue :) and that may make you a much better judge of manager than I. But in the absence of hard track records from either of us, i'd rather rely on empirical analysis where possible :)

Players look tired and the weather probably isn't helping either