Slojo

We've spent 200 million and haven't improved the side, I wouldn't say it's a great window.

Then why isn't it happy days for Conte? Why is he sulking on the sidelines, why does he look depressed at press conferences and saying that his own players aren't good enough to win a league they've just won last year. I don't see anything happy about it quite honestly, if you're looking at it in the most positive way then sure, but it's quite clear we've had an awful transfer window and we're probably on the verge of getting a new manager again.

No the speculation was he wanted Vidal, that's who we were linked with. Watch his press conference on Barkley, the first thing he says "he's English" You could tell he wasn't happy with the signing.

This exchange made me laugh so much

I was about 10 years old then so it's always hard to remember stuff like that, I do remember Jose's row with Shevchenko and that not being his signing. But I think Conte has been very vocal about it this season, more so than any other manager I can remember, I would say Jose is a far away second. Not even AVB moaned about transfers when he first came to Chelsea despite chasing Modric all summer only to end up with Raul Meireles last minute. But that was also a problem, I'm glad Conte is making noise about it, but I'm not happy with his recent comments. He's going way over the top, if you've spent 200 million on transfers you can't keep moaning about lack of transfer activity & targets. Especially when it's completely undermining the players, I think it's getting ridiculous.

This is a big problem. The Barkley press conference comes to mind, Conte made it quite obvious he didn't want the Barkley transfer. What must that have done for Barkley's confidence? A lad who hasn't played in almost a year and wants to prove a point.

She's a negotiator mate, and a good one at that by the looks of things. From what I've read that's as far as it goes, she's an advisor to Roman Abramovich on business affairs outside of Chelsea and a negotiator/club representative for Chelsea. Now I could be wrong and maybe she is making bad decisions but there is nothing to go on to blame her for all of this. Why she's getting the blame by so many Chelsea fans I find it very odd... I hope it's not for the reasons I'm thinking.

We aren't as poor as some people make out, just because we can't compete with City & PSG doesn't mean we need to spend a 100 million on Zappercosta, Bakayoko & Danny Drinkwater. We have spent money, we've just spent it badly. We seem to be MUCH better at selling players for good prices than we are buying them, as a matter of fact, we are a million times better.

Yeah, and Zappacosta was a panic buy this year but this time it didn't really pay off. The late transfer activity in the summer has to stop. I'm not sure why Marina is getting the blame either, I'm pretty sure she's just a negotiator. I don't know who to blame entirely because I don't know what goes on in the background. But I think Conte is trying to deflect a lot of the blame when he needs to take a fair share of it, I can completely understand where he's coming from though. He's a manager and he's likely not to be in this Chelsea job forever, if it looks like he's against massive odds with the board then it'll look better on him, but Conte expressed his likeness of Danny Drinkwater in the past when he first came to Chelsea. But he chose Kante instead because he knew we couldn't sign both players from Leicester just after they won the league. So I don't think this was a board signing, I think this is purely on Conte making a mistake, either way, I think it's unlikely that the board or Conte are fully to blame.

I can't remember Jose being vocally unhappy about the signings made at the club, besides the Shevchenko which was clearly known to be an Abramovich signing. Conte is the only one who's made a stand against it, especially in that manner. I'm happy he's made it but he doesn't do himself any favours when he's signing average players for ridiculous fees and chasing Andy Carroll in the market. edit: I do recall him saying a few things here and there that he hopes to bring in new players, but he's said the same at United and everywhere he's gone, it's not in the same manner as Conte. Conte has been very vocal about the lack of transfer activity and not getting his targets.

Same here Bobby, I know many will disagree and I might regret what I say. It's always a careful what you wish for when it's someone as good as Conte. But it's just how I feel and I'm rarely ever someone calling for the sacking of our managers, I was against sacking Carlo, Di Matteo, Mourinho, but this is just my opinion on Conte. I think it's time for both us and Conte to move on because I can't see anything good coming out of this partnership. When he's saying things like he's doing an excellent job with what he has and he's doing all he can I think it's time up, I don't think I even recall AVB saying stuff like that.

Which managers have been vocal about that? I believe Conte is the first to speak out about it. Also, I definitely agree with your middle paragraph, our transfer activity has been dreadful since Jose's 2nd season. We also seem to sign our players very late for some reason, when we signed Fabregas & Costa we wrapped them up very early so they could integrate and settle in.

We've had a weird number of injuries this season, particularly hamstring injuries. And we've heard rumours of Conte's tough training methods, perhaps that's the factor in these injuries. Also, we look absolutely shattered every time we play 2 games in a week. We didn't look this tired under Jose and he used to play the same players for 180 minutes a week.

David Luiz was really underwhelming in the midfield position when Jose played him there, I don't want him in the midfield position again.

I think the finishing 10th thing is a bad argument and not a fair assessment of the team anyway. We literally had the same side that season that walked the league the season before plus improvements and we finished 10 places lower, that was mostly due to internal affairs. We definitely have a good side, David Luiz is a fantastic centreback, Moses has improved a lot and Alonso is a fantastic left wing back, but I believe we've argued over Moses & Alonso before so agree to disagree on it. Even if Conte is right and the squad genuinely isn't that good, who's fault is that? He can't blame the board because he's had near 200 million to spend on both seasons.

But he's ready for Dortmund? I understand that managers in Conte's calibre are mostly right, but they're also sometimes wrong and Conte could be very wrong on the Michy situation. I don't like the idea that if a player performs well elsewhere it's just because he automatically became a good player, sometimes managers make big mistakes, I think Jose made two big ones despite how swimmingly things were going at the time. The long-term needs more thought than the short-term.

I really really really hate that he's come here at the expense of Michy, a player who I rate and like. But I do think Giroud is a good signing, age isn't a massive factor in this one, we'll easily get 2 seasons out of him at least if we want to that is. He's a good striker, but having said that I would have preferred giving Michy the chances to prove himself, but we all know that wasn't going to happen.

I wouldn't pin the Costa situation on Conte, Costa was not only difficult to manage but he made it quite clear he wanted to leave the club before Conte even arrived. I don't think it was a case of him "alienating" him, I think we got a good replacement for him in Morata despite current circumstances. Even if Diego Simeone came here I wouldn't expect Costa to stay, he wanted out of the league & country entirely.

I expect to get a lot of hate for this, I backed Jose 10000% even when the results were going sour, I wanted the board to make a statement and side with Jose over the players so player power wouldn't win. But the more I look at this Conte situation the more I can't help but feel he's looking after himself a lot more than he is looking after the club. I'm not saying every manager who takes the job must be a loyal devout, but I expect them to do everything they can to win things at this club. But judging by Conte's words and actions it looks like he's protecting his stock more than anything, he's trying to make out that the side isn't good enough to compete and he's in a difficult position. When the reality is he's had plenty of money to spend but he's spent it on bad players. We can't really use the Emenalo excuse anymore, January was just as bad as June, July & August. I can't feel any optimism in his words and I can't help but feel he's losing the players also, every game it's like we are overachieving and the players aren't good enough to do this and that, but he's had 4 transfer windows to fix this, and roughly 400 million to spend at MOST. I simply cannot subscribe to the idea that Conte is harshly done by the board on this one. Okay you didn't get Vidal and you got Barkley, but why are you chasing so many mediocre players in the process? Why did you spend a massive sum on Drinkwater if you aren't interested in playing him and Kante together? What's going on... I might regret saying this but I'm going to put it out there, I won't be too sad to see him go at this point, I think it's what's best for the club. Hopefully, things turn around in February, January is a month I'll like to forget.

Ozil has signed a new contract, that's Arsenal with Mikhi-Ozil-Aubamayang-Lacazette as their attacking options, I would say they've upgraded not downgraded.

And according to you, that's business as usual, no big deal? I would say matters are pretty damn pressing at the moment.

But who's fault is that if he's exploiting the squad to maximum level? Is Conte saying he can't improve the squad with a 150 million transfer budget? Is he directly saying that we will never be good enough to challenge for the title? It's a big insult to the players to tell them that last season they overachieved. What message does this send out exactly.. It really appears to me that Conte has no wishes to be at the club anymore.

For such a physical presence he fell down like a sack of sh*t for that second goal. Let's be honest here, we've been praising him for average games the past few weeks. That was the issue when we brought it up, don't get to the stage where we are overpraising him. Right now he's not good enough for any top 6 side, I dare say a top 10 side and like you said he's not an improvement on Chalobah or Loftus-Cheek at the moment. Definitely not an upgrade on Matic or looks to be improving beyond that level, and just from that it's massively disappointing.

Oh dear

I love Conte and I would hate him to go but he's really let me down this season, I didn't think a man who could get everything right last season would be so incompetent this season. He can moan about transfers not going his way and all such but what on earth was spending over 100 million on Drinkwater/Bakayoko/Zappcosta about? If we spent around 150 million on transfers I expect the team to improve, but it hasn't. A very depressing situation we have here I think, we are dropping out of the top 4 and for the first time this season I'm not confident on finishing top 4. We have very hard fixtures this upcoming month, if we are still in the top 4 by the end of those fixtures I'll be very surprised. All of our youth players have been impressive and we still won't play them, when has Ampadu looked bad? He's looked better than Gary Cahill ever has. Musonda looked very promising, we send him on loan to Celtic for 18 months... And I just know that Hudson Odoi will not get any game time despite playing well. I would much rather play Ampadu than Bakayoko, simple as that really.