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Plus, a good showing in the CL, not the top 4 battle, is what the likes of Courtois and Hazard desire. If we want to keep our best players, make the best competitions priority

Agree with every word. Logically we should give our all for a top 4 spot and forget Barcelona; but it's the reverse which gets my balls tingling and heart racing. Barcelona will be a moment. A special moment, regardless of outcome - but if we win - this goes on to become a special season. There's no other way of transforming this season into one worth remembering. We should do all it takes to win the CL - it's possible.

Napoli play brilliant football to the eye but Sarri is not a brilliant manager in my opinion, unless he had choices which went unfulfilled by the club in which case we haven't seen the best of him. He lacks a rotation policy which you just can't be inexperienced with in England. You think Jose and his small squads were nervy? Sarri will play his best striker against Juventus, then 2 days later again in small cup game against nobody, and then a few days later again in a European tie - that he plans to throw anyway, since he doesn't believe his squad & philosophy can compete for multiple titles. His striker ends up injured or tired, and instead of bringing out his back up striker for a few games (like a Giroud), he moves Insigne into Mertens' position (like moving Hazard into the striker position, but slightly less blasphemous.) Napoli play pretty football - but so do Monaco, Dortmund, Liverpool and others. I hardly think that's enough reason to consider their managers to be good enough for us though; merely for playing attractive football as 2nd-in-the-league while winning 0 trophies. He has Pochettino written all over him - plenty of beautiful traits to gag over, but the main trait you want in a manager - totally missing - that instinct to put winning before style, and even implementing both to a degree. Pus, you can't bring Lewis Hamilton in to your Vauxhall Astra and expect to keep up with the McLaren's on the course. If we bring in a guy because we like how he drives, we'll still need to spend millions getting the tyres, engine, breaks etc. that he wants. Our current set up would underperform and simply fail if the expectation was to take players who can hardly pass, to replicating the most attractive style in Europe. And to buy that many new players and change our identity that much, to fit a manager who'd be here no longer than 3 season - it's not something i can see happening. Either we'd entirely change our team and who knows what would happen; or he'd come in and manage who we currently have, and people would call for his head when Drinkwater and Willian aren't performing like Xavi and Ronaldinho. Is Sarri a manager to rebuild under? Does he have the credentials? (Keeping in mind that this brilliant Napoli side was put together by none other than Benitez.) My thought is no. The manager we need, needs to be more in line with the hoof-ball philosophy we've maintained for a long time, so that we can retain somewhat our winning ways while slowly evolving. Sarri is too much evolution all at once, and there's no guarantee that his type of evolution would work over here; the footballing climate may totally suffocate his philosophy. At the end of the day though who gives a sh*t when they won't be here in 3 years, deemed 'not good enough':face_palm:

Re: Liverpool. They're better than us, but they're not better than us. It's like we're the pure-bred stallion who everyone should be betting on to win the race, but the Liverpool horse continues to be neck and neck despite living in a poo-covered barn, while ours lives in a mansion. Now; why is it that a horse in rag can compete with a horse in jewels? Simple. Repetition. Take a great horse/great team (Chelsea) - fine, quality to start with. Take a decent horse/team (Liverpool) - eh, we'll see what happens. Now - have the great horse change running routines, running partners, and running courses consistently. Then also, have the not-so-good horse actually running consistent routines, with the same partners, running the same courses until he knows every blade. That's us summed up quickly. We're ill-prepared and 'entitled' as some would put it, compared to a team that's put in grit and determination for 5+ seasons now; and in those 5 seasons regardless of manager, maintained similar drills, pairings, philosophies and such. We don't have that consistency; our team grows in all sorts of directions, but Liverpool grow in a focused direction, maximising traits of their choice, not just leaving the universe to decide what their team will look like in 3 years. They have a plan. And that long term plan - the faith in that plan - can be used as fuel in the short term vs. the likes of City. It's like, who's the more talented striker - Robinho or Defoe? But, if you could only choose one to lead your team for a Premier League campaign, who would you pick? - Probably the vastly shorter, technically inferior Defoe - simply because he's practiced more, and thus, makes a lot more use of the little he has, vs. the 'more talented' option who squanders massive amount of potential, because it's so easy to get complacent when you have it all. Liverpool are simply a unit. We aren't. A small platoon of 50 men will take down 100 men if they're organised correctly and going to war with the right mindset. It doesn't matter if those other 100 have been in training twice as long, with twice as expensive guns.

You don't actually believe donations from forum users are even a slither of what keeps a forum going do you? (We all probably think so at some point so hey ho.) There's a reason online newspapers write wacky headlines instead of asking for donations. Interaction on a website equals money for the website. This forum makes money because people post, not because people donate. The original poster was right - the forum owners are privileged, not the users who have plenty of websites to choose from, including starting their own. Great forum though. Don't see why there's a need for a handful of already established members to paint themselves as snobs who can't handle new thoughts (not yourself)

Watching this Arsenal game and my main take away so far - American commentators totally outshine the current English & Scottish. We get redundant facts and non stories throughout games - but the Americans far more often offer genuine insight or fresh perspective. They feel like real people as opposed to robots.

It really is worth considering that all footballing reasons aside, he could just be tired of London (many would be), and seeking his way out of his contract ASAP - he could be utterly depressed for all we know, in which case there can't be much negativity towards him IMO, just disappointed understanding.

You could cherry pick players from each of those categories and turn us into CL contenders. We could totally transform, or just freshen ourselves, with barely any transfer fees spent.; and I have absolutely no idea why the club don't do it (obviously not as a long term strategy for the rest of time ) For the set up we have I'd eagerly take - Kepa, Vrij, Asamoah as the 'can play everywhere and do everything' squad player, Ribery, Robben. Beyond that, simply invest in 1 striker, balanced but technically marvellous midfielders, and simple full backs who are dependable and productive. Kepa; Azpilicueta, Christensen, Vrij, Whoever's good going forward(£); Kante; Whoever's defensively adept, but with incredible passing(£); Robben/Willian/Hazard/Ribery/Odoi/Musonda (whichever 3); Morata/Whoever's actually worth the tens of millions we'd get for Courtois. We'd have a flair team, an attacking team, a dominant team, a shrewd team, a balanced team. Not the finished article - but a foundation in which we could replace a superbly functional Ribery/Hazard/Robben combo - which is just lunacy to not consider when you know how talented those 2 old Bayern guys are. They couldn't play every game, but they wouldn't need to.

It's no good that a non-productive, personal debate has been started between members so soon after new arrivals. I'll simply say this, with a harsh tone, to keep things fair and wrap up. If you're confused as to why some people post critical points, where yours are all bright blue, it may be this. It may be because, while some drink beer before a game, others read books or articles. Repeat that process for 300 or more games, and who's more likely to bring balanced perspective to the table for the post-match discussion? That isn't the sum of what I want to say; put so bluntly it just sounds offensive, but it gets across somewhat of the point. I'm not going to join a fighter forum as a book-reader, and tell them all about how to shoulder barge someone. And I'm not going to be a very vocal voice on a forum which requires discussion re: finance, strategy, and foresight, if I can't talk about any of those things. So, if you don't yourself grasp the intricacies of board leadership, delegation, recruitment, motivation, any of these nuances - you're really lacking scope over the club, and attacking points you don't understand, making us who do understand look like utter arseholes just for doing the basics right. A complete mole hill in here because a user knows we could do well without Roman, and expects Chelsea to win plenty of trophies. Upset, over that. Upset, over new people having new ideas That last line sums this up perfectly. Hopefully we can go forward now without calling eachother stupid, troll, or fake fan for disagreeing.

It's too easy to forget that less than 5 high profile players use Hazard's style. Less than 3 do. I can't even name the second one beyond Hazard; the only name is Ribery, but from years ago, though. You don't replace Messi, because his qualities will not be found again. Similarly, you don't replace Hazard, because his qualities will not be found again. Just like we won't replace Lampard, and won't replace Drogba. What's next, is a new 'style' entirely. One that i think will resemble 2005 Chelsea, just based on the players we have now and the way we'd have to set up if we lost Hazard.

I usually don't like it when names come out of nowhere as the next big thing, but my god Bailey seems fantastic. He's very similar to Hazard before we bought him in terms of, already ready to win the biggest games, but still so much refinement to come. We may be surprised. If we sign a more prolific player than Hazard, like a Bailey who goes on to score like Salah does for Liverpool, will we be appeased? Or will we genuinely miss specifically Hazard's touches, smiles, celebrations, etc? (I think so.) Ultimately i think... he can't be replaced. So instead, we have to change once he's gone, and not even think about replacing him. It'd be sad going from worshipping a god, to going to finding a random person to mould into that god's image once the god is gone. Though in terms of 'replace' as in who do we buy with the money and the gaping hole - then I think the next step is a 4-2-3-1 with prolific, balanced players.

The consensus so far in this thread is - You're not a Chelsea supporter if you have anything critical to say! How dare you be rational! How dare you write many words! How dare you speak against me! Grow up people. Cough up some responses to our points, please. Not just stating your original points in a more pushy tone (Unless this is a case if a case of, "They disagree with me. They're wrong. Why would I waste time trying to fix something wrong?" Thankfully we won't be 16 forever!)

God you're dull. Multiple new users and all you want to do is critisise them for having different points to you instead of saying 'Welcome, fellow Chelsea fans - I may not agree with you, but i look forward to bolstering how many ideas we have to pick from in here.' Anyway, apparently what forums are all about is reserving the right to critisise anything posted - so with all due respect, with the day or so I've been on here, you've posted absolute tosh. And if that's in 'response' to the new users, you need to get a grip of yourself. PS - More likely, some upset mods on other forums brought out the ban-hammer for little reason due to the emotional loss, so we emigrated here. I was literally banned from TalkChelsea a few hours before signing up to here; 13k posts, one of the highest post-reputations; because I asked a mod if he was sure he should be posting a shallow headline without any context re: the sudden death of Astori; it seemed insensitive. No warning - instant ban, by the least mature mod 'Special'Juan he's called.

Can we stop saying this as if we didn't just spend over 100m+ on squad players who don't even play? Money isn't the issue, so it isn't a good retort. Hardly any teams can go out and spunk the fees we do. It's a matter of misorganised priorities and a mismanaged club.