Desailly123

FA Cup campaign: 2017-18 R3: Norwich 0-0 Chelsea Chelsea 1-1 Norwich (5-3 pens) R4: Chelsea 3-0 Newcastle R5: Chelsea 4-0 Hull QF: Leicester 1-2 Chelsea (a.e.t.) SF: Chelsea 2-0 Southampton Final: Chelsea 1-0 Manchester United Tell me, of those teams, how many were top top teams last season? Only 1. League Cup 2018-19: R3: Liverpool 1-2 Chelsea R4: Chelsea 3-2 Derby QF: Chelsea 1-0 Bournemouth SF: Leg 1: Spurs 1-0 Chelsea Leg 2: Chelsea 2-1 Spurs (PENS: 4-2) Final: Chelsea 0-0 Manchester City (PENS: 3-4) The FA Cup is of course the thing you would rather win, but to imply the FA Cup was a result of anything other than pure luck based on the teams we got, and winning the final with a penalty despite getting dominated the entire game. It's the exact same reason why I don't especially credit Sarri for our Europa League performances so far. Of course, most anti-Sarri are quick to point out our fixtures and some even claim that Conte is a superior manager to Sarri, but how does this logic hold when they said nothing last season?

I think if the likes of Jurgen Klopp, Mauricio Pochettino or Pep Guardiola were available, I could be persuaded for Sarri to leave. However, something I've been very critical of the Sarriout crowd has been, who would replace Sarri? In fact, the last time I saw this mentioned on this thread the only response was "that's all your Sarriin fans say! If he's not the right man, he's not the right man." Which is a fair point I suppose. But to use a comparison, Antonio Conte sold Diego Costa because he wanted to upgrade on him and sign Alvaro Morata. Now, at the time, most of us weren't too against this move. What we were against was Costa's lacklustre attitude and Conte's handling of the situation. Costa had a tendency to perform exceptionally well for half of the season (first half 14/15 and 16/17, second half 15/16) and be very poor in the other half of the season. In hindsight, we can all see that Antonio Conte made the wrong decision. Despite Costa having significant flaws to his game, he would have proved to be a better option than all 3 of our possible replacements; Andrea Belotti, Romelu Lukaku and Alvaro Morata, so despite Costa arguably not being the right man for the job, as Conte perceived, that didn't mean we shouldn't keep him. And the exact same is true with Sarri, Sarri is better than all of the alternatives, with the majority being put forward very inexperienced managers who wouldn't be able to handle such a squad of personalities that we clearly have. So, I thought I would go through the 10 managers with the best odds of joining Chelsea: 1. Frank Lampard (Derby County): Very inexperienced and would only be being hired for sentiment as he was a player. Not a good idea and hasn't done exceptionally well at Derby, although you could argue they've slightly improved this season. 2. Nuno Santo (Wolves): An interesting shout. But my issue with Wolves is; yes their record against the top 6 this season is exceptional for a team not in the top 6. However, the style of football they play against the top 6 is very very negative, playing very much on the counterattack. And when they actually try to play football and try to win games they do very poorly, which is why I would not have him. It would mean to be successful we'd have to play such a negative style of football every single week, and having watched that for almost a decade, I'm sick of it. You could also argue he's quite inexperienced, and should be given a couple more years to see how he performs. Another point to make is has he actually done that well (excluding their record against the top 6), they have a lot of extremely talented, young players who have signed for Wolves due to their relation to agent Jorge Mendes. Could also argue why would he want to join, as he seems very happy at Wolves. 3. Steve Holland (England Assistant Manager): Almost no purely managerial experience. Has only been a manager once, for a season at Crewe in 2007. 4. Diego Simeone(Atletico Madrid): He would need a lot of time. In addition, Atletico play some of the most unattractive, boring, `tactical' football. He's a good manager, but I think with our players he wouldn't be suited to us whatsoever, and would make this season of attempting to play attractive football redundant, as we'd have to start all over again, increasing the distance between us and our rivals more. 5. Laurent Blanc(Unemployed; most recent job PSG 2015/16): Have never rated him as a manager whatsoever, which is seemingly why no clubs have hired him for years. 6. Gianfranco Zola(Chelsea Assistant Manager): A poor manager as his record shows, and seems to have a very similar mindset to Sarri so would likely see very little change in the objectives of our football, it would just be being implemented more poorly. 7. Massimiliano Allegri (Juventus): A lot of the same issues shared with Simeone, however, I think he is very Conte-esque. That's all I should need to say. 8. Didier Deschamps (France): Again I think he's a very poor manager, who's been blessed with an phenomenal France squad, football very unattractive. 9. Thomas Tuchel (PSG): A manager I would actually take, however, I'm unsure if he'd want to join. 10. Jose Mourinho (Unemployed; most recent job Manchester United 2018/19): Mourinho in my mind, unless a miracle happens, tactically is finished. He was awful at Manchester United and led us to an awful campaign only 3 seasons ago, not what this club needs. The only other manager I'd take would be Leonardo Jardim, however, he's only recently rejoined Monaco and they were very poor this season, although you could argue that that's largely down to selling too many players.

The point is of course, we know who had the better season, despite one winning silverware and the other not.

What season would you have preferred, 16/17 Spurs or 12/13 Wigan?

What season would you have preferred, 16/17 Spurs or 12/13 Wigan?

That's because Spurs are a small club and would celebrate the Community Shield like it was the Champions League

I think it's a huge stretch to imply any manager tactically outthought the other, both teams were dreadful today.

No chance. Liverpool's season this season will be remembered far more than United's 16/17 league cup win.

Their best achievement since Maradona then. And this is why Wallosh is talking utter rubbish, i'm not sure if he's trying to troll but if he is being serious... Ask ANY Napoli fan which season was better, their 90+ points season last season, or when they finished 24 points behind Juventus in 2013/14 but won the Coppa Italia. We, as a club, haven't been truly world class since Ancelotti's PL title. Sarri seems to be getting all the stick for our massive decline. But, be honest, would Guardiola have done significantly better with the likes of Kovacic, Willian, Pedro, Alonso, Emerson, Azpi? I mean, with a squad where the only significant issue was the fullbacks City were nowhere near as good a team as they are now, and we have SO MANY more issues. We would do SO much better if we brought in Nicolas Pepe, Luka Jovic, Reece James and Jay DaSilva, I can't stress that enough. The fullbacks also help other players perform better, and I think in Sarri's/Guardiola's style of play fullbacks are the most important part.

Sarri's done awful!1!1!1 Took over a team in 5th place that scraped a trophy in the FA Cup. Lost a final on penalties to one of the best Premier League teams OAT. Likely to finish 4th Likely to reach another final which we could easily win

In the next decade, no body will remember that. Absolute rubbish! Napoli fans will remember it as their best ever season. People will remember this title race for more than a decade, as we remember Newcastle Vs United, regardless of who wins.

I still can't think of something Sarri has achieved in his career as a manager, winning the Carabao cup final would have change my opinion about him a little bit though. Sarri has done the equivalent of what Klopp has done at Liverpool, except Sarri had less time and less money to spend.

Solskjaer has nowhere near the CV of Sarri don't be so deluded.

Around £506m, net £317m

Chelsea 2-2 Burnley review: Sarri put out the defence most wanted, but overall the lineup had cons. It meant we were defensively weaker, we wouldn't win 50/50s, our positional awareness would be poor and a lack of strength. And this was all evident. The first goal we conceded: Azpi's defensive header could've been better but in the circumstances, it's the best he could've done. And Hendrick's never going to score another goal like that again, it was an incredible shot. It would have been great to see players throwing themselves into the shots, but that comes down to the personality mentality of the players. And we need to accept that we don't have Ballacks or Essiens or Lampards anymore, we don't have that profile of player that does that on their own accord. You can't fine-tune and coach every single aspect of a game and its details into players. This is why players performing at the best they can range in ability, it's down to the individual player and how they've developed their abilities over time. Our weakness is set pieces, a huge reason why I wanted Emerson to play was because I wanted us to reduce the number of times we gave away corners and free kicks, but naturally, during football, it's impossible to never concede a foul. But the reality we need to accept is we don't have the players to help us defend set pieces. The reason we have to use a zonal system is that man-to-man, we're not a physical enough team to be able to cope with some of the physical presences you'll face in the Premier League. So by using a zonal system you're hoping that when the ball's in certain areas, you'll have enough players to out-man the opposition player. Azpi for instance, he's decent when it comes to defending at the back post, but he's not very physically strong, and it's natural that, if he's going to face a strong opponent he's not necessarily going to win every single battle. Even under Conte, we saw that he struggled at times defending aerially because he's not the tallest. So when we get mad at players for things like that, we have to accept the realities of their limitations. The only thing you can do to prevent those goals is to prevent the fouls in the first place, but the areas that the ball was getting played in weren't too dangerous and weren't too close to goal, so you'd hope we'd do much better when it came to that. But, credit to Burnley, they played to their strengths, their physicality, and I thought them playing 2 up front was genius. Dyche basically told his players "go man-to-man versus Luiz and Christensen, I want you to battle them because I know most times you're the stronger player and you're going to win the battle, and then you'll win the ball, and thus help us start attacks and we'll be able to play through them." Christensen did struggle yesterday, I thought he tried and was valiant with his effort, a lot of times he was throwing himself into tackles, and it was unusual how many fouls he gave away because a key feature of his play is he doesn't give them away. It really emphasised his struggles this season, probably mostly coming down to the fact he hasn't played consistently enough. He needs a run of games where he can get that match confidence back. But he was one of the reasons we conceded. If I was Sarri, I'd try to be smart on how I use the defence, and the game highlighted one thing, using the right players in the right context. Christensen's better when it comes to playing against counter-attacking teams that rely on playing out to the wide areas, runs in behind and down the flanks because you see his positional play, his 1v1 defending ability, his recovery pace etc, and in games like that we see Rudiger struggle because his positional defending isn't as disciplined and neither is his 1v1 defending ability. But in games like this where it's physical, where opposition strikers are going to get in your face and will go for every single 50-50 and even kick you if they have to to try and get the ball. This is where Rudiger's great because he rises to that type of challenge, but we couldn't have done anything about this because he was injured. But if he was playing he would've definitely made a massive boost to the team, would've been much better-defending set pieces. There's not much point getting mad about the game because we need to understand that the lineup had major weaknesses, defensively we were going to be poor and set pieces are a major weakness. When people used to clown Sarri for why he chose Alonso, that's because Alonso helps us in these areas. Set pieces are huge in the Premier League, if you're a strong enough team they can be a massive source of goals for you and you're going to get that advantage if you're stronger than your opponent. Still, there were positives yesterday. Some of our football was exceptional, the rotational play on the left-hand side was great and the beauty of seeing Hazard take up these central positions and he's able to do that when he has Emerson and Ruben to play alongside him. Burnley was getting stressed trying to deal with him and he's a massive source of goals playing in this type of role. Some of the wide play was great too, the way we scored our goals was exceptional. Kante's run was great and it showed how he's progressed and he's only going to be better next season and that's exciting to see. Higuain took his goal fantastically well, and for me, this is why I always like him because he's the only striker since Costa that would score a goal like that. But a reality we have to accept is that he came during the halfway point of the season to a new league where he's getting used to his teammates and understanding their plays, it's going to take time. And it's quite obvious why his goals have been individualistic because the team and Higuain aren't fully understanding of each other. It does mean that I think Giroud should've come on way earlier, because with Higuain, as he's a poacher, he's not going to be involved in the play and that'll obviously affect your buildup at times because you're almost a man short, and when Giroud plays he does drop deep and allows people to make runs in behind him. Higuain did do well, but I think if Giroud would've come on in maybe the 60th minute, we could've won. We would've seen more movement in behind by players like Hazard and Ruben. I don't think Hazard would've had to take so many wide positions in the second half. Hudson-Odoi's injury is awful, and it was obvious the difference between him and Pedro. We were much more fluid when he was playing and was finding space between the lines and Azpi's interplay was much more effective when Hudson-Odoi plays you see Azpi making runs inside the opposition box, but when he's not you don't see that and that was a massive loss. Kante's injury was sh*t too, he's been carrying this midfield on his back for too long. I thought Kovacic did well when he came on too, he kept the intensity and this is why I like him because I like his versatility. If you think about the squad over the course of the season players like Kovacic are very valuable and useful.

Ancelotti is finished, not hard to see that. Napoli fans know it and Chelsea fans who rather than wanting to hire him on nothing more than sentiment and how he performed in the past at the club (we were horrendous in his second season by the way, with a vastly superior squad to what we have now). Napoli fans have experienced both in quick succession and they all know that Sarri's a superior manager. Ancelotti was awful last season at Bayern, and has been awful this season at Napoli. The fact is Ancelotti has been finished since he won the Champions League with Real, and we managed to reach a Champions League final with Avram Grant as manager. Avram Grant. We'd be horrendous under Ancelotti and I ask anyone why we wouldn't be with the squad we have now.

Napoli fans protesting for the return of Maurizio Sarri as they wish to sack Carlo Ancelotti. It's almost like they know how good Sarri is if he's given time and trust. But our fans will beg for Ancelotti and then when we're in the same position next season wonder what the problem is. So sick of this, why can't we actually give managers chances? City kept Pellegrini and Pep, Liverpool kept Klopp, Spurs kept Pochettino. None of them would have lasted at Chelsea. Rome wasn't built in a day, and whether people like it or not, our team isn't good and so cannot compete for titles at the minute. In fact of the 4 key aspects of the club; players, manager, board and owner. I actually think Sarri is the one with the least issues. But yet our fans will expect Sarri to turn Kovacic into a 10 goal a season midfielder, Willian and Pedro into good wingers and Alonso into prime Cole. Are Sarri's lineups poor? Yes. But it seems in recent years we as fans don't understand that managers have bad spells. When Pep lost 4-0 to Everton in his first season, we'd have campaigned for him to get the sack and brought in someone like Simeone.

I can't remember seeing anywhere that Sarri said Higuain was the key to his philosophy, he thinks he's a good player but he's a short-term option and Sarri knows that. And Jorginho is poor because the rest of the team is poor. The ridiculous notion Premier League fans try to make that Sarriball has been figured out and by man-marking Jorginho you can simply shut down the team. To an extent that's true in the sense that man-marking Jorginho shuts down the team, but that happened all the time in Italy. The difference is Jorginho had Hysaj and Ghoulam who were fast full-backs who he had spread the play to. Jorginho has Emerson/Alonso & Azpi, none of which are good enough. You would see a completely transformed Sarri side if DaSilva and James were the starting fullbacks. The problems with Sarri are not new, his stubbornness and his lack of in-game tactical flexibility has always been there. Huge Italian Sarri fans admit that, but given time Sarri transformed Napoli, and no it wasn't perfect at first, in fact if they hadn't had Higuain they'd have probably had a similar season to what we have had. But given time Sarri learns the details of the squad and sees what parts he needs to fit the system. I just don't think sacking the manager in this case is going to accomplish anything. Especially since there's not an obvious replacement and none of the potential replacements are better managers than Maurizio Sarri. Whether that be Eddie Howe, Steve Holland, Allegri and so on. Someone tell me genuinely, assuming we don't have a transfer ban and we go big on our targets, what's the harm of keeping Sarri for another year?

The ban I don't think will last. And of course but Pep and City have games all the time where they struggle to score and completely dominate the game and only score 1. And they have much better forward players than us. The winning comfortably comes up with time. The actual arrogance of some fans to act like Antonio Conte is a superior manager is laughable too. With the options available to replace Sarri, I would rather keep him. There's alternative solutions to just sacking the manager, like appointing a DOF or buying new players. Jorginho has been the unfortunate recipient of one of the major weaknesses of Sarri's system, the fullbacks. Jorginho's unable to spread the play wide quickly because of ineffective fullbacks. With the amount of chances we've created this season if we had a striker like Icardi or Jovic and a winger like Pepe, we'd be top 3 easily. We'll look a completely different team if we bring in a LB/RB, a winger, a backup to Jorginho and a ST. Because if we bring in another new manager we can basically throw away the progress towards attractive football the players have made this season and it'll just be another Conte.

That's genuinely the equivalent of saying "Pep brought in Nolito and Bravo, why should we trust him with hundreds of millions on more players" Um, maybe it's because Sarri has a history of good signings and those are just 2 poor ones?

"What do you think that half time team talk would of been like in Jose or Contes reign" Is this the same Jose Mourinho that led us to 16th place in the table and Conte who had a very similar draw last season against Huddersfield? 9 shots on target today. NINE. It's not Sarri's fault that we don't get 3 goals from 9 shots on target. And the comment about moving the ball fast? That's literally what Sarri ball is.What possession based football, but we don't move the ball fast enough. But Sarri out!1!1!1

There's times where you blame the players and the manager. I think tonight is a night like that. But i'm not going to blame him for the second half performance, 11 players for a top 6 team shouldn't need extreme motivating when they're 5-1 up on aggregate and 4-1 up in the first half to Slavia Prague.

Multiple Liverpool fans on twitter have gone "It was a bit of a cough get over it." What scum.

Hi all. I wasn't at the game today but I heard a couple of things about the way the fans were treated. And wanted to know if people could confirm whether or not these things were true if they were there. It's confirmed that a flare was thrown into the away end, but other rumours I saw were: The flare hit a child (from further descriptions possibly a 9 year old girl? Who from another comment threw up because of the smoke that she inhaled). The Chelsea fan who threw the flare away from the child was "nicked." The male toilet was clogged up with smoke A contrasting story, it hit a woman and burnt her coat. Her son was coughing a lot

What I don't understand is what he could have possibly meant by a Chelsea man: Is it our style of play? If so how was last season much better? Me personally I remember fans in the 1-0 loss against City away where we were pathetic saying "I'd rather we lost 6-0 and actually tried to win the game," low and behold when that happens do they mean it? It seems not. Is it the way he conducts himself? Conte and Mourinho were much worse, Mourinho with the Eva situation and Conte moaning every week and claiming Harry Kane was his dream striker about a week after signing Morata. Rory also loves to push the rhetoric of 30 years a manager and no trophies rhetoric. Everyone on the show on his first visit clearly didn't know the situation and regarded that as a negative for Sarri. What Rory doesn't want to tell them and fails to mention is Sarri was never a professional footballer, so he had to start at the very bottom when he left his role as a banker to try and make it in football. He had to start at the level any of us would if we ever wanted to see if we could make it. Of course it's going to take you 30 years, and in reality, he's only ever had a realistic chance (unless Rory expects Sarri to win the Italian Cup with the Italian version of Morecambe) of winning a trophy for 4 years or so, less time than Pochettino. But it's clear he's just one of those people who are in the "i'm right I don't need to explain myself and you're wrong and not a "true fan" (whatever that actually means) if you disagree with me" category.