g3.7

that was alright

I don't think the stats indicate that a good player is more likely to make a good manager (and good players start out with the advantages I've outlined). Dont misunderstand me, I'm not criticising lamps, im criticising the club- if you are responsible for hiring a manager with blooding young players in mind, how high up the list of appointable candidates do you honestly place lamps at this stage in his career? Personally, i don't think he gets into the top ten, even factoring in his history at the club. It's lazy by the club - we could have given him more time away from the club to cut his teeth, why was it essential to appoint him now?

I am comparing like for like. A manager is a manager, and they should be judged against the job they do, not their age or experience. Our board wasnt forced into appointing lamps. They opted to let sarri leave to pay £4m for him.

we didn't let pep leave so we could appoint sarri, so I don't get the point you are making. in my view, the club created the conditions for sarri to leave so they could appoint someone more popular with the fans. (we could get into arguing about the club briefing against him, and whether he would have left or not if this wasn't the case given the lure of juventus etc etc, but that is my reading of it) this decision should be considered soberly, in the context of a transfer ban, hazard leaving, and our rivals strengthening. the truth is there is little evidence to say confidently that lamps is a good coach: 1) the championship is a very volatile league- aside from the very best and the very worst, the other sides all beat and lose to one another. 2) drawing firm conclusions from one campaign is hard. 3) lamps also had the advantage of being a recently retired great which earns him immediate respect, especially with young / championship players. in time we see that some great players can't sustain this as managers once the player they were starts to be forgotten, or when they start managing players as good as they were. 4) and of course he had a contact book for loans that others would not have. but there is little evidence to say he's a bad coach either. considering the improved quality of football, willingness to play young players, reaching the playoff final and some financial restrictions, his first season goes down as a qualified success. my point is that looking at chelsea's decision to take a manager with one season's experience in the championship, and that being a qualified success, rather than a avb style dismantling of the league, it has to go down as the most remarkable permanent appointment of a manager ever made by an english club in the last 25 years. it is an incredible gamble, at a time where we don't have lots of compensatory advantages against our rivals. it is irresponsible of the club, if you analyse it coldly. and if lamps is proven a success, the club will have gotten very lucky.

it's just a bit of a moan. I think chelsea, not unlike most premier league clubs, are happy to try to extract every last pound out of their customers, all whilst paying lip service to the idea that is is actually a club, that' we're supporters, etc etc to me appointing the likes of lamps and cech embodies a kind of nasty, corporatised tokenism from the club. as if its supporters are idiots who will lap up this veneer of community while spending £60 on a "chelsea dna" t shirt. I don't like what I perceive to be an attempt to have it both ways. either this is a proper sports company, in which case, run it properly, or this is a basket case football club, in which case, appoint people with no experience, hire and fire with no plan etc etc, but maybe do something serious to stop the average age of a matchgoing fan being 59 or whatever. chelsea are not one thing or the other.

in amongst the positives (which start and finish with the not insignificant blooding of young players), concerns already arise: 1) our defensive problems are essentially structural not individual, and lets not pretend otherwise. yes taking zouma out and putting rudiger in will help (and the same with kante for one of the midfielders), but this is not the reason why we're conceding lots of goals. we're conceding goals because, in every game, we concede huge huge areas of space routinely. 2) without being unkind, what is the point of playing two midfielders who pass the ball well and do everything else fairly averagely alongside a player who concedes the ball as readily as donald trump concedes the moral high ground? jorginho and ross barkley as as compatible a couple as susan sontag and piers morgan. but probably more painful to watch together. 3) if you have jorginho and kovacic, and a wide player who is coming infield, and a third player in the middle, and you still can't control the midfield at home to a promoted side then you need to look at the coach. I wasn't totally convinced by sarri, and I think it is fair to say having a club where the supporters back the manager is hugely important, but let's not beat about the bush; there is no comparison between him and lamps as coaches at this stage. given that, I think success will be not totally embarrassing ourselves this season, and hopefully proving that maybe 2-3 of the kids are realistically going to be chelsea players in the medium / long term. this isn't to have a go at lamps - he's one season in and isn't a jose / guardiola wondercoach - but already this looks like weak, facile management by the people who run the club. if you treat your supporters like customers you are obliged to be better than this.

there is the slight feeling - not so much just because lamps is the manager, but more the fact that everyone who has ever played for us since 1999 is now on the coaching staff - of having left the house in a rush and telling the babysitter you promised the kids they can do some baking tonight... and that is fine, because you expect it to be a bit messy. and yes, licking the spoon is fun. but then, as the wild pear tree enters its fourth hour, just before the beautiful, revelatory ending, the thought occurs to you: "am I coming home to a cake or has the entire house burned down?"

From ctrl-alt-delete to ctrl-alt-right. Loz returns the day after Trump officially gears up for 2020. Coincidence? Am i saying that they're the same person? Of course not- one's an orange faced authoritarian with no taste and questionable 'hair', the other is... Ah. Never mind.

I'd say first of all, hire a director of football and give them a mandate to run the club with a view to the long term. (which won't happen) from that point you are able to recruit players and managers which suit the vision of that DOF, so even if a player or a manager does not work out, the direction of travel remains the same. we can't outspend our rivals, so we need to be run properly. I don't really have any names- superficially, the ajax manager uses a 433 and they were nice to watch, so there would be a tenuous degree of continuity I suppose. it does amaze me that antonio conte was our manager just over a year ago. I wonder if anyone at the club has the humility to think perhaps they should have removed the people he didn't get on with (at least from directly working with him), replaced emenalo as swiftly as the send out those season ticket renewal forms, and maybe not signed him danny drinkwater etc?

No, and hoddle did well before him too. Both appointments were made by people with, at the very least, a modicum of football nous, and were made with a clear intention. This appointment, on the other hand, is another dart thrown at (and by) a board that may no longer be fit for purpose.

A guarantee that is not worth the paper it isn't written on. While it is nice to have lamps back at the club the reality is he's- on the strength of his managerial cv- the least qualified person to be appointed by the club since gullit. Im pretty worried.

letting sarri go, particularly if it is with a view to bringing in allegri or lampard, confirms beyond all doubt that under abramovich this is a club with no strategy whatsoever. if you have a massive financial advantage, or if you have a core of legendary players, of if you have eden hazard, or a mourinho or a conte coaching the team, or better yet some combination of all of the above, then you have a chance of being successful. if on the other hand you don't have any of the above, and you are up against one club, let alone two, that have their own equivalents, then you have almost no chance. what I'm saying is that we are no done as a side with a realistic path to even challenge for the title again. we are confronted with an unfortunate truth: without his spending, abramovich is a net detractor to chelsea in 2019. this is because he isn't going to suddenly offer an amazing understanding of football. he might get lucky and strike gold as he did with conte, by hiring a manager who gets every drop of talent out of the squad. and if that happens at the same time as liverpool AND city get distracted, or suffer a huge injury crisis (etc), then it might be possible. but otherwise, we have very little chance. to my recollection he hasn't made 3 good consecutive decisions related to running the football side of the club (the important bit) since 2004/5. it is a shame, but there you go. we still exist as a club and have seen us win everything under his ownership so we have to be happy, but make no mistake, the golden era is over. could still be fun though.

in, but that isn't to say he's been perfect. reasons are: -he's essentially a coach. his reputation is built on that. so joining so late before the season started, and having to play thurs-sun all season, has denied him of a lot of time to really imprint his methods. despite this, we've acheived the target of going back into the champions league, and we've made two finals. -the squad is a mix of players suited to different styles, and a lot of the "best" players in the squad are past their very best (or on the turn). so even with a flatter track in terms of coaching time, this isn't the easiest set of players to mould. sarri signed one outfield player to add to this, and a further two on loan. he shouldn't be judged against most other chelsea managers under abramovich in this respect, as he has been afforded far less. -I think a lot of people have an artificially large expectation of what this squad should be doing because antonio conte is one of the four or five best managers in the world. even those who may no longer like conte may suffer a little from this. sarri is a fine coach, and the football his previous sides in particular attest to this. -I know there has been a lot of frustration about his reticence, or apparent reluctance to do so earlier, but this is actually the manager who put loftus cheek in. and he put huson-odoi in too, and had the welsh kid in ahead of cahill for a lot of the campaign as well. I'm not pretending there was no argument to do so earlier, or more, but credit where it's due here. -finally, I know a lot of people point to guardiola's first season (with others assuming the implication is that those who do are suggesting we will canter to the title next season), but I'd like make two slightly related points: a) recall pochettino and klopp's first seasons with spurs and liverpool. if you can. b) we've met our minimum target, and yet we're still supposed to sack the manager? how is starting from scratch again going to help us? guardiola must laugh himself to sleep every night thinking about how right he was to reject our advances. this is no way to run a club: allowing relations with a genuinely great manager (the calibre of which, be in no doubt, we can no longer attract) to sour to the extent we need to sack him; allowing our best player to run his contract down so we need to sell at cut price; sacking said manager too late to give the new one time to actually do any coaching or truly assess his new squad; then sacking the new guy despite his meeting minimum requirement with a hand tied behind his back, so the new guy can arrive to a club with no director of football and a two window transfer ban. for those keeping count, we've done all of the above and you are proposing we follow that up by doing the new bit in bold. In the long term sarri might not be right for us, but keeping him for now is the pragmatic thing to do.

Given no pre season, not many signings, a patchwork squad put together without any long term vision or idea and his alternative to jorginho let go without replacement... He's shouldnt be in danger of being sacked, and I read guardiola's comments about us never being a realistic option for him with interest but no surprise. The club behaves as if it can (and does) mask a lack of strategy by outspending its competition even though it cannot (and does not).

I've just read this post, and it has reminded me that I really need to finish reading that Daniil Kharms anthology.