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She'd ender, almost completely agree with your last post. It is what I'm saying - the culture abramovich has created isn't the fault of the academy. And nor is it their fault if you hire managers who don't like putting young players in. The one point of disagreement I would have is that I don't think you can impose on a manager that he has to use young players. I don't think that would work. I think it's a recipe for tension, resentment and politicking. It's Zidanes y pavons. Compare two good but not great seasons in our history under abramovich: 10/11 and 13/14. In the first title holding ancelotti finished 2nd having had his assistant removed along with a number of first team players. He was immediately sacked, imo probably the worst decision abramovich has made, and it isn't a short list. In the second mourinho had arrived and had a strong foundational season. We challenged for the first time since ancelotti however we finished third which was not a positional improvement and won nothing. Despite what might have ludicrously been considered a season that could prompt a sacking, there were no hints of that. No briefing to the press from the club and a manager openly talking about what would happen next. This is the big question, the one that will define our future I think: Is the second season a sign of increased footballing maturity on the part of abramovich, an understanding that Rome can't be built in a day OR is it an example of an owner recognising he couldn't sack mourinho because of his standing with the fans and reputation within the club? Personally I think the club is more politically stable than ever, but I would stop short of saying abramovich is a reformed owner who will allow conte to have a season with the results and performances pochettino had last season.

No. It's down to the manager to ask for the players to be part of his squad. If they don't you either have to sell the player, loan the player or leave him in the reserves waiting for either an injury crisis or the manager to change his mind.And if they are loaned they really have to take their chances and take them well. The margin for error is slim but that comes with the territory at clubs with our ambitions. An average loan spell won't cut it. I take your point re Bamford and kane, but I don't believe that it follows that because he was better in the championship we could have realistically expected him to be better than him now. Firstly kanes development is massively out of the ordinary and Secondly players develop at different rates and peak at different stages in their career. Ultimately these players are there for the manager to choose to use or not. Neither Neil bath or Michael emenalo can strong-arm Jose or hiddink into or conte into putting these players in, can they? P.s.i don't personally think doing well in the championship should guarantee you become a member of the first team squad because the gap is huge. (although in chalobahs case I think he should have been assimilated)

I think the academy is in great shape, the academy staff as a collective can't really be responsible for the actual opportunities the players get in the first team, they can only be responsible for producing talent that can realistically take that step. Ultimately what we need is a manager with the inclination to put young players in and an owner who will give him the security to do so. I personally don't think we have ever had both of those things. There seems to be more of a willingness from the club but until it actually happens it is hard to say how concrete that is.

poor kid has only just got into the team and started to play well too. funes-mori clearly did him there.

well what I can say is I don't support 'chelsea fc' the company owned by roman abramovich via a shell company. I support chelsea in a more abstract or elemental way. it is about a shared passion/ history / sense of community / locality / unfolding mythology. I don't see myself as a customer with a brand loyalty to a logo and a shirt colour. now obviously the corporate entity and what I am trying to describe are both very much related to one another. on the venn diagram it is almost a total eclipse. almost but not quite. I am concerned with how the company is run as it impinges on my support, but it isn't what I support- when a doctor is effectively sacked for doing her job, or a manager is undermined and briefed against from day one, or sacked in the stadium on the final day of the season, or the support faces an electric fence or is priced out in a naked act of economic class warefare or when a player can call someone "a f**king black c**t" without receiving real punishment from the club I can say that it is not in my name. I can continue to support chelsea and not be an apologist for the business being run in a way that embarrasses me.

I have to say, this idea that you will reconsider your support contingent on how successful we are in the next five years, having already claimed that the last 10 years have been the best of your life and that you can't speak badly of abramovich... frankly it is lamentable and pathetic. you say not one person will say you are a true supporter. I mean your definition must be different to mine because I am reading the words of someone cossetted by success. the vast majority of supporters live with nothing like the success we have had and usually they do it in spite of the decision making at their clubs. never mind describing our best ever manager as a fraud. do you have a shortlist of clubs that you might support in future or will that depend on which one is the most 'well run' at the time?

all of it. your claim that he demanded to play over cech, that he wasn't willing to merely compete for a spot and the idea that this is something he did to petr cech. it is entirely a work of fiction constructed to attack him.

I don't like this sort of sentimentality, he's won two (I think) fans player of the year awards and deservedly so. if you don't think john terry has been our best player this season, you shouldn't vote for him IMO. I thought the giggs player of the year award as some sort of euphemistic recognition of his career was pathetic, for example.

you must know this is totally untrue, right? surely?

in my way of thinking, not just about football but in general, everything is permanently open to analysis and examination. there are no empirical truths and there are no sacred cows. I don't believe in finality and the idea something can be ultimately decided scares me a little. Bobby, I appreciate that wading through reams of posts that you aren't interested in is boring and I don't doubt I've contributed to that. I cannot truthfully apologise for that, but I can say that it isn't my intent.

great post scott. I don't think in terms of pure performance he's been notably much worse really than any of our attacking midfield players aside from willian. in terms of chances created and his passing he's still been effective. no doubt he's dropped off massively compared to the last season but the level of hyperbole is a bit of a shame. obviously his confidence has been knocked, and playing with injuries as well as getting major injuries for the first time since he's been here has affected his form. you can see it clearly in how often he's happy to dribble at people. but even so, we still look a much better side with him on the pitch. as you say those quotes were naive, especially once decontextualised (sometimes intentionally I suspect) and I would add to that people perceive him to have subbed himself off when things have been tough which certainly has not helped- but in every case he's been out of the squad for a few matches at least. naturally he's held to a higher standard as at his best he's arguably the best player in the country, and has won our player of the season award twice in a row. it is fine to expect more of him, but at the same time we should remember that he's got three really good seasons in the bank and has been one of the best players to watch that I have ever seen at the bridge. so perhaps he could be afforded a little more empathy than he's been getting in some quarters. I mean, even when he's injured people find new reasons to complain about him every week.

of course. I thought you were making a point relating to the pros and cons of selling him rather than just asking an unrelated question. my mistake. anyway my answer was wrong, he also won the german equivalent of the fa cup and the supercup at the start of this season.

one so far. What's your point?

if you look at de Bruyne and Jose's quotes after he left it is clear he decided he didn't fancy him when they were working together. Do you think 136 league minutes in half a season for an attacking midfielder was enough of a opportunity? Do you think it suggests the manager thought he was an important player or essential to keep? What do the following quotes suggest to you about how highly he was valued? Jose: De Bruyne: You asked if the blame for de Bruyne leaving should be shared. My answer: emphatically no. That's with hindsight, as I accepted. This isn't about being smarter than Jose. It's just an open and shut case of him getting it wrong. There is a reason why Jose has such a poor record with young players. Unfortunately it's because he's too intolerant of mistakes. Of the natural dips in form and intensity they have. He doesn't trust them enough. He talks the talk but in reality he rarely if ever creates an environment conducive to helping kids develop.

Firstly I actually am sceptical of the validity of this article. It doesn't really ring true to me. But that's by the by. Jose never says he wants to sell a player. Mata. De Bruyne. Lukaku. Schurrle. Etc etc. He alway says he wants to keep them. It's easy to see this for what it is- trying to keep the value of a saleable asset high. The proof is in his actions. How much did they play. How often in their position? Did Jose ultimately acquiesce to a sale? How did he speak about the player before but more importantly after the sale? I read a stat saying de Bruyne got 136 league minutes under Jose. I haven't double checked that, but I was shocked. It is the equivalent of one and a half games of football. And bear in mind his position is one of the most typically rotated / subbed so the opportunities for minutes would be higher than second choice keeper for example. As above, he could have expected more chances than a second choice defender simply because attacking midfielders usually get more chances to get off the bench than second choice defenders. You've got to congratulate azpilicueta for changing Jose's mind, but a manager needs to recognise the personalities he's dealing with and adjust accordingly. It's the old rocket up the backside or arm around the shoulder. Clearly Jose got that wrong, because de Bruyne left after very few opportunities, and he left as a direct consequence of that lack of opportunities. At the time he didn't seem at all bothered. Obviously now it's an embarrassment for him and a shame for us.

absolutely fair points andy. I absolutely backed his decision at the time given he wasn't playing, we got matic who filled a position we needed filling far more than de bruyne's and he went on to be a key player for us as we won the league. it was good business overall I felt. and most people were of that opinion. far more was made of mata not being used and eventually being sold at the time. it is very easy to look back and change our minds with the benefit of hindsight. HOWEVER- we do have the benefit of hindsight as fans. and it is our right to be able to change our minds about these things. we have to be allowed to judge a managers decisions. they are professionals and it is their job to get them right. it is fair to expect them to be better than us in making judgements on football matters. and on that basis jose clearly got de bruyne badly wrong.

http://www.vipleague.is/football/381955/1/uefa-youth-league-play-offs---paris-sg-u19-vs-chelsea-u19-live-stream-online.html

Can you A) name the player(s)? B) say what they wanted? C) say why they wanted it? D) say what they did to get it? E) explain how the above had no negative consequences for them?

overall? firstly I have to reject the idea that those are three bands that can be judged independently of each other. I don't view football like that. (I personally don't even think most of the time individual performances can be judged properly. I don't think there should be such a thing as a motm award or a world player of the year or anything like that. I mean, yes you can look at two players and say one is better than the other but I think usually individual appraisals are a con.) anyway we've been better defensively I think. not because hiddink is a genius and jose's tactics suddenly over the summer turned to dust. obviously that is nonsense and it is easy to spot people who don't know anything about football when they make that type of criticism of mourinho. it shows they are watching a match, don't understand what they're seeing and then they look at a result and come up with a conclusion. they're analysing a scoreline, not a match. anyway we were conceding two goals or more in most games under jose this season to my recollection. going forward the players are mentally freer than they were, particularly fabregas and costa, so naturally we are creating cleaner openings. the performances, to me, are undoubtedly better. they're not good. they're below par. the are about par or perhaps a little above par given the massive reduction in expectation we suffered in the first half of the season. whether we're the sixth best side on form or the third or whatever doesn't matter. it still isn't good enough given this squad and given our realistic ambitions. but hiddink has to be judged within the confines of those reduced expectations. that's my opinion. and if he's going to be starting young players then I'm willing to accept fewer points than I would otherwise. what I don't understand is people saying we're the same. or euphemistically saying we were mid table and we still are. yes, but 'mid table' gives you a lot of leeway. 6th and 16th are both mid table but clearly there is a difference. jose had totally lost the dressing room and showed no sign at all that he could win it back or even that he had any desire to do so. he's a great manager and a chelsea great but the circumstances meant he had to go. he had to, and the sooner that is accepted by some of you the better.

On the other hand we could lose every remaining game and he'd still have won more points. And lost fewer games. Isn't that an improvement?

I'm a huge fan of oscar, possibly the last one left on here, but all this shows is how unsatisfactory a metric 'goals and assists' are. given the context of the rest of the team, particularly under jose, I think willian this season stands up to nearly any season by any player in the last ten years.

when did away form cease to matter lads? I thought it counted as much as home form in terms of points and goal difference etc. could it be that it does matter as much, but if it was factored in nobody could make this ludicrous argument that things have stayed the same or that jose has a better record? nah- no-one could be that disingenuous, surely? oh.

its a bit silly to criticise him in this specific way. in the match thread I was reading criticism of him and the central defenders as if subbing cahill out for zouma or mikel out for matic would have made a huge difference. people were actually making criticisms thinking they were seeing poor individual performances rather than a poor collective performance. I'm not saying he was great or anything but to me it was so obvious that, aside from the fact the squad is mentally on the beach, all of our problems were structural. we were repeatedly opened up in open play and in counter attacks within 4 passes. that is a consequence of structure rather than a consequence of any one individual. having said all that I can't believe how few minutes matic has had. something must be seriously wrong here, because we all know he's the best defensively minded midfield player at the club and potentially in the league. he's the only player in the squad who has made no discernible recovery in form or confidence since jose left. it seems like he is definitely on his way out...

you have to hope that what remains of this squad (which I think will be most of it) will welcome the opportunity to put this season behind them and start afresh from zero. it is a squad that needs working on in many ways but I don't think it is poor. no-one would be angry with them if they felt it was performing to its true level surely? conte has a huge task in front of him but he has the advantage of knowing that he will be our manager. he has the time and the knowledge to prepare. he will also have more time to drill them than any manager before him in the last decade. and he is the type of manager who steps into the field. his official title includes the word "coach" and in his case it won't merely be an insinuation of political rank. I think he is hugely impressive and I mentioned him as being up there as someone I hoped we'd look at way before it became clear that we were. what he needs to do is not repeat the mistakes that AVB made. on day on I want him to know what he wants to do. how he wants to play, what players he doesn't want to include in his squad. I want to see decisiveness. that is the only thing I ask of him. I have no expectation of how good we could be or what we could realistically achieve. I just want him to arrive with clear ideas in his mind.

yeah those clubs love nothing more than to sign players who are out of form. especially given the money problems the have.