Barrettinator

Maybe if we tried to give this generation of our players a chance, we'd find our own golden generation of first team players to carry us for a decade. That's the whole point. And I'm not saying they didn't spend either. But they would have spent a lot more if they didn't have that backbone of homegrown players to build on. It is extremely unfair to blame Christensen for that especially since we still had a lot of chances to make the CL well after any of his mistakes as well as the fact that other players made mistakes at other times too. In fact, it's absurd to put that blame squarely on Christensen.

Yet somehow teams like Barca, Bayern and even Real manage to both pander to young players and win a lot more than us and remain consistently elite. It's almost like they have a proper plan and structure. Fergie won 13 PL titles and still gave young players loads of chances in the midst of it all. It's possible to do both, you know. Especially when the players are so bloody talented. There's nothing Bakayoko has done for us this season that RLC couldn't have at the very least matched. FWIW, nobody's talking about the trophies they've won at youth level. I'm speaking strictly on their play and their talent. And as for Arsenal, they've had serious problems top to bottom. Iwobi is clearly a very solid player. He's not Messi so don't expect him to grab the game and run with it when the rest of his teammates are playing like utter toss. Even our own Hazard struggles to shine a lot of times when the rest of the team's sh*t.

My mistake. But Salah's loans, if you remember correctly, were as good as him being sold off. We had zero plans for him despite only having him in the side for about 6 months, if I'm not mistaken. A 21 year old in a new country expected to either rip up the league or get lost. Jose didn't give De Bruyne more than 6 months either and Lukaku played what? 1 game? The Super Cup? Oh well, no point remembering all of those now. Sabotaged ourselves with bad decision upon bad decision. I just hope we don't repeat the same thing.

When are we going to realise that young players need a run of games to develop? You can't just throw a young player in when you're losing and then when he doesn't perforce complain that heisn't good eough. He's probably even scared to take risks because he knows if it goes wrong, his chances at playing more matches will reduce. Talent is clearly not the problem. They have bags of talent and then some. Why do other top clubs seem to be able to bring them through? Maybe because they actually give these players a proper chance? RLC not good enough to get minutes for us but Bakayoko is? Guess who's going to the World Cup between both those players? The one was apparently not good enough to get a lot of minutes for us. We currently have a generation of players who are among the most talented crop in Europe if not THE most talented. What's the point of spending millions on the academy if we're not ready to take risks on the talent that comes through?

Chalobah made that decision because Conte couldn't guarantee him decent minutes. RLC could have played a lot of games for us. I heard a lot of "Salah is sh*t" as well a few years ago. It's okay to admit you no valid reply. We all learn everyday. Also, football clubs go through a lot of targets every summer and make several inquiries. They obviously don't sign them all but it wouldn't make a story about an inquiry about a player false. Let's not be silly now.

Actually, Conte wanted Koulibaly (even after buying Rudiger). We spent a good portion of last summer trying to buy Koulibaly after wasting the entire 2016 summer trying to get the same player. We also tried to get Manolas and then another CB which I don't remember atm. If you've been asleep through all of this, then that's on you. Unless you're going to turn around again and say the entire press (including those who tend to be quite accurate about Chelsea's business) were lying and it's all a conspiracy because none of us are part of the Chelsea board. Christensen wasn't even his 3rd choice. Also, he sold Chalobah and bought Drinkwater. Sent RLC out and went for Bakayoko instead. I believe Musonda could also have done a lot more with Barkley's minutes. Played Alonso almost to death even through his worst forms despite us having capable younsters. Went out to get Zappacosta, another bang average player instead of giving Dujon Sterling a chance. He didn't even give Christensen a chance until he had no choice (red card) and then he realised how good the kid was. I'm not going to give him credit for choosing to play Ampadu (who only joined the club last summer btw) after he had well and truly f**ked up first team chances of players like RLC, Chalobah, Sterling and co. This reminds me of a lot of fans on here defending Jose's decisions at the time to bin players like Lukaku, De Bruyne & Salah. I remember the CL game where we had qualified from the group stage already and Jose claimed it was going to be "youth day", implying he would play a lot of youngsters, only to end up bringing RLC alone in the 83rd minute or so. And Jose was defended by certain fans for that as well. I'm not surprised you're springing to Conte's defense now. Sure, I'm making things up, I guess. Maybe you'll learn one day.

Wouldn't be arsed even a little bit if he left. He's spent 5 years. Would be good if we could throw him + a few millions at United for Martial. Have United taste a bit of the old "Jose binning your promising young talent for old dross" medicine.

13-14 in my opinion is one of Jose's biggest bottle jobs as a manager. Maybe THE biggest tbh. With 5 games to go, we could have won the league. Threw it away. Wasted opportunity. Thank God United didn't let him sign Rooney later that summer. That's also the summer he decided to bin Lukaku, De Bruyne and Salah for 52 year old Eto'o, Oscar and Cuadrado. Imagine having Rooney on 350k/week right now. He'd be just now about to enter the 5th year of the deal.

I'm no fan of the mail but Roman has been in the UK for about a decade and half and has never had the issues with a visa he's having now. He's apparently being treated like a first time applicant. In light of the Russia poisoning, it's not surprising.

Conte is way too confrontational to be a Chelsea manager long term. Wants to fight with everybody from opposing managers to the board to the refs to his own players. We've just about had enough of him. It's not like there's a sweetner in it like him promoting our youth (bar Christensen who was forced on him) either. 2 years, 2 trophies. Good run. Good riddance.

Media also reported that Arteta asked Arsenal for control of transfers and a big transfer budget and that's what lost him the job. Emery reportedly had no problems with accepting what he was offered. What I've learned with the media over the years is that a lot of times when you see the same story in 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 outlets, it's probably true. They tend to throw sh*t against the wall to see if it sticks just to sell papers but they do have journos who have contacts at clubs and generally when almost everyone's reporting the same thing, it tends to be true.

I hope it's just someone taking the piss. If you're going to give the job to a no namer like that, might as well give it to Jody Morris. What are we going to f**king achieve with Jokanovic???

*Link edited - Fk the DM* He has taken hits financially in the past few years but this one's a little different. The UK might just force his hand in the midst of all of this. What do you lot think about that possibility? We've always known his money isn't completely clean, we just didn't care (hard to find a billionaire whose money is all clean anyway). If it comes to that, who would you want to see buy the club? Or at least what kind of owner?

You LITERALLY used the word "relevant" which translates to something that does/doesn't matter and now you sit here and say that's not what you said? I'm not sure you're even following your own argument. As far as your "but it wasn't made public" part, that's a bloody lie. All of these things were out in the open in the era where it was normal to say those things about non whites or women. Nobody batted an eyelid back then because no one saw anything wrong with it. If you want to argue against that then go right ahead. I'm working from what YOU said, so don't turn around 2 posts later and claim you didn't say it. It's right here.

We're in the age of hypersensitivity. Don't be surprised.

He worked as a banker in London for years before he even got into football management. I'm pretty sure your English has to be good to work such a job. Oh but it is bloody relevant. "I didn't know they were racists so it doesn't matter"??? Matter of fact, you could argue that majority of the men who've managed Chelsea since 1905 were likely racists and homophobes. How about that? I'm making that point not to 'whatabout' the issue but to say that whatever evidence, however small it was, was apologized for. This is 2018. If you're going to tear down people for not being completely evolved then I'm sorry but you don't know how to pass a message of equality. Such methods make the actual racists (and homophobes) even more hardened in their ways. I try every day to learn new things socially and up until last year, even though I'm more progressive than most, I still held certain beliefs that I now consider sexist. We learn everyday. It's an incident small enough to extend an olive branch instead of sending someone into exile. In the grand scheme of things, none of our opinions matter even a little bit. The board will do what the board will do and so will Roman and sometimes it won't align with the wishes of the fans - they did hire Benitez, didn't they? I'm pretty sure a club of Chelsea's stature have done their proper homework on Sarri and apparently - since we're still after him - it wasn't a big enough deal to be a deal breaker. Which I agree with. If we're not going to hire him in the end, it certainly wouldn't be because of what you're saying. As for the sexist comments, do we now call David Moyes a bad, evil man because of his comments to that reporter? Is it an ignorant sort of comment to make? Certainly. And I'm sure the public backlash has taught him to know better than that now. But there's a reason David Moyes is still getting job offers....because it's ultimately not that f**king big a deal. Copy and paste for Sarri. As I said, the club obviously know everything about Sarri and if we're still after him in spite of all you're clamouring against, then it's because they obviously agree it's not as serious as you're saying.

Are you 100% certain that we've never been managed by a racist or a homophobe or a person who was both? Can you say that with all certainty? At least in the last 25 years?

Enjoy.

Any other year, Sarri would have won the Serie A. 91 points and no trophy. Juve own that league at the moment.

Why would we need Koulibaly? Maybe if we dumped Cahill and Zouma, yeah. Otherwise, I'm not sure why we'd need him. I don't want anything to stiffle Christensen. He hasn't had the best season overall but I'm happy he got to play a lot of games and had a lot of great performances as well.

Mertens as well became twice the player in terms of goal scoring under Sarri. He might just be the perfect manager to squeeze that out of Hazard. I think Morata would benefit a lot from a manager like Sarri as well. Tbh, as long as he doesn't utter those opinions at a press conference or anywhere in public, it's okay to overlook that. Some people who appear to not be either of those are actually staunch racists/homophobes in the closet. Can't really be a racist manager in today's football anyway. You'll lose your dressing room. Most teams have black/hispanic/asian players of some sort.

His contract expires Tuesday. Plus we're used to paying off managers anyway. AVB made an absolute killing from us when he was fired, for example. I don't think we have any problem with that. Also, it would be better for Conte if he just quit now before he's fired. He must see the writing on the wall right now, surely? Sarri is actually perfect for us and I'm confident we can be successful with him.

We were sh*te for most of the match. United were just worse than us and sometimes, that's all you need in football. Chuffed to bits about the win! 6 years later, we finally win another FA Cup. Great performance from Kante and Rudiger. Bakayoko was also very good. Hazard and Cahill too. Good end to the Conte era (hopefully).

Fully understand your perspective but that's what makes it even more annoying. We beat them when we were at our best this season. Remember last year's final when we were riding high after winning the league and still lost to a sorry Arsenal team because Conte for some reason just doesn't know how to play against Wenger (the only Chelsea manager in the Roman era to fail at this, mind you). I'm afraid all things considered at this point, I just have no confidence in Conte beating Mourinho in a final. I'll be genuinely shocked (and pleased obviously) if we win.