Wrong about Sarri?

[Zola]

He has done enough to merit another season, no doubt about it.

We need to hit the ground running next season. A lot of the games this season were brutal to watch. 

In fairness he didn't have a preseason and it is his first year in charge. There needs to be a much better performance all over next year, hopefully now they know each other a bit more things will improve. 

 

[evissy]

We were pretty excellent first 10 games or so. I thought we will challenge in all fronts. Then it died. I think much of it was due to our awful finishing. With better finishing we could have won 5 more games or so. When you feel you can't score it affects everything. I have no idea how to fix this. Maybe play Pedro up front. He is an excellent finisher. 

Second half lapses are a second recurring theme. No idea what Sarri does to players in the D-room but no one is ready to fight. This needs to be fixed. 

Third thing is we need to be even more brave to build from the back and more aggressive trying to win the ball back. These are Sarriball basics. 

 

[fester]

Since very early in the season I have been saying Sarri needs time to implement his style.  The club messed up badly in not allowing him a pre-season, by dawdling over his appointment.  In many ways a good start to the season ended-up backfiring on him when performances dipped because expectations had been raised.  Overall though two cup-finals and a third placed finish is not a bad return, although at times the football being played has been frustrating (to say the least).  We've also had a lot of games with the runs in the League, FA and Europa league leading to not many clear training days (as opposed to match preparation days) to work on things tactically.

Looking ahead, my gut feel is that the transfer ban will be in place for the next two windows, so no incoming players this season.  Given that one big challenge is for Sarri to assess which of the returning loanees have the potential to strengthen the squad.  There have been extremely good reports coming in for:  Tammy; Reece James; Mason Mount; and Tamori to name a few.  OK, Hazard will undoubtedly leave, but we do have Pulisic coming in.  I'd like to see Batshuayi given a chance to, he scored goals for Palace, can he do much worse than we've had this season?

What we do seem to lack are leaders of the pitch, people who in old-parlance pull their sleeves up and get stuck in when things are not going well.  Azpi and Luiz are experienced, but I think Luiz is often too focused on his game and Azpi is not JT.  Maybe Jourghino might stand up to the role now he is more settled in the EPL.  I also think we have very much missed Steve Holland since he left for the England set-up (to England's benefit), I'm not sure what he did, but I am sure his departure was significant in the decline from Conte season 1 to Conte season 2.  Maybe we should get Jody Morris back as I think he could play that role and help integrate the young players.  I am unsure what Zola and Carlo really bring too the management set-up other  than translation and placating the fans.

As far as the second half this is concerned Sarri should read Clive Woodwards autobiography as there is a whole section in that on second-half thinking.

 

[Andy North]

We need to see the bigger picture as far a recruiting a replacement goes. Which top manager is going to come to Chelsea when they have a transfer ban and are losing their best player?

We really need to think about this and I suspect he will be with us next season whether we win the EL or not.

A mate of mine recons he would sack Sarri now and put JT into the hot seat immediately. While I see that JT is a leader and Chelsea through and through I think it could jeopardise his whole career if it went wrong so early in his managerial career. We've seen it before with people like Poyet, Phil Neville, Sherwood etc. JT needs to learn his trade somewhere else before taking the big job.

 

[Valerie]

He was my first choice once rumours of Costa wanting out started. I kept banging on about him in the rumours thread before he signed for Arsenal. It seemed like such an obvious choice, but he was another striker that slipped through our fingers.

Weren't there some question marks about his behaviour? Toxic presence in the dressing room and all that? I may confuse him with someone else, though.

 

[sonic90]

Sarri's results were more or less only as good/bad as Klopp and Pep's first seasons in the PL.

A few years ago we were hearing about Jurgen Flopp coming 8th, Pep the fraud who can't win anything without inheriting the already defending champions.

The problem is is we can't sign any players and lose Hazard, the second season improvements we see on the pitch might be limited.

 

[Sindre]

Such horsesh*t. Our points total would get us to 3rd most seasons. The teams around us wobbled at a bad time, yes, but in most seasons you would expect all teams to have rough patches, the main difference this season is the top 2 are/ were outstanding and didnt wobble at all throughout the season, 

Not recently. In fact, 72 points would have you fifth both last season and the one before that.

It's a bit interesting that Conte's last league campaign was considered horrific by most and yet we scored as many goals, conceded less and got almost as many points (2 less) than we did this season.

 

[Sindre]

Conte is the past. That style of football worked for one year, then died on its arse. Because it wasn't sustainable and it really wasn't very pretty when we started to be found out. 

If we had that years Costa in this set up, we would be doing a damn site better than 73 points as well. We'd have won today comfortably, we'd have beaten United at their place. 

Just be f**king patient and see how we do next year and stop carping on, it's embarrassing when we consider the two teams ahead of us had worse first seasons when their "project managers" took over. 

Both you and I know why everything fell apart in season two. Conte quite simply downed tools because the club didn't deliver on their promises in terms of players. Little to do with the style of football, which was great until the breakdown of the relationship between club and Conte. 
And let's remind ourselves that even though Conte downed tools and had to play an entire season with the likes of Zappacosta, Drinkwater, Bakayoko and Morata he almost got as many points as we did this campaign.

 

[Andy North]

Both you and I know why everything fell apart in season two. Conte quite simply downed tools because the club didn't deliver on their promises in terms of players. Little to do with the style of football, which was great until the breakdown of the relationship between club and Conte. 
And let's remind ourselves that even though Conte downed tools and had to play an entire season with the likes of Zappacosta, Drinkwater, Bakayoko and Morata he almost got as many points as we did this campaign.

Didn't he sign these players?

I don't necessarily disagree with you but that isn't a good argument.

Personally I didn't have too much of a problem with Conte. I thought he was good manager for us. I don't get the animosity for him. Did he really down tools? We did win the FA Cup under him.

 

[Sindre]

Didn't he sign these players?

I don't necessarily disagree with you but that isn't a good argument.

Personally I didn't have too much of a problem with Conte. I thought he was good manager for us. I don't get the animosity for him. Did he really down tools? We did win the FA Cup under him.

No, the club did. It was no secret Conte wanted other and better players

My point though was that Conte got us to roughly the same point-tally with the likes of those and yet some fans are keen to call Conte's last campaign horrific while praising Sarri for his similar campaign.

 

[bisright1]

No, the club did. It was no secret Conte wanted other and better players

My point though was that Conte got us to roughly the same point-tally with the likes of those and yet some fans are keen to call Conte's last campaign horrific while praising Sarri for his similar campaign.

By that token we shouldn't praise Conte for winning the title because he would have come third this year with the same points. 

 

[Andy North]

No, the club did. It was no secret Conte wanted other and better players

My point though was that Conte got us to roughly the same point-tally with the likes of those and yet some fans are keen to call Conte's last campaign horrific while praising Sarri for his similar campaign.

I have a problem with unconfirmed reports that Conte wanted other players. Is this really true? Why do you think the club didn't get these, alleged, players. Maybe he was asking the impossible.

 

[Boston Blue]

I think there could have been a number of people we could have brought in as manager that would have achieved third place and the EL final.  I don't think we are where we are because of Sarri.

He just doesn't strike me as being in total control of the team.  I think they have struggled more than they should have playing his system, I think there were a lot of times players deviated from it while on the field, the mental fragility of the team was never solved, and he didn't drop underperforming players which failed to motivate both those who underperform, and those working hard to take their place.

 

[Sindre]

I'll ask this question to the pro-Sarri camp:

Is that record versus top 10 worthy of Chelsea? Not a single win away from home against them - three points in nine games.
Four wins at home against the top 10 which gives us a record of 4 wins out of 18 games against them.

It's absymal if you ask me.

 

[Sindre]

I have a problem with unconfirmed reports that Conte wanted other players. Is this really true? Why do you think the club didn't get these, alleged, players. Maybe he was asking the impossible.

He confirmed it himself and so did Emenalo after he left. After which Conte said Emenalo was a big support for him and that he was a big loss.

 

[TheChelsRVA]

I am never wrong how dare you insinuate otherwise.

 

[Argo]

No, the club did. It was no secret Conte wanted other and better players

My point though was that Conte got us to roughly the same point-tally with the likes of those and yet some fans are keen to call Conte's last campaign horrific while praising Sarri for his similar campaign.

Bakayoko and Morata were his signings else he wouldn't have kept giving them chance after chance (we saw how stubborn he is with signings that weren't his with Bats, Barkley, Drinkwater who he by in large completely ignored).

 

[ForeverCarefree]

Bakayoko and Morata were his signings else he wouldn't have kept giving them chance after chance (we saw how stubborn he is with signings that weren't his with Bats, Barkley, Drinkwater who he by in large completely ignored).

Didn't really have much choice but to play Bakayoko. Drinkwater was injured for large parts of the season, especially at the beginning and Barkley signed coming off the back of a 5 month injury. We knew he didn't like Fabregas in the midfield and had been using him in a more advanced position during the title win but eventually relented towards the end of the second season when the new signings weren't adapting. 

He didn't rate Michy B, that was evident from the previous season but given the club had dropped £60m on Morata regardless of who was in charge they were likely to try and play him into some sort of form to try and justify the price tag. 

 

[Argo]

Didn't really have much choice but to play Bakayoko. Drinkwater was injured for large parts of the season, especially at the beginning and Barkley signed coming off the back of a 5 month injury. We knew he didn't like Fabregas in the midfield and had been using him in a more advanced position during the title win but eventually relented towards the end of the second season when the new signings weren't adapting. 

He didn't rate Michy B, that was evident from the previous season but given the club had dropped £60m on Morata regardless of who was in charge they were likely to try and play him into some sort of form to try and justify the price tag. 

The option was there with Cesc and given how stubborn Conte could have been he could have gone down that route from the start or failing that made Luiz there (before he got culled).

 

[Argo]

I'll ask this question to the pro-Sarri camp:

? Is that record versus top 10 worthy of Chelsea? Not a single win away from home against them - three points in nine games.
Four wins at home against the top 10 which gives us a record of 4 wins out of 18 games against them.

It's absymal if you ask me.

???????  

It's nowhere near good enough and there has to be a big improvement next season or else i'd be the first to be asking questions. On the flip side 17 wins out of 20 against the bottom half sides isn't to be sniffed at. For perspective, we have more points than City in those games and only 5 less than Liverpool.