I would like to say that I find all the negative comments directed at Scolari completely disheartening and a real sign of the decline of spirit amongst Chelsea supporters on this board.

Did anyone else notice that the world went into recession in the last six months, and that, since the ludicrous signing of Shevchenko, investment in our squad has been reduced virtually to nil? Did it occur to anyone that our success between between 04 and 06 didn't only coincide with the stewardship of Mourinho, but also with an unprecedented continual investment in the squad? The reason our squad is aging, the reason Robinho is not in our team, the reason we are not stocking up on new players is not because Scolari is our manager, it's because our erstwhile sugar daddy is for all intents and purposes 'KIN SKINT!!!

The reason Malouda plays in the side is because a guy called Jose Mourinho bought him at a premium, and WE CAN'T AFFORD TO REPLACE HIM WITH SOMEONE BETTER. We can't do what we were doing two years ago, and play the 6 year old playing with a toy till it breaks, chucking it aside and picking up a new one.

So now that our team has rejoined the real world and its fortunes are determined by the actual revenues of the club and not by some freakish, depressed-looking Russian businessman with bum-fluff for a beard. What is the response of 99% of Shed End posters?? Is it:

ok, you blues, we are up against it, let's do this against the odd, C'MON CHELSEA, Ten men went to mow... etc?

Is it f**k.

It's all 'fire that bloke' 'that blokes sh*t' 'bring in Messi' etc etc

I'm not convinced that Scolari is the best man for the job, but he does not have the backing to do what he feels is necessary, and is having to juggle a fairly imbalanced and aging squad that he inherited. I think we've played some excellent football this season. And perhaps if us supporters actually encouraged and supported the side we might succeed against the odds, rather than, as before, succeed with the odds stacked heavily with us.

Whilst i agree with your spirit Heckel , i am afraid i cannot agree with a lot of what you say. there.

Firstly..

The reason Malouda plays in the side is because a guy called Jose Mourinho bought him at a premium, and WE CAN'T AFFORD TO REPLACE HIM WITH SOMEONE BETTER. We can't do what we were doing two years ago, and play the 6 year old playing with a toy till it breaks, chucking it aside and picking up a new one.

If you were talking about anyone else i might agree.

But this is Malouda.

Stoch can play, he is left sided. And trust me he wont be worse. its impossible. he would show more effort and quality in his first 10 mins than Malouda has in 18 months. Hell, Hillario would give us more out wide left. Malouda is subbed every game, EVERY GAME, but still starts the next one. Every Chelsea fan can see it, but not so the management it seems.

Also..

And perhaps if us supporters actually encouraged and supported the side we might succeed against the odds, rather than, as before, succeed with the odds stacked heavily with us.

If the players who played looked like they gave a sh*t it would be easy to support them. But they dont.

Its very easy to stick up for a team that tries however rubbish they are but when you are playing rubbish and not giving 100% you are going to alienate the fans. Further more our coaching set up seems incapable of motivating or properly organising the team.

Under Mourinho , we did at times have passengers but at least they were organised by a clued up coaching staff. And thats the difference. Its been just over ten years now that Chelsea have been one of the top teams in England. We have always had management and coaches with a bit of nous, no matter who was out there on the pitch you felt confident the people in charge would be able to organise and gee up the players to a certain degree (yes, i even include Grant here), but right now we have a horrid mixture of half a team not giving a sh*t and a caching staff seemingly not capable of doing anything about it.

And that my forum friends spells TROUBLE. Not just for the future of the team but for harmony within the fans too, because of a lot of us right now feel totally alienated from OUR football club.

Edited February 1, 200916 yr by bjd

I may be too optimistic about change but I think there will be change following this. This is just f**king outrageous! There will be such an uproar from the fans management can't ignore it, it's different than manu thrashing us it's much worse.

And I can at least hope that even a bunch of overpaid unenthusiastic declining players dont like losing like this! And we know Big Phil doesnt enjoy losing so things must change.

But lets be real, even if LFS doesnt change anything we will win a fair amount of matches, surely no silverware though.

And despite how angry everyone is now in the wake of this game come next saturday we will be watching us beat Hull.

Whilst i agree with your spirit Heckel , i am afraid i cannot agree with a lot of what you say. there.

Firstly..

If you were talking about anyone else i might agree.

But this is Malouda.

Stoch can play, he is left sided. And trust me he wont be worse. its impossible. he would show more effort and quality in his first 10 mins than Malouda has in 18 months. Hell, Hillario would give us more out wide left. Malouda is subbed every game, EVERY GAME, but still starts the next one. Every Chelsea fan can see it, but not so the management it seems.

Also..

If the players who played looked like they gave a sh*t it would be easy to support them. But they dont.

Its very easy to stick up for a team that tries however rubbish they are but when you are playing rubbish and not giving 100% you are going to alienate the fans. Further more our coaching set up seems incapable of motivating or properly organising the team.

Under Mourinho , we did at times have passengers but at least they were organised by a clued up coaching staff. And thats the difference. Its been just over ten years now that Chelsea have been one of the top teams in England. We have always had management and coaches with a bit of nous, no matter who was out there on the pitch you felt confident the people in charge would be able to organise and gee up the players to a certain degree (yes, i even include Grant here), but right now we have a horrid mixture of half a team not giving a sh*t and a caching staff seemingly not capable of doing anything about it.

And that my forum friends spells TROUBLE. Not just for the future of the team but for harmony within the fans too, because of a lot of us right now feel totally alienated from OUR football club.

Spot on there. You cannot support something you do not agree with, and whilst team selection of nothing to get pissed to a state of losing love with the club, the selection of players who don't give 100% (and sometimes really don't give a sh*t) will lead to people getting really, really pissed off.

When you watch a team of people getting paid very high amounts of money, you enjoy it, and buy into the unity that it produces, when you watch a team of individuals earning a paycheck on a field, at your expense, you do not enjoy it, and it is then, that fans are lost, years old season tickets are not renewed, and the inevitable decline of our football club begins. Whats going on is a byproduct of the way we have been acting in the past few years, spending big, for the sake of spending big, and giving players nothing to really give a sh*t about. Can anyone really tell me they look and see a burning love for our club in Malouda, Mikel, Deco, Drogba, Anelka. If you agree, that they don't (regardless of performances and talent) then surely the problem lies within that fact.

I wouldn't blink an eyelid, if we played Stoch, Mancienne, Kakuta, Ivanovic for the rest of this campaign, if they really wanted it, and could buy into being a part of a new team, as with under Mourinho, as with under Ranieri, as with under Gullit. Otherwise the past 2 year's will continue, and we will be having sh*t days like this, questioning everything to do with our club for a while to come.

Excellent post, BJD, agree with everything you said

No complaints about our spirit today. I'm more worried about the fact that we carry no attacking threat whatsever against any team that is half way organised.

Heckel

Your point about trying to compare Scolari's reign with Mourinho's reign (and the fact that you can't due to the massive difference in funding) is entirely fair. We shouldn't be pointing the finger at Scolari and criticising him as a comparison as the times are clearly different.

What you should do with a manager is look at how he is performing with the resources at his disposal rather than the resources you would like to see at his disposal. So with that in mind I would say that, with the resources at his disposal, Scolari is making a lot of very bad choices and making them week in week out and therefore the criticism is entirely justified.

I do, however, like to see the fans back the team for the full 90 minutes regardless of the performance. Once the final whistle goes then feel fee to let certain players or staff know exactly how you feel but whilst the game is on think of the greater good!!

Heckel

Your point about trying to compare Scolari's reign with Mourinho's reign (and the fact that you can't due to the massive difference in funding) is entirely fair.

I don't agree with that at all Loz. Mourinho's team wasn't built on massive funding. Yes, he did spend money on some big players but it was a lot more than that. Surely you wouldn't argue that he wouldn't be getting more out of these same players than Scolari is?

I think he would but the circumstances are still not comparable;e - when Jose wanted to spend big he was free to do so - that luxury is not open to Scolari.

Would Roman stop making a mickey out of us fans? I agree that it is an insult to tell us that we ain't bloke, sell Bridge & Cudicini and then tell us we need no strengthening! If He is bloke, tell us and we can go through this.

The problems have all been well stated - poor coaching staff, bad management, ageing players etc. But there's also something we lack. Spirit. Where's the gumption under Mourinho?

I am very disgusted but I still have to take that occasional dig at Big Phil. I insist that he was NEVER qualified to coach a Premiership team as he had no premiership experience.

The worst season since 2004 has just started...

1. 2x defeated at the Bridge - 1-2 Arsenal, 0-1 Liverpool

2. 1st double defeat to Liverpool - f**king sh*t... we didn't even score in 180 minutes against the Scouser, home or away

3. Worst defeat over a decade against the Reds - 0-3 after a fortuitous 1-1 draw at home

Prediction : Chelsea WILL MAKE IT TO THE UEFA CUP NEXT SEASON! With Villa hot in the pack, I doubt we can maintain CL qualification.

So what if we did beat Villa 2-0? I am predicting another defeat at Villa with an inept Scolari insisting on Malouda and later, Deco.

The plot was already lost because we could only attempt 6 shots vs 17 from Liverpool. Possession, the hallmark of Mourinho's era, was a paltry 42%.

I remember that even under Mourinho, we had the ability to hold the ball and even attack with 10 men. And when was the last time we conceded so easily within the space of 5 minutes?

All these sh*t and Roman/Kenyon continues to maintain their facet and insult our intelligence by behaving as if nothing has happened.

Finally,

This is a sign of defeated rhetoric and lack of ideas from Scolari,

"Liverpool were better than us all game," he said.

"We need to look again, to try again, we have many games but we are behind two clubs (in the league standings).

"It is more difficult than before but we have to fight to the end.

I say, if we need MONEY, sell Deco, Malouda, Kalou, Ballack, Drogba, Joe Cole at WHATEVER price! At this rate, we would be heading toward a declining value on these players due to performance and age. If we are going to be going for scraps, better use Stoch, Mancienne,Kakuta, Di Santos and Ben Sahar (which is on loan). At least we were be going down in glory.

There's no bright spot in the future, only damage controlling.

How long before the banners in the street reading "Roman Out!!"?

Loz and BJD - I hear what you are saying. The major point I was making is that people seem to talk about the side as though we were still flush with cash and that at the blink of eye we could easily replace all these players as well as Scolari. My attitude is that we have returned to the world of sanity and we need to think about our squad as comprising some good buys and some dodgy, all which we are now fated to use. The tone of a lot of posts reminds me of the sort of attitude that bloomed in the early Roman years - and that irritates me.

As to the attitude of the players and staff:

1) Passion/commitmen. I was in Australia and missed two or three of the Christmas games, but in the games that I have seen I don't believe that our spirit has been that bad. I would say that Ballack, Deco, Malouda are all in indifferent form, and that no matter how 'hard' it looked like they were playing, they would still be fairly sh*t - we know that whether or not he's playing well Ballack always looked fairly relaxed on the pitch. Appearance isn't everything. I have no problem with the energy/passion of Cech, Terry, Bosingwa, Alex, Belletti, Mikel Lampard, Joe Cole (before his injury), Anelka, or Kalou. In other words, the majority of our starting line-up; Ashley Cole, I'm not so sure. Drogba is clearly not interested and should be condemned, but Scolari is not to blame for that, he's always been a self-interested tosser. So Scolari finds himself with a weakened attack, and a front man who is a w**ker - two years ago we would have bought three players and we'd all be anticipating a return to form. At the moment, we need to face the fact that the players we have are the ones we're going to have to get behind.

2) Using youth players. I like it that so many say 'chuck on the youth, the season's a write-off so we might as well blood them'. We're still competitive in THREE fecking competitions. No manager in the world who is charged with being competitive at the very top would look our position in the three competitions we're in and say 'f*ck it! This is over, I'll bring in untested, inexperienced players and tell them to shoulder the burden'. ACtually there is a manager who does that, his name is Arsene Wenger. Maybe we should try pry him away from the Emirates?

3) Scolari's decision making and man-management. Firstly, he has made mistakes, and I expect that he would do given this is all very new for him; but he's the man we've targeted and who has been given our squad and I faith that he'll improve and come good. Secondly, I think he is a talented man and handles players and press well (unlike Grant). He doesn't have Mourinho's cold-blooded ambition, but as his charge was to improve the quality of our football as well as deliver results I don't think he should be judged on results. In the early stages of the season, we were playing some very attactive football, and the feel of our game has definitely changed (to mind, mostly for the better). However, Scolari anticipated (and I'm sure was told as much) that he would be able to bring players in to 'complete' his system. As it is he has players designed for Mourinho's 4-3-3, lock-down, winning-machine and he's trying to get them to play open flowing passing football. There's a contradiction there and it's not Scolari's fault - he was brought in to create a certain kind of football, then he found he didn't have the resources to make that a reality, so now he has to improvise a method in a situation in which he has no previous experience. The blame should therefore be given over to Roman and the management, as well as the global financial crisis.

4) I'm sick to death of the 'we lost, fire him!! get rid of him!! We're doomed !! We must always win, win, win WIN WIIIIN!! *said poster, clicks over from CSR forums to handjob clip, does his business, and then returns to CSR* "Scolari must die! Malouda isn't as good as my nan! Why haven't we bought Messi and Ronaldo yet! Get your cash out Roman' etc etc

3) Scolari's decision making and man-management. Firstly, he has made mistakes, and I expect that he would do given this is all very new for him; but he's the man we've targeted and who has been given our squad and I faith that he'll improve and come good. Secondly, I think he is a talented man and handles players and press well (unlike Grant). He doesn't have Mourinho's cold-blooded ambition, but as his charge was to improve the quality of our football as well as deliver results I don't think he should be judged on results. In the early stages of the season, we were playing some very attactive football, and the feel of our game has definitely changed (to mind, mostly for the better). However, Scolari anticipated (and I'm sure was told as much) that he would be able to bring players in to 'complete' his system. As it is he has players designed for Mourinho's 4-3-3, lock-down, winning-machine and he's trying to get them to play open flowing passing football. There's a contradiction there and it's not Scolari's fault - he was brought in to create a certain kind of football, then he found he didn't have the resources to make that a reality, so now he has to improvise a method in a situation in which he has no previous experience. The blame should therefore be given over to Roman and the management, as well as the global financial crisis.

Disagree with that Heckel.

Shouldn't be judged by results?! What else should he be judged by? The puffiness of his exquisite moustache?

We have lost to every top rival club this season, are you saying it's all just coincidence? Are we really that bad?

Enough with that nostalgia about first few weeks when we played beautiful free flowing football against crappy teams. The minute we faced serious opposition he was found out and we've been struggling ever since. Like the quote from the WWW on the matchday thread "he needs a team full of south americans, and what he has is a functional, defensive squad with zero creativity, designed for tactical wins and clean sheets. Literally, the opposite of what he is used to" - right on the money. The problem is anyone who watched Chelsea over the last few years knew what this team was about. Everyone but Scolari, apparently.

Does this man know how to play any other way? Does he look like he can change team tactics effectively? Does the team look like they understand what he wants from them and respond to his directives? As far as I couild tell the answer is no.

Roman and the board should take their share of the blame for what's happening but Scolari's incompetence has nothing to do with it.

Disagree with that Heckel.

Shouldn't be judged by results?! What else should he be judged by? The puffiness of his exquisite moustache?

We have lost to every top rival club this season, are you saying it's all just coincidence? Are we really that bad?

Enough with that nostalgia about first few weeks when we played beautiful free flowing football against crappy teams. The minute we faced serious opposition he was found out and we've been struggling ever since. Like the quote from the WWW on the matchday thread "he needs a team full of south americans, and what he has is a functional, defensive squad with zero creativity, designed for tactical wins and clean sheets. Literally, the opposite of what he is used to" - right on the money. The problem is anyone who watched Chelsea over the last few years knew what this team was about. Everyone but Scolari, apparently.

Does this man know how to play any other way? Does he look like he can change team tactics effectively? Does the team look like they understand what he wants from them and respond to his directives? As far as I couild tell the answer is no.

Roman and the board should take their share of the blame for what's happening but Scolari's incompetence has nothing to do with it.

I meant to say 'results only' that was a typo. I think that quote you got from the matchday chat is perfect and what I would have said if I said what I said better than I said it.

"The problem is anyone who watched Chelsea over the last few years knew what this team was about. Everyone but Scolari, apparently." This is why I said Roman/club management is at fault because THEY wanted a flair side, but then baulked at stumping up the cash for Robino (shades of Ronaldinho with ManU, sense the presence of The Evil One?) and now the financial crisis has taken the funds away so Scolari is left looking like a chump. All I can say is I have faith in the man to come good. There's something irrational there, but I have a good feeling about him despite the last two months of indifferent football.

Edited February 1, 200916 yr by heckel

Heckel

I've got to say I agree with a lot of your points, even though I find myself questioning a lot of Scolaris decisions I know if I were in his position the alternatives would seem very risky.

I also know he has made mistakes and I fully expected him too, what is hard to judge is if the players lapses in form are due in any way to his lack of man management skills or if they are just not up to it.

I't must be a pretty thankless task choosing between Anelka Drogba and Young Di Santos when 1 is very young an unproven, one is mentally somewhere else and one is not great against physical or well organised defences.

as you say there was a time we could have bought our way out of that one...

Thankyou Chippy, this guy also sees things as I do:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/fe...-league-anfield

and makes the all important point that it is Mourinho's bad buys two years ago that are hampering our attack now. And as you say, we can't buy our way out this time. A-tish-Kalou A-tish-Kalou we all fall down!

I think everyones missing the point we all new that once Roman falls out of love with Chelsea or say football we are on a slippery slope and it looks like that day is here it shows on the flied the way the players are playing (not all of them)and off the flied with no money been put in,so it does not matter who's in charge ?.Does anyone care like us the fans do? (don't think so).The writings on the wall until Roman gets his head out of his ASS we are heading in one direction and it ain't up.Am I over reacting yeah but I'm just a fan what do I know

Thankyou Chippy, this guy also sees things as I do:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/fe...-league-anfield

and makes the all important point that it is Mourinho's bad buys two years ago that are hampering our attack now. And as you say, we can't buy our way out this time. A-tish-Kalou A-tish-Kalou we all fall down!

A good read and it makes a change for a journolist to see there is more wrong than the managers choices/tactics.

I think Scolari got it wrong today as I think he went for the Draw, we needed better really but to be honest if I was in his place I would look at the strike force and wonder how they were going to break down one of the tightest defences in the Prem at their ground.

He was in a lose lose situation really as had he played Drogba and Anelka and we conceded more he would have been as wrong as starting just Anelka, had he started Drogba on his own and Drogba had have played with no commitment he would have been wrong..playing the top scorer in the league and having Drogba ready to come off the bench looked ok to me but that was wrong.

I think to be fair the players on the day were either not good enough or not motivated enough, maybe a bit of both.

The thing is Chippy, it's no good the manager moaning about how it isn't like it was advertised in the brochure. He has a job to do. He has the same group of players, more or less, that we had last year, no African Nations to contend with and rivals in Man U who are behind the pace they set last year. Of course he has his difficulties, as did Grant and Mourinho before him, but it is has job to get the best out of the players he has. I don't think he is achieving that. If anything I'd say he has got just about the least that you'd expect. He has shown himself to be tactically blinkered and extremely unadaptable. It would be impossible to say that the team had progressed in any way under his stewardship.

You can talk about players as much as you like but it is the manager that counts. Look at Capello. He has the same players that were so crap under McClaren but has got so much more out of them by having a plan and being able to communicate it to the players.

Of course, in an ideal world Scolari should be allowed to go out and buy a whole raft of new players who suit his way of playing but in the real world that isn't going to happen. Unlike last season when I did not advocate changing manager during the season I believe that Scolari is out of his depth and I'd be happy for us to make a change now if we could get someone who knew what the hell he was doing.

What i now want know is how come "Grant " got the team to play with basically the same group of players,we came uner his Stewardship to within a JT of CL glory,scolari unfortunately has been found out at this level

The thing is Chippy, it's no good the manager moaning about how it isn't like it was advertised in the brochure. He has a job to do. He has the same group of players, more or less, that we had last year, no African Nations to contend with and rivals in Man U who are behind the pace they set last year. Of course he has his difficulties, as did Grant and Mourinho before him, but it is has job to get the best out of the players he has. I don't think he is achieving that. If anything I'd say he has got just about the least that you'd expect. He has shown himself to be tactically blinkered and extremely unadaptable. It would be impossible to say that the team had progressed in any way under his stewardship.

You can talk about players as much as you like but it is the manager that counts. Look at Capello. He has the same players that were so crap under McClaren but has got so much more out of them by having a plan and being able to communicate it to the players.

Of course, in an ideal world Scolari should be allowed to go out and buy a whole raft of new players who suit his way of playing but in the real world that isn't going to happen. Unlike last season when I did not advocate changing manager during the season I believe that Scolari is out of his depth and I'd be happy for us to make a change now if we could get someone who knew what the hell he was doing.

I think some of you missed the point. Despite our more sanguine status financially, why did we bring in Scolari in the first place? To achieve success !

If not, why not stay with Avram Grant? He kept our unbeaten home record, he reached the CL finals (Mourinho did not ) and we were 2nd.

Henkel, do you honestly think we are STILL in 3 competition? Which 3? The Premiership is between Liverpool and Manure, so stop comforting.

We will have trouble even reaching the semi-finals in the FA Cup and CL league.

It is already proven that Chelsea is not good enough. We have only scored 2 goals out of 5 games against the supposed Top 3.

As for those who kept insisting that this is not Scolari's choice squad, then what about Grant? For comparison, Grant didn't even buy anyone and Scolari had the comfort of Deco & Bosingwa (though not his choice, he is still Scolari's choice at international selection!)

I am sick when people complained that it is not about winning, winning, winning. That's true...but the opposite is also true. It is not about losing twice to Liverpool ! This is Coca Cola championship stuff.

How much do you think Deco/Malouda/Kalou/Drogba are worth altogether? May 20-25 mil quid.

With that money, we can still spend HALF of that in getting a new winger plus maybe Kevin Doyle and still would affect the current team's performance which is in dire need of changing.

I have written about the need to build for the long haul. But you can hope to build when you are going on the slippery road of disintegration.

There's some players who are simply uninterested, an owner who wants his face and this is like the morally wrong bank executives being paid their bonuses on taxpayer's fund ! We could cut wages' cost by selling those uninterested/indifferent ones.

I think most of you would agree with me on this - I rather see interested, hardworking boys like Stoch, Mancienne or Sahar working their socks off & still losing...then a dumb Malouda who waits for the ball, attempts a failed body feint or two, followed by a rugby cross. And HE is paid probably more than Stoch/Mancienne combined !

I don't post here very regularly but on every occasion I like to add my two bob.

It is very easy to point fingers when the proverbial sh*t hits the fan. For 2 years everything was sweet with Mourinho because we were winning. Now for a while we have not, and the sh*t spluttering has progressively gotten worse to a point where something is obviously not right. Potentially 8 points adrift of the leaders and having accumulated only 1 point in 5 matches against the other big three, scoring only 2 goals for 9 conceded, says something obvious about our firepower up front. And why has our board done nothing about it? Because it is the club's policy not to buy in the winter window? Bull dust. We bought Anelka last winter. Because we are trying to break even by 2011 and we need to raise funds before we purchase? What are we doing with the funds from the sale of Bridge and Cudicini then?

To me these decisions are a pattern that indicates that someone is preparing to make a sale ...... Roman is more concerned about making the books look good in the short term than he is about wining the prem. So long as we get into next year's CL there is some good guarnteed income. Open your eyes everyone, the telltale signs are there. PK is not going to declare any truth to this speculation, it is not in the interest of the club. Nor for the best deal. And I am sure the players and staff at the club know something is up but obviously all kept in the dark. And you know how confusing and distracting that can be for everyone.

You may be right Heckel, Roman probably is skint. My guess is that Roman is itching to take hold of a few bargains in the market but has taken a hit with his other assets and does not see the value in liquifying them. He probably views the sale of the club as his best choice to get some cash. Mind you guys, this is all just a hunch. I am sitting 10,000 kms away and all you probably know more than me, but I have experienced this exact same thing for someone I have worked before.

Lets not forget last years chelsea made the CL final(which should of won) and almost drew the league with Man U.

This year they are a shadow of that team.but personaly i think the biggest mistake was letting Robben go.I always thought in attack he was out most dangerous player.Now we have nothing out wide.The players there are too slow.When we break nothing seems to happen.There was also no reason to let Eidur go.He was one player who could open up a team with a nice flick/thru ball. When mourinho started letting our fast wingers go and bringing in more midfielders it always spelt trouble.I still believe a fast player always spells danger!

What do we need? Well not that much.Id sell one of our strikers and replace him.Our defence and Gk are good.

Id use frank,obi,essien in my mid feild-Let deco or ballack go along with malouda.

SO a new striker and one/maybe 2 wide players and i think we will be back

The thing is Chippy, it's no good the manager moaning about how it isn't like it was advertised in the brochure. He has a job to do. He has the same group of players, more or less, that we had last year, no African Nations to contend with and rivals in Man U who are behind the pace they set last year. Of course he has his difficulties, as did Grant and Mourinho before him, but it is has job to get the best out of the players he has. I don't think he is achieving that. If anything I'd say he has got just about the least that you'd expect. He has shown himself to be tactically blinkered and extremely unadaptable. It would be impossible to say that the team had progressed in any way under his stewardship.

You can talk about players as much as you like but it is the manager that counts. Look at Capello. He has the same players that were so crap under McClaren but has got so much more out of them by having a plan and being able to communicate it to the players.

Of course, in an ideal world Scolari should be allowed to go out and buy a whole raft of new players who suit his way of playing but in the real world that isn't going to happen. Unlike last season when I did not advocate changing manager during the season I believe that Scolari is out of his depth and I'd be happy for us to make a change now if we could get someone who knew what the hell he was doing.

Again we disagree,

I dont think a change of manager now will help us a bit, I think Grant done very well last year with the ACN and the injuries but the CL final took a toll on players togetherness and I dont think we can pretend that a decent Drogba would not have helped us bag enough points this season to be right up there with utd,

One player is not getting the blame from me but I am saying that just that one would have made a huge difference.

I think Scolari has made mistakes but his blinkered approach as you look at it could be looked at as the safest approach out of the choices he has.

He could try putting two or three youngsters in but in reality he could have lost more ground buy doing so, I myself would have given up on Malouda buy now and used the same yardstick as many on here and said "Stoch cant do any worse" but apart from Malouda playing left and Stoch right we also have the fact that Scolari watches them closer to us and seems to think Malouda (heaven help us) is the better bet at this time.

we can argue his tactics , his formations (he likes his 4-3-3 but we say go 4-4-2 and when he does we look woeful,

the man has been given the Job and he has not got me excited but to change him without letting him have some new players when he's been asked to change the style of the team seems wrong to me as it seemed wrong when it happened to Grant,

If come the Summer we still look bad then another manager can walk through our revolving Door and we'll have this conversation this time next year.

Edited February 2, 200916 yr by Chippy

For what very little my opinion is worth, Heckel and Chippy have just about perfectly summed up my views on the whole situation. (and have definitely done it in a much more eloquent way than I could have managed)

Slightly off-topic, I did a google search for "The meaning of octville" and it gives you back one hit. The link is to a post on this thread and it says

The sort of internet troll who only ever posts things like 'we lost, fire him!! get rid of him!! We're doomed !! We must always win, win, win WIN WIIIIN!! *said poster, clicks over from CSR forums to handjob clip, does his business, and then returns to CSR* "Scolari must die! Malouda isn't as good as my nan! Why haven't we bought Messi and Ronaldo yet! Get your cash out Roman' etc etc

kev

PS - cheers heckel!