This thread is inevitable sooner rather than later so I thought it maybe best to start it with a neutral post rather than have it kick off as a knee jerk reaction by someone which results in an explosive slanging match!

Whether we like it or not there will be speculation about AVB's future (there already was before today's match) and it is fair to say that Roman's track record supports the creation of that speculation.

So I am not offering this as a 'AVB should be punted' or 'AVB is the future' starter to the thread. Just starting the thread to allow people to comment.

This thread could also be re-headed with any number of under performing players, who were doing the same for Carlo.

I think this is a big test of how serious the club is about truly having a strategic plan for the future. If they decide to get rid of AVB over the course of this season then they should stop talking about any long term plans as there clearly aren't any. We have a first team that is still dominated by players who are coming to the end of their playing careers. Many of those players are also big personalities in the dressing room and I'm sure they are not being very positive when asked to spend time on the bench. Until some of these players are moved on (hopefully a few will go on January) I think they will be holding us back no matter who is in charge.

Likewise the newer players have largely been brought in for their potential and cannot be expected to produce immediate results. I even include Mata here. He has been arguably our best player so far this season so it is easy to forget how young he is.

This is going to be a testing time for AVB no doubt about it. But I really hope we stick by him and allow him the chance to complete the transition. Hopefully by the end of the season we will have a better idea as to how his team will look and play.We may not win anything this year but I will be happy if we show clear progress by the end of the season.

Doesn't look good, considering Roman's history of changing managers, but hopefully it'll stop with AVB.

I'm not by any means convinced he's the real deal, but replacing AVB without giving him enough time to prove himself is madness. I think he's trying to change too much too fast and it's backfiring. There are some encouraging signs but there's a long road ahead and we'll probably be better off supporting him through the bad times if we want to create any sort of consistency within this club.

I'd hate to miss out on the top four spot but if that's what it takes to rebuild the side and come back stronger, let's go for it. Get rid of the dead wood, give the best youngsters a chance and sign some young talent to improve our options.

This thread could also be re-headed with any number of under performing players, who were doing the same for Carlo.

Agreed Ben. At what point do the fans start to realize that perhaps some of these players are actually the problem? Will it take Guus coming back and failing for example before they finally accept it ?

He'll be gone by Christmas.

Truth is, Roman Abramovich knows f**k all about football, no matter what Kenyon or Buck has said, he's going to

get Hiddink back, then he will turn on him next.

Yes, I am drunk, but the truth is a sh*tter.

Loz - Bang on, the press are going to have a field day...and AVB , rightly or wrongly, is going to come under the spotlight pretty soon.

Whilst I do not support the constant managerial merry-go-round that has become our Modus Operandi under Roman, I feel AVB will be out very quickly if he doesnt change things quickly.

He has been very quick to come in and use a fair bit of civil service esque jargon (something i personally have not warmed to) talking about things such as competence and competency's, but he is not showing these qualities himself at the moment. To be fair to him, he has tried to evolve our play with subtle changes here and there mostly in the style that we defend....the problem is that the new systems he has implemented are not working, and are not likely to work with the current playing personnel. . .

The problem as i see it was that our defense was not the part of our play which needed changing!

It is all well and good trying to stamp your ideas on a team, but you cant be trying to fit square pegs in round holes just to implement a system to call your own and trying to force it to work. Our problem was never the defense, and was mainly our slow build up play which allowed teams to sit back in numbers and close the space around our front line....this in turn meant that players like Torres did not have the space to operate effectively as he previously did in the past.

Pressing high up the pitch is only going to limit space further and compress more players into the other half.

AVB, time to swallow some pride and revert to previous (defensive wise) and maybe start grinding out some wins....because if you dont, i cannot see you making it to next season.

Edited November 20, 201113 yr by nonotnowjim

Roman Abramovich knows f**k all about football, anyone care to argue with that?

Loz - Bang on, the press are going to have a field day...and AVB , rightly or wrongly, is going to come under the spotlight pretty soon.

Whilst I do not support the constant managerial merry-go-round that has become our Modus Operandi under Roman, I feel AVB will be out very quickly if he doesnt change things quickly.

He has been very quick to come in and use a fair bit of civil service esque jargon (something i personally have not warmed to) talking about things such as competence and competency's, but he is not showing these qualities himself at the moment. To be fair to him, he has tried to evolve our play with subtle changes here and there mostly in the style that we defend....the problem is that the new systems he has implemented are not working, and are not likely to work with the current playing personnel. . .

The problem as i see it was that our defense was not the part of our play which needed changing!

It is all well and good trying to stamp your ideas on a team, but you cant be trying to fit square pegs in round holes just to implement a system to call your own and trying to force it to work. Our problem was never the defense, and was mainly our slow build up play which allowed teams to sit back in numbers and close the space around our front line....this in turn meant that players like Torres did not have the space to operate effectively as he previously did in the past.

Pressing high up the pitch is only going to limit space further and compress more players into the other half.

AVB, time to swallow some pride and revert to previous (defensive wise) and maybe start grinding out some wins....because if you dont, i cannot see you making it to next season.

Surely it was the system that changed and not the defense? One of the reasons our defense looked so good before was because of how conservative our play was. It worked well when we had the players to convert the lower number of chances we created as we were able to defend narrow leads. AVB has been brought in apparently for more entertaining football. We can't have that without going forward more as a team and that is what is leading to holes at the back. Although we are letting in goals AVB's biggest problem now is the lack of goals at the other end surely? His whole ideology is to outscore the opposition and we don't seem to have a striker bar Sturridge who is scoring regularly.

Of course we could go back to the old system by signing a couple of quick wingers and a manager that played a counter attacking style. We may as well have stuck with Carlo and given him a budget in the summer then.

Roman Abramovich knows f**k all about football, anyone care to argue with that?

I was unaware that he had ever claimed anything different? Of course we could choose to believe the media stories that he has tried to pick the team etc. but as far as I know there has never been any proof of this.

I want him to stay but something deffinatly needs fixing at the moment.

Unfortunately all I can offer right now

i think the main question is has avb done anything to prove he is worth moulding us for the future?

what has been changed? is there anything we have learned this season that we didnt know before the season kicked off? any number of us could have called these problems from the start of the season or even last season!

id like a manager to be given time but id also like a manager to have the balls to do what chelsea need at the moment

Roman Abramovich knows f**k all about football, anyone care to argue with that?

Yeah he might not know football? ,but he has the money and we all know money talks..AVB should not be sacked but he will if he results don't change so maybe we should start a thread on who will be our next manager,you know the saying we only sing when we're winning

Yeah he might not know football? ,but he has the money and we all know money talks..AVB should not be sacked but he will if he results don't change so maybe we should start a thread on who will be our next manager,you know the saying we only sing when we're winning

I just think the whole club is a mess at the moment, maybe we should just accept it, the double was the last hoorah for the JT-LAMPS and DROGBA era.

I'm just gutted, I'm going to bed mate .

I'll have to agree with Six Times, it's a mess. I still want to believe that AVB is the man for the job, which we all knew wasn't going to be anything less than massive. To be honest, if he can prove himself in the other competitions this year (FA Cup, Beer Cup and the UCL), I won't be too disappointed.

It's pretty much inevitable for any club to have an underachieving season, and quite clearly this is ours. On the positive side is though that the main problems are found in the defense, which are completely fixable. Many players are lacking in self confidence and the balance just isn't there, but I firmly believe this will take a turn for the better at some point.

I was watching the Liverpool game on Abu Dhabi sports, and not sure if the interview was aired on any other channels, but they showed a pre match pitch side interview with Jamie Redknapp, who alluded to the possibility that senior players (he specifically named Drogba, Lampard and JT) still saw AVB as a scout and didn't respect him as a manager.

Bearing in mind Redknapps family links to Lamps, i wonder if this accusation is borne out of inside info or merely speculation.

I think many of us thought this could be something of a transitional season but after our good early start, I was given false hope that perhaps AVB could be the messiah and go and win something in his first season. Of course, he still could, but not if we keep playing like we have done this past month or so and we really only have a hope of one of the domestic cups - the PL and CL look way beyond us right now. Even top 4 is looking a tough ask right now. Four defeats and teams no longer having any fear about coming to Stamford Bridge and getting a result.

No one could question AVB's team selection up to the QPR game as we were getting results but I think the time has now come for AVB to have a serious re-think on his starting line up. We cannot keep starting games with Mikel, Malouda, Lamps and Drogba. They are the past NOT THE FUTURE. I think we have to accept NOW that we are not going to win the PL so we may as well start playing the players who hopefully will be our future. Give Bertrand or PVA games at Left back as Ash isn't the consistant performer he was in the past. Say goodbye to Mikel and start playing Romeu NOW.

I was all for Josh going to Swansea and playing some football but to be honest, our midfield needs a player like Josh more than Swansea's does right now.

Last season was a complete waste of a season team developmenmt wise and we ended up with nothing. I don't want AVB to make the same mistakes and I'm looking for him to do something a bit more radical than change the system but rely on the same old faces.

Edited November 20, 201113 yr by Nibs

OK, I've spoken some bollocks tonight, but I think we can all agree, if we get our defence sorted out, then we

really have something good on our hands.

Well yea, that and the midfield and forwards.

until chelsea is willing to stick with a manager this is going to happen time and again. It's not the end of the world to not win something some seasons, the expectations are too great and it's not possible. Until we fans, RA, the press etc get that into our skulls we will not be able to keep managers who have any chance of building a team. Just my opinion but I would be happy for top 4 every season even if that means no silverware from time to time, there is not too much wrong with stopping the expectations and allowing us to become a good top 4 force, a team that others fear not laugh at.

Look how we loved the 90s when Hoddle came in and started turning us into something, the ability to buy great players, silverware, hope. It seems like our hope has vanished.

Seriously, two new defenders, another winger opposite Mata, and things will start to improve.

P.S Good post Lauren, things could always be worse.

This was always going to take time. Roman might be inpatient but not stupid and you don`t pay 15mp for a 33 year old manager just to fire him months later when things get off to a slow start. Very reassuring comments from AvB post-match today aswell in the link below.

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896/premier-league/2011/11/20/2766197/abramovich-didnt-pay-13m-to-lose-another-fortune-by-sacking

“We have set out to build something new and the club is committed to taking what we are building to the future. Our commitment is to the club and what we are doing in the future. That is the commitment we have to take now.

The burden of wanting someone to succeed so badly it affects your ability to asses them fairly is a heavy one.

I feel like this with AVB (excluding todays match thread!)....

I'm the same with Torres and Luiz.....

No one is going to turn us around this season enough to win the league now, so leave AVB to work his way out of this.

He must be good at what he does, he just needs to feel that he will be given the leeway to change the team for the good of the club in the long term.

And don't forget it must be hard for Roman, he has grown close to JT, Lamps, Drogba etc over the years and has had some great moments with his 'first' team so it can't be easy to see them being sidelined for younger players. And maybe, just maybe that inadvertently comes across, putting a little more pressure on AVB's shoulders?

For the life of me i can't see any benefit in sacking AVB, this isn't the same as the Scolari time as he had the best available, at their peak (as Carlo showed) but just couldn't bring the best out of them on a regular basis.

AVB has been brought in to bring us a more dynamic brand of football, and (as is very apparent now) is going to take a bit more time than maybe Roman invisaged.

I hope he gives that time, but AVB must learn along the way too... This deal must work both ways.

Alan

give this guy time i think he will come good,look at fergusons first few years .we are like man city last year i said at the start of season this is a transition year for the blues.the likes of drogba terry lampard mikel malouda anelka cole bosingwa need to move on.what gets me is i would rather lose to these teams while blooding youngsters.i hate to say it but all the top six clubs are blooding youngsters at the minute even city.we arent we stick to the tried and tested and it aint working.every good youngster on thr brink at chelsea has a top old guard in his way bertrand van arnholt mcheran romoeu all have the above mentioned in there way.i dont think drogba does torres any favours either i think nando needs to be top dog and drogba wont let him. the old boys club at chelsea need to realise there time is up and move on or let the youth thru .other than juan mata i cant see any change in the team from last year.avb play the youngsters in the prem not all at once but a couple against weaker teams.i take heart in the carling cup game played youngsters against everton first team went down to ten men and still won.ok they got a man sent off late on but we didnt lose the game . point proved we need a change of personel not revolution just bleed them in now before its to late. romeou has to start ahead of mikel what you gonna lose.ashley cole needs less minutes on the pitch bring bertrand on as a sub from time to time.i like meireles but he always comes on when mcheran should be given at least ago for 15 minutes. we need quality centre back jt finished attacking midfielder and right back and right wing .thanks for reading let me know what you think

I'll be very pissed off, can't see us getting rid of AVB. He needs to build a team.