I have heard nothing but the term 'team in transition' used left right and centre at the moment when anyone talks about chelsea

I have also used the term myself but I was thinking, a team in transition is a team evolving, a team developing, a team changing its mentality, but in all honesty is there any sign that any of this is happening.

We are using the same players, mostly in the same formation, without giving any youth a chance and all we hear about is next years project

I do support the project (i.e ther concept that we need a personel overhaul and a new style of play) and hope AVB gets to follow it through but when will it start.

If like i think, he arrived too late in the summer window to make much of an impression on the transfer market, why didn't we spend this season scouting and lining up targets, but go about this season as normal, rather than rocking the boat too much resulting in an unhappy camp.

It was always going to be difficult as AVB didn't manage to get his own players in before the season kicked off (be it money, time, availability) and the established players knew outright that he was here to replace them 1 by 1

Ancelotti said it in the news that AVB is right that the old guard need to be moved on but there is currently not enough behind them to smooth the 'transition'.

Basically, I think rather than evolving, we have stagnated

The Transition should have been ongoing over the years but with our need for instant and sustained success, Managers with the best will in the world come in and look at what we have, look at the League Table, listen to the media and basically bottle out, they know if they don't win things they lose their Jobs so they stick with proven players and systems as much as possible.

AVB came here and used the Summer to assess the squad, his plan was likely to bring a couple in, send a couple of Youngsters on loan and work out his options at the end of the season,

That may have been right or it may have been wrong but what I take from it is he can't possibly have known he would have problems within the group if things were not going exactly to plan and that players might undermine him if they started to feature less or believed they may be let go at the seasons end.

I think we would be in a better position had everyone pulled together through the bad times and I'm still not beyond hope that they will sort it out.

Transition takes time and its not a seasons Job, its supposed to be a gradual thing and it started under Carlo with a few of the old guard leaving but replacements were either non existent or already past their best stopgap type players themselves.

Its not all doom and gloom as we have some good youngsters either out on loan or on the periphial of the first team and I feel if we brought in a couple of players, managed to keep a couple who may be whinging onside (letting them know they won't always feature) and the loaned players do well over the rest of the season, next season could start to see the squad take shape.

It would be great if any division in the Camp could be sorted as we would then have a good chance of still making CL and an FA Cup would be brilliant and a bonus for this season.

That may have been right or it may have been wrong but what I take from it is he can't possibly have known he would have problems within the group if things were not going exactly to plan and that players might undermine him if they started to feature less or believed they may be let go at the seasons end.

I think a lot of things have surprised him.

I think the biggest of them all is the wholesale lack of goals from the center-forward position. Torres, of course. But Drogs too. If either of them had produced as anticipated, 4th place would already be comfortably held and maybe 3rd. I don't think it's a coincidence that the top 7 places in the table are in order of goals scored.

The Transition should have been ongoing over the years but with our need for instant and sustained success, Managers with the best will in the world come in and look at what we have, look at the League Table, listen to the media and basically bottle out, they know if they don't win things they lose their Jobs so they stick with proven players and systems as much as possible.

AVB came here and used the Summer to assess the squad, his plan was likely to bring a couple in, send a couple of Youngsters on loan and work out his options at the end of the season,

That may have been right or it may have been wrong but what I take from it is he can't possibly have known he would have problems within the group if things were not going exactly to plan and that players might undermine him if they started to feature less or believed they may be let go at the seasons end.

I think we would be in a better position had everyone pulled together through the bad times and I'm still not beyond hope that they will sort it out.

Transition takes time and its not a seasons Job, its supposed to be a gradual thing and it started under Carlo with a few of the old guard leaving but replacements were either non existent or already past their best stopgap type players themselves.

Its not all doom and gloom as we have some good youngsters either out on loan or on the periphial of the first team and I feel if we brought in a couple of players, managed to keep a couple who may be whinging onside (letting them know they won't always feature) and the loaned players do well over the rest of the season, next season could start to see the squad take shape.

It would be great if any division in the Camp could be sorted as we would then have a good chance of still making CL and an FA Cup would be brilliant and a bonus for this season.

Yeah I completely agree

AVB has made mistakes and even as an avid AVB supporter even I can not say he has made defending him easy, but he could not have seriously thought that his biggest problem this season would come from within like it has

There does need to be some quite significant pregress over the summer and I think right now the numner 1 priority has got to be 4th place, just to make the Chelsea appealing in the transfer market. I think we would struggle persuading people like Hazard at the moment, but if were not even in the CL it will be even harder

I think a lot of things have surprised him.

I think the biggest of them all is the wholesale lack of goals from the center-forward position. Torres, of course. But Drogs too. If either of them had produced as anticipated, 4th place would already be comfortably held and maybe 3rd. I don't think it's a coincidence that the top 7 places in the table are in order of goals scored.

Being honest wxwax I was going to mention (as I have before) the Torres saga, I just didn't want that post to come across like most do of late as a desperate defense of him, it would draw replys such as "he watched Torres over the Summer and must have known he was crap" and such enlightening banter...I do believe he looked ok in preseason but agin I was only really interested in putting my idea of the transition across.

Being honest wxwax I was going to mention (as I have before) the Torres saga, I just didn't want that post to come across like most do of late as a desperate defense of him, it would draw replys such as "he watched Torres over the Summer and must have known he was crap" and such enlightening banter...I do believe he looked ok in preseason but agin I was only really interested in putting my idea of the transition across.

Understood, Chippy. Didn't mean to hijack you. As you were!

Indeed

you can see why so many threads get merged on here

Indeed

you can see why so many threads get merged on here

It really is hard to have any discussion without it turning into a sack him keep him thread and you have to feel sorry for the moderators having to read through it, it must be difficult when they obviously have their own opinions and have to wade through the garbled ramblings of a huge group of sofa mangers banging on and on.

I bet their eybrows go up and down and their heads shake and nod like when you don't get on till well after a game and you read the match thread from page 1 to page 55

I'd like to say something about the transition and get this back on track but I feel I said all I can really think of, except maybe if people want to compare the way Fergie deals with it as opposed to the way we do I think they are gonna need to be a bit more patient...

I feel a merge coming on

Edited February 24, 201214 yr by Chippy

I think if AVB had used more youth this year, he may have been given more breathing space by the fans. As it is we have a mish mash of a transition with only really Sturridge as true transitional player. I do think we could have used youth players better , Josh especially but criminally they were not used even in 'strolls in the park' against the likes of Gent and Wolves at home. Missed oppurtunities that have come back to bite AVB on the ar*e.

Decent little article by Andy Townsend of all people mentioning how Andre is trying to put a big transition into 7 months.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2106160/Premier-League-Boot-Room-The-stats-facts-tips-teams.html

Of course we are. We are transitioning from battling for the title to battling for the top four.

Chippy I think Townsend is essentially echoing what Carlo has said in the past couple of days. It's too much too soon, particularly given the players behind Lampard, Drogba and Terry aren't as good.

This is my issue with 'transition' as the term goes. There must be a constant state of reinvention at a club. Constant evolution, there need not be revolution as Villas Boas is attempting currently. The team stagnated for a number of seasons, where most of the player brought in were fringe players and no thought was really place into who was going to be the next generation. Only with the purchase of Ramires, did that process really start last season.

I think if we would like to locate the source of our current difficulties, see 2008-09, 2009-10 as the seasons where the ball was dropped and we didn't look to evolve as we should have. You could also say the lack of progress out of the youth system hasn't helped us either.

Edited February 25, 201214 yr by Spiller86

I think you stated the case well, Spiller. Thing is, it is precisely because of the lack of evolution in the years you correctly identified that AVB has been forced into a revolution.

Indeed, ANY manager of Chelsea would be forced into a revolution this season and next.

I think it's also worth noting that, at least publicly, AVB didn't start the season wanting revolution. He praised his senior players and tried to use them.

For example, Lamps started 5 of the first 7 matches this season (including all five Prem matches.) Malouda started 4 of the first 7.

We got where we are because ABV realized he had to make changes. I don't believe he really wanted to, just as I don't believe he wanted to abandon the high line and press.

He's a pragmatist.