What's the one thing we all accept the club needs to do this summer? Spend money. Bizarrely some people think Jose didn't need to do the same. I don't know if that's a compliment or plain old delusion but after we've had the discussion about what Jose did wrong I think we all have to agree that this club (the board, the people running it) can't have another summer like they did last summer because if they do then whomever the coach is, we're in serious trouble. 

who thinks this? got any names at hand?

 

anyway- as you say, the consensus is that the squad needs strengthening. also the consensus is that the club had a very poor summer window. I don't think anyone would disagree with either of those contentions.

 

but lets not forget that a relatively thin squad under jose wasn't simply a case of the club tying a hand behind his back and leaving him to it. 

 

representing it that way would be not totally accurate IMO.

 

he's always liked small squads. it helps him control the dressing room and foster a tight team spirit. his management style depends on it to a certain degree.

 

furthermore, certain players that would have added depth left because of a perceived lack of opportunities. salah, schurrle, de bruyne, cuadrado and lukaku for example. filipe luis is another who would still be here if he was given more minutes.plus there is a vast array of talents (of variable suitability it must be said) that the club has and had out on loan that he could have kept in the squad (including van ginkel who was part of his squad in the first season). and then there are the various youth team players who he may have given more first team chances to. he might have used mikel a little more- he's shown he remains a capable squad player.

 

the club could've done more, undoubtedly. but it shouldn't be forgotten that last season our wage bill was the highest in the league. and the fact the club turned a profit is something for which the much criticised board deserve credit for as much as jose, given they negotiated those transfers and brought those saleable assets to the club in the first place.

 

I'm not saying any of the above should have been done because jose won us the league on the back of his choices. I'm saying it could have been done. he's a great manager but  I won't accept that the state of the squad in terms of size or personnel in any way explains or mitigates just how badly we've done this season. 

Edited April 14, 201610 yr by g3.7

 

furthermore, certain players that would have added depth left because of a perceived lack of opportunities. salah, schurrle, de bruyne, cuadrado and lukaku for example. filipe luis is another who would still be here if he was given more minutes.plus there is a vast array of talents (of variable suitability it must be said) that the club has and had out on loan that he could have kept in the squad (including van ginkel who was part of his squad in the first season). and then there are the various youth team players who he may have given more first team chances to. he might have used mikel a little more- he's shown he remains a capable squad player.

 

 

A few of those players are the ones who left and seem to have been replaced in a one-in, one-out style. So De Bruyne leaves after Matic comes in (and there are reports Jose didn't want to sell Kevin), Lukaku leaves and Costa comes in (call that a wash), Schurrle leaves Cuadrado comes in etc. If it is a case of us having to sell before we could buy then it's hard to say all these examples you've given could give us depth. 

 

Van Ginkel is a tricky one because what he needed after a very serious injury was consistent minutes and it can take 12 months after the healing is done for a player to get back to where they were, which seems to be happening now with PSV. I'd be a big proponent of him coming back next year actually but it's tough to say he could've contributed last season to be honest.

 

Mikel maybe could've gotten more minutes but I'm not of the opinion that he was capable of being a comparable replacement for Matic. I think there's a reason Jose looked to replace him in his first season here and I think it's the same reason that Conte will probably let him leave too.

 

the club could've done more, undoubtedly. but it shouldn't be forgotten that last season our wage bill was the highest in the league. and the fact the club turned a profit is something for which the much criticised board deserve credit for as much as jose, given they negotiated those transfers and brought those saleable assets to the club in the first place.

 

 

We have a tremendous scouting network and Piet De Visser was ahead of the curve when it came to what was going on in Belgium. I can quite understand you praising the board for their work in identifying players like Mata, Eden Hazard, Romelu Lukaku, Andre Schurrle, David Luiz etc. when they weren't well known to a lot of English football fans but I think that's a whole other discussion to be honest. 

 

Our wage bill was the biggest in the league though yes although now you mention it, I'd be interested to see how that's actually made up.

 

 

I'm not saying any of the above should have been done because jose won us the league on the back of his choices. I'm saying it could have been done. he's a great manager but  I won't accept that the state of the squad in terms of size or personnel in any way explains or mitigates just how badly we've done this season. 

 

You don't have to accept it. You may well be very happy with the squad as it is and not think it needs any improvement and that's a valid view (I'm not saying that is your view).

 

For me, and I've said it before, we had a strong first eleven last year but no depth and that was evident from February. My view is that rather than strengthen the squad, we at best made like-for-like (ish) changes but if I'm being honest I think we weakened the squad last summer.

 

Now this is where I think you're wrong. On paper, we shouldn't have been in the position we were. On paper, it was the same team that won the league. On paper, we should've been doing as well as before.

 

But football isn't played on paper. Unfortunately it involves people, and people have emotions. Great coaches always talk about that moment after the euphoria of winning where you have a huge dump of emotion. Tyson Fury actually comes to mind because he's said something similar recently where he feels like he's mentally retired (not retarded) after he reached his goal. 

 

Fergie used to say that after winning the title he needed 2 or 3 big signings to let everyone know the pressure was on again, for starting spots, for wins and ultimately for the title. Jose said something similar but he used the word 'instability'.

 

We didn't do that.

 

We let complacency slip in because our signings were, well sh*t. Not specifically the players although a couple might be unkindly called that, but the thinking behind them. They weren't ambitious. They weren't improvements. They were barely filling the gaps we had from players we lost, let alone improving the squad.

 

This is why I think the players look so poor this year and I foresee the points that 'Jose should've motivated them' and that's valid. But I don't think coaches can do that on their own. I think the players need to feel like their part of something special (remember that thing all the new signings used to say when Roman first came in), like they're being put in the best possible position to succeed. I honestly don't think we did that.

 

Now the reason this keeps coming up is not because we're all Jose fanboys or because we're living in the past. It's because nothing has changed except for the coach. So we have a new guy coming in who we all want to be excited for but we know the only we he can succeed is if the club backs him and that means spending money whilst giving him the freedom to implement his philosophy. 

 

We can't have another summer where we don't improve the squad and with us already looking to close deals in April (which I don't recall us doing last season) maybe the club has turned a corner. But we shouldn't keep trying to blame everything on Jose because if we do, we're not going to recognise the mistakes and we're not going to fix them.

I'll skip all the football's not played on paper stuff, and make a note of it next time my local pitch gets soggy in the rain.

 

Now this is where I think you're wrong. On paper, we shouldn't have been in the position we were. On paper, it was the same team that won the league. On paper, we should've been doing as well as before.

 

But football isn't played on paper. Unfortunately it involves people, and people have emotions. Great coaches always talk about that moment after the euphoria of winning where you have a huge dump of emotion. Tyson Fury actually comes to mind because he's said something similar recently where he feels like he's mentally retired (not retarded) after he reached his goal. 

 

Fergie used to say that after winning the title he needed 2 or 3 big signings to let everyone know the pressure was on again, for starting spots, for wins and ultimately for the title. Jose said something similar but he used the word 'instability'.

 

We didn't do that.

 

We let complacency slip in because our signings were, well sh*t. Not specifically the players although a couple might be unkindly called that, but the thinking behind them. They weren't ambitious. They weren't improvements. They were barely filling the gaps we had from players we lost, let alone improving the squad.

 

This is why I think the players look so poor this year and I foresee the points that 'Jose should've motivated them' and that's valid. But I don't think coaches can do that on their own. I think the players need to feel like their part of something special (remember that thing all the new signings used to say when Roman first came in), like they're being put in the best possible position to succeed. I honestly don't think we did that.

 

Now the reason this keeps coming up is not because we're all Jose fanboys or because we're living in the past. It's because nothing has changed except for the coach. So we have a new guy coming in who we all want to be excited for but we know the only we he can succeed is if the club backs him and that means spending money whilst giving him the freedom to implement his philosophy. 

 

We can't have another summer where we don't improve the squad and with us already looking to close deals in April (which I don't recall us doing last season) maybe the club has turned a corner. But we shouldn't keep trying to blame everything on Jose because if we do, we're not going to recognise the mistakes and we're not going to fix them.

I don't disagree that ideally you build upon what you have- especially when it was clear that we were no nearer being good enough in europe (i.e. there was still obvious ways in which to improve).

 

many people on here felt the two positions where we could improve upon in the first eleven were at center back and on the right. we tried for stones and failed and we tried for pedro and succeeded. anyway it wasn't enough.

 

relative to city's transfers I think you could expect us to no longer be favourites for the title. it is at this point where the board deserve criticism. we went from the best side on paper to probably the second best, and squad wise there was no longer much in it among the top three or four sides. this alone means that the board have failed to a degree. it would explain us not winning the league.

 

it does not explain us being where we were when jose was sacked. if we were on course to finish fourth at the moment then jose would still be manager and we would purely be talking about the club looking to repeat the 2014 window and avoiding the 2015 one. as it is we're now talking about large scale rebuilding as we coast to tenth. it is at this point right here where jose deserves his criticism. you haven't actually told me what form / league position you think was acceptable from this squad under jose's management given the circumstances you've outlined. nor have you named any of the people who think conte doesn't need to spend. I am very interested to know. 

 

under ancelotti in his second season we lost a lot of first team players and replaced them with kids, benayoun and ramires. we finished 2nd.

 

and you're right to pre-empt me on the point of motivation. because ultimately it is entirely the manager's responsibility for the form of the team. always has been, always will be. 

David Amoyal on twitter wrote two good articles on him.

 

Both were about 140 characters long...

Good luck to Conte........he is going to need it.

We will have a chance of winning the league and winning a cup, but only ...........If Conte can bring in about 6 "hard working".new players......they must be very hard working attitudes, obviously talented and they must be willing to show some leadership skills and have bags of football character .........................we need a new goalkeeper, a proper hard man experienced right back, a holding defensive midfielder, a leader central defender, a number 10 and a top classy striker, all at reasonable prices........and most importantly we clear out any players that have an attitude problem, thinking they are bigger than Chelsea football club.

I'll skip all the football's not played on paper stuff, and make a note of it next time my local pitch gets soggy in the rain.

I don't disagree that ideally you build upon what you have- especially when it was clear that we were no nearer being good enough in europe (i.e. there was still obvious ways in which to improve).

 

many people on here felt the two positions where we could improve upon in the first eleven were at center back and on the right. we tried for stones and failed and we tried for pedro and succeeded. anyway it wasn't enough.

 

 

Was Stones the only defender available? Or was it just him and Djilobodgi? See this is an issue I have with this view that the board finds targets and then gets them. Now let's put to one side their failure to actually get Stones, but was he the only target we had? Off the top of my head there's Antonio Rudiger to whom we were linked last summer and we're being linked with him again. The fee was reported as being £20 million, yet he ended up on-loan at Roma for one-quarter of that with a further option to buy. That strikes me as somewhat inept on their part.

 

I'd also say that a lot of people realised we needed a midfielder too because dear departed Ramires wasn't good enough and neither was not quite so dearly and not yet so definitively departed Mikel. Of course the only midfielder for sale in Europe was Pogba (although not really) and not for example, Imbula. I picked him because most people had heard of him, rather than picking an obscure French midfielder like Kante.

 

 

relative to city's transfers I think you could expect us to no longer be favourites for the title. it is at this point where the board deserve criticism. we went from the best side on paper to probably the second best, and squad wise there was no longer much in it among the top three or four sides. this alone means that the board have failed to a degree. it would explain us not winning the league.

 

 

So here is a problem that some people who have had experience of it in their careers might recognise.

 

You have a high-achiever who is a pain to work with but gets the best out of those around him.

You put him in a position where it's unlikely he'll succeed.

 

Stand back.....

 

Fireworks.

 

For a more sporty example, take Lewis Hamilton out of his Mercedes, put him in a Toro Rosso and watch what happens when he tries to drive it as hard as he's used to whilst you scream through his headphones 'SETTLE FOR TOP SIX LEWIS!!'.

 

He'll spin out and maybe take a few spectators with him. That's kinda what we did with Jose. We said well done for winning the first title we've had in five years, now here's a weaker squad. Oh and by the way you know that French guy you hate....well we just sold him your back-up keeper. LOL!!!

 

 

 

it does not explain us being where we were when jose was sacked. if we were on course to finish fourth at the moment then jose would still be manager and we would purely be talking about the club looking to repeat the 2014 window and avoiding the 2015 one. as it is we're now talking about large scale rebuilding as we coast to tenth. it is at this point right here where jose deserves his criticism. you haven't actually told me what form / league position you think was acceptable from this squad under jose's management given the circumstances you've outlined.

 

Impossible to say what position would've been good enough, partly because we don't know what would have happened in January.

 

Here's why.

 

Carlo Ancelotti won the league in 2010. In that summer we really didn't improve the squad too much and had an almost identical net spend to what we have had this season. That changed in January when we spent big on Fernando Torres (eurgh....) and David 'el profit' Luiz. We may well have done the same this January, instead we just continued the weakening of our first team squad although we did rather eerily sign another 26 year old striker who is rather sh*t.

 

Anyway, point is we finished that season 2nd and sacked Carlo at Goodison Park.

 

So would fourth have been good enough this season? Maybe, although past evidence suggests probably not unless we won the Champions League. 

 

 

under ancelotti in his second season we lost a lot of first team players and replaced them with kids, benayoun and ramires. we finished 2nd.

 

 

Hmm, probably should've read the whole post first. Oh well, not going to delete it now.

 

and you're right to pre-empt me on the point of motivation. because ultimately it is entirely the manager's responsibility for the form of the team. always has been, always will be. 

 

That's where we place the responsibility but I think it's a touch simplistic to pretend other factors don't come into it. Ultimately we have a league where historically, financial strength is a major influence on how well a team will do so you can't discount the influence that an owner or board has on results.

 

I think what you've got to come back to is what the target for this group of high-achieving individuals was. I don't think anyone can honestly say that the club set them the ambitious target of retaining the league and going further in Europe, which is where I think we'd all like us to be aiming.

 

 

So to once again tie it into our current predicament, we're hiring another coach who is ultra-competitive, meticulous, demanding and has fallen out with a board before over being given the right players to do his job. We've all got to hope that the club has learned from it's mistakes and puts this guy in a position to succeed because this is a crucial season for this club.

wow you put a lot of effort to defend Jose. in a thread about Conte

wow you put a lot of effort to defend Jose. in a thread about Conte

To be fair shedender is merely trying got point out that the board needs to take its fair share of the blame, every time we win the league we don't invest in the team bar after Jose first title win season, mourinho made his fair share of mistakes but ultimately he isn't in charge of the purse strings, I'd like to see how our squad wage bill is made up as personally I think we are getting sh*t value for money when you consider how much is spent on so few first team players, we pay more than city with a smaller squad and they have 2/4 players on £200k+ So how do we stand more??

1. who are the people that think conte doesn't need to spend money / sign players this summer? asking for the third time after you made that claim by the way.

 

2. with the squad we started the season with, what league position do you think jose should have achieved?  by the way, we were 4th and 9 points off the top when luiz and torres were signed. in other words, not in a relegation battle.

 

 

for what its worth, we finished 3rd in jose's first season. the chances of winning the title were out of the window so early that talk became, in briefings from the club and in public statements from jose, of finishing in the top four. the club went to the unprecedented step of giving him a vote of confidence when the title was long gone. it is obvious that a champions league place would have kept jose his job. his sacking was unlike every other under abramovich.

 

p.s. its a bit rich for you to talk about being simplistic when you come out with stuff like "Oh and by the way you know that French guy you hate....well we just sold him your back-up keeper. LOL!!!"  which I have to say is an utterly risible bit of evaluation by anyone's standards.

 

furthermore its obvious jose had more control over first team transfers then anyone else. the profile of the players he signed, the players he sold, his job title etc all point to that. so I'm unsure why you don't think jose had no responsibility in having a list of backup options. I haven't read one word of serious criticism of jose from you, but you'll find plenty of criticism of emenalo, the board etc from me on here. so who exactly is being simplistic?

I wonder if the wage bill included our  "loan army" which other clubs then pay us who pay the loaned player? Like the previous poster said, how we have such a high wage budget with such a small squad is very surprising

that is my suspicion and if so the club really need to sort that out. you can't have a programme that is designed to be helping you make money drain resources.

1. who are the people that think conte doesn't need to spend money / sign players this summer? asking for the third time after you made that claim by the way.

 

 

People out there, in social media land.

 

 

2. with the squad we started the season with, what league position do you think jose should have achieved?  by the way, we were 4th and 9 points off the top when luiz and torres were signed. in other words, not in a relegation battle.

 

 

The point was that the club spent in January to try and amend things and it's impossible to say whether they would have done the same this January had Jose stayed on. I think I've covered the point that it isn't just the squad on paper that was important but those other factors.

 

 

 

for what its worth, we finished 3rd in jose's first season. the chances of winning the title were out of the window so early that talk became, in briefings from the club and in public statements from jose, of finishing in the top four. the club went to the unprecedented step of giving him a vote of confidence when the title was long gone. it is obvious that a champions league place would have kept jose his job. his sacking was unlike every other under abramovich.

 

 

I'm not convinced that it was obvious because you don't know how things would turn out. Under Carlo the reason cited was the football more than the position so I'm not sure what would've happened. Of course you're free to believe what you wish and you can state with certainty that your opinion would come to pass. I don't think I will though.

 

 

 

p.s. its a bit rich for you to talk about being simplistic when you come out with stuff like "Oh and by the way you know that French guy you hate....well we just sold him your back-up keeper. LOL!!!"  which I have to say is an utterly risible bit of evaluation by anyone's standards.

 

 

Really? Was it the LOL that took it over the edge? What about if you do it in a Russian accent? No? Darn.

 

This bit you've highlighted wasn't an actual account of the conversation, not was I paraphrasing. I was trying to inject a bit of light-heartedness into a fairly po-faced and overly long post. Sorry about that. For future notice, would a smilie of some type have helped at all?

 

 

furthermore its obvious jose had more control over first team transfers then anyone else. the profile of the players he signed, the players he sold, his job title etc all point to that. so I'm unsure why you don't think jose had no responsibility in having a list of backup options. I haven't read one word of serious criticism of jose from you, but you'll find plenty of criticism of emenalo, the board etc from me on here. so who exactly is being simplistic?

 

There's that word 'obvious' again. It's obvious to you and I will agree that certain players certainly fit with his profile than the players who came before, but he wasn't the only voice in the room. I think there were certain financial constraints on him too that may well still be there under Conte which is surprising and worrying.

 

I think I've criticised Jose although not as much as some others. That's because I like the guy, I admire him and I think under him we had the chance to build something special. It's not often there's such a bond between the supporters and the coach, especially when their tenures are seen as temporary but we had that with him. He defined what modern Chelsea is perhaps more than anyone and I think the club messed up. That doesn't mean he was perfect and he absolutely didn't react to the pressure well, but I'm sure most people here have worked with or known brilliant men who are occasionally temperamental.

 

The trick is to put them in an environment where they can succeed and I have misgivings that the board did that, or is capable of doing that with Conte.

 

That's why, to answer someone else's point, this discussion continues. Conte is by many accounts very similar to Jose in what he expects and what he needs. If we couldn't make it work with Jose then I have worries we will make it work with Conte, but we're already making the right noises by going for Nainggolan in April. That's a positive step and suggests the mistakes have been heeded. 

Good luck to Conte........he is going to need it.

We will have a chance of winning the league and winning a cup, but only ...........If Conte can bring in about 6 "hard working".new players......they must be very hard working attitudes, obviously talented and they must be willing to show some leadership skills and have bags of football character .........................we need a new goalkeeper, a proper hard man experienced right back, a holding defensive midfielder, a leader central defender, a number 10 and a top classy striker, all at reasonable prices........and most importantly we clear out any players that have an attitude problem, thinking they are bigger than Chelsea football club.

Piece of piss then

So to sum up your answers simply (or simplistically?) :

1.makes the claim but doesn't / can't substantiate it.

2.literally refuses to answer.

Poor form. Relegation form arguably.

Not your fault though. Maybe you didn't have the requisite resources to answer those questions properly...

So to sum up your answers simply (or simplistically?) :

1.makes the claim but doesn't / can't substantiate it.

2.literally refuses to answer.

Poor form. Relegation form arguably.

Not your fault though. Maybe you didn't have the requisite resources to answer those questions properly...

 

I answered your first point and the second one I answered to the best of my abilities. I've said I can't predict what would've happened in January and how the season would've ended and I'm not going to just pluck a number between 1 and 20 out of the air for the sake of it. I apologise for that and I feel I should apologise for using words or phrases that you could take personally, as you seem to have chosen to. I think maybe you've taken a few things literally which obviously some people do and I probably should've picked up on that earlier. Shame it's taken this turn though because it's been an interesting back and forth but obviously it's reached it's conclusion. Enjoy the match tomorrow though mate.

Putting words below a question doesn't mean it's been answered. It's your choice whether you answer of course but I was interested to see if you could. I've got enough to know what I needed to know so thanks for trying.

Anyway you enjoy the match too.

Am confident that Conte knows what type of players he needs......and surprise, surprise it's likely they are likely to come from the Italian league........Croatians and Italians with hard working attitudes..........interesting times are ahead

Job is getting bigger week by week.

I'm sure he'll be up for the challenge, but I do wonder if he knows just how much of a job he has on his hands? From the outside looking in you can say "League winners last year having a bad season with a billionaire owner who has heavily invested in the past" and it sounds like a fairly straight forward job, but this will be far from straight forward. The squad is poor, the team behind the scenes are a liability and with the new stadium coming can we afford the top players we're after? Without European football we might not even be able to attract the players anyway.

you have to hope that what remains of this squad (which I think will be most of it) will welcome the opportunity to put this season behind them and start afresh from zero.

 

it is a squad that needs working on in many ways but I don't think it is poor. no-one would be angry with them if they felt it was performing to its true level surely?

 

conte has a huge task in front of him but he has the advantage of knowing that he will be our manager. he has the time and the knowledge to prepare. he will also have more time to drill them than any manager before him in the last decade. and he is the type of manager who steps into the field. his official title includes the word "coach" and in his case it won't merely be an insinuation of political rank.

 

I think he is hugely impressive and I mentioned him as being up there as someone I hoped we'd look at way before it became clear that we were. what he needs to do is not repeat the mistakes that AVB made. on day on I want him to know what he wants to do. how he wants to play, what players he doesn't want to include in his squad. I want to see decisiveness. that is the only thing I ask of him. I have no expectation of how good we could be or what we could realistically achieve. I just want him to arrive with clear ideas in his mind.

I'm sure he'll be up for the challenge, but I do wonder if he knows just how much of a job he has on his hands? From the outside looking in you can say "League winners last year having a bad season with a billionaire owner who has heavily invested in the past" and it sounds like a fairly straight forward job, but this will be far from straight forward. The squad is poor, the team behind the scenes are a liability and with the new stadium coming can we afford the top players we're after? Without European football we might not even be able to attract the players anyway.

 

Well he did manage to make alot of changes at Juventus the first years. His most expensive player cost around £12mil, impressive when that includes players like Vidal, Lichtensteiner, Pogba, Tevez, llorente etc. 

I'm sure he'll be up for the challenge, but I do wonder if he knows just how much of a job he has on his hands? From the outside looking in you can say "League winners last year having a bad season with a billionaire owner who has heavily invested in the past" and it sounds like a fairly straight forward job, but this will be far from straight forward. The squad is poor, the team behind the scenes are a liability and with the new stadium coming can we afford the top players we're after? Without European football we might not even be able to attract the players anyway.

On the other hand, he has more room for error. As long as he gets a European spot, it'll be considered satisfactory by most fans. He doesn't have pressure to finish at the very top.

Help us

Right now, i just hope he can get the players to help us challenge for the top 4 again. If he can achieve that, then next season would be a massive success.

 

The board have to be behind him 100%, he needs all the help he can get right now.

I really don't envy him now. 

 

Looking at that game, how the hell could you even form a top 4 team out of that? Let alone challenge for the title. We need so many first team players to be bought and bought well (something that hasn't happened for a while) and a bunch of remaining players need to get their act together.

 

All well and good saying Conte is a manager not to be messed with but Mourinho wasn't exactly a pushover and these players basically downed tools.