I'm not so sure he will last the season now. Our displays are turgid, boring and very simplistic and it has been for a while now. Depending on how the Arsenal game and Barca game go if we don't progress in either I can see him being punted by Roman sadly.

Just looks out of ideas lately and that usually means only one thing. Just wish our board backed him with the players after what he done for us last season. We never learn though

Edited January 18, 20188 yr by Chelsbear

39 minutes ago, brakeit said:

Like Andre Villas Boas ? Even Guardiola needed 2 season at City to create something special, and he have a lot of money to spare, unlike here in Chelsea.

And they bring all players that he want, not like us.

 

Villas Boas screwed himself with his approach towards the senior players. Also not helped by the fact that he was 34.

And i don't think we'll win the league for a while anyways. We are clearly not going to compete with the Manchester clubs and Liverpool in the transfer market.

 

JC, these replies are depressing!

I can't see him being fired before the end of the season, not unless top 4 looks in real trouble.

20 minutes ago, Zeta said:

I can't see him being fired before the end of the season, not unless top 4 looks in real trouble.

I'd say we are nearly there right now. We are overtaken by Liverpool and are in fourth already with a Tottenham who looks much better than us just three points behind us.

Not that i want Conte fired but a win is needed at Brighton. If not we are in real trouble.

58 minutes ago, Sindre said:

We are overtaken by Liverpool by a goal difference of 1.

There you go, I put that into some sort of context for you.

2 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

There you go, I put that into some sort of context for you.

Yes, but they have been in great form for a while and we seem to be getting worse and worse.

We can't sack conte. 

The team are struggling at the moment, and conte is of course accountable, but we aren't losing games, and barring the leicester game, we have created more than enough chances to win the games we've drew. 

Conte needs to be more flexible, and I think the club need to do more in terms of personnel. Especially if he is going to stay next season.

7 minutes ago, big blue said:

We can't sack conte. 

The team are struggling at the moment, and conte is of course accountable, but we aren't losing games, and barring the leicester game, we have created more than enough chances to win the games we've drew. 

Conte needs to be more flexible, and I think the club need to do more in terms of personnel. Especially if he is going to stay next season.

Therein lies Conte’s problem; he is setting the team up not to lose games but not necessarily to win.

We need a decent second striker to give Morata a rest or at least competition.

The creative players we do have make mistakes - Luiz and Fabregas - and Hazard is normally double marked.

There is a fine line to tread being a Chelsea manager without good reinforcements, at times like this fighting on four fronts with replays you see just how tricky it really is.

26 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

There you go, I put that into some sort of context for you.

They will continue to score more than us, that's for sure.  

Conte has got a team of players that won the league last year for the most part.  Costa and Matic are gone sure but it's not like it's killing us.  The problem is we persist with such a defensive formation, giving every single team a competent chance at nicking games away from us.  Hazard and Morata can only do so much up top now that we rely solely on them.  Hazard even has to come down and get the ball in our third sometimes to transition it to the opponenets half because we have literally no one in midfield who can take the ball up through the middle of the pitch.  Kante is the closest but it's not his strong suit.  Bakayoko I think was brought in to do this job but he just can't do it, he isn't technically proficient enough yet to help.  

The board didn't do a great job getting Conte offensive minded players...I think that's fair.  But our defense is rock solid.  I would say we have a top 2 defense in the league if not the best (considering we defend so much giving up our number of goals is very very good) and one of the top defenses in world football too.  Rudiger and Christensen coming in are fantastic, and azpi is probably the best pure defender in the league.  Having backups of david luiz/cahill/rudiger depending on the day is amazing depth.  Plus Kante in front of them.

The formations we use is classic italian style football.  Secure at the back, counterattacking with pacy strong players and a holdup CF that can play with his back to goal and lay off.  Morata is getting better, but he's not a hold up player.  He is better than Costa I think, but he still likes to run.  Hazard is the ideal free player that can playoff a number 9 and carry the ball forward.  

I am not sure I enjoy catenaccio style...but it is what Conte prefers.  He needs to be able to adjust from that when things are looking grim.  So far I have seen him be too stubborn and not try to switch tactics until it's time to make a sub, then he switches to 3-4-3 where we get lost in the middle of the pitch far too often and I think it's our main area of concern at the moment....

41 minutes ago, TheChelsRVA said:

They will continue to score more than us, that's for sure.  

Conte has got a team of players that won the league last year for the most part.  Costa and Matic are gone sure but it's not like it's killing us.  The problem is we persist with such a defensive formation, giving every single team a competent chance at nicking games away from us.  Hazard and Morata can only do so much up top now that we rely solely on them.  Hazard even has to come down and get the ball in our third sometimes to transition it to the opponenets half because we have literally no one in midfield who can take the ball up through the middle of the pitch.  Kante is the closest but it's not his strong suit.  Bakayoko I think was brought in to do this job but he just can't do it, he isn't technically proficient enough yet to help.  

The board didn't do a great job getting Conte offensive minded players...I think that's fair.  But our defense is rock solid.  I would say we have a top 2 defense in the league if not the best (considering we defend so much giving up our number of goals is very very good) and one of the top defenses in world football too.  Rudiger and Christensen coming in are fantastic, and azpi is probably the best pure defender in the league.  Having backups of david luiz/cahill/rudiger depending on the day is amazing depth.  Plus Kante in front of them.

The formations we use is classic italian style football.  Secure at the back, counterattacking with pacy strong players and a holdup CF that can play with his back to goal and lay off.  Morata is getting better, but he's not a hold up player.  He is better than Costa I think, but he still likes to run.  Hazard is the ideal free player that can playoff a number 9 and carry the ball forward.  

I am not sure I enjoy catenaccio style...but it is what Conte prefers.  He needs to be able to adjust from that when things are looking grim.  So far I have seen him be too stubborn and not try to switch tactics until it's time to make a sub, then he switches to 3-4-3 where we get lost in the middle of the pitch far too often and I think it's our main area of concern at the moment....

Agree with all except the last sentence, I believe we need 3-4-3 in the majority of matches to give that added support to attack. Save the 3-5-2 for the City's and Arsenals, IMO.

3 hours ago, Sindre said:

I'd say we are nearly there right now. We are overtaken by Liverpool and are in fourth already with a Tottenham who looks much better than us just three points behind us.

Not that i want Conte fired but a win is needed at Brighton. If not we are in real trouble.

We have Brighton away, Bournemouth at home, Watford away and lastly West Brom at home before our tough run of games come on.

During that time, United have to play Spurs and Burnley away from home.

Liverpool have to play Spurs at home whilst Spurs have to play United, Arsenal and Liverpool.

If we manage to pick up minimum 10 points from those games then we should be well in front of Spurs and ahead of Liverpool also depending on the result of the Spurs game.

*Chances* are we will be out of Europe whereas the other four should make it through meaning they'll have more games whilst we rest. Although, we usually do well against Barca.

We'll be fine.

Edited January 18, 20188 yr by JMaher94

I can't help but feel Conte is losing the players, I just find the last 4 performances very odd, the Norwich match was so half-arsed. There just isn't that commitment we saw last season. 

There seems to be some sort of correlation between our performances whilst the transfer window is open and when it is closed, it could be that being linked with various individuals may impact our players with them looking over their shoulders for competition. Alternative it could be Conte is more focused on transfer activity rather than tactics for games but whatever it is the team needs to get a grip because at times in the past we may have lost or drew a few on the bounce but the performances have always been there, on this occasion the performances have been getting gradually worse.

15 minutes ago, Slojo said:

I can't help but feel Conte is losing the players, I just find the last 4 performances very odd, the Norwich match was so half-arsed. There just isn't that commitment we saw last season. 

I know what you mean. Re Norwich I believe Conte was effectively playing our B team and it showed, I bet Drinkwater and Bakayoko have not played in a two man midfield together before yesterday. There is that old saying, 'Disrespect the FA Cup and it disrespect you.' 

The other factor while we were playing our B team, Norwich were treating it like a FA Cup final as they were all in the shop window. 

I wouldn't be surprised if Luiz, Willian and Pedro were not happy as they are being used as bit part actors and last season they were the main stars.

What have we learnt, Ampadu looks good again, Luiz still has an error in him, Bats still does not read the game well, Caballero is still a good keeper, Drinkwater still has a decent shot in him.

I think the first team needs refreshing abit. Everything look abit samey and lathergic. Hopefully Ross Barkley will inject something new. 

Conte also needs to get Morata scoring again. That’s where he should be focusing 

Just throwing it out there, imo our set pieces are poor this season.

Alonso is the only one able to score them but even then he needs the ball in  the right areas.

Set piece deliveries have been dire and considering our forwards likes to try to win fouls higher up the pitch, it just wastes the chance we get when fouls are given.

Our short corners are ok at best.

Looking increasingly unlikely that Conte will be in charge next season. 

The signings being touted are very short term, lots of loans being looked at which suggests it isn't a long term strategy. 

Even Conte's comments when we signed Barkley were odd, didn't sound off about how he was happy with the signing just said he had a lot of potential. 

Shame really, I thought Conte, if backed correctly, could have built a really solid squad. 

23 hours ago, brakeit said:

Like Andre Villas Boas ?

 

Funny you mention him because it struck me only the other day how this squad (take out Cahill and Fabregas) is the type of squad tailored to him and sliding doors/different time in life etc etc etc.

39 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

 

Shame really, I thought Conte, if backed correctly, could have built a really solid squad. 

On what basis? Look at his transfers at Juventus and they will not provide any such basis.

26 minutes ago, startedwithglenn said:

On what basis? Look at his transfers at Juventus and they will not provide any such basis.

On the basis that Juventus have won the league every year since Conte was in charge during the 2011/12 season. 

 

It's very easy to say that the board aren't backing the manager, however this is largely governed by how keen Roman is to dig into his own pockets in order to finance.

The new stadium needs paying for, Chelsea is essentially his hobby; under him we've won every competition out there including the big one. Does he get the same kick winning things as he did back in 2005?

Ps it doesn't help blowing 100 Million on some mediocre players but he doesn't have bottomless pockets

 

46 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

On the basis that Juventus have won the league every year since Conte was in charge during the 2011/12 season. 

 

Some years it's been like the Scottish league, I thought Conte left Juventus because he wasn't backed.

4 minutes ago, Ernie_blue said:

Some years it's been like the Scottish league, I thought Conte left Juventus because he wasn't backed.

But it's been so one sided because Juventus built a side no one could get close to, not necessarily because they were invested a lot more money than anyone else. 

Supposedly Conte walked away because Juventus weren't giving him the calibre of players or level of investment he felt was needed to remain competitive (sound familiar?) and were willing to listen to offers for some of their better players too, such as Vidal.