I think one thing to keep in mind is that we have somewhere between the 3rd to 6th best squad in the league (probably closer to 6th than 3rd).

If we could wipe from history some of the mistakes we've made in the transfer market (Salah, De Bruyne, Costa, etc) we'd be much closer to the Manchester clubs. But alas what's done is done.

Truth is, last season was a confluence of good luck. 5th isn't far off our level.

22 minutes ago, bluehaze said:

 

Which part about that are you having difficulty understanding? I think it's quite clear, expectations have changed over the years, take into account money spent and what we've already achieved we should be doing better. You're not an ungrateful fan for recognising that. 

1 hour ago, enigma said:

we are not winning the FA cup if he's still in charge. be lucky to get out of the semi final with southampton. he doesn't have a clue right now, or simply doesn't want to have one. 

That's me right now Enigma, I'm very very confident that we aren't winning anything with Conte still here, at least for this season. I think with the right backing and players he could turn it around next season.

But is it worth it? Is it worth the risk? Is that what he wants? We saw what happened when City gave Pelligrini another year and more players.

I really don't know where I stand on this Conte in and Conte out situation, with Mourinho and Carlo it was obvious where I stood. 

We can't forget what he did for us last season, it all started after our loss to Arsenal. Conte has made a CHANGE  and changed the whole team with formation and players. 

This season he is totally different:

1) No changes, same players in poor form playing every game, no special tactics and poor defending.

2) His interviews and conferences are lowering motivation and don't really raise player's morale. Especially before big games, against City, he admitted that he was "afraid".

3) His energy, his celebrations were special to us, to the team but this season it's all gone.

4) Seems unmotivated, looks like he doesn't want to be here. I don't want to believe that a manager on his level stopped fighting and deciding to give up. 

 

I think that Conte should use the summer as he wants, buy the players he wants and build his team. If next season we won't be going to a top team, fire him. 

Just returned £100 lighter after watching that shower of sh*t, unmotivated players not giving a f**k, a manager whose meant to motivate the team standing on the touchline doing nothing apart from a good advert for the club shop with his cfc tracksuit and coat on. One thing left to play for, and armeggedon awaiting over the horizon.....yes an fa cup final defeat to the y*ds. It's gonna happen, it's written in the stars. Well as long as we stumble past the saints at Wembley and that's not a given. What do we do? Well firstly the team needs motivating, so Conte must be gone in the morning, no if's or buts, we must be ruthless, this guy has to go, he's stunk the whole place out all season. To anyone who wants Conte to stay, just imagine it 7:30pm the day of the cup final and Harry Kane lifts aloft the fa cup as our shower of sh*t stand watching on from the pitch, the nightmare is coming soon to national stadium near you!!!!!  You've been warned

@chi blue I wonder what the alternative is if we move him on now. Not an obvious candidate internally and not really enough time to change anything about the way we play.  

bring in a new technical director and a new manager with an positive philosophy. with the players we have at our disposal, including two very talented youngsters out of a fantastic youth setup, and a myriad of talent on loan, we could really create something special in the seasons to come. 

Just watched MOTD, disappointed with the result though could have been worse - Kante with Arnotauvic.

Good that Conte made the subs within 5 mins of West Ham equalising.

We had enough chances today, Hazard and Willian didn't have their shooting boots on and Morata's offside positioning slightly out.

On that last point it looks like his mojo for finishing is back.

What a sad state of affairs. There's something seriously wrong with the club, and I don't know what. Managers just don't suddenly turn to sh*t, especially after winning the title. It has happened with Ancelloti, then Mourinho and now Conte. Why??? The club must find what it is and fix it, otherwise we may find ourselves in the abyss for a while.  Because of our high turnover of managers, we can't properly integrate youth and end up spending a fortune on transfers that don't work out. It is not a sustainable way to run the club, especially if you run the risk of missing out on CL revenue. Roman should either hire qualified professionals to run the club or sell up. I'm sure there are many willing buyers. This circus act every couple of years must stop.  

8 hours ago, Spiller86 said:

@chi blue I wonder what the alternative is if we move him on now. Not an obvious candidate internally and not really enough time to change anything about the way we play.  

I wish I had the answer spiller, I really do, but I know it can't go on like this, that cup final nightmare scenario is a very strong possibility and the only hope we have now is the new manager bounce we might get bringing someone else in. Frank and drogs? Carlo? Hiddink? As a multi million pound buisness we must know who we have in mind. Without doubt and speaking to loads of fans this is the most disconnected with the team it's ever been for us. Having a beer at half time in the Matthew Harding lower yesterday, the second half was 10 minutes gone and there were loads still down in concourse not even bothering to watch game. The football and team is a nonsense now and it's just become a chance to meet up. 

The squad needs freshening up, we look a bit leggy. Its been a rough and disappointing season. I would almost rather us not in the Europa at all, and go on another league charge next season if we can get some new guys. 

I'd still have Conte if given the chance - I totally get his frustration. He won the league and wasn't supported to rebuild for another successful campaign. 

You cant stand still after winning the league, everyone knows this, you have to keep freshening it up piece by piece to fight again, but we have allowed complacency to creep in and this is the reward.

7 minutes ago, Zola said:

You cant stand still after winning the league, everyone knows this

Our board couldn't even manage to make us stand still. They did more for Mourinho and United this summer than they did for our club. Made them significantly stronger while weakening their own team. Bravo.

someone was mentioning that roman probably didn't support conte because his love of attractive football. not sure how true that could be, but never understood why we kept going for proven, yet non-attractive football type managers. just bring in someone who knows how to set up to play attractive football if this is your goal. all the teams above us this season (barring utd, who in all honesty have been saved many points this season by de gea and some poor officiating) have played good football and it's obviously paid off. on top of that liverpool and spurs, even utd have shown it's possible to trust in young players. 

Edited April 9, 20188 yr by enigma

13 hours ago, IliyaKrostin said:

We can't forget what he did for us last season, it all started after our loss to Arsenal. Conte has made a CHANGE  and changed the whole team with formation and players. 

This season he is totally different:

1) No changes, same players in poor form playing every game, no special tactics and poor defending.

2) His interviews and conferences are lowering motivation and don't really raise player's morale. Especially before big games, against City, he admitted that he was "afraid".

3) His energy, his celebrations were special to us, to the team but this season it's all gone.

4) Seems unmotivated, looks like he doesn't want to be here. I don't want to believe that a manager on his level stopped fighting and deciding to give up. 

 

I think that Conte should use the summer as he wants, buy the players he wants and build his team. If next season we won't be going to a top team, fire him. 

When the writing is on the wall then we need to sit up, take notice and act.

Conte has always been a walking marketing tool of his own. He has had to be. He was floored by the corruption case and fought his way back to clear his name, in whatever way he did. That takes serious image management and a huge amount of media savvy. Let's not be fooled, this is not emotional hyperbole. Every soundbite has meaning and is part of the overall plot.

The bigger concern for me is the lack of trigger pulling from RA. Having successfully become a billionaire in a reportedly seriously corrupt country, this guy also knows exactly how to self manage his image and to keep the media exactly where he wants them. No way would Conte's childish, fongu attitude towards the club have been seen as anything other than what it has been, a scene in the Antonio soap opera.

Therefore I can only think RA is either digging his heels in, which makes no sense as Conte doesn't need to work again so he will happily sit there taking the money and take us down if need be. By not pulling the trigger now then, is this a bigger level of apathy from RA. I hope not.

People cite this £1billion stadium as the reason behind our continual decline. I confess I fail to see the attraction of an extra 19,000 seats in a bigger stadium at the expense of the team as a whole. We have always been told that gate receipts doesn't affect  the profitability of the club.

Therefore, why not bin the stadium upgrade, buy Son from Tottenham, sell half a million new shirts through Asia and invest some of the millions made back into the team.

14 hours ago, Qaz said:

Short memory?

 

He took us from 10th to 1st in the league with (at best) the 3rd best squad. And lead a change in tactics in half the teams in the league.

 

He's definitely got his problems and letting him go is the right thing to do (at the end of the season at least). But let's not whitewash history.

 

Last season was still a huge achievement

This is always brought up. Don't forget that team that finished 10th won the league the season before and he had world class improvements such as Kante. We should have been challenging. Hardly did a Leicester and turned a sh*te team into Champions. Just took us where we should have been.

Conte's stubbornness to keep using the three at the back is most annoying. He was great last year when it worked but this season it isn't. We've had Emerson since January and he's made three appearances (1start??) even though Alonso is looking leggy. With Christensen out it was calling for a back 4 yesterday but he'd rather play Cahill in the middle of the back 3 that has failed every time. His refusal to play Zappacosta and DD is also infuriating. Moses is very average this season and when has Cesc in a two man midfield ever worked? 

 

Clearly doesn't want to be here and the squad is poor but he really isn't helping himself.  

14 hours ago, chi blue said:

Just returned £100 lighter after watching that shower of sh*t, unmotivated players not giving a f**k, a manager whose meant to motivate the team standing on the touchline doing nothing apart from a good advert for the club shop with his cfc tracksuit and coat on. One thing left to play for, and armeggedon awaiting over the horizon.....yes an fa cup final defeat to the y*ds. It's gonna happen, it's written in the stars. Well as long as we stumble past the saints at Wembley and that's not a given. What do we do? Well firstly the team needs motivating, so Conte must be gone in the morning, no if's or buts, we must be ruthless, this guy has to go, he's stunk the whole place out all season. To anyone who wants Conte to stay, just imagine it 7:30pm the day of the cup final and Harry Kane lifts aloft the fa cup as our shower of sh*t stand watching on from the pitch, the nightmare is coming soon to national stadium near you!!!!!  You've been warned

I have thought a lot about this scenario, sadly. 

If we limp past Southampton, I would go into the final (regardless of whether it ends up being United or Tottenham) almost certain we would lose. A sad state of affairs, given how amazingly successful we have been at the new Wembley stadium over the last 1 years. 

The only justification I can see in keeping Conte is financial. I imagine Conte is holding out to be sacked for his payout, and the sooner we do it, the bigger the payout he gets one would imagine. 

It would also be nice for him to finish the season just for 'completeness', but this is becoming less of a priority with every game that passes with Conte looking like he couldn't give a rats arse. 

The positive of bringing in a new face until the end of the season would simply be to lift the grey cloud of negativity that must be hanging over the dressing room every match day, and to boost the players with a hope that with a new face comes new morale. 

The new face would have no time to implement anything tactically, it would simply be a case of chopping off the cancerous negativity and hoping a new face would give the club a lift. 

It would have to be someone popular among players I suppose; perhaps a Hiddink & JT partnership. 

I fear we have left it too late now to be honest, but given how bad the mood is at the Bridge at the moment, I wouldn't be against one last roll of the dice in an attempt to give us a fighting chance for the FA Cup which could salvage a pretty awful season. 

5 hours ago, chi blue said:

I wish I had the answer spiller, I really do, but I know it can't go on like this, that cup final nightmare scenario is a very strong possibility and the only hope we have now is the new manager bounce we might get bringing someone else in. Frank and drogs? Carlo? Hiddink? As a multi million pound buisness we must know who we have in mind. Without doubt and speaking to loads of fans this is the most disconnected with the team it's ever been for us. Having a beer at half time in the Matthew Harding lower yesterday, the second half was 10 minutes gone and there were loads still down in concourse not even bothering to watch game. The football and team is a nonsense now and it's just become a chance to meet up. 

£100 is a hefty fee for a chance to meet up! 

It's interesting that you're saying plenty of match going fans are feeling very disconnected. What do you put that down to? I myself was much more peeved when Fabregas etc. got Jose sacked but I'm interested why this is such a low point for you? (and others obviously) 

Take your point on the Cup final issue. Losing to Spuds was bad enough in the League Cup that year when we were miles ahead of them, let alone now. I just can't see us stumping up 9m to pay Conte out when there isn't much time to turn it around. No guarantees who ever came in would beat Spurs anyway the state of our squad. 

We've dumped oursleves in this mess over a number of years. The worst bit is that we didn't learn from our mistakes two seasons ago. We kept the players who undercut Jose and just hired a new manager. We then didn't upgrade the squad at all despite spending 200m. 

We are indeed a multi million dollar operation but the level of mismanagement boggles the mind. Conte as I've said a number of times is not immune. His inability to find solutions this year or try anything different even within matches has been frustrating in the extreme, even if he was right about our squad.

He is gone in the summer for sure but I for one would like to at least see him try to blood some kids. His one achievement this year is Christensen. It would be nice to see him allow CHO and Sterling provide a foundation that can be built on next year in the Europa League. 

Then we need to genuinely sit down and understand what we want to be in this new era under Roman. How do we want to play, how will we integrate youth, and then use that to decide the manager and signings. Any signings need to have a premium placed on character. All those who have been complicit in undermining managers must go. The flimsy characters need to be in consideration to go as well. Our best teams have been built around character. That should be the one thread that is central to everything going forward.

I get the feeling he’ll be gone once it’s mathematically impossible to qualify for the CL, probably a clause in his contract that lowers the compensation.

football has moved on in this country, the Mourinho’s and Contes are relics when it comes to challenging for a title.

1 hour ago, RIP Mourinho said:

This is always brought up. Don't forget that team that finished 10th won the league the season before and he had world class improvements such as Kante. We should have been challenging. Hardly did a Leicester and turned a sh*te team into Champions. Just took us where we should have been.

it's also weird how people now keep saying losing matic was a big loss. the same matic who was uninspiring and only looked good in his first season and a half at the club. tbh it was kante who has been the dominant man in midfield the past two seasons and without him we would be worse off. also, it wouldn't matter if conte had matic this season because he insists on playing the same formation and tactics. it has gotten stale. 

6 minutes ago, enigma said:

it's also weird how people now keep saying losing matic was a big loss. the same matic who was uninspiring and only looked good in his first season and a half at the club. 

He was a big loss though, given that we didn't properly replace him. 

Bakayoko and Drinkwater both arrived at the club injured and retrospectively we paid dearly for that. 

Being really generous to Bakayoko, let's say that given his age and injury he needed a year to adapt to the team and a new country. It was naive of us to sell such an experienced player in Matic and not replace him. 

Let's be honest, we'd have Matic back in a heartbeat right now. 

Couldn't understand why he's persist with Cesc, it's not like he's the last midfielder we have, there are still Drinkwater, Barkley on the bench. Cesc was so off pace, he couldn't even get on the simplest throgh balls in yesterday's games.  Conte's picking the same team, playing the same dysfunctional system, and making the same subs, and usually ended in the same outcome. If that's not madness, I don't know what is.

Is there any way that we miss out on Europa? It would have to be 7th place and not getting to FA cup final right?

11 minutes ago, JM7 said:

Is there any way that we miss out on Europa? It would have to be 7th place and not getting to FA cup final right?

I think it’s if we finish 7th & Southampton win the FA cup.

. 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 20188 yr by JMaher94