Antonio Conte - Now Officially Manager

[Slojo]

5 hours ago, Argo said:

Thing is with time it should be earned. Jose won nothing in 2014 but it was quite clearly visable we were progressing well. Di Matteo i saw nothing in his full time spell that suggested sticking with him could be rewarded (and Di Matteo was one of my childhood favorites so believe me no one wanted him to work more than me), we were basically attacking with 5 and defending with 5 and there was no structure atall, which was brutally exposed by Simeone, Conte and whoever Donetsk's manager was.

With Carlo, twice more since Chelsea he has been sacked despite a major trophy win the year before, if it's happened 3 times now then he's clearly doing something that's a miss.

 I just can't agree with Carlo, sacking him was very harsh at the time. I agree with you that the league position definitely didn't tell a full story, we were never for a moment challenging for that title, but we had a f**king dreadful squad who were way past their primes. It was the summer transfer job that ruined that season, a transition was massively needed and we signed 3 players, one of them being a backup keeper. 

Regardless Carlo was a superb coach, and sacking him was extremely harsh, in hindsight I like to look at it as a good decision because of what's happened. But come on the club were just harsh, Emenalo was just recently appointed and it looked like we had no idea what we were doing, we had another painful transfer window right after when AVB took the helm. Sacking Carlo for me at the time was incredibly illogical given the fact that we did nothing after it, we should have just given Carlo the money to spend and get the players playing again, backed the manager for a change and see how things turn out. We've never done it, Mourinho was the first one who we did it with and he ended up winning the league the next season.

Okay, we had a terrible season right after but sacking managers for trophyless seasons (which we've been doing for years) backfires. Truth be told I think we've changed since then, when we gave Mou his 2nd season we changed, I think we've also changed with Conte, not massively, we are still ridiculously harsh but we've changed. We gave Mou leniency I'm not denying that that's not my criticism, leniency is different to support. 

[brakeit]

Argo i`m sorry but can`t agree. If Conte has more option, Fabregas would not be played so often. Drinkwater injured, Bakayoko not fully recovery and not fully into the team tactics, style and what is needed for him, and Conte has not have option for Arsenal game. Just as some other loses.

And yeah you likes to cry. Last season a lot of people here criticize Conte for putting Matic in there infront of Fabregas, and after few months they are crying for opposite, why Fabregas is playing ... Double standart as you want. If Matic was in the team, Fabregas would be used just like last year.

As for Cahill, he was given the band because he is englishman.

And Rudiger was big **** against Roma. And other matches as well.

And just like i said, you can throw your captian off in a Fifa, if you do it straight, you will fu** your realtionship.

 

[Argo]

15 hours ago, Slojo said:

 I just can't agree with Carlo, sacking him was very harsh at the time. I agree with you that the league position definitely didn't tell a full story, we were never for a moment challenging for that title, but we had a f**king dreadful squad who were way past their primes. It was the summer transfer job that ruined that season, a transition was massively needed and we signed 3 players, one of them being a backup keeper. 

Regardless Carlo was a superb coach, and sacking him was extremely harsh, in hindsight I like to look at it as a good decision because of what's happened. But come on the club were just harsh, Emenalo was just recently appointed and it looked like we had no idea what we were doing, we had another painful transfer window right after when AVB took the helm. Sacking Carlo for me at the time was incredibly illogical given the fact that we did nothing after it, we should have just given Carlo the money to spend and get the players playing again, backed the manager for a change and see how things turn out. We've never done it, Mourinho was the first one who we did it with and he ended up winning the league the next season.

Okay, we had a terrible season right after but sacking managers for trophyless seasons (which we've been doing for years) backfires. Truth be told I think we've changed since then, when we gave Mou his 2nd season we changed, I think we've also changed with Conte, not massively, we are still ridiculously harsh but we've changed. We gave Mou leniency I'm not denying that that's not my criticism, leniency is different to support. 

Problem (for me) was, while he was hamstrung by the board (ironically by them doing something fans call for to this day and giving youth players squad roles), every decision he seemed to be able to control he just got so, so wrong.

I don't blame him for not playing Bruma, PVA, Josh and Kakuta because they clearly weren't ready and more to the point, weren't good enough but Malouda, Anelka and Kalour repeatedly preferred over a young hungry and clearly ready Sturridge was criminal. Bosingwa getting a lot of games aswell, i know we had a injury crisis at centre back, but Bossy was so bad putting Essien in CB and keeping Ivan at RB was infinite times a better option even more so when you consider the Bosingwa-Ivan-JT-Cole back four was a woeful combination. Also there was no proactiveness by him with his subs, he could have switched things around, Zhirkov, Kalou and Sturridge were often of the bench, okay not the best players in the world but enough quality and versatility to make a tactical switch up to catch teams off guard, but he didn't change one single match from the bench that season (or i don't even think he did in his whole time here, it was just not an issue the first season because things were good a lot more than bad), even AVB has his infamous Kalou sub against West Brom, heck even Avram Grant had THAT Belletti/Anelka switch against Arsenal.

The major gripe i had was his press conferences, surely such a experienced manager would have seen the problems naming the team a day or two before would bring? For example when he revealed Bruma would be making his full debut against Villa, that gave Gerard Houllier 24/48 hours to come up with a plan to exploit a nervous teenager, and that he did as he was bullied by Heskey all game. There was likely loads of times we lost points due to opposition manager's making game plan tweaks due to actually knowing the team we were putting out.

I feel we didn't have one convincing performance all season (even the early thrashings were a lot closer than the scoreline's suggested) and while he wasn't dealt the best hand, he was paid handsomely to get the most out of what he had, and he just didn't, not even close.

[Argo]

5 hours ago, brakeit said:

Argo i`m sorry but can`t agree. If Conte has more option, Fabregas would not be played so often. Drinkwater injured, Bakayoko not fully recovery and not fully into the team tactics, style and what is needed for him, and Conte has not have option for Arsenal game. Just as some other loses.

If we are talking specifically the Arsenal game, then he did have other options. Bakayoko started the week before against Leicester and failing that Christensen could have played CB and Luiz could have gone in midfield like he did vs Spurs, there's no way on this earth playing Cesc in a midfield two was our only option vs Arsenal.

5 hours ago, brakeit said:

And yeah you likes to cry. Last season a lot of people here criticize Conte for putting Matic in there infront of Fabregas, and after few months they are crying for opposite, why Fabregas is playing ... Double standart as you want. If Matic was in the team, Fabregas would be used just like last year.

Some did, but i didn't, if you dig back long enough your see that.

5 hours ago, brakeit said:

As for Cahill, he was given the band because he is englishman.

If that's the case then that's an awful move, we don't need our captain to be English.

5 hours ago, brakeit said:

And Rudiger was big **** against Roma. And other matches as well.

And just like i said, you can throw your captian off in a Fifa, if you do it straight, you will fu** your realtionship.

Against Roma yes, but before that he was really good. He filled in for Cahill very well and didn't deserve to be immediately dropped like he was.

[Deino]

Someone's still stuck in October.

[dan_cfc]

We could win every game for the rest of the season and the media bellends will still magic up a story about Conte wanting to leave.. what a load of bollocks. I actually think Emenalo leaving gives Conte more power with transfers etc a show of commitment towards him.

[Slojo]

On 20/11/2017 at 16:39, Argo said:

Problem (for me) was, while he was hamstrung by the board (ironically by them doing something fans call for to this day and giving youth players squad roles), every decision he seemed to be able to control he just got so, so wrong.

I don't blame him for not playing Bruma, PVA, Josh and Kakuta because they clearly weren't ready and more to the point, weren't good enough but Malouda, Anelka and Kalour repeatedly preferred over a young hungry and clearly ready Sturridge was criminal. Bosingwa getting a lot of games aswell, i know we had a injury crisis at centre back, but Bossy was so bad putting Essien in CB and keeping Ivan at RB was infinite times a better option even more so when you consider the Bosingwa-Ivan-JT-Cole back four was a woeful combination. Also there was no proactiveness by him with his subs, he could have switched things around, Zhirkov, Kalou and Sturridge were often of the bench, okay not the best players in the world but enough quality and versatility to make a tactical switch up to catch teams off guard, but he didn't change one single match from the bench that season (or i don't even think he did in his whole time here, it was just not an issue the first season because things were good a lot more than bad), even AVB has his infamous Kalou sub against West Brom, heck even Avram Grant had THAT Belletti/Anelka switch against Arsenal.

The major gripe i had was his press conferences, surely such a experienced manager would have seen the problems naming the team a day or two before would bring? For example when he revealed Bruma would be making his full debut against Villa, that gave Gerard Houllier 24/48 hours to come up with a plan to exploit a nervous teenager, and that he did as he was bullied by Heskey all game. There was likely loads of times we lost points due to opposition manager's making game plan tweaks due to actually knowing the team we were putting out.

I feel we didn't have one convincing performance all season (even the early thrashings were a lot closer than the scoreline's suggested) and while he wasn't dealt the best hand, he was paid handsomely to get the most out of what he had, and he just didn't, not even close.

I was a huge Daniel Sturridge fan when we first signed him, I liked the look of him at City in his teen years. But Carlo not playing him at the time was understandable, Sturridge had a lot to prove, I know he looked good in the Cup games but that's completely different when we needed to grind out PL games week after week. And that's what that season was, it was a grind, we won a majority of our games by being 1-0 behind and coming back, we had so many players past their primes and classed as dead wood it was unreal. Sturridge finally got his chance to prove himself at Bolton and my goodness did he do that. The only thing bad about the Sturridge situation was what we did after, not playing him over Torres when he was by far the better player, then Di Matteo came in and we never saw Sturridge again.

Sturridge scored 26 league goals in one season at Liverpool when he left, we've not yet had one player who has done that since Drogba in 2009-2010, that says something. Even if now DS is like another Jack Wilshere. 

I would say easily 2010 Ivanovic was probably our only bright spark, by far our best player of the year, he was the only defender who pocketed Luis Nani that season (Nani was never the same again after that game at Stamford Bridge actually) Ivanovic bullied him. But Carlo was stubborn, AVB made one good tactical call but look how incredibly naive he was in all the big games, Arsenal 5-3 game which was awful and one to forget. Ancelotti played the same team week in week out because we had to grind the season out, he knew that. He deserved another chance, and a better summer window, the only thing is I don't know if he was content with the transfer window, Conte wasn't and he made noise, Carlo was the one to stay quiet and get on with it. 

And I must admit Argo you hit the nail on the head about Bruma, I recall that game, it was one of the early ones after the City loss when we really started to go down the drain pipe. So yes bad Carlo, very bad Carlo on that one. But overall he did very well to finish 2nd, albeit one of the worst Premier League seasons I've ever seen, (even United had their worst side in years). I recall at one point people thought we were going to finish outside the top 4, we were 6th place and Spurs kept getting last minute wins, f**king Niko Kranjcar scored two consecutive last-minute goals for Spurs, and to come back the way we did was very good. Even Harry Redknapp was stunned and praised Carlo for getting the team to 2nd place given the circumstances. We jumped above City, Tottenham & Arsenal who had a younger and hungrier squad in each of them. I think Carlo deserves some credit in that.  

Also as for not having a good game, I remember the Arsenal 2-0 game we absolutely demolished them, I believe we got 2 legitimate goals called off also, but those Alex & Drogba goals, holy f**k they were incredible. 

[Slojo]

On 20/11/2017 at 20:20, dan_cfc said:

We could win every game for the rest of the season and the media bellends will still magic up a story about Conte wanting to leave.. what a load of bollocks. I actually think Emenalo leaving gives Conte more power with transfers etc a show of commitment towards him.

It's just a precious narrative now, I do believe there might be some tiny truth to it but that's all there is and that'll what will always remain when he starts losing games (which is rare for Conte, shows how good he really is) 

[Ukraine Bolt]

On 11/19/2017 at 15:49, brakeit said:

Now the haters are silent. Where are the men where said that Conte is putting the wrong players into starting 11 and always questioning his choice.

When we are losing they are really fast to starting to hate against Conte and Cahill, but when we are winning and Cahill play, they are very, very quiet ....

 

Well obviously. People aren't going to complain about us winning. If we do lose after a poor team selection, of course the manager will get critiqued. Stop trying to make out you're better than everyone else with your almighty knowledge of Conte and the club. 

[Argo]

On 11/22/2017 at 03:43, Slojo said:

Also as for not having a good game, I remember the Arsenal 2-0 game we absolutely demolished them, I believe we got 2 legitimate goals called off also, but those Alex & Drogba goals, holy f**k they were incredible. 

If i recall correctly we did well in the second half but in the first half we were getting ripped apart at will and had Arshavin not having his shooting boots on to thank for still being in the game? Might have got the wrong season but that was definitely the case in at least one game against Arsenal around that time.

[Slojo]

32 minutes ago, Argo said:

If i recall correctly we did well in the second half but in the first half we were getting ripped apart at will and had Arshavin not having his shooting boots on to thank for still being in the game? Might have got the wrong season but that was definitely the case in at least one game against Arsenal around that time.

Only in the first 20 minutes it was Arsenal, I can't remember Arshavin having an impact on that game, but that was a really long time ago, I was still in secondary school then. I'm surprised I can even remember that far back. 

Edited November 23, 2017 by Slojo

[The Liquidator]

I understand it was supposed to be a tough away game but to just meekly surrender our title hopes like that was very strange.

Fabregas on the bench was very strange.

Bakayoko not getting subbed out at halftime was very strange.

Avoided the loss after a fluke cross/come shot. 

We have better players than Liverpool and we have to approach these games like its true.

Now we're playing for top 4 and domestic cups.

Conte has to do better. I haven't been blown away by him this season. 

[big blue]

Happy with the point, disappointed with the approach. 

When you consider we used to regularly start games with costa, hazard, Oscar, Willian, and fabregas in the starting 11, I find it disappointing we now can't go to anfield with 3 creative players, especially when the team already contains 5 defenders, and 2 defensive midfielders. 

If mourinho had put that team out, he would've been crucified. 

If we had genuine attacking threat from the wing backs, then a midfield of kante, bakayoko, and drinkwater, might be okay. 

But with alonso and zappacosta, our tactics were effectively sit deep, and give it hazard. 

Not really good enough for the champions of England in my honest opinion.

[Davey Baby]

I think you're both being unbelievably harsh. We went to Anfield and played really well and easily deserved to win. We haven't blown our title hopes at all. There's a long way to go. If we had lost we would have blown them maybe but right now we're the only team that can catch City in my opinion, if they have a wobble, which I think they will. We only got back in London at 6am on Thursday. I think we deserve immense credit. Liverpool would have fancied themselves today, instead they finished the game knowing full well they're not as good as us.

[big blue]

12 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

I think you're both being unbelievably harsh. We went to Anfield and played really well and easily deserved to win. We haven't blown our title hopes at all. There's a long way to go. If we had lost we would have blown them maybe but right now we're the only team that can catch City in my opinion, if they have a wobble, which I think they will. We only got back in London at 6am on Thursday. I think we deserve immense credit. Liverpool would have fancied themselves today, instead they finished the game knowing full well they're not as good as us.

I don't think we did enough to win davey. We played okay, Liverpool were pretty poor. A draw was a fair result. 

The margins are so tight, and if Willians cross hadn't have gone in, we wouldn't have gotten anything out of a game we didn't really go for. 

I think we showed Liverpool far too much respect. The funny is, I bet alot of Liverpool fans are thinking the same thing with team they picked. 

 

[Munkunku]

7 minutes ago, big blue said:

I think we showed Liverpool far too much respect. The funny is, I bet alot of Liverpool fans are thinking the same thing with team they picked. 

I thought the same. Fabregas should have started to continue the momentum from the last few games with him, Hazard & Morata. I don’t know what Conte was thinking today sitting 9 men behind the ball and hoping the two up top could create chances off the scraps thrown their way. 

[Brutos]

I think you're both being unbelievably harsh. We went to Anfield and played really well and easily deserved to win. We haven't blown our title hopes at all. There's a long way to go. If we had lost we would have blown them maybe but right now we're the only team that can catch City in my opinion, if they have a wobble, which I think they will. We only got back in London at 6am on Thursday. I think we deserve immense credit. Liverpool would have fancied themselves today, instead they finished the game knowing full well they're not as good as us.

This

[The Liquidator]

32 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

I thought the same. Fabregas should have started to continue the momentum from the last few games with him, Hazard & Morata. I don’t know what Conte was thinking today sitting 9 men behind the ball and hoping the two up top could create chances off the scraps thrown their way. 

The fact Fabregas remained on the bench after Bakayoko's disasterclass in the 1st half tells you everything you need to know. Fabregas would have had Kante and Drinkwater behind him. A midfield duo that basically controlled teams for an entire premier league season. Conte apparently was too concerned by the incredible threat of Sturridge and Oxlade-Chamberlain. 

Anyway title gone. Small club mentality. 

[The Liquidator]

I'm seeing a lot of "but we were never going to win the title" by a lot of Chelsea fans on social media. Okay City are better than us. They have superior players but that didn't stop us from winning the league last season. I don't understand this meek surrender. Thus just sounds like a way to cope with being potentially 11 points behind. 

[Davey Baby]

Our goal was flukey. So was theirs. But for sloppy play from Bakayoko, they don't score.

 

By rights we should have won by four or five. We had a stonewall pen denied first-half, and another one or two decent shouts second-half. Mignolet makes a great save from Hazard first-half, Alonso misses a golden chance second-half. We had a great break second-half which led to the ball reaching Morata on the back post but if Zappacosta gets that cross right it's an easy goal for the onrushing player in the middle of the goal. There was another break where Morata played Hazard through but Hazard had strayed unforgivably offside. Hazard plays Drinkwater through first-half with some brilliant play, but Drinkwater is stretching and f**ks it up. There'll also be a few I've forgot. 

 

Edit: We were vastly superior to them and easily deserved to win, and it's a tough place to go, and we'd just got off a six hour flight in the early hours of Thursday morning only to get on another plane to Liverpool the following day. I thought we were excellent, we got our tactics spot on, and Conte showed what a good manager he is.

Edited November 25, 2017 by Davey Baby

[Davey Baby]

Conte's quotes after the game. He's usually fair and I agree with his assessment:

 

“I think we played in a really good way. We had a good tactical plan and it was difficult for Liverpool to make chances to score. It was a tactical decision, especially in the first half, to be very solid and then to try to be dangerous in possession. The game changed in the second half. We dominated the game and created many chances to score. Liverpool was lucky to score and then to draw.”

[TheChelseaBlues]

I think he's mostly correct. Dominate I dunno about but we were the better team. 

I thought his plans went beautifully and we had chances for 2 more goals we didn't take, plus a penalty that gets called most of the time. A lot of the first half Liverpool posession was useless and you could tell they weren't sure what to do. Klopp probably thought we'd have a go at them and he was wrong. A win for Conte in my book.

Going to Anfield to play into their hands would have been idiotic. Sure their defense ain't great but somehow they have only conceded once at home before today. It's all nice to say we could have played more open in hindsight but thats how teams find themselves down 2-0 after half an hour then we'd be right where they wanted us chasing the game. Klopp and his boys only know how to play one way effectively and allowing them that is madness. 

Yea it was frustrating watching us defend with an extra man or two at times but Conte probably looked at Cahill (I assume Rudi wasn't ready to go) and thought 'nah I'm not taking any chances having him 1v1 with Salah or Coutinho'. He was 1v1 with Salah for a moment before Dave raced in and saved him. That's exactly what the extra defender was for IMO. 

There's also no way Cesc gets through that first 25 minutes of pressing without doing us harm either. It took a little too long to get him in but he was a great wrinkle to throw on once they were knackered and trying to protect 1-0. 

We've had our struggles with a high press but today we seemed to figure it out after a short period of hoofing it long.

Alonso and Frank had to deal with 2 or 3 players on the wing by themselves until one of our CMs could run over. I'd like to have seen us play with a back 4 for this to stop them overloading the wing but then again maybe that leaves them to have success in the middle.

Edited November 26, 2017 by TheChelseaBlues

[Davey Baby]

Continuing this discussion about whether we were too defensive, I think people will look back on this performance a lot more positively in the weeks ahead. We had a plan, we stuck to it, until we brought on the subs late on. That plan was a good one for me and we deserved to be ahead rather than losing. 

 

The point is however we couldn't afford to lose. People must remember that. Lose and we're out the title race. Lose and we're level on points with Arsenal and Liverpool. As it is we're clear in third spot. Liverpool can now safely assume the title's out of reach. This was a must-win game for them, not for us. We didn't have a defensive plan in my book, we had a realistic plan, a sensible plan, and it was designed to get a win, but we refused to play high-risk, simply because we didn't need to. For those of you that want to see a defensive plan at Anfield, I refer you to Man Utd's performance there a few weeks ago, where they got a 0-0.

 

Lose and this turns out to be a terrible weekend and we can kiss all lingering hopes of the title goodbye.

 

Yes, City are 11 points clear of us. It's a huge gap, but we're not out of it, not by a long shot. We're still in November don't forget. They have had an incredible run and nobody can legislate for that, but if and when they wobble we need to be in touching distance and we just about are. I promise you Conte will be telling his players we can still do this. City still have a lot to prove. It's one thing winning games in winter, quite another winning games in spring.

 

We're only 13 games in, we've played every team in the top 8. Our next 8 or 9 games are against teams in 9th position or below. In their next 10 games, City have to go to Anfield and Old Trafford, and they play Tottenham at home. I'm telling you right now, in 10 games' time the picture will look different. We'll be clear in second place. We are the second-best team after all. We will have gained points on City. We will apply pressure. Conte knows what he's doing.

 

Please come back to me in mid-January say, please quote this post, and please tell me what a clever boy I am. This title is far from won. Last night will go down as a good point in the long run.

[Munkunku]

3 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

Continuing this discussion about whether we were too defensive, I think people will look back on this performance a lot more positively in the weeks ahead. We had a plan, we stuck to it, until we brought on the subs late on. That plan was a good one for me and we deserved to be ahead rather than losing. 

 

The point is however we couldn't afford to lose. People must remember that. Lose and we're out the title race. Lose and we're level on points with Arsenal and Liverpool. As it is we're clear in third spot. Liverpool can now safely assume the title's out of reach. This was a must-win game for them, not for us. We didn't have a defensive plan in my book, we had a realistic plan, a sensible plan, and it was designed to get a win, but we refused to play high-risk, simply because we didn't need to. For those of you that want to see a defensive plan at Anfield, I refer you to Man Utd's performance there a few weeks ago, where they got a 0-0.

 

Lose and this turns out to be a terrible weekend and we can kiss all lingering hopes of the title goodbye.

 

Yes, City are 11 points clear of us. It's a huge gap, but we're not out of it, not by a long shot. We're still in November don't forget. They have had an incredible run and nobody can legislate for that, but if and when they wobble we need to be in touching distance and we just about are. I promise you Conte will be telling his players we can still do this. City still have a lot to prove. It's one thing winning games in winter, quite another winning games in spring.

 

We're only 13 games in, we've played every team in the top 8. Our next 8 or 9 games are against teams in 9th position or below. In their next 10 games, City have to go to Anfield and Old Trafford, and they play Tottenham at home. I'm telling you right now, in 10 games' time the picture will look different. We'll be clear in second place. We are the second-best team after all. We will have gained points on City. We will apply pressure. Conte knows what he's doing.

 

Please come back to me in mid-January say, please quote this post, and please tell me what a clever boy I am. This title is far from won. Last night will go down as a good point in the long run.

 

[charierre]

Charged by FA for misconduct. Chrimbo party funds boost.