Perhaps a little Hare Krishna was in order

 

Is he Papy Djilobodgi's teammate?

I don't think we did have that many great options on the bench though. He tried to get a winger, first with Schurrle (who had some mysterious illness, was sold and seems to be a shell of his former self) and then Cuadrado but he came in at the wrong time. Zouma established himself, Luis was a solid deputy who was unlucky not to get more minutes...and that was about it.

This wasn't a deep squad and we all knew that from about January on. We all knew it needed two or three top class signings and we just didn't get that.

So was the man who was tasked with retaining the title whilst having his squad weakened over a summer in which he was jetting back and forth to support his seriously ill father (because coaches are humans too and have emotions just like us) under immense pressure? Absolutely. Did it come out in the wrong ways? Sometimes yes.

Have the people whose job it was to make his like easier by making the right signings been held in any way responsible? Apparently not.

But things will be different this time with Conte won't they? Because he's not a passionate man who can have bust-ups with the press, push his players and have public disputes with the board when they don't get the players he feels he needs.

Right? Right??

That's a really good post and it does raise some questions.

Let's just hope everyone has learned from this season and we don't make the same mistakes again (Although we have been saying that on a yearly basis it seems for god knows how long).

To be fair to the other side, Jose could have used some of our talented youth. I hated it when Ivan came on the team sheet game after game this year. I really thought that is what will do him in. Even last year, we saw Hazard, Costa and Cesc playing 90 mins every game even when we were up by 2-3 by 60 mins (initial part of last season). That was something that I felt could have been done better and unfortunately my fears were founded when we fell off the cliff in Jan.

The amazing thing is we had a clear first 11 last season and they had more than 2000 minutes each. Ramires was next most on 1100 minutes.

 

The interesting(ish) thing is that the players who were 12,13,14,18,19 and 20 in the list have all been sold. In their place you've got Pedro, Begovic, Rahman,Kenedy, Loftus-Cheek and Falcao.

 

The only change to the 11 players with the most minutes has been Zouma for Cahill.

 

So the club's plan was to take those 11 players who played the majority of last season's minutes, swap Zouma for Cahill, sell six players and replace them with three young lads (two of whom with barely any first-team football between them), Pedro, Stoke's goalkeeper and Falcao, and hope that our ridiculous injury record stayed intact.

 

That sentence is why no-one with any aspirations to be fair-minded, balanced, objective or credible can lay the blame solely at the feet of the coach. 

 

Football shouldn't be about saying to a coach 'you did brilliantly to win the league last year, let's see how you do with fewer resources'. What it should be is about capitalising on success, seeing the foundations of something potentially great, analysing the weaknesses and trying to improve next year. We had a golden opportunity to dominate Europe in my opinion and what's happened this year has set that back two seasons at best. 

 

The reality is that we could've left Stamford Bridge as an established Champions League team, with an established coach, a great squad and a healthier financial outlook.

 

Now we'll be extremely fortunate to leave it as a top four side in my opinion, unless things change drastically.

Very interesting. 

 

Edited April 13, 201610 yr by enigma

The amazing thing is we had a clear first 11 last season and they had more than 2000 minutes each. Ramires was next most on 1100 minutes.

The interesting(ish) thing is that the players who were 12,13,14,18,19 and 20 in the list have all been sold. In their place you've got Pedro, Begovic, Rahman,Kenedy, Loftus-Cheek and Falcao.

The only change to the 11 players with the most minutes has been Zouma for Cahill.

So the club's plan was to take those 11 players who played the majority of last season's minutes, swap Zouma for Cahill, sell six players and replace them with three young lads (two of whom with barely any first-team football between them), Pedro, Stoke's goalkeeper and Falcao, and hope that our ridiculous injury record stayed intact.

That sentence is why no-one with any aspirations to be fair-minded, balanced, objective or credible can lay the blame solely at the feet of the coach.

Football shouldn't be about saying to a coach 'you did brilliantly to win the league last year, let's see how you do with fewer resources'. What it should be is about capitalising on success, seeing the foundations of something potentially great, analysing the weaknesses and trying to improve next year. We had a golden opportunity to dominate Europe in my opinion and what's happened this year has set that back two seasons at best.

The reality is that we could've left Stamford Bridge as an established Champions League team, with an established coach, a great squad and a healthier financial outlook.

Now we'll be extremely fortunate to leave it as a top four side in my opinion, unless things change drastically.

should have invested better and bought higher class of player. Spend the money be competitive and in champions league. Now we have to hope that Conte can get the existing players playing again, depending that he actually wants all of them. He will I'm sure think about the budget buys and countless loans and start his squad from a fresh. We were champions last year, a lot of people are glad that Jose has gone which is their right, but the amount of players that people want sold because they haven't done it since Jose left shows that there is something wrong in the group and the sooner they lose the power the better.

Which begs the statement, how on earth did he manage to win the Premiership last year with this bunch of players ?

The man must be a genius! 

 

Last season Hazard was named the best player in the league, Costa was the third highest scorer, Fab was getting heaps of assists, Matic was a defensive rock, many people thought JT was one of the best defenders etc. 

 

Stop this revisionist history saying the players were crap last season.

Last season Hazard was named the best player in the league, Costa was the third highest scorer, Fab was getting heaps of assists, Matic was a defensive rock, many people thought JT was one of the best defenders etc. 

 

 

Which is the point - you had 11 players playing pretty much every game and many of them had the best seasons in their careers.

 

So what did the club do to improve the next year? 

Mourinho isn't innocent in the whole lack of squad depth. The reason a lot of our squad players left was because they were unhappy about their playing time.

I mean yes ofcourse squad players always play less then starters but Mourinho really didn't like rotating his squad at all.

You can't have quality players on the bench if you don't rotate properly.

Mourinho isn't innocent in the whole lack of squad depth. The reason a lot of our squad players left was because they were unhappy about their playing time.

I mean yes ofcourse squad players always play less then starters but Mourinho really didn't like rotating his squad at all.

You can't have quality players on the bench if you don't rotate properly.

I support Jose but I agree to this. He hardly ever rotated which was his fault. You know who doesn't too? Conte.

I'm really excited to see him on our side, let's hope we get back to winning ways ASAP.

 

Can anyone link me to some great articles about him? I read the masterpiece that was on the WAGNH site, but I want more.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

P.S. I'm not sure if I am allowed to post links, let me know if I can so I can post the article here for those who haven't read it, it's a must!

Edited April 13, 201610 yr by dR3

David Amoyal on twitter wrote two good articles on him.

I support Jose but I agree to this. He hardly ever rotated which was his fault. You know who doesn't too? Conte.

And what of those managers who do rotate?

Wenger, Pellegrini, Mancini... all rotated and all underachieved given their squads.

Ranieri rotated at Chelsea and didnt win anything, but now at Leicester he is playing the same team week in, week out and winning games. 

When liverpool had their title challenge, they didnt rotate either.

Teams build chemistry by playing with the same players week in, week out. It's easy to criticise in hindsight and say this player or that player needed rotating, but we may not have won the league last year if Hazard was rested for a few games, or JT was rotated out.

I agree players should be dropped if they are underperforming, which he didnt do, but 'rotating' for rotation sake is utterly pointless

And what of those managers who do rotate?

Wenger, Pellegrini, Mancini... all rotated and all underachieved given their squads.

Ranieri rotated at Chelsea and didnt win anything, but now at Leicester he is playing the same team week in, week out and winning games. 

When liverpool had their title challenge, they didnt rotate either.

Teams build chemistry by playing with the same players week in, week out. It's easy to criticise in hindsight and say this player or that player needed rotating, but we may not have won the league last year if Hazard was rested for a few games, or JT was rotated out.

I agree players should be dropped if they are underperforming, which he didnt do, but 'rotating' for rotation sake is utterly pointless

 

 

I like how you just picked a couple of random managers who hasnt won the league or in Your view "underachieved" and claimed it was because they rotated the squad.

 

Louis Enrique, Alex Ferguson, Pep Guardiola all rotates the squad at their disposal and when Liverpool last had their title run they rotated A LOT.  It keeps everyone fresh allowing you to compete on different fronts, it increases the competitiveness for playing, keeps everyone happy with their playing time and makes sure that you have substitutes who can come on an actually contribute and not be completely useless because theyve played a combined 25 minutes of football for the last two months. If we rotated the team more, we might not have hit a complete funk in January and crashed out against PSG in the 1/8 final.

 

Lets not act like there is only one way to manage a football club and that utilizing a small squad like Mourinho is the only way. There are advantages and disadvantages to both and usually a middle ground between Mourinho and someone like Benitez who seems to be on opposit ens of the spectrum is preferable.

Edited April 14, 201610 yr by Xfaxtor

If we rotated the team more, we might not have hit a complete funk in January and crashed out against PSG in the 1/8 final.

 

 

It's very easy to say we should've rotated more, but which players are we saying should have played more? Outside of that top 11 players, here's the options.

 

Ramires

Luis

Drogba

Mikel

Remy

Zouma

Cech

Cuadrado

 

Now bear in mind we sold four of these players, Drogba retired to the MLS and Remy and Mikel are probably off this summer. It doesn't appear to be the greatest of squads to be honest (and it gets worse this season). 

 

Luis was unlucky not to play more but Azpi was arguably the best left-back in the league. Zouma actually got rotated in as the season wore on. But were we really as good a team with Ramires and Mikel in there? They were the players more of us were begging to be replaced for years and we just weren't anywhere near as good with them in the side.

 

At some point I think people need to stop bemoaning Jose for not rotating and start asking why he didn't rotate.

 

That discussion becomes even more pertinent this season when players struggle to match the form of last season and you realise there's no real depth to our squad which isn't surprising when there's been a net spend of £14 million in two years.

 

Lets not act like there is only one way to manage a football club and that utilizing a small squad like Mourinho is the only way. There are advantages and disadvantages to both and usually a middle ground between Mourinho and someone like Benitez who seems to be on opposit ens of the spectrum is preferable.

 

Well Put.

 

I think most supporters hate rotation for rotation sake -there is a lot to be said to not change a winning side. But we all get pissed of when we can predict the team every week even though they are playing sh*t and getting beat. When there is loss of form and/or fatigue and players getting burnt-out then to keep playing the same players and hope they return to form, that's what pisses me off.

 

At some point I think people need to stop bemoaning Jose for not rotating and start asking why he didn't rotate.

 

 

 

I would say he didn't rotate because it all comes back to Jose playing his "tried and trusted" players and he didn't trust or rate the back-up players in the squad that he had assembled and he'd also left himself short of options having sold players who with hindsight he probably regretted selling.

Well Put.

 

I think most supporters hate rotation for rotation sake -there is a lot to be said to not change a winning side. But we all get pissed of when we can predict the team every week even though they are playing sh*t and getting beat. When there is loss of form and/or fatigue and players getting burnt-out then to keep playing the same players and hope they return to form, that's what pisses me off.

 

What makes more sense?

 

Playing a player in the hope that they'll regain the form of four months previous.

 

Or 

 

Playing a player in the hope that they'll attain a level of form they've never previously managed.

 

It's all very well comparing coaches' methods but you need to look at their resources.

 

In 2015 when Jose wanted to rest a midfielder, the 12th player in minutes played was Ramires (now playing in the Chinese league).

 

Do you know who Alex Ferguson could call on in the exact same position?

 

 

Paul Scholes.

 

Arguably the greatest midfield playmaker of his generation.

 

Fun fact. Despite playing only the 12th highest number of minutes that season, Scholes would have THREE more bookings than the next highest accumulator of yellows and that was Vidic who played twice the number of minutes. Because Scholes is hilariously awful and rather dangerous at tackling but LOL, it's Scholesy (sigh).

I would say he didn't rotate because it all comes back to Jose playing his "tried and trusted" players and he didn't trust or rate the back-up players in the squad that he had assembled and he'd also left himself short of options having sold players who with hindsight he probably regretted selling.

 

I doubt the conversation went 'hey Jose, would you like Pogba'....'nah fanks, I've got Ramires FTW!'.

 

Look at our transfers over Jose's time here. In fact just look at the spending levels. I don't think it's a coincidence that in the last two seasons we've broken even. I don't think it's a coincidence that when we spend £20 million on Nemanja Matic, we sell Kevin De Bruyne for almost exactly the same amount four days later. 

 

Is there any evidence to suggest Jose could buy better players for squad rotation purposes? Is there any evidence to suggest this club was doing anything other than trying to break even, or wasn't operating a one-in, one-out policy?

It's very easy to say we should've rotated more, but which players are we saying should have played more?

 

 

 

Honestly, I was just playing devils advocate and showing how easy it is to just throw an opinion out there passing it off as the only possible truth.

 

Ive had this debate a million times, and frankly Im bored with it, but Im on the same boat as Nibs apparently here. He could have rotated more, he probably shouldnt have sold some of the players he did and didnt like/trust the ones he had at disposal. I dont belive he HAD to sell in order to buy. The Matic purchase would have happened regardless whether or not we had sold KdB and Mata imo. Theres no evidence either way, so I guess it all comes down to opinions.

I doubt the conversation went 'hey Jose, would you like Pogba'....'nah fanks, I've got Ramires FTW!'.

 

Look at our transfers over Jose's time here. In fact just look at the spending levels. I don't think it's a coincidence that in the last two seasons we've broken even. I don't think it's a coincidence that when we spend £20 million on Nemanja Matic, we sell Kevin De Bruyne for almost exactly the same amount four days later. 

 

Is there any evidence to suggest Jose could buy better players for squad rotation purposes? Is there any evidence to suggest this club was doing anything other than trying to break even, or wasn't operating a one-in, one-out policy?

 

It's all guesswork Shedender. No-one knows. It fits anyone still backing Jose's opinion but the flip-side argument would be we know Jose always like to work with a small squad. Maybe he doesn't like to give himself team selection headaches with too many options and once he has his back-bone and say 14 regulars to choose from, that's pretty much it?

 

I can't see that we would scrape on the squad without the managers say-so - Not when we are paying players £200k per week and Mourinho himself would have probably been on more than £10M a year. When you are paying a coach top dollar, you are paying him to get just about everything right. Last season he did, this season he didn't.

I would say he didn't rotate because it all comes back to Jose playing his "tried and trusted" players and he didn't trust or rate the back-up players in the squad that he had assembled and he'd also left himself short of options having sold players who with hindsight he probably regretted selling.

I think it was partly that and also partly José playing the game for the summer transfer, making a point that he didn't trust the squad players meaning he would be given fund to buy players.

It's all guesswork Shedender. No-one knows. It fits anyone still backing Jose's opinion but the flip-side argument would be we know Jose always like to work with a small squad. Maybe he doesn't like to give himself team selection headaches with too many options and once he has his back-bone and say 14 regulars to choose from, that's pretty much it?

 

I can't see that we would scrape on the squad without the managers say-so - Not when we are paying players £200k per week and Mourinho himself would have probably been on more than £10M a year. When you are paying a coach top dollar, you are paying him to get just about everything right. Last season he did, this season he didn't.

 

You and xfactor have both gone back to the 'we couldn't possibly know' argument and there's some merit to that. But you can look at our transfer dealings over the last couple of years and see a pattern of dealings. For a chequebook coach do you know what Jose didn't do? Spend money. We made a profit last year which is quite frankly a ridiculous achievement.

 

Look, if you want we can say that it's Jose's fault he didn't rotate, that the squad was strong enough and the options were there.

 

But this is the Conte thread and we're all going to be honest at some point and say what this squad needs - depth, options, quality.

 

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. 

I support Jose but I agree to this. He hardly ever rotated which was his fault. You know who doesn't too? Conte.

If that's what we will get from Conte then he won't last longer than three years.

What are we to expect from Conte? I'm not entirely sure his preferred formation (which he tends to ALWAYS play with) will be a hit at the Bridge. 3-5-2 isn't exactly a formation that shouts out attacking, flair and fast paced football. I read this post about it the other day, specific to Conte - http://blog.gameday.live/2016/04/what-can-we-expect-from-conte-at-chelsea.html

 

What do you guys think? Was this a good choice?