Antonio Conte - Now Officially Manager

[Ernie_blue]

4 minutes ago, Ewell CFC said:

It probably didn't do his confidence much good when he was singled out by Ian Wright on MOTD after a poor game- can't remember what one.

Im sure that gave him a real boost.

Wrighty IMO is a shocking pundit. He's probably in work because he's deemed as a bit of a character and not a fence sitter, but his use of the great English language and jumbled analysis is ....... crap.

Ian Wright is terrible, England will be 1-0 up at half-time against San Marino and he will bang on about how England will win the world cup.

[Nibs]

10 minutes ago, Ewell CFC said:

It probably didn't do his confidence much good when he was singled out by Ian Wright on MOTD after a poor game- can't remember what one.

Im sure that gave him a real boost.

Wrighty IMO is a shocking pundit. He's probably in work because he's deemed as a bit of a character and not a fence sitter, but his use of the great English language and jumbled analysis is ....... crap.

That's probably exactly it. I don't mind him to be honest - sure he does talk some crap and isn't on the level of Lamps or Gary Neville, but I still prefer Wrighty to some as at least he does show some passion. I remember the MOTD you refer to and to be fair to him, it was hard to argue. Bats had probably his worst game ever - he really was bad that day and at the same time Tammy Abraham had a decent game for Swansea and everyone was saying the same thing - Chelsea would be better with Abraham up front rather than Bats. But that was one game and Tammy's season tailed off whereas Bats did well up until injury.

[Total-Football]

1 hour ago, RIP Mourinho said:

How can you judge his overall game when he has hardly featured for us? Never been given an extended run to show what he is capable. 

Chelsea as a whole are sh*t at pressing. Including Morata. He just runs half heartedly between the CB's until Kante can intercept something. Lets not pretend Morata is like Firmino here when it comes to a press.

Because that's all we have to judge him on. We can't consistently give game time to a player who severely worsens our attack whenever he plays. It's as simple as that. If he performed well outside of scoring goals then he can be given leeway, problem is he doesn't and our attack is worse for it. 

Morata is much better pressing then Batshuayi. At least he actually attempts to harry defenders even though he lacks any tactical instruction and direction to do so. Batshuayi barely moved when we lost the ball.

Your constant belittling of Chelsea players to big up your favourites is weird. 

[Ukraine Bolt]

5 minutes ago, Total-Football said:

Because that's all we have to judge him on. We can't consistently give game time to a player who severely worsens our attack whenever he plays. It's as simple as that. If he performed well outside of scoring goals then he can be given leeway, problem is he doesn't and our attack is worse for it. 

Morata is much better pressing then Batshuayi. At least he actually attempts to harry defenders even though he lacks any tactical instruction and direction to do so. Batshuayi barely moved when we lost the ball.

Your constant belittling of Chelsea players to big up your favourites is weird. 

Can't play a player that worsens our attack but we've played Morata all season. Running into defenders and missing open nets. Also played Bakayoko all season so this excuse doesn't wash with me. 

I'll take you back to a previous point that you ignored about Batshuayi's pressing at Dortmund. Creating goals from pressing defenders. Not seen Morata do that.

I find it more weird that you'll sing Morata's praises when he hasn't looked interested all season and is incredibly sh*t. 

[Total-Football]

13 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Can't play a player that worsens our attack but we've played Morata all season. Running into defenders and missing open nets. Also played Bakayoko all season so this excuse doesn't wash with me. 

I'll take you back to a previous point that you ignored about Batshuayi's pressing at Dortmund. Creating goals from pressing defenders. Not seen Morata do that.

I find it more weird that you'll sing Morata's praises when he hasn't looked interested all season and is incredibly sh*t. 

Our attack looks better and we create more chances with Morata then with Batshuayi. I'm not talking about Bakayoko because he is awful and I don't want to think about him.

You haven't seen Morata much then. He has done it with Chelsea and multiple times with Spain. 

I'm not singing his praises. His inability to score easy chances means he should not be playing for Chelsea. I'm not going to pretend his all round game has been poor, though. I also don't think Batshuayi is the answer to Chelsea's striker problem. Morata has a better all round game then Batshuayi, Batshuayi is a better goalscorer. Chelsea needs both from their leading striker.

[Argo]

4 hours ago, RIP Mourinho said:

No point doing all the work outside the area if you haven't got someone to knock it in at the end. Maybe if we got the ball on the floor and played football instead of Conte's hoofball into a target man then Bats would shine.

So he has to have a specific system in place to even look competant? That's a red flag to me, truth be told I've gone very cold on Morata too but even his worst displays look like Liverpool Torres compared to lots of Bats no shows. 

3 hours ago, RIP Mourinho said:

From what i remember its usually Alonso or Moses hoofing it up. Conte may not be known for it but our team still ended up at that 'tactic' several times a game.

The goal against Brighton? The one that Michy started in the build up and got the assist for? But Michy has never done anything outside of the box, lads?? @Total-Football @Argo

It was good, but ultimately one swallow don't make a summer. If i look hard enough i could probably find Sutton, Torres and Fleck in the centre of good play somewhere. The thing is, i don't even expect him to be doing that regularly, given his lack of game time i would have been happy enough with the bare basics but he was failing at even that.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Argo

[Zeta]

3 hours ago, Nibs said:

Hardly accurate.

You not watched any of our games lately?

[Nibs]

18 hours ago, Zeta said:

You not watched any of our games lately?

Yeah, last game I watched we won the FA Cup final and what you describe was more Man Utd's tactic.

 

[ForeverCarefree]

Well whatever happens between now and the start of the new season, I personally think Don Conte has been one of the best managers at Chelsea during the Roman era. 

The title win last year was brilliant and reaching two FA Cup finals was a great achievement too. 

I think last season was such a huge breath of fresh air, the change in system moving away from 4-3-3 (and variations of) that we'd seen for over a decade so interesting, we played some cracking football along the way too. 

I personally still hold out a hope that Conte might still be in charge next season because I honestly think if he can get the squad sorted he could get us back playing really well. 

[Luca Vialli]

2 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

I think last season was such a huge breath of fresh air.

Shame about this season.

- Demotivated the players

- Blasted the board at every opportunity

- Gave the impression he didn't want to be here and looked miserable

- Had zero emotion on the touchline

- Didn't even bother trying vs Man City

- Gave up the home record vs Spurs

And some of you lot want to keep him? 

[ForeverCarefree]

44 minutes ago, Luca Vialli said:

Shame about this season.

- Demotivated the players

- Blasted the board at every opportunity

- Gave the impression he didn't want to be here and looked miserable

- Had zero emotion on the touchline

- Didn't even bother trying vs Man City

- Gave up the home record vs Spurs

And some of you lot want to keep him? 

He was animated and emotional on the touch line for a lot of our games. Not all, and compared to last season was definitely more subdued. Demotivating players is just an opinion and I’m of the mind that someone getting £50k upwards a week should be motivation enough, that and personal pride (but that’s a whole other argument).

We don't know what on behind the scenes with the board, perhaps there were unfulfilled promises to him regarding player recruitment and looking at how the signings of Drinkwater, Bakayoko, Morata turned out it’s fair to say he was dealt a bad hand going into the season.

He wasn’t blameless or faultless this season, far from it but from top to bottom we can find a lot to criticise about the club from the board, the manager and the players. I’m just not apprised to some stability rather than repeating the boom or bust cycle we seem stuck in.

Conte is clearly a talented coach, so work with him to achieve our goals and see if everyone can learn and grow from the mistakes of last season... especially as I’m not blown away by his alternatives.

[brakeit]

Let them type the b.s. they are typing.

When the new manager come, whether is Sarri or Blanc, they will see what bad manager is.

There is a very few managers out there, that have this quality - winning mentality and that could win big things.

Some managers looks great, doing great stuff with other team, but it`s missing winning mentality and they are doing great, but just can`t win anything big.

I`m just waitinjg when the board will sack Conte, and appoint the new one, that will be treated the same.

I will look how the same poster will slam him too, for the board mistakes.

 

 

[Argo]

1 hour ago, brakeit said:

Let them type the b.s. they are typing.

When the new manager come, whether is Sarri or Blanc, they will see what bad manager is.

There is a very few managers out there, that have this quality - winning mentality and that could win big things.

Some managers looks great, doing great stuff with other team, but it`s missing winning mentality and they are doing great, but just can`t win anything big.

I`m just waitinjg when the board will sack Conte, and appoint the new one, that will be treated the same.

I will look how the same poster will slam him too, for the board mistakes.

 

 

So he lost 3-0 at home to Bournemouth and only won 3 games in 3 months because he only had £200m to spend?

Got it!!!!

[brakeit]

Got it or not got it, he has zero to spend. All the spend was done by the board. The board did not come and say it`s not like that, yet 10 people said it`s like Conte said it is, that he has zero says about transfers.

Every single player that comes from the summer is the board choice.
That`s tell you enough, and that is a fact, every other thing you or someone else said it`s a pure speculation.

And i will see how the margin will be for the next manager.

Will see if he will come even close to Conte result, for 2 years title and a Fa Cup, and another FA Cup final, and let`s not forget how we lose that match with a hand play from Sanchez and a offside for Ramsey, who was going after the ball...

Cause at the end in the history only trophy stand, not a 4th place finish or 5th place finish.

If we win the title next season i will be here and will ask excuses from all of you and will say it`s a Conte`s fault.

But will you be here and said it`s not his fault if that didn`t happen and we are not even going to be in the title fight ???

But this summer it`s show the board repeat the same mistakes times after time. They are still waiting and waiting, and all good players will be gone again, and at the end we will end up with someone like Drinkwater for 40m.

Liverpool already done with Fabinho, and now they are very close to get Fekir for 65mln. euro. Also Keita will play for them, and that is a pretty strong midfielder, atleast on paper, cause let`s see how they will perform on the pitch.

And they will have a lot more quality then us.

 

 

[WhiteWall]

I am not convinced that our club has truly been at peace since the moment when Jose abused the physio. There has been a gradual decline in the relationship between manager(s) and players, manager(s) and the club hierarchy, manager(s) and the press and to a lesser extent club and the press (through its silence). Whilst we have had the oasis of a fantastic championship winning season, hindsight indicates that the reduced competition during that season clearly contributed to the overall energy of the team.

For this last season I believe two major contributing factors, one well recorded, one less so, massively impacted us and put us on the road to where we are.

The well recorded issue is the transfer dealings at the beginning of last year. Clearly the club were unable to obtain the targets that Conte had set out. Maybe these were unrealistic, maybe we couldn't afford them, maybe the players just didn't want to move. The oft repeated remark by Conte that he has no dealings in the transfer market is clearly laughable as his apparent demeanour and sometimes sniping soundbites regarding a) the players we failed to get and more importantly b) the players that we did get, demonstrated. However I am sorry I do not believe that the signing of the little known Zappacosta and Palmieri were unilateral club decisions with no input from the Italian manager.

The second lesser recorded incident was a report fairly early during the season, or possibly pre-season, whereby the players apparently complained internally regarding the intensity of the training as the previous season's high tempo, high intensity sessions were continuing unabated. This is achievable with a small knit group of players if the season isn't as competitive as it could be. However, going into this season, challenging on four fronts, the only way Conte could have maintained this style was simply with a bigger stock of players, which of course he didn't get and ironically the players that he did get often came in already injured (Baka, Drinkwater, Barkley).

Here is where I believe the die was cast.

Ergo, he had to change the training to appease the players that he had and as such had to change his style of play to a style that we hadn't seen the previous season. Whilst this was still generally effective, all could see that the players were just not endowed with the skill set to maintain this style effectively in our highly attacking league and the high caliber CL. Oh and it was boring as f**k (imho!) The crash was inevitable to me, its just sad that it generally happened against the weaker teams because tired and mentally weak players took their foot off.

The foundation of all of this is perfectly understandable and, I suspect there are a number of managers on this forum in their work lives, who like me, have to manage under-resourced areas with limited or no budgets and a senior management or board who haven't got a f**king clue what their doing or how to support us managers. So I get it.

What I can't reconcile is the continual image management in front of the press. Making comments that can be read as disrespectful to players, colleagues and the club hierarchy is poor management and clearly displays a separate agenda. I find both Conte and Benitez as similar characters, in that everything seems to be played out in front of the press to manipulate situations in order to portray themselves in the best light possible. I have found that an abuse of privilege (and having the opportunity to manage my club is a privilege) and as such unpalatable.

Give me a Conte committed to the club and his players, extracting the best out of his team and pursuing a goal of attacking, entertaining, flair football and I will follow him to kingdom come. But a Conte moaning about the squad limitations, pining over departed directors and thus undermining current directors, and generally pouting, shrugging and "I repeat"-ing to the press all the time, can basically do one as far as I am concerned.

[Giordano_Bruno]

Board's choice because his first options in the list were expensive, controversial and generally bad for the team. He didn't want Neymar, or Bale, or Kroos or someone like this. He wanted the freaking Koulibaly, Bonucci,  Alex Sandro, Lukaku, Radja Nainggolan. These transfers would have made us the ugliest, non atractive, expensive team in England. They brought him almost the same quality just for less money. 

The club simply does not want to make the same mistake with the same type of coach. They let Jose cast out so many good, talented players and watching Conte doing exactly the same thing, was something that they simply cannot let happen. 

We never heard a rumor about world class player. Only Konte's type wooden warriors. 

Edited June 8, 2018 by Giordano_Bruno

[Spiller86]

18 hours ago, Luca Vialli said:

Shame about this season.

- Demotivated the players

- Blasted the board at every opportunity

- Gave the impression he didn't want to be here and looked miserable

- Had zero emotion on the touchline

- Didn't even bother trying vs Man City

- Gave up the home record vs Spurs

And some of you lot want to keep him? 

Pretty reductive analysis. You're also forgetting the bit where we won the FA Cup.

[ForeverCarefree]

4 hours ago, Argo said:

So he lost 3-0 at home to Bournemouth and only won 3 games in 3 months because he only had £200m to spend?

Got it!!!!

But that £200m is offset by selling Costa and Matic (for a combined £100m), two hugely experienced players with a lot of leadership. 

Throw on top replacing the leadership and experience of JT with Christensen and it's a very different squad from the previous season. 

 

It's very similar to when Carlo Ancelotti won the title, the following season he lost Ballack, Deco, Cavalho and Belletti and we only signed Ramires. 

You cannot overstate the value of experience and leadership within a squad and we stripped too much of that away in player sales this summer. 

[Zeta]

We've been doing the same for years, winning things and then not strengthening and letting our rivals overtake us again. Roman just must not like rewarding success, maybe he thinks if you win one year, you should win the next as well. Who knows.

[Total-Football]

But we signed more then just Ramires this season. Rudiger, Morata, Bakayoko, Palmieri,  Giroud, Drinkwater, Barkley and Zappacosta. That's 8 signings across the season. They are terrible signings bar 1/2 but they were the profile of player that Conte wanted.

. Midfield he wanted a physically imposing and hard working type of player. Bakayoko was a complete screw up from everybody involved.

. Striker he wanted a target man. He got two.

. He wanted wing backs. We got him the best LWB in the Serie A and a decent RWB from the same league.

. He wanted a physical centre back who could play long balls over the top. He got that with Rudiger.

Admittedly the board have bought very poorly with their options but I think the players Conte wanted were not really good targets for the club to sign. Firstly, the players he targeted were very scarce in profile, which meant we either went for the cream of the crop (Vidal, Koulibaly etc.) Which was not possible or we took a risk on a player or two (Bakayoko, Rudiger etc.) Which we did and got the results we expected.  Secondly, the types of players he wanted would have brought us back playing bad football where we are more physical then technical. This isn't good for the club as the footballing world moves closer and closer to being technically based with all the top teams having a high degree of technical ability. 

None of his targets were available as well. Bonucci and Nainggolan would not leave Italy, Koulibaly was £70m+ and Napoli don't negotiate, Vidal was never leaving Bayern for us and Sandro seemingly used us to leverage a new contract. Of the two that we possibly could've signed with enough money  (Koulibaly and Sandro) I would argue we bought players of a similar quality for half the price in Emerson and Rudiger. We bought one of the two striker targets we were linked to in Morata. The other was Lukaku who is not much better in my opinion and would infuriate the fans with his sh*t touch and technique. Giroud is better than Lorrente so we won out there. The only place we failed to meet Conte's demand was in midfield where we royally f**ked up. Then again, it's again most impossible to sign Vidal clones which is what Conte wanted.

 

In my opinion, Conte is again most eat head coach but bad manager who was not good at identifying targets for the club. This meant that the club (Who themselves are quite bad at identifying targets and signing them) ended up with a harder job that they struggled to handle.

Just look at who we are linked to now; Seri, Higuain and Langeles. Much better quality and more realistic then Conte's targets.

[Luca Vialli]

1 hour ago, Spiller86 said:

Pretty reductive analysis. You're also forgetting the bit where we won the FA Cup.

So winning the FA Cup overwrites the lack of a link he has to this current set of players? I remember watching the player interviews after the Cup Final and not a single player could feign interest about him still being here next year.

Is winning a cup a reason for keeping someone who doesn't want to be here and for a set of players who ideally don't want to play for him next season? You don't look at one positive when there are numerous and serious negatives outnumbering it.

I also missed off the bit where he lost to numerous crap sides, failed to get us Champions league qualification and most likely devalued a number of the playing staff but some people here have very selective blindness.

[Ernie_blue]

2 minutes ago, Luca Vialli said:

So winning the FA Cup overwrites the lack of a link he has to this current set of players? I remember watching the player interviews after the Cup Final and not a single player could feign interest about him still being here next year.

Is winning a cup a reason for keeping someone who doesn't want to be here and for a set of players who ideally don't want to play for him next season? You don't look at one positive when there are numerous and serious negatives outnumbering it.

I also missed off the bit where he lost to numerous crap sides, failed to get us Champions league qualification and most likely devalued a number of the playing staff but some people here have very selective blindness.

For some fans a FA Cup win gloss over all the negatives.

[Ernie_blue]

1 hour ago, ForeverCarefree said:

But that £200m is offset by selling Costa and Matic (for a combined £100m), two hugely experienced players with a lot of leadership. 

Throw on top replacing the leadership and experience of JT with Christensen and it's a very different squad from the previous season. 

 

It's very similar to when Carlo Ancelotti won the title, the following season he lost Ballack, Deco, Cavalho and Belletti and we only signed Ramires. 

You cannot overstate the value of experience and leadership within a squad and we stripped too much of that away in player sales this summer. 

Are they good enough excuses for how Conte managed Chelsea in 2018?

[Luca Vialli]

2 minutes ago, Ernie_blue said:

For some fans a FA Cup win gloss over all the negatives.

Then I hope they don't wonder why we start to slide even further down the table next season if he's still in charge.

[Ernie_blue]

1 minute ago, Luca Vialli said:

Then I hope they don't wonder why we start to slide even further down the table next season if he's still in charge.

Your list is correct but it doesn't mention even more important negatives, the tactics and his lack of awareness. Add in his arrogance which all put together lost us plenty of points. Conte could work out next season if he is willing to change, problem is we saw nothing last season that he is willing to change and he is always on the crust of reacting like he did this season if things don't go his way.