Which Abramovich season were Chelsea weakest?

[TomCFC85]

You heard it folks! Which Abramovich season were Chelsea weakest? 
Now, think wisely before you choose, because the obvious answer is 2015-2016 as the team finished 10th HOWEVER, can you blame that on weakness of the squad or mentality problems etc? 
Anyway, your decision.

[Geert The Flyer]

15-16 by a huge distance. A Mourinho fatigue squad and no real updates. 

[coco]

I have edited the poll to take out the current season.

You can't judge a squad of players on two results.

[JMaher94]

3 minutes ago, coco said:

I have edited the poll to take out the current season.

You can't judge a squad of players on two results.

Ironically, our squad in 11/12 wasn't up to much, in my opinion. Our squad was aging massively and Marin/Moses were touted as replacements for the next season. People underestimate how much Didier's header done for us going forward. The CL win brought us the best player in the Premier League, Oscar and one of the most consistent defenders we have ever had.

That's my opinion though, people may disagree.

[Zeta]

The squad in 15/16 wasn't really that weak, it was pretty much the squad that won the league, we've had worse quality by far.

[TomCFC85]

9 minutes ago, coco said:

I have edited the poll to take out the current season.

You can't judge a squad of players on two results.

Fair enough. 

[bisright1]

40 minutes ago, JMaher94 said:

Ironically, our squad in 11/12 wasn't up to much, in my opinion. Our squad was aging massively and Marin/Moses were touted as replacements for the next season. People underestimate how much Didier's header done for us going forward. The CL win brought us the best player in the Premier League, Oscar and one of the most consistent defenders we have ever had.

That's my opinion though, people may disagree.

Nope I agree. Definitely our weakest

[strider6004]

I'll have a think though knowing the squads at the time would help  and the strengths may be relative to the strength of the opposition at the time. 

[Scottish_mike]

Either or the years we won the European cups.

Now bare with me....

Both years we were brutal in the league finishing 6th and 3rd only top4 by a point or 2.

Won 1 domestic cup. 

Our decent players were at the end of their careers like lamps,dd etc. We also had torres. 

 

 

[OverAndOut]

2011/12 by a long way for me.

Malouda was past it, DD was waning hard, Torres wasn't performing, Sturridge was injured. Our subs bench consisted of Kalou and Meireles. Essien (I think) was struggling hard with injury at this point too.

That really was such a shocking squad.

[erskblue]

2011/12.

Yet we won the Champions League in Munich!

Still shake my head thinking about that run and win .

[Sun zhi]

This the year of the beggar.

We bring man with head of fire, defender who eat much, and striker who not score goal.

 

Edited August 29, 2017 by Sun zhi

[dansubrosa]

Definitely 11/12. Every single player was on the decline.

[icecoolguy22]

Carlo's second season, didn't sign anyone and those over-achieved previously came back to their normal level.

2015-2016 team wasn't that bad, we just got a manager that got completely frustrated over transfer, and kept shooting himself and the team in the foot. After the Burnley game, it appeared to be 2015 again, but credit to Conte steadied the ship,  just focused on football and got us through 2 very tricky games. We could have been 1 point out of 9 if Conte did a Jose.

 

[DaRick]

In terms of squad, 2011/12. AVB's high-line tactics were utterly unsuitable for the squad at hand, but when your best performing player is Ramires (!) you know you have some personnel issues. 

In terms of performance, 2015/16 by a long, long way. The only silver lining there was that no CL commitments made it easier for us to take out the 2016/17 PL. 

[bjd]

Unquestionably the year we won the Champions League, which just goes to prove how bizarre the whole thing is.

[Argo]

17 hours ago, DaRick said:

In terms of squad, 2011/12. AVB's high-line tactics were utterly unsuitable for the squad at hand, but when your best performing player is Ramires (!) you know you have some personnel issues. 

In terms of performance, 2015/16 by a long, long way. The only silver lining there was that no CL commitments made it easier for us to take out the 2016/17 PL. 

I could actually see why AVB did that highline, it was literally the only way we could create real chances consistently, and despite the obvious defensive deficiency's i toleranted it because the alternative was the utterly joyless football we were subjected to the previous season. Changing back to a deep line for the Valencia and City games while getting great results in those 2 games was the start of his downfall as the player's got comfortable and the football hit 10/11 mode again.

[DaRick]

9 hours ago, Argo said:

I could actually see why AVB did that highline, it was literally the only way we could create real chances consistently, and despite the obvious defensive deficiency's i toleranted it because the alternative was the utterly joyless football we were subjected to the previous season. Changing back to a deep line for the Valencia and City games while getting great results in those 2 games was the start of his downfall as the player's got comfortable and the football hit 10/11 mode again.

Interesting perspective. Problem is though that the weaknesses of our best defender at that point (lack of pace/acceleration) were well and truly exposed with a high defensive line. For much the same reasons, Alex could not play one either. Luiz's positioning has always been a weakness, so you couldn't expect him to reliably maintain an offside trap, which you really need to do if you're playing a high line with a four-man defense. Even Cole's previously impressive athleticism was waning. 

I don't think the players got 'comfortable' so much as AVB rubbed senior players like Lampard up the wrong way. 

[Scott Harris]

2015/16, no other Chelsea team would have fallen as badly as that team in the Abramovich era. Mentally, they were weak. Even if Mourinho was a problem, that does not excuse such poor performances all season from pretty much every single player. Our Champions League squad was getting old and a lot of them had passed their peak, but they shown more fight than any player from our 2015/16 squad.

[Jezz]

In terms of the weakest Abramovich seasons, this is my top 5:

1). 2015/2016 = Easily the worst season in the Abramovich era. Lost our greatest manager of all time, players underachieved, lack of new signings and we were 16th around the Christmas period. The second half of the season picked up a little under Hiddink, but it was a terrible season for everyone at the club.

2). 2010/2011 = We may have finished 2nd (71 points) in the PL season, but it was a weak year across the league. We sold off a bunch of hardened veterans and didn't replace them adequately, until we bought Torres and Luiz in the January transfer window. Torres was a flop, but Luiz ended up being a good acquisition for us. On the domestic front, we were eliminated from the FA and League Cups early in the competition. 

3). 2017/2018 = Barring the FA Cup success, this was an average season. Finished outside the top 4, didn't achieve much in the CL and there was ongoing turmoil between Conte and the board throughout the season. The first half of the season was decent, but the second half was a downward spiral except for the FA Cup success.

4). 2011/2012 = A strange season. Our worst PL finished in 10 years, but we managed to win the FA Cup and Champions League. Felt like an end of an era in some ways, with our veterans being able to win a thoroughly deserved CL trophy after years of close misses. AVB was the wrong managerial appointment with the benefit of hindsight. Without the two trophies, it's possible this was the second worst season behind only 2015/2016.

5). 2012/2013 = A season of mixed feelings. On the field, we performed better than previous years but losing Robbie in the circumstances we did and having to put up with Benitez was tough. Winning the Europa League was a nice consolation prize after failing to defend our CL trophy and there were good moments throughout the season. The icing on the cake was bringing back Mourinho in time for the following season.

It's interesting that some of our worst seasons in the Abramovich era have come off the back of title winning seasons. Seems like a recurring trend that we can't seem to shake.

[strider6004]

3 hours ago, Jezz said:

It's interesting that some of our worst seasons in the Abramovich era have come off the back of title winning seasons. Seems like a recurring trend that we can't seem to shake.

Since at least 2000 only two teams have won consecutive titles, Chelsea and Man Utd.

Man Utd under Ferguson seemed to have perfected it until he left.

The fact that winning a title seems such an achievement these days may be why no-one has retained it, though Pep is trying this season.

[Jezz]

22 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

Since at least 2000 only two teams have won consecutive titles, Chelsea and Man Utd.

Man Utd under Ferguson seemed to have perfected it until he left.

The fact that winning a title seems such an achievement these days may be why no-one has retained it, though Pep is trying this season.

No doubt it's a difficult task to achieve back-to-back titles, so teams who achieve that deserve a massive amount of credit.

It's just disappointing that in 2016 and 2018, we struggled to defend our title. Part of it being our own doing more than anything in addition to other teams catching up to us.

Edited January 11, 2019 by Jezz

[strider6004]

1 hour ago, Jezz said:

No doubt it's a difficult task to achieve back-to-back titles, so teams who achieve that deserve a massive amount of credit.

It's just disappointing that in 2016 and 2018, we struggled to defend our title. Part of it being our own doing more than anything in addition to other teams catching up to us.

Yes we proverbially shot ourselves in the foot.

I think in both cases there were big factors behind the scenes, firstly 2016-  with Eva Carneiro doubt we have heard the truth and JM won't talk about it. Suspect real problems in the dressing room and not just about the way JM spoke to Ms Carneiro though that was the trigger.

2018 - No Costa and poor recruitment.