1 hour ago, Argo said:

We have been battered in big games like this with Matic before, and not once did i think he was doing anything to stop things being even worse (like i felt about Christensen vs Man.City for example), in fact if anything he was making things worse.

We have a lot of issue's right now but letting go of Matic wasn't one of them, i feel both Drinkwater and Bakayoko are upgrades and his name being brought up by all in sundry everytime we drop points is getting beyond tedious.

I tend to agree that matic wouldn't have made much difference. 

Not sure if the rest of your post is aimed at me, considering I didn't bring up matic being sold in the 1st place. Plenty of posters didn't want matic to be sold to United, I think it was unfair to suggest that everyone was happy with that decision at the time. 

 

38 minutes ago, big blue said:

I tend to agree that matic wouldn't have made much difference. 

Not sure if the rest of your post is aimed at me, considering I didn't bring up matic being sold in the 1st place. Plenty of posters didn't want matic to be sold to United, I think it was unfair to suggest that everyone was happy with that decision at the time. 

 

It wasn't aimed at you mate, mainly Phil Neville and all those bores in the pundit industry.

Someone like Youri Tielemens or Naingollan would fix a lot of our issues. I still can’t believe we missed out on Tolisso. We need more energy and creativity in the middle. Bakayoko is caught in too many minds and Fabregas can’t provide either — in fact he’s probably a hindrance at this point. 

A midfielder and full back is sorely needed in January. We just can’t continue on like this. If I was Conte, I’d make sure these demands were met or just walk and save my own reputation from a poorly run club. 

Not having a pop at Conte here but it seems when the going is good, he is a genius. We start dropping points and the board is made a scapegoat.

He needs to stop changing the back line, I would even go as far as saying he needs to go back to 4 at the back. Having two players in the middle of the park has been found out, so stick the extra man as a DM. I understand why we need to play Fabregas but he just won’t work in a 2-Man midfield. The same way Barca wouldn’t stick Iniesta in a 2-Man midfield, same with Vidal at Bayern. 

11 minutes ago, ducavis said:

. Having two players in the middle of the park has been found out, so stick the extra man as a DM. I understand why we need to play Fabregas but he just won’t work in a 2-Man midfield. The same way Barca wouldn’t stick Iniesta in a 2-Man midfield, same with Vidal at Bayern. 

Before we revert to a back four, I would say let's see how we go with a duo out of Kante, Baka and Drinkwater first.

Edited November 1, 20178 yr by Strider6003
Missed Baka

11 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Not having a pop at Conte here but it seems when the going is good, he is a genius. We start dropping points and the board is made a scapegoat.

That's why we will still attract top manager's no matter what, they get all of the credit and none of the blame. It's a no lose situation for them, LVG and Moyes done irreparable damage to their reputation's at United where-as AVB and Jose f**ked up with us and walked into a different top job within a year.

Edited November 1, 20178 yr by Argo

8 hours ago, BelgradeCFC said:

Speaking on BBC 5Live, Neville said:  ‘What's gone wrong for Chelsea? One word. Matic. It's as simple as that. The minute they sold Nemanja Matic was a mistake.

‘When you had Matic sat in front of you, alongside Kante, there was protection. Whoever made that decision needs sacking. That is one of the poorest decisions I have ever seen in the Premier League.

‘If you ask any of those Chelsea players who they would want back, they would say Matic. Chelsea replaced him with someone who is going to do the same job -  Bakayoko is not that player, he is not a holding midfield player.

‘They didn't replace Matic. I wouldn't have let him out of the building, I would have chained him to the training ground walls.’

That has got to be some of the worst punditry ever. No facts, just made up bollocks. The worst bit is where he speaks for us Chelsea fans like he has been going around asking for our opinions, he got that opinion from his own head not us Chelsea fans. Most Chelsea fans were happy for Matic to go, but not to United and only if we could bring the players in to replace him.

6 hours ago, Slojo said:

Martin Keown, Danny Murphy & Phil Neville are a disaster, Sky is far better. 

Makes me miss Alan Hansen actually as much of a prick he could be. 

Add Jenas and Kilbane to that list too. MOTD is terrible every week now because we have to listen to the opinions of these idiots. They may be ex players, but they are sh*t at explaining the game to us. I would rather listen to the opinions of football fans, at least they watch the games properly and aren't making comments based on a few minutes of highlights.

I used to like seeing MOTD.......but has not been the case for a long time thanks to these meat heads. Just pure scum and hatred, and an excessive self-gloating. The likes of BBC should be ashamed.

And our issues with this board will only stop when RA has figured out something stinky is going on.......his war axe only comes out for the managers head......the day that axe swings to other Places will be a good day for sure.....otherwise this sh*t will be on repeat as always.

I guess we will see whether or not the Board is incompetent in January.

4 hours ago, Theafonis said:

Someone like Youri Tielemens or Naingollan would fix a lot of our issues. I still can’t believe we missed out on Tolisso. We need more energy and creativity in the middle. Bakayoko is caught in too many minds and Fabregas can’t provide either — in fact he’s probably a hindrance at this point. 

A midfielder and full back is sorely needed in January. We just can’t continue on like this. If I was Conte, I’d make sure these demands were met or just walk and save my own reputation from a poorly run club. 

This post doesn't make any sense. None.

You can't just wish players into a club.  That's not how it works.

You want creativity in midfield?  Fab is not far off the best there has ever been in that regard in the prem.

If we are a poorly run club, then point out the better run ones in the last 15 years?

We arent poorly run but for some reason when we win the league we never strengthen, we either stay the same or get weaker. This is the third time now.

Injuries are a b!tch. If Kante, Baka and Drinkwater are all fit from day one of the start of the season we don't have such problems but real and lingering injuries have unraveled us. 

Idk what Conte was hoping for in terms of CM but 4 fit players for 2 positions is certainly enough. Hard to convince Matic or any new player to be 4th or 5th choice and ride the pine when injuries aren't a factor. Unfortunately for the club the one CM we could live without is the only one who hasn't been injured. Kerping Chalo would have been great but you can't predict Kante would go down and our 2 new signings would be hobbled at the time he was sold. 

I'm honestly surprised we haven't recalled either MvG or Pasalic at thus point. Hanging on to our spot in the CL and a reasonable place in the league should be a priority until we can sign someone in January. 

26 minutes ago, TheChelseaBlues said:

Injuries are a b!tch. If Kante, Baka and Drinkwater are all fit from day one of the start of the season we don't have such problems but real and lingering injuries have unraveled us. 

Idk what Conte was hoping for in terms of CM but 4 fit players for 2 positions is certainly enough. Hard to convince Matic or any new player to be 4th or 5th choice and ride the pine when injuries aren't a factor. Unfortunately for the club the one CM we could live without is the only one who hasn't been injured. Kerping Chalo would have been great but you can't predict Kante would go down and our 2 new signings would be hobbled at the time he was sold. 

I'm honestly surprised we haven't recalled either MvG or Pasalic at thus point. Hanging on to our spot in the CL and a reasonable place in the league should be a priority until we can sign someone in January. 

Spurs been doing alright with their two primary midfielders out.

The Chelsea Board fully back Antonio Conte despite reports (Mirror)

 

For now, I think. A mutual parting is coming in the summer. It would be nice to have some stability for once. 

21 hours ago, jack_super_class said:

We arent poorly run but for some reason when we win the league we never strengthen, we either stay the same or get weaker. This is the third time now.

You can also count Di Matteo in the mix who won the Champions League with an awful ageing side. 

The board didn't want to give him a contract, which is why they hesitated and hesitated then he finally got it, they knew they would be obliterated by the press. 

That's why I think the main issue is the board & manager job security, they're too trigger happy, how many people can work with that? If the board is more willing to sack managers than they are players how will the players listen to the managers when things get rough? They'll revolt. Player power is too big at this club, many may disagree but that's how I see it. I hated when the players revolted against AVB for how bad he was, it wasn't easy for him, he inherited an ageing side, Lampard was completely unprofessional, he was 33-34, you're bound not to be played. 

14 hours ago, Van Butsen said:

Spurs been doing alright with their two primary midfielders out.

I swore I saw Alli and Erikson score against Madrid. Spurs also have more CM depth than we do

Edited November 2, 20178 yr by TheChelseaBlues

15 hours ago, TheChelseaBlues said:

I swore I saw Alli and Erikson score against Madrid. Spurs also have more CM depth than we do

Talking about Dembele and Wanyama.  Erikson in a perfect world would be playing further forward than he currently is and in affect is being given a role not too dissimilar to Cesc's at the moment.  Would you call Harry Winks depth? I'm almost certain nobody would have at the start of the year.  Dele as well, much further forward, not at all like the three players from our team you mentioned.

Poch trusts his younger chargers a little more than our recent managers have.

13 minutes ago, Van Butsen said:

Talking about Dembele and Wanyama.  Erikson in a perfect world would be playing further forward than he currently is and in affect is being given a role not too dissimilar to Cesc's at the moment.  Would you call Harry Winks depth? I'm almost certain nobody would have at the start of the year.  Dele as well, much further forward, not at all like the three players from our team you mentioned.

Poch trusts his younger chargers a little more than our recent managers have.

Difference between cesc and eriksen is that eriksen can actually put in a decent shift. Cesc might be one of the best passers or rather one of the best players with the vision to put in a dangerous ball given time on the ball. Eriksen has a lot more to his game than that. Also, our defence has been a mess. Our best defenders are benched, and our attackers have had no time together due to injuries at different times.

but do agree that some of our problems could have been solved if conte does start trusting our youth/young players.

16 hours ago, TheChelseaBlues said:

I swore I saw Alli and Erikson score against Madrid. Spurs also have more CM depth than we do

all alli has really done this season though, he's been nowhere near the level he has been the last couple seasons. people spoke of him being the next lampard ffs. harry kane has been spurs most consistent player, maybe with only eriksen on par with that consistency the last 2/3 seasons. 

unfortunately we fell behind at the start of the season with hazard, drinkwater and bakayoko all injured, then cahill getting suspended in the burnley game, the start of the season was shocking. one of the worst starts to a season we've had. if we had a fully fit squad at the start i think we would be up there behind city challenging, but it is what it is. 

1 hour ago, Van Butsen said:

Talking about Dembele and Wanyama.  Erikson in a perfect world would be playing further forward than he currently is and in affect is being given a role not too dissimilar to Cesc's at the moment.  Would you call Harry Winks depth? I'm almost certain nobody would have at the start of the year.  Dele as well, much further forward, not at all like the three players from our team you mentioned.

Poch trusts his younger chargers a little more than our recent managers have.

Winks would get into our team atm. Dele is for sure a CM and the more relevant aspect is we're missing the one player who holds our team together and makes everything function. If Spurs were missing Erikson or Dele they would be finding it hard as well. He's not a MF but they can't seem to cope without Kane either. 

Edited November 3, 20178 yr by TheChelseaBlues

 16:30 an interesting discussion. 

And as much as people may not like Carragher I thought he hit the nail on the head with some hard truths about this club and sacking managers. It's not to be pessimistic but the Conte situation probably won't die down, if Luiz is content on sitting on the bench, we won't hear the end of it. The board have to back Conte, will they? I have yet to see anything like that. 

I think they will back him (till the end of the season anyway) still in all competitions with a chance of winning or at least finishing 2nd in the EPL.

I watched that Carragher/Neville discussion, Neville's comment that managers who fall out with players got sacked was not valid, they got sacked because they couldn't get results on the field. He mentioned AVB, AVB was out of his league and was plain naive in his tactics, couldn't pick a team to save his own @ss. He got sacked for the result, not because he didn't pick Drogba. Same with Jose, Roman had all the patience with him until he got us couple of points off the relegation zone, kept picking his favourite non-performing players,  then he had the audacity to  claim the players betrayed him. The 3 rats story is probably made up by Jose or his agent to cover his back side. In Conte's case, as long as he's keeping us on track with the the targets ( realistic one, not winning  a triple), I reckon Roman will backup if he has to pick between Conte and Luiz, or another player for that matter.

7 hours ago, icecoolguy22 said:

I watched that Carragher/Neville discussion, Neville's comment that managers who fall out with players got sacked was not valid, they got sacked because they couldn't get results on the field. He mentioned AVB, AVB was out of his league and was plain naive in his tactics, couldn't pick a team to save his own @ss. He got sacked for the result, not because he didn't pick Drogba. Same with Jose, Roman had all the patience with him until he got us couple of points off the relegation zone, kept picking his favourite non-performing players,  then he had the audacity to  claim the players betrayed him. The 3 rats story is probably made up by Jose or his agent to cover his back side. In Conte's case, as long as he's keeping us on track with the the targets ( realistic one, not winning  a triple), I reckon Roman will backup if he has to pick between Conte and Luiz, or another player for that matter.

Yeah I listened to that as well and thought it was unfair.