Here's an idea I read today, "maybe just offer Conte a new contract, shower him with support and quality new signings, get rid of the malcontents, and watch the trophy-winning magic happen once again". 

Doesn't this seem like the simplest/most practical option right now?

The most sensible, money wise, move to make is to keep conte. No compo for him and his staff. He either quits, so no compo or leaves with no compo at the end of next season.

If he stays he has to work hard. Finish bottom half or worse and no trophy then no way Bayern, real or barca etc given him a second thought.

Then see what napoli are doing with sarri then. 8mill will be fine if conte leaves for free.

I propose a managerial job share. Just retain Conte as defensive co-ordinator and Sarri to take care of attacking duties. Use the £9m saved in not paying out Conte's contract to pay Sarri's release clause. Not sure who gets the big desk but perhaps one of them can arrange to WFH....

 

Now let's move on..........

1 minute ago, Tambling Dice said:

I propose a managerial job share. Just retain Conte as defensive co-ordinator and Sarri to take care of attacking duties. Use the £9m saved in not paying out Conte's contract to pay Sarri's release clause. Not sure who gets the big desk but perhaps one of them can arrange to WFH....

 

Now let's move on..........

Hmm like Liverpool did with Evans and houillier. Good idea 

Nobody knows what's really going on. Best thing to do is to just wait till the first match of the season where we will definitely know who the personnel are. Pointless to get reactionary over journos reporting baseless reports right now. 

11 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Hmm like Liverpool did with Evans and houillier. Good idea 

Exactly....mind you they did have Sammy Lee on the coaching staff....deep pockets required now.

On Sarri resigning:

“Legal issues apparently surrounding any resignation. But I feel that he’ll be released by Napoli. These top lawyers can always find loopholes, think it’s all just being dragged out - still think he’ll join Chelsea.”

Simon Phillips 

Keeping Conte and backing him would be great, but again, does Conte want to be here? Really? Do our star players want Conte to stay? Will they stay if he does?

Do the board even want Conte to stay.  Its not as black and white as we think

13 minutes ago, JM7 said:

On Sarri resigning:

“Legal issues apparently surrounding any resignation. But I feel that he’ll be released by Napoli. These top lawyers can always find loopholes, think it’s all just being dragged out - still think he’ll join Chelsea.”

Simon Phillips 

There absolutely has to be something legally allowing him to leave with Ancelotti taking over. Imagine it, clubs want him, he knows about it and his ex-boss (technically) stops him getting a new job, despite replacing him and effectively sacking him although not officially.  

 

How is it fair in any form for ADL to replace Sarri with Ancelotti, thus making Sarri redundant in his role, but refuse to let him move elsewhere to work.  It's not. I think after Thursday things will move forward.  One way or another

2 minutes ago, RickUK said:

Keeping Conte and backing him would be great, but again, does Conte want to be here? Really? Do our star players want Conte to stay? Will they stay if he does?

Do the board even want Conte to stay.  Its not as black and white as we think

It can work out with Conte only if the club spends a lot of money this summer. Hazard hated to play as false 9 and he doesn't really care about Conte but if the club doesn't spend big and Hazard sees that Conte is still there he will be packing his bags.

4 minutes ago, RickUK said:

Keeping Conte and backing him would be great,

Would it? Even if we gave him £300m, he got his mojo back and fired us back into the title race, he would only be one meh window away from kicking up a stink and putting us through the ringer again.

I know every one is very nervous, and understanbly so with how the last few windows have panned out, but it's still early days. Mourinho x2, Anceotti, Scolari, avb, were all confirmed in June, I don't think we have ever appointed a manager this early before, except for conte, who was a free agent. 

It is a world cup year, but a lot of the players we have been linked with aren't going to be involved, so lets just hold fire on the panic button for at least a month.

6 minutes ago, RickUK said:

There absolutely has to be something legally allowing him to leave with Ancelotti taking over. Imagine it, clubs want him, he knows about it and his ex-boss (technically) stops him getting a new job, despite replacing him and effectively sacking him although not officially.  

 

How is it fair in any form for ADL to replace Sarri with Ancelotti, thus making Sarri redundant in his role, but refuse to let him move elsewhere to work.  It's not. I think after Thursday things will move forward.  One way or another

It's Italy. It just means that some "oil" is needed to keep the wheels moving. I expect that this is all just typical posturing

We're being linked with Laurent Blanc now. Apparently Marina is a big admirer. 

Sigh. It's all just probably bollox but it's either him or Sarri once we've got our act together 

8 minutes ago, Blueblur said:

We're being linked with Laurent Blanc now. Apparently Marina is a big admirer. 

Sigh. It's all just probably bollox but it's either him or Sarri once we've got our act together 

Wouldn't be against Blanc tbh, PSG's midfield dominance at the Bridge a few years ago is up there with the best I've seen. Like Sarri he seems to favour 4-3-3 (though the style would perhaps be more pragmatic). I think I'd prefer him to Luis Enrique.

Edited May 29, 20188 yr by the special one

I would have said that getting Hazard signing a new contract and getting the managerial situation sorted as quickly as possible were two of the most important things we needed to do

I'm starting to think that getting rid of Marina and replacing her with someone who actually knows how football works and has proven experience in the role would have probably been the most important decision now

It's actually ridiculous that after the mess of last Summer and the disappointing season we just had we now find ourselves in limbo with our managerial situation, have no DOF, Hazard hasn't signed a new contract and we haven't even started our transfer plans yet

 

 

 

 

It's bad enough that we can't seem to bring in our first choice targets and result to panic buys but now we can't even bring in a new manager without seemingly making a mess of the situation

I don't want to be negative, but we've just had an awful season and needed a very good Summer to take us back to the top. The Summer window has only just opened and we don't appear to even know what we are doing

All our rivals are pressing ahead with their Summer plans and we seem happy to stand around and try to haggle to save a couple of million with a lunatic  

 

I have no real insight how employment law is scripted in Italy but I suspect that if an English club employed a direct replacement for a head coach/ manager then it would be viewed very much as constructive dismissal and all this about compensation wouldn’t even be an issue.

Irrespective I suspect this is a case of brinkmanship and we won’t ever know what is going on or has gone on behind closed doors but the clock is ticking for both us and indeed Napoli and to a degree despite the compensation sum supposedly set I really can’t see them wanting not only having  two head coaches on their pay roll but also face the possibility of not even getting say half of the sum they want.Once they appointed Ancelotti then the landscape changed

19 minutes ago, Sparkz said:

It's bad enough that we can't seem to bring in our first choice targets and result to panic buys but now we can't even bring in a new manager without seemingly making a mess of the situation

I don't want to be negative, but we've just had an awful season and needed a very good Summer to take us back to the top. The Summer window has only just opened and we don't appear to even know what we are doing

All our rivals are pressing ahead with their Summer plans and we seem happy to stand around and try to haggle to save a couple of million with a lunatic  

 

Don’t want to be negative? 

All our rivals pushing ahead you say so who other than Liverpool have announced the signing of anyone? Irrespective other than what you have read in the press, who let’s face it rarely know much at all, how do you know what discussions have taken place, what approaches have been made ?

 

 

14 minutes ago, terraloon said:

I have no real insight how employment law is scripted in Italy but I suspect that if an English club employed a direct replacement for a head coach/ manager then it would be viewed very much as constructive dismissal and all this about compensation wouldn’t even be an issue.

Irrespective I suspect this is a case of brinkmanship and we won’t ever know what is going on or has gone on behind closed doors but the clock is ticking for both us and indeed Napoli and to a degree despite the compensation sum supposedly set I really can’t see them wanting not only having  two head coaches on their pay roll but also face the possibility of not even getting say half of the sum they want.Once they appointed Ancelotti then the landscape changed

Oh it would be constructive dismissal all day of the week in our law.  Hence why i believe Sarri's lawyers will find some loophole to get him out of his contract. If they have employed Ancelotti thus replacing Sarri, making his 'manager' role redundant, but refuse to let him get new employment, would it not be a restriction of trade?

I'd be arguing the Napoli contract with Sarri is now void; as it describes him as Napoli manager and his duties, which is no longer the case. I'd be doing this the minute Ancelotti's contract is sent to the Italian FA

 

There will be some answers one way or another.  Who blinks first....

Blanc 4-3-3

                 Courtois
  Azpi - Rudiger - Luiz - Emerson
   Ndombele - Bakayoko - Kante
      Willian - Morata - Hazard

Blanc 4-2-3-1

                Courtois
  Azpi - Rudiger - Luiz - Emerson
         Ndombele - Kante
   Willian - Pastore - Hazard
                Morata

https://spielverlagerung.com/2016/02/12/team-analysis-psg/

Read a rumour that we are close to telling sarri/napoli we are not interested any more and that it is too much hassle to go through for a manager. We are supposed to have flat out refused to pay his release clause.

44 minutes ago, the special one said:

Blanc 4-3-3

                 Courtois
  Azpi - Rudiger - Luiz - Emerson
   Ndombele - Bakayoko - Kante
      Willian - Morata - Hazard

Blanc 4-2-3-1

                Courtois
  Azpi - Rudiger - Luiz - Emerson
         Ndombele - Kante
   Willian - Pastore - Hazard
                Morata

https://spielverlagerung.com/2016/02/12/team-analysis-psg/

That website is pretty good I searched for some Chelsea stuff after reading the psg tactics:

https://spielverlagerung.com/2017/11/16/chelsea-triumph-in-madrid-with-flexible-midfield-diamond/

https://spielverlagerung.com/2016/12/25/antonio-contes-3-4-3/

21 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Read a rumour that we are close to telling sarri/napoli we are not interested any more and that it is too much hassle to go through for a manager. We are supposed to have flat out refused to pay his release clause.

If our board does that to Sarri he will get a heart attack!

3 hours ago, Argo said:

Would it? Even if we gave him £300m, he got his mojo back and fired us back into the title race, he would only be one meh window away from kicking up a stink and putting us through the ringer again.

I get the impression he wants a nailed on first team of high quality players more than a 23 man squad of some mish mash. Sign him a couple of high end players and he'll be happy I reckon. I don't think he wants 200m every window and 11 starting quality players as backups like Pep. If City gave him Barkley instead of Silva would he be happy either? 

Sure he'd probably want to replace a first teamer for one reason or another every summer but that's completely normal. IMO his issue has been the quality of who we've signed and not the quantity or style. Granted a few of the ones we missed were not attainable anyway. Would he still want out if the board said 'pick two players you need in and a few out, that's your squad for next season.'? 

 

3 hours ago, Gol15 said:

It can work out with Conte only if the club spends a lot of money this summer. Hazard hated to play as false 9 and he doesn't really care about Conte but if the club doesn't spend big and Hazard sees that Conte is still there he will be packing his bags.

I think this is more of the case than the media spin of Hazard wanting away from Conte. When he plays LW he is essentially free to do what he pleases, how much better could it get for him? I read his comments as a cry for help or he's off to somewhere who will. There's one more trophy he wants IMO, and he'll go wherever he needs to to win it.