Genuinely believe its time to sell Eden and Willian, and let Sarri build a squad of his own players. I'm so tired of watching Chelsea teams slumping after every decent season. Chelsea for f**ks sake, the team that used to not give up no matter what. Time to become a team again, not just 10 guys supporting Hazard. I love the guy, I'm incredibly grateful to him for providing us with so much magic and joy over the years, but we can't continue like this. Sarri's system requires fast, reactive ball movement, and over half a season in, we have Eden and Willian still slowing up every attack and wandering at defenders with the ball at their feet giving defences all the time in the world to get back. Time for change, and not at the manager position.

I was delighted when he was announced as our manager, some of the football that napoli played last season was incredible. To be fair we're probably around about where we deserve to be comparing our squad to the others around us. We need a complete overhaul and a massive rebuild which unfortunately is going to take time. There are a lot of issues with the club right now and I don't see how sacking a manager after having 6 months in the job is going to help them. 

It's funny how people continue to talk about massive squad overhaul or rebuilding when we already know how difficult it is for this board to bring out the money to sign JUST two or three top players to improve this squad.

14 hours ago, JM7 said:

Matt Law reporting on what Sarri talked with the players about.

Main points were:

-Sarri didn't get angry but picked apart every bad aspect.

-Singled out Eden for playing how he wanted, instead of listening.

-Asked the squad what he could be doing better.

-Travelled back alone to work 

-Pep told him to use 14 players this season.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/01/31/maurizio-sarri-said-chelsea-dressing-room-inquest-eden-hazard/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

If it was only the players and Sarri, how do the journos know what was said? 

15 minutes ago, jamie#8 said:

For me thats showing a team working hard and pressing our deep lying midfielder. This isn't genius or anything new. It's a simple press to stop us playing out easy all over the pitch. 

Okay, then we just disagree.
I see it as something very close to man-marking. Evident by 2.45 where Ramsay just stands beside Jorginho and leaves Kovacic open further down on the pitch.

Even against Bournemouth, even if we had a lot of the ball they didn’t give Jorginho a lot of time with it. Brooks were on him most of the time and made sure he didn’t have  time to dictate the play the way he wanted.

In fact Joshua King said this after the game:

"We knew we had to get Jorginho out of the game," he said. "Brooksy did a great job on him and then Junior [Stanislas] when [Brooks] went off.

"In the first 20 minutes of the game we didn't really get that right. The manager reminded us of that when someone went down injured after 20 minutes.

Edited February 1, 20197 yr by Sindre

Hi everyone, Im a new member.                      I back Sarri to succeed. A midfielder and a winger are a must in the summer. 

[emoji848][emoji848][emoji848] You probably have lots of confidence in Higuain to lead our attack next season?

Maurizio Sarri looks to be on thin ice at Chelsea. It has already reached the point where it would be surprising if he is in charge at Stamford Bridge next season.

That would be ridiculous anywhere else. Not at Chelsea. They are the epitome of Premier League ruthlessness, sacking managers after their first poor run.

Given recent results, performances and Sarri’s public comments, history tells us the Italian should worry. His first year in England is becoming reminiscent of that of Luiz Felipe Scolari and Andre Villas-Boas rather than Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte. Of Roman Abramovich’s appointments, only Villas-Boas won fewer points than Sarri in his first 24 league games.

The 4-0 defeat to Bournemouth is a result where you need to double-check it is real. You do not expect a club of Chelsea’s stature to capitulate so embarrassingly. It was their worst league defeat since 1996, fuelling the perception the players have downed tools. 

While the domestic cups might be a consolation, it was no salvation to Conte when he won the FA Cup. 

Chelsea execute the most brutal business model in England. It is not to the taste of those who believe managers deserve more than a season to create a team identity, but it works. No English club has won more over the last 10 years. A ‘boom and bust’ culture at Stamford Bridge means title-winning managers Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti and Conte lose their job a year after their triumph, while Guus Hiddink, Rafa Benitez and Roberto Di Matteo win trophies after taking over late in a season.

Whenever Chelsea have tried to change the footballing style it backfired, most notably under Scolari and Villas-Boas. Sarri is the latest to take the team in a different direction – to make Chelsea more like Barcelona and Manchester City than the title-winning sides of Mourinho and Conte. He is encountering similar issues.

Pep Guardiola hailed Sarri’s Napoli as the best footballing team in Europe last season, and when implemented ‘Sarri-ball’ is a joy. It is idealistic, demanding short passes from the back, enticing opponents to press high prior to cutting through them. It is cat and mouse, clever football with Jorginho the key to its success, able to play the penetrating pass to move Chelsea swiftly through the transition from their own half into the final third. 

At the start of this season the formula worked. Then the better coaches reacted, man-marking Jorginho. Faced with the challenge of tweaking his 4-3-3 system, Sarri’s response has disappointed. He won’t replace Jorginho because without him the system is compromised, but I feel sorry for the midfielder because any player who is man-marked will find it difficult - as we have seen with Eden Hazard. When you are man-marked it is a sign of respect. Jorginho needs help. 

The best managers never change their ideals, but they fine-tune when they realise what their opponent is going to do. Sarri’s refusal to do so has contributed to the loss of trust in him. He needs to respond with strategy as much as words, so when you hear him say he may ‘not be able to motivate’ his players it sounds defeatist.

The alteration I would make is a 4-2-3-1 system – which he has used rarely in his career - with N’Golo Kante returning to his most effective role alongside Jorginho. In his current position, Kante is just an average Premier League midfielder.

Even Sarri’s subsitutions are predictable, the replacing of Mateo Kovacic for Ross Barkley or vice-versa inevitable in each game. Unless Sarri can find a different way to execute his plan, Chelsea’s attempts to change how they are perceived stylistically will hit another brick wall.

In all honesty, I do not understand why they keep demonstrating a compulsion to shift from what brought their success.

When he bought Chelsea, Abramovich initially had a vision of the technical football of Barcelona. He wanted the Manchester City we see today.

Instead, he immediately turned to the best manager in the world in 2004 – Mourinho – and the Chelsea way evolved along a different path. Mourinho created the ultimate winning machine – a powerful, defensively compact, tactically brilliant team that ground out results, preyed on opposition weaknesses and saw victory at all costs as more important than what romantics call ‘entertainment’. When I went to Stamford Bridge during Mourinho’s first spell, it was like going to war. Physically and mentally, you knew how challenging it was to get a result.

The most prosperous Chelsea coaches embraced the same pragmatism, building title triumphs on top-class defence. There was nothing wrong with Chelsea’s distinctive identity during Mourinho and Conte’s title-winning campaigns.  The criticism of the Chelsea ‘style’ was absurd. Football is not about playing one way, regardless of our preference. There is as much pleasure watching a side like Chelsea in 2005 and 2017, or Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid at its best, as Barcelona or Manchester City’s fluent passing. These tactical clashes enrich our sport.

Chelsea ought to celebrate and protect what they created at their best, not seek to justify or change it. To me, Simeone is the archetypal Chelsea-style coach, the perfect fit for their identity – belligerent, clinical and horrible to play against. The fact they have never recruited him has always struck me as evidence of Abramovich’s conflicted feelings.

But having tasted the success Mourinho brought, Chelsea have never been patient with those coaches with different football ideals.

When you have built a club with the ethos first, second is nothing – with a dressing room of world-class players and proven title winners finely tuned to play in a certain way – why would you tolerate a drop in standards?

The side effect has been persistent change, those unable to replicate success – even their own – dismissed. 

Every new appointment knows they must get instant results, so they seek to maximise the possibilities in the transfer market or they will be out. That is why they ignore Chelsea’s Academy. We have seen the consequences of this with so many of the club's youngsters wanting to leave, most recently Callum Hudson-Odoi.

Sarri claimed Hudson-Odoi ‘owes’ Chelsea for assisting his development. “He has to respect the club, the academy, everything,” he said. At most clubs I would agree. Not at Chelsea. Sarri's argument is undermined because too many young players do not get the same respect the other way.

The Chelsea players understand what happens to under-siege managers and how self-preservation takes over. It is easy to argue about the negative consequences of players turning on the coach, but the Chelsea dressing room has been empowered by its merciless board. The players who wanted Scolari and Villas-Boas out have long gone. The culture remains. A new generation has taken the baton, seeing off Mourinho the second time, then Conte and now – most likely – Sarri. Chelsea’s hierarchy created this with their hire and fire policy, not the players. 

But it is worth repeating; this approach has worked. Chelsea win more than other English clubs. They only deal in successful transitions.

Sarri knew this when he accepted the job. Now his criticism of the squad has created a ‘me or them’ ultimatum for Abramovich. The owner has heard it all before. At Chelsea, there is usually an inevitable outcome.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/02/01/maurizio-sarris-refusal-compromise-means-could-already-doomed/ 

 

Good read from Jamie Carragher, I've bolded the parts I particularly agree with. 

2 hours ago, coco said:

Of course it's nonsense

Mourinho, Emery and Howe all disagree with you though.
So how silly could it be when that lot agrees with me and the last two wrecked us?

Back pages of the national papers are mostly about Sarri this morning. 
Papers looks like they're turning the screw on him now. 
Needs a run of decent results and performances or it's not going away any time soon... Got a massive question mark hanging over him right now. 

A run of decent results? If that will decide his fate then I won't like to be in his shoes right now. Apart from Huddersfield and Malmo, am not very confident of a win in other matches. In fact looking at our remaining fixtures, February fixtures look the toughest.

I’d change the entire system. Our opponents have figured it out and the main man in the entire system (Jorginho) has looked like a liability for a good while now.
You can’t succeed in this league without adapting and Sarri have not adapted yet.
Guardiola plays in a completely different way than he did with Barcelona and Bayern for example and Sarri needs to realize he can’t continue with his “Napoli-ways” here.
The entire concept is too slow for this league.

With this squad I’d like to see a 4-4-2 with Hazard behind Higuain up top and Pedro-Kante-Kovacic-CHO from midfield.

4-4-2? With Sarri???? Don't get your hopes high yet. He has NEVER changed his formation from 4-3-3.

7 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Mourinho, Emery and Howe all disagree with you though.
So how silly could it be when that lot agrees with me and the last two wrecked us?

 

They didnt stop Jorginho, he had the ball more than any player on the pitch, had more touches than any player. So how the hell is that being stopped ? He's not on the pitch to create goals, we all know that by now. 

We lost to Howe because he allowed Jorginho the ball, he even allowed him space, knowing that it will mean Chelsea push forward and leave space in behind with two slow defenders to cover, and thats exactly how it happened, to suggest otherwise has me thinking you never watched the game.

2 minutes ago, coco said:

They didnt stop Jorginho, he had the ball more than any player on the pitch, had more touches than any player. So how the hell is that being stopped ? He's not on the pitch to create goals, we all know that by now. 

We lost to Howe because he allowed Jorginho the ball, he even allowed him space, knowing that it will mean Chelsea push forward and leave space in behind with two slow defenders to cover, and thats exactly how it happened, to suggest otherwise has me thinking you never watched the game.

Joshua King literally said "we knew we had to get Jorginho out of the game"

What does that tell you? Clearly Howe's plan was to take Jorginho out of the game. Which they did, touches doesn't mean anything unless you do something with them.
And Bournemouth made sure he had no time to do anything with the ball. Which is my entire point.

8 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Joshua King literally said "we knew we had to get Jorginho out of the game"

What does that tell you? Clearly Howe's plan was to take Jorginho out of the game. Which they did, touches doesn't mean anything unless you do something with them.
And Bournemouth made sure he had no time to do anything with the ball. Which is my entire point.

ok you never watched the game, fair enough.

11 minutes ago, coco said:

ok you never watched the game, fair enough.

What do you make out of King's comments? How hard is this to understand?

51 minutes ago, coco said:

he had the ball more than any player on the pitch, had more touches than any player.

Luiz, Rudiger, Azpi, Kante, Hazard all had more passes than Jorginho. They all had the ball more than Jorginho as well.

Ha @coco, I can judge a match by reading stats web sites and sky sports twatter, I don't need to have seen the match to have an opinion :), so I know the simple answer is to change the entire system. LMFAO!

Quite interesting comments from Sarri today. Basically reiterating that the team haven't yet learnt his methods and are continuing to do their own thing. This apparently includes still having the counter-atttacking mindset previously drummed into them by Conte, which he says is going to take time to move away from.

He's also said that he's not thinking about other formations until they've gotten better at this one....

Trouble is, there need to be visible signs of the team grasping this soon, otherwise his time will come to an abrubt end. He's not going to get the 5 years that Klopp has had.

Edited February 1, 20197 yr by Elliott

11 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

Ha @coco, I can judge a match by reading stats web sites and sky sports twatter, I don't need to have seen the match to have an opinion :), so I know the simple answer is to change the entire system. LMFAO!

Oh you are even thicker than i thought, which is quite the accomplishment. Congratulations.

coco were to one to bring up the stats, i checked them after he brought them up and told him he was completely wrong.

But that was clearly to much for you to comprehend.

Edited February 1, 20197 yr by Sindre

 

13 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Oh you are even thicker than i thought, which is quite the accomplishment. Congratulations.

coco were to one to bring up the stats, i checked them after he brought them up and told him he was completely wrong.

But that was clearly to much for you to comprehend.

You never answered @coco's question.  Did you actually watch the match?

5 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

You never answered @coco's question.  Did you actually watch the match?

Obviously i did. Otherwise i wouldn't have shared my views about it.

Now, who brought up the stats here? 

Edited February 1, 20197 yr by Sindre

2 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

Did you actually watch the match?

he thinks Bournemouth scored FOUR goals against us by stopping Jorginho.

Maybe thats where Sarri is going wrong with our attack, we should try stopping the oppositions deep midfielder and then we will miraculously score FOUR goals.

Just now, coco said:

he thinks Bournemouth scored FOUR goals against us by stopping Jorginho.

Maybe thats where Sarri is going wrong with our attack, we should try stopping the oppositions deep midfielder and then we will miraculously score FOUR goals.

You clearly live in cuckoo-land making things up as you go.

Where did you find those stats btw? Must be quite interesting living in your own, made up world.

Sarri said, that his system, his tactics, his work...put it how you want, wasn't present in the second half and that the team needs to go back to basics. Also that he doesn't understand why the players stopped playing because he believes that they could have solved the problem after the early goal in the second half.

I agree with this observation, there is no need to change the whole system when it wasn't even fully put to practice in 45 min of the last game.

5 minutes ago, Sindre said:

You clearly live in cuckoo-land making things up as you go.

Where did you find those stats btw? Must be quite interesting living in your own, made up world.

I didn't quote any stats, my comment was based  from watching the game and seeing Jorginho dominate possession for the first half. I actually watched the game from start to finish.

Bournemouth stopped Chelsea, not Jorginho, they allowed Jorginho to play and come forward, go and watch the game and come back and tell me what i said is wrong.

3 minutes ago, coco said:

I didn't quote any stats, my comment was based  from watching the game and seeing Jorginho dominate possession for the first half. I actually watched the game from start to finish.

Bournemouth stopped Chelsea, not Jorginho, they allowed Jorginho to play and come forward, go and watch the game and come back and tell me what i said is wrong.

Fair enough, but then what you saw was completely wrong as Rudiger had twice as much possession as Jorginho, twice as many passes.
And he was just one of five Chelsea-players with more passes than Jorginho.