55 minutes ago, DannyVblue said:

And how do you know that? They were signed when he was manager. He was a fan of Morata from his Juve days, he played Bakayoko week in week out despite playing poorly, and he must have had some input in signing Torino's right back that none of us had heard of.

Conte said himself that we signed too many players instead of a few with the right quality. Imagine if we signed Sandro and Koulibaly for a combined 100 mill that he asked for. We would still be competing for titles. As for Bakayoko, we sold Matic against his wishes as he wanted to give Bakayoko time to settle with the new squad and league. Besides, he is not doing too badly at ac milan now is he and we will get the same fee if not more than we originally paid. Can we get anything close to what we paid for Jorginho. Dont think so. 

One thing that the board are probably questioning is that Sarri was apparently “not interested in transfers” and focused on improving players. 

Unfortunately at the minute, none of the players have improved. I think this will go against him. 

16 minutes ago, Gentian said:

Conte said himself that we signed too many players instead of a few with the right quality. Imagine if we signed Sandro and Koulibaly for a combined 100 mill that he asked for. We would still be competing for titles. As for Bakayoko, we sold Matic against his wishes as he wanted to give Bakayoko time to settle with the new squad and league. Besides, he is not doing too badly at ac milan now is he and we will get the same fee if not more than we originally paid. Can we get anything close to what we paid for Jorginho. Dont think so. 

Revisionist...

In my opinion Conte wanted to sell Matic which is why we did. We won't know for sure, but Conte picked the squad to go to China and Matic wasn't in it despite him not having been sold. Same with Costa. There are reports that conflict, so don't just casually assume Conte was wronged. The facts are Conte said a lot of crap in the last 12 months at Chelsea against the board. The board do not reply publicly. 

The other point is correct, if we had just signed Sandro + Koulibaly we would be in a stronger position than had we signed this bunch of rubbish. But the players we did sign are very much in the Conte mould and I think he had a bigger say in transfers than he let on to the press. He was manipulating all the time for his own image. Do you really think Zappacosta wasnt a Conte signing?! 

2 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

Conte wanted to sell Matic which is why we did

"Matic knows very well what I think about him," he said. "The importance for me about this player, who is a really good player, a top player, very important for our team, but sometimes you must accept this crazy transfer market.

"And sometimes you must accept different decisions. But he is a great loss for us."

That should refresh your memory then. Clearly it was the clubs decision to sell him and Conte just had to accept that. To a direct rival nontheless.

2 hours ago, venom2011 said:

Luiz (only 10 appearances last season in the league) has been good this season despite the high defensive line - which I never thought would be possible. Rudiger has been better than last season for me. Kante is better in the attacking third. Hazard is still on track to have his best goal-scoring season since he left Lille. The same with Pedro since he left Barca.

You must be joking.

You must be joking.

10/10 argument.

2 hours ago, coco said:

Thats four players, two on loan, one for six months.

If thats backing the manager we are truly doomed whomever we get in, the club cannot be trusted to buy quality and should consider how much money has been wasted on dross.

You don't seriously expect us to buy a brand new starting eleven for every new manager the summer he arrives? Speaking of dross, what do we do with Jorginho, given his struggles in the PL, especially if the new manager won't have any use for him? We did spend a small fortune on him. What if we spent even more on Sarri's signings before it became apparent we'd made a mistake in hiring him? Backing the wrong horse in this financial climate could set the club back for many years.

10 minutes ago, venom2011 said:

13 minutes ago, abramovich said:

You must be joking.

10/10 argument.

What do you want me to say? I guess everyone sees what they want to see.

2 hours ago, Slojo said:

Agree, I think @ForeverCarefree is way off on that bit, this is not Sarri's team at all. 

Was the 2016-17 Chelsea Conte's team? From what I could tell, he didn't get any of the players he'd asked for back then.

Didn't stop him from winning the title.

What do you want me to say? I guess everyone sees what they want to see.

Sure. Well, unless someone can convince them otherwise but that would entail a fully constructed, coherent discussion with two willing participants. Which is difficult when some prefer just popping off 4-worded rebuts.

20 minutes ago, venom2011 said:

29 minutes ago, abramovich said:

What do you want me to say? I guess everyone sees what they want to see.

Sure. Well, unless someone can convince them otherwise but that would entail a fully constructed, coherent discussion with two willing participants. Which is difficult when some prefer just popping off 4-worded rebuts.

Counter point to Luiz and Rudiger being improved under Sarri is that we lost 2-0 to Arsenal, followed by 4-0 to Bournemouth followed by 6-0 to Manchester City. 

I can't see that defenders have improved because we're getting thumped with regularity. 

Luiz only made 10 appearances last season because he missed a huge portion of the season due to injury. 

26 minutes ago, abramovich said:

Was the 2016-17 Chelsea Conte's team? From what I could tell, he didn't get any of the players he'd asked for back then.

Didn't stop him from winning the title.

There are some caveats to that title win though. Without taking anything away from conte, who is a top manager, he had the benefit of no European which gave him all week to drill the team. He had more world class players and leaders to work with than we have now, and there was a hunger in the squad to avenge the 10th place finish from the previous season. 

Even if you look at our rivals that year, klopp was in his 1st full season with a much weaker squad than he has now, Guardiola was in his 1st season, and had a weaker team than he has now, and Mourinho was also starting out with United. They all had European football to contend with aswell. 

It was a fantastic title win, with some real memorable moments, but I dont think you can use it to criticize sarri, because the circumstances are a lot different. I also dont think it means players like Alonso are good enough now, because they won a league title, sometimes average players have great seasons. 

Plenty to criticize sarri for at the moment, but comparisons to conte's 1st season are pretty unfair in my opinion.

38 minutes ago, abramovich said:

Was the 2016-17 Chelsea Conte's team? From what I could tell, he didn't get any of the players he'd asked for back then.

Didn't stop him from winning the title.

I think most on here agree that what Conte achieved with that squad in 2016-17 was pretty miraculous. Unfortunately the following summer we had the busy up with Costa, coupled with a failure to adequately reinforce the squad for the extra burden of Champions League football. By the time Sarri came in the squad was arguably inferior, but certainly no better, than the one inherited by Conte.

Beyond that though Conte achieved what he did because he was willing to be flexible and adjust his strategy to win games. By comparison Sarri seems to take the approach that it his way or nothing, and that stubbornness will probably be his downfall.

10 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Counter point to Luiz and Rudiger being improved under Sarri is that we lost 2-0 to Arsenal, followed by 4-0 to Bournemouth followed by 6-0 to Manchester City. 

I can't see that defenders have improved because we're getting thumped with regularity. 

Luiz only made 10 appearances last season because he missed a huge portion of the season due to injury. 

That's an overstatement. As I've shown earlier, we are conceding at a similar rate to last year. We are definitely in a pretty bad patch right now though. If you were to turn back the clock on the last 4 league matches (including 5-0 huddersfield) then we were conceding 0.77 goals p/g vs Conte's 1 p/g. And that's Conte's 2nd year, with players used to that style of football.

A couple of bad scorelines is not enough to suggest that Luiz and Rudiger have had bad seasons. They have both been decent, but not great - and certainly not terrible. The same goes for Azpi, Kante, Jorginho, Pedro, Kepa, Christensen. Which is about right if we're languishing around 5th. The reason I say Luiz is improved is that even Luiz at his peak, under this system, with this high defensive line, would have made many more errors than his doing now. He has largely been solid and winning most of his 1v1s. The same goes for Rudiger. I've seen more issues with the squad as a whole - the attackers not pressing properly, huge spaces between the lines etc. All of which I expected at the start of the season. 

The only players I think have truly let us down consistently are Willian and Alonso. 

 

We had the 2nd best defence in the league but have never recovered from that bournemouth result.

2 hours ago, Sindre said:

"Matic knows very well what I think about him," he said. "The importance for me about this player, who is a really good player, a top player, very important for our team, but sometimes you must accept this crazy transfer market.

"And sometimes you must accept different decisions. But he is a great loss for us."

That should refresh your memory then. Clearly it was the clubs decision to sell him and Conte just had to accept that. To a direct rival nontheless.

Clearly we can choose to believe what Conte says. I choose to know that Conte came out with a lot of bull. That statement for me smacked of a lie to cover his own back. Same as how he said he had no say in transfers when we kept signing Conte players. 

29 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Counter point to Luiz and Rudiger being improved under Sarri is that we lost 2-0 to Arsenal, followed by 4-0 to Bournemouth followed by 6-0 to Manchester City. 

I can't see that defenders have improved because we're getting thumped with regularity. 

I find it hard to pass judgement on the defence (individual brain farts aside - mainly from Luiz and to a lesser extent Alonso) considering they get precisely zero protection from the midfield. 

Poor Rüdiger must be wondering what on earth he signed up for. The poor bar steward gets hung out to dry pretty much every single game and still manages to deal with most of it.

I wish I could give him a pat on the shoulder in commiseration and a "chin up, lad". 

1 hour ago, abramovich said:

You don't seriously expect us to buy a brand new starting eleven for every new manager the summer he arrives? Speaking of dross, what do we do with Jorginho, given his struggles in the PL, especially if the new manager won't have any use for him? We did spend a small fortune on him. What if we spent even more on Sarri's signings before it became apparent we'd made a mistake in hiring him? Backing the wrong horse in this financial climate could set the club back for many years.

Don't be pathetic, as if i or anyone else expects a new team straight away, pathetic comment. 

It wasnt Jorginho that let in 12 goals in three games (bourn,city,manu), no it was down to individual errors from our back five, same with city, and against manure, all individual mistakes from Alonso, Kepa, Luiz, Rudiger, Azpilcueta, Barkley.....but i don't remember Jorginho having anything to do with those goals.

27 minutes ago, PloKoon13 said:

I find it hard to pass judgement on the defence (individual brain farts aside - mainly from Luiz and to a lesser extent Alonso) considering they get precisely zero protection from the midfield. 

Poor Rüdiger must be wondering what on earth he signed up for. The poor bar steward gets hung out to dry pretty much every single game and still manages to deal with most of it.

I wish I could give him a pat on the shoulder in commiseration and a "chin up, lad". 

Nearly every goal against Bournemouth City and Manu was individual errors, why blame the midfield for Alonso switching off? why blame the midfield because Kepa's wrist is weak, i could go on, but whats the point if youv'e forgotten already, go and watch all those goals, i think 11 from 12 are from errors, 1 from midfield, the rest from defence.

50 minutes ago, coco said:

Nearly every goal against Bournemouth City and Manu was individual errors, why blame the midfield for Alonso switching off? why blame the midfield because Kepa's wrist is weak, i could go on, but whats the point if youv'e forgotten already, go and watch all those goals, i think 11 from 12 are from errors, 1 from midfield, the rest from defence.

What I don't really understand is how our defence has suddenly seemed to become so porous. Even up until mid January we will not letting many goals in. Our main issue up to then was mostly scoring goals. What has happened to the defence recently? It is basically the same players. Are they burnt out or did some of them just down tools?

Just now, forbzy said:

What I don't really understand is how our defence has suddenly seemed to become so porous. Even up until mid January we will not letting many goals in. Our main issue up to then was mostly scoring goals. What has happened to the defence recently? It is basically the same players. Are they burnt out or did some of them just down tools?

I kind of think they've all woken up to Jorginho can't tackle and as we push up to break down the opposition a quick ball over the top with a fast runner gives them a decent chance.

It's fair enough that you're not at all happy with Sarri at the moment, and I can understand why you want him gone, but I I completely disagree with the part I've highlighted. Who exactly has Sarri been given? OK, he got Jorginho. That's 1 player. Higuain has only been at the club for 1 month! Kepa was going to be coming with or without Sarri as we needed to replace Courtois. So Sarri has been given 2 signing and 1 of them has only been at the club for 1 month. Now let's look at Conte's signings; Bakayoko, Zappacosta, Morata & Drinkwater. We spent so much money on 'Conte' players, who all turned out to be poor buys.

Bakayoko and Drinkwater were signed by the board, I think Conte actually wanted Naingollan and that other Croatian guy coincidentally now playing for Inter Milan in the midfield, but the board gave him a younger box to box midfielder in Bakayoko.

Conte didn't want any of these four.
Conte was after the likes of Van Dijk, Walker, Alex Sandro, and players from that shelf.

I think Conte actually wanted Morata as his striker which unfortunately didn't turn out to be a good signing. He isn't the only one, every single top manager have at one point go all out to sign a promising player who eventually end up to be a flop.

Higuain was signed because he's supposed to make immediate impact, he's the chosen one and knew it all about how Sarri ball works. He hasn't been terrible, but certainly underwhelming. It's the kind of short term signing Chelsea not keen, but did it anyway to help Sarri out. Sarri got more support from the board than Conte. Conte had Morata under performing for a season, of course it's his own fault to kick out Costa and started off the whole thing, bet he won't be fast on keypad in his next job.

It was Costa's fault when he got kicked out by Conte. Costa isn't bigger than the team. If we had supported Conte then, we would no longer have any players underperforming so as to get the manager sacked!

1 hour ago, coco said:

Don't be pathetic, as if i or anyone else expects a new team straight away, pathetic comment. 

It wasnt Jorginho that let in 12 goals in three games (bourn,city,manu), no it was down to individual errors from our back five, same with city, and against manure, all individual mistakes from Alonso, Kepa, Luiz, Rudiger, Azpilcueta, Barkley.....but i don't remember Jorginho having anything to do with those goals.

Just because you disagree with someone, doesn't make their opinion pathetic.

Jorginho is a big reason for our troubles at the back. He plays in a position where he's supposed to protect the back four. He can't tackle, not mobile enough, concedes possession when pressed and overall is quite useless, unless you consider passing the ball to the nearest teammate in our own half a great tactical skill.