8 hours ago, enigma said:

“I’d say this Chelsea side is only at 60-70 per cent capacity right now, but how much we are missing and how much we need is not the same thing. It’s double that.”

Good interview. At least we now know why he is probably a better football manager than banker,

People don't give him enough credit for coming up the hard way. He literally coached Italian equivalent of Sunday league (in England) and moved his way up the food chain. Pep Guardiola is a fantastic coach, but in my opinion, he had it easier than someone like Sarri. He coached Barcelona B team and then went into coaching a Barcelona side with once in a generation talents, including the best player in the world. If Sarri had been provided the same opportunities, I am sure he would have proved himself just as successful as Pep.

The fact that Sarri dropped a career in banking and all that financial security to coach football at the lowest level to learn about the game, just shows how badly he wanted it. We have a coach who won't moan and whine about transfers, who enjoys his life as a coach, wants to win things, and coaches an exciting style that the club (Roman) and many fans have been crying out for. Everything is pretty much in place now for him to stay for a long time and achieve success here and I really hope it can happen. 

Edited October 13, 20187 yr by enigma

All quality stuff........I really really hope the Club backs him, this aint Serie A or that farmers League in France, 2-3 bad results and they will come down hard on you from all sides, nevermind a Club as Chelsea. Back him and the team with quality players and he will run riot.

I found the bit in bold above interesting.

Me too shows the respect between two coaches who wants to see the game played the right way

He rates Chiesa, maybe a target in January?.

2 hours ago, jack_super_class said:

He rates Chiesa, maybe a target in January?.

Indeed I sat up when I saw this. Interesting he rates him & Bernadeschi. The latter will likely be much harder to sign so Chiesa could be a good shout. I’ve never seen him play but his name keeps popping up recently and have heard promising things.

2 hours ago, rtwelch said:

Indeed I sat up when I saw this. Interesting he rates him & Bernadeschi. The latter will likely be much harder to sign so Chiesa could be a good shout. I’ve never seen him play but his name keeps popping up recently and have heard promising things.

If he's as good as people say he is Juve will bound to be interested. Getting an Italian player to sign for us ahead of Juve is nearly impossible. I remember too being linked with Bernadeschi when Conte was with us, when he was still at Fiorentina. Id rather Chiesa than Leon Bailey.

Edited October 14, 20187 yr by jack_super_class

Hi everyone. I am a silent admirer, fan, of the Chelsea team since the time of my fellow countryman Gianfranco Zola. 

May I suggest an italian player's name? Nicolò Barella. He is just 21 y.o. He is doing good things with recent italian NT. Playing as a midfielder with Verratti and Jorginho. Maybe he is still too young, but made of a good stuff. There is something about him on youtube. If you have ten minutes to spend, take a look at it. He is a guy who defends,  runs, has good technique, and above all has long passes in terms of range. 

As I said, he is very young and I hope he does not get lost. But he is a prospect, as the Americans say.

But does he have a beautiful smile?

15 hours ago, SardinianOne said:

Hi everyone. I am a silent admirer, fan, of the Chelsea team since the time of my fellow countryman Gianfranco Zola. 

May I suggest an italian player's name? Nicolò Barella. He is just 21 y.o. He is doing good things with recent italian NT. Playing as a midfielder with Verratti and Jorginho. Maybe he is still too young, but made of a good stuff. There is something about him on youtube. If you have ten minutes to spend, take a look at it. He is a guy who defends,  runs, has good technique, and above all has long passes in terms of range. 

As I said, he is very young and I hope he does not get lost. But he is a prospect, as the Americans say.

He's a super talent and destined for big things, but I don't think we'll be looking to add to our central midfield for a while. He's being linked with Arsenal and Liverpool, but I think he'll end up staying in Italy and moving to Milan or Juve. The player I'd love to sign is Federico Chiesa - he looks great and we need some reinforcements in the attacking third with Willian and Pedro both the wrong side of 30. I also loved his father Enrico as a player!

Sorry for the mess (my mess). Anyway, don't say I didn't tell you.

As for what you say, I'd like him (Barella) someday playing with Chelsea.

You are right when you say it's better for him to stay in Italy.

As for Federico Chiesa, I do not particularly love him.

He is the classic player who plays with his head down, if you understand what I mean.

Otherwise, Barella is to me a happy mixture between Pirlo, Kante and Iniesta. At a double speed. 

He is only 21 y.o. but has been playing in Serie A since he was 19.

I think Sarri knows and would love to have him in Chelsea.

Chelsea is still to slow to develop his manouver at the right speed.

Sarri's Napoli was also in counter attack style.

A killing counter-attack mode.

A young player like Barella could bring a supersonic speed to the midfield of our side.

With his technique, dribbling, game vision, defense and long range passes.

At a double speed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dkVoJSxK50

The guy is pure class in press conferences. Is honest and open but respectful. 

Love this bloke, his reaction to the prick who referred to Eden and slavery is superb.-

 

 

After 3 games against top teams, he has let the impression of not knowing or at least keeping the control when we have the initiative. And those are 3 home games we are talking about. Can't lie, I'm a bit concerned. 

 

Edited October 20, 20187 yr by Giordano_Bruno

After 3 games against top teams, he has let the impression of not knowing or at least keeping the control when we have the initiative. And those are 3 home games we are talking about. Can't lie, I'm a bit concerned. 
 

Sack him in January get someone new in

7 minutes ago, Brutos said:

1 hour ago, Giordano_Bruno said:

After 3 games against top teams, he has let the impression of not knowing or at least keeping the control when we have the initiative. And those are 3 home games we are talking about. Can't lie, I'm a bit concerned. 
 

Sack him in January get someone new in

that was great sense of humour. 

I think this was the first time he's made some glaring mistakes, all in all, that's brilliant. 

Eurosport : Chelsea's Sarri slams players for ditching gameplan in United draw - https://www.eurosport.com/football/premier-league/2018-2019/chelsea-s-sarri-slams-players-for-ditching-gameplan-in-united-draw_sto6979280/story.shtml

Sarri says exactly the right things here. So glad we have manager that is not childish. 

Yeah, not his finest game ever.

Started the wrong lineup and was too slow to make subs (at least Barkley's worked itself out). 

Was he influenced by the effect of the international break on our players RE team selections? Did he look at Morata's big-game record against Real Madrid/Juventus and expect him to pull a rabbit out of the hat? Those are the only two plausible reasons I can think of for him starting that lineup.

8 minutes ago, evissy said:

Eurosport : Chelsea's Sarri slams players for ditching gameplan in United draw - https://www.eurosport.com/football/premier-league/2018-2019/chelsea-s-sarri-slams-players-for-ditching-gameplan-in-united-draw_sto6979280/story.shtml

Sarri says exactly the right things here. So glad we have manager that is not childish. 

I don't like the headlines - IMHO Sarri didn't slam the players - he just stated that players started to play more long balls than the style he wanted - I hate this type of sensationalist journalism

I dont mind the occasional long balls, Alonso was almost one on with the keeper thanks to a long ball. Also, while I do think that  Barkley for Kovacic substitution helped in the end, i believe the key substitution was Giroud for Morata and the longer he persisted with Morata the worse we looked. Even Giroud had a tough day mind you. United were very physical and got away with more than their fair share, but it is games like this that makes having Morata in the game an absolute blunder. 

 

19 hours ago, robdog said:

I don't like the headlines - IMHO Sarri didn't slam the players - he just stated that players started to play more long balls than the style he wanted - I hate this type of sensationalist journalism

The wording is sensationalist but the article itself is okay. Sarri will underline to the players why we lost control and as we have a smart bunch of players they will already know what they did wrong. My point here is Sarri won't let the players hide like with Mourinho. Jose would tell the press his guys were awesome. Jose plays with psychology Sarri only about the game-system. 

Right now, our squad manages anywhere from 60 to 70 minutes of the correct brand of football. When the going gets tough, they revert back to the days of hoofing, rather than being confident in their ability to play out from the back and keep the ball. When Sarri says that we're at 60-70%, it's not only the absolute quality he means, it's also the ability to sustain our football. This will take time, after all we've played counter attacking football for 15 years, but we are making progress every week.

The over reaction some are making after the United game is embarassing. United are in turmoil, but they still have good players, and they couldn't string four passes together for the first 60 minutes, and needed a lucky break when Alonso decided to play dead in our own box. This after we should have had a penalty, and Young should have been shown the red card.

I think there's been tremendous progress in the relatively short period but I'd actually prefer if we also retained some of our strengths and blend them with his chosen style.

For instance due to our new ball on the ground play, we rarely play aerial balls into the box and for a striker low in confidence but deadly in the air, this makes Morata even worse than he should look.

We've lost the Azpirata connection through which Morata scored a significant number of his goals last season and if Azpi didn't resort to that cross no way we would have got that equalizer.

We have to play to the strengths of the strikers as well. I believe aerially there's always a more than 60% chance we put the ball in the net if the ball is delivered in correctly as our strikers are good in the air.

3 hours ago, abister1 said:

I think there's been tremendous progress in the relatively short period but I'd actually prefer if we also retained some of our strengths and blend them with his chosen style.

For instance due to our new ball on the ground play, we rarely play aerial balls into the box and for a striker low in confidence but deadly in the air, this makes Morata even worse than he should look.

We've lost the Azpirata connection through which Morata scored a significant number of his goals last season and if Azpi didn't resort to that cross no way we would have got that equalizer.

We have to play to the strengths of the strikers as well. I believe aerially there's always a more than 60% chance we put the ball in the net if the ball is delivered in correctly as our strikers are good in the air.

I’d rather keep to Sarri’s game plan, than to revert to old tactics to accommodate a failed centre forward, would rather remove the problem in the first place.