15 hours ago, KeepCalmCarryOn said:

proving my point!

numpty keyboard fan

What is your issue exactly? What is it that I said that is so wrong that you must act this way my young warrior? As I said, keep digging that head in the sand.

13 hours ago, mad_mac said:

Idolizing from some fans in that they always talk about how great he is, and then are silent when spurs capitulate. That's why.  Sure he's a good manager, but I've seen Chelsea fans claiming that they'd have him at Chelsea over some of our recent managers: that is idolizing when our managers have won things and he's won absolutely bugger all.

Well thats their opinion if so and you and I have no right to say otherwise.........I personally find him a good manager, would I swap him for our recent managers? Hell no, we win Things, they dont. But it doesnt make him any less of good manager.

37 minutes ago, big blue said:

I think does have a difficult job, (maybe Theresa May has it a touch harder though).

I don't think we are a club that can make that big of a change in personnel in a window or 2. Sarri managed to turn some fairly average players into some of the most coveted in Europe, so let's see what we are looking like towards the end of the season, at the moment I agree we look like we need 4/5 top players to even think about competing for the title.

For sure, nobody can expect him to do too much in one transfer window. I think Its going to take at least the next 3 to start getting us close to City. Whoever we go for, from the back to the front  we've got to start injecting some real pace into the side. Too many players are just not quick enough.

2 hours ago, Sindre said:

It’s so silly.
Anything but unreserved praise seems to be seen as moaning by some.
Same thing happened during the transfer window. Dare to say the strikers we have at the club are nowhere near good enough? Moaner!
Dare to say David Luiz won’t work in a back 4? Moaner!

Now it’s the same when people dare to bring up actual issues we have. We could easily have lost by 6 goals yesterday, to Tottenham(!) of all teams. Clearly there are some major issues to address.

So many good people........good posters who have been driven out of this place exactly for what you mentioned. Sad and shameful........they come down on you like bullies for daring to speak your mind and views.......on a f**king footy forum no less. Then they start name calling you......then a couple of their good pals come to help out and the poor guy or girl are out.   

1 minute ago, Dixon said:

For sure, nobody can expect him to do too much in one transfer window. I think Its going to take at least the next 3 to start getting us close to City. Whoever we go for, from the back to the front  we've got to start injecting some real pace into the side. Too many players are just not quick enough.

Especially those 2 full backs imo.

2 hours ago, opinionsarelike said:

I argumented for my opinion, so please discuss my argument as well if you're going to say what I said and didn't say.

I did. You are literally saying what I thought you were. 

2 hours ago, opinionsarelike said:

We won the title, you are right. But Mourinho could never start playing proactive football again after that, which was kind of the point I was trying to make.

This is what you are saying. That if you "go defensive" you can't go back and Mourinho going defensive was a mistake in that context. I disagree. Sometimes you need to steady the ship. Sometimes you can let rip.

I also don't think that's what went wrong for Mourinho either. But there is no point getting into that. It's long dead. 

I also don't think there is no middle ground between all-out attack and all-out defence or that players will refuse to attack if you had previously asked them to defend. 

2 hours ago, opinionsarelike said:

ISarris principles, in no particular order, are: a) high line and press, b) fast, one touch triangular passing vertically and c) collective movement off the ball.

a) We aren't lowering our line anytime soon, and we won't stop pressing.

b) Replacing Jorginho with Kanté means that we can't penetrate the opposition's lines as precise and with regularity. It will also hinder our ability to create those passing triangles in the middle of the field.

c) This will just require more practice, in the style Sarri wants us to play, ie. not pragmatically change how we are to play every other game.

I don't think minor tactical tweaks would change the whole thing tbh. I think you could do a similar thing with a double pivot. Pep does at times. He does it with 3 at the back at times. If it's "one formation or bust" then you're too inflexible. I don't know Sarri well enough to know if that is so. I suspect it is not, as this is his job and he will know a lot better than that. 

2 hours ago, opinionsarelike said:

That's my whole point. If you want Sarri out, then fine, I don't care. 

Not what I'm saying. At all. Which is ironic. Saying what I didn't say etc. 

I don't want Sarri out. But he has reached his first real test. Teams have found a way of playing against us that either stopped us playing (Everton) or exposed our vulnerabilities (Derby) or both (Spurs). There is a "blueprint" so to speak. Teams will look to do to us what Spurs did, with greater and lesser degrees of effectiveness depending on how well their players can do what Spurs did (less well most likely).

He's got to find the answers, even if they are short-term (maybe tactical tweaks), until he can find long term solutions (which may be in the transfer market). I'm sure he has some ideas. 

41 minutes ago, atomis said:

So many good people........good posters who have been driven out of this place exactly for what you mentioned. Sad and shameful........they come down on you like bullies for daring to speak your mind and views.......on a f**king footy forum no less. Then they start name calling you......then a couple of their good pals come to help out and the poor guy or girl are out.   

Yes, the bullies can't just disagree with someone, they have to resort to name calling and abuse and sh*t like you're not even a Chelsea fan. Best to just completely ignore them.

5 hours ago, jack_super_class said:

He kind of did though which makes the defeat not so bad. This defeat had been coming for a while in terms of the amount of chances we are giving the opposition this season. He had said several time he is not happy how we are defending and we need to improve, he said that he's happy we are winning despite not a good tactical organisation - link here https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/chelsea-lucky-to-keep-winning-without-tactical-organisation-admits-maurizio-sarri-a3980576.html

I would have been more worried if he had been saying how good we look and we can challenge City etc, but he knows where we need to improve which is reassuring.

I know where your coming from Jack,but the entire team well below par in the same game ,and in a London derby,i was surprised.

I think people should be allowed to moan as much as they like after that performance. It was Tottenham, probably our most bitter rivals, and they outplayed us in all areas, for the second time in a row. What makes it worse is that the players didn't even look like they were giving their all out there. Tottenham were tackling, played with passion that is expected of a London derby like this one, and they were ruthless. The way we played reminded me of the way Arsenal used to play against us. When we had Drogba, Terry, Cole, Lampard, Essien, and others, we bullied Arsenal, they feared us. Arsenal were just too weak mentally and physically, and that is what we looked like against Tottenham on Saturday.

3 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

I think people should be allowed to moan as much as they like after that performance. It was Tottenham, probably our most bitter rivals, and they outplayed us in all areas, for the second time in a row. What makes it worse is that the players didn't even look like they were giving their all out there. Tottenham were tackling, played with passion that is expected of a London derby like this one, and they were ruthless. The way we played reminded me of the way Arsenal used to play against us. When we had Drogba, Terry, Cole, Lampard, Essien, and others, we bullied Arsenal, they feared us. Arsenal were just too weak mentally and physically, and that is what we looked like against Tottenham on Saturday.

While the team with the players you mentioned were obviously mentally stronger lets not forget they had their fair share of shockers themselves, the WHL defeat in 2010 wasn't that much better than yesterday, If atall!!

I don’t totally agree with his justification for CHO not getting minutes. It sounded as if he picks players on reputation/age/wages. He said it’s hard to find a space for him in the team or on the bench because you have players like Moses on the bench.

 

moses was never good enough for us as a winger, a very good wing back yes but not a winger. It’s no surprise that our young players get disillusioned at the club with things like that.

 

i did like that he said he wants to create a space for him in the team/squad regularly but it’s hard because we have 28 players, maybe we’re going to cull the squad a bit in January to create more room for our youngsters.

 

Players should be picked on performance not their wages or what reputation they have, hopefully Sarri sticks with what he said and tries to create a space for him.

 

Have just about got over the disappointment from Saturday, so I've been catching up with everyone's views/thoughts on the game. Obviously, we had a shocker. We were way off the pace in every department and deserved to lose - it didn't help that we had to play against 12 men though, the ref was shocking.

I knew there would be a lot of talk about the Kante/Jorginho positions, but I actually thought Kante was our best outfield player. Kepa was our MOM. Jorginho got absolutely ruined for pace against Son, but that doesn't mean that he should be swapped for Kante, far from it. Sarri's style is to defend as a team in a block which in theory should restrict the space our opponents have between the lines (similar to city). To do this you need to be brave and play with a very high line as the defenders need to be as close to the midfield as possible. This completely went out of the window against spurs. Our defense was pushed way too deep by Kane and Son, then they'd both drop deep to pick up the ball unopposed and in acres off space and allowed to run at our back-line.  When this happens you're in trouble. This happened countless times, it was painful viewing. I don't think there's a problem with Sarri's tactics, it's just the players didn't follow them. we are however still getting used to this system. It seems our default way of defending is to drop deep (which creates the space between the midfield and defense), rather than press forward in a line and try and catch their attackers offside. I'm sure that Sarri is working on this.

Sarri said when he joined Napoli that he might lose his first 10 games of the season, but then things would start to improve. We've been lucky that we've managed a very good start whilst trying to change our whole playing philosophy, but I personally believe that you can only fully learn a new style and improve once you've made mistakes and suffered defeats. Saturday was a learning curve - I'm backing our players to step up to the challenge and improve a lot over the next couple of months. 

2 hours ago, EdinburghBlue said:

I don’t totally agree with his justification for CHO not getting minutes. It sounded as if he picks players on reputation/age/wages. He said it’s hard to find a space for him in the team or on the bench because you have players like Moses on the bench.

 

moses was never good enough for us as a winger, a very good wing back yes but not a winger. It’s no surprise that our young players get disillusioned at the club with things like that.

 

i did like that he said he wants to create a space for him in the team/squad regularly but it’s hard because we have 28 players, maybe we’re going to cull the squad a bit in January to create more room for our youngsters.

 

Players should be picked on performance not their wages or what reputation they have, hopefully Sarri sticks with what he said and tries to create a space for him.

Very well said. Fantastic post.

Considering CHO limited playing time and hearing press conferences like this, he would be very well advised to get out of the club asap.

I read today Bayern Munich are monitoring him as well.

Surely I am not the only one extremely concerned?

It makes me so frustrated.

On 26/11/2018 at 10:52, Hemel Blue said:

The whole team were well below par.I never saw a performance like that coming and neither did Sarri.We move on.

Just catching up with the thread and saw this. If you didn't see this defeat coming, then you really haven't been watching us for the past few weeks! We have been piss poor lately and a defeat like this was coming. I'm just hoping that Sarri sees what went wrong and fixes it soon!

A rather odd press conference from Sarri in which he attributes blame for the spurs defeat on his players attitude.

Insistis that Kante will NOT play in the holding midfielder role under him and questions his performance in the last game.

Quote: 'In central midfield I want Jorginho or Fabregas.  I don't want Kante in this position.  He lost his position (in the last match).  He attacked too much the other box.  THis is not one of the best characteristics of Kante.'

He also delivered a frank assesment of Hudson Odoi that he must improve before he can get near the first team.

Quote: 'He has to improve a lot.  First  of all in the defensive phase.  he has to learn more without the ball.'

Club insiders fear that lack of playing time under Sarri could tempt youngsters like Hudson Odoi (one of the most talented academy prospects in recent years) to look elsewhere for first team opportunities with European giants like Bayern already circling.

On 26/11/2018 at 13:04, enigma said:

Kante is still adapting to the new position, so  it will take time. If Sarri goes back to using Kante as before we lose any impetus we would have gained from learning a new system. 

Agree with this. Think bigger problem is with the defence, and Sarri's apparent reluctance to change it up. Am really hoping that the loss at the weekend (which was one of the most depressing) will lead to a change up for mid-week/weekend. Cannot see how Luiz can keep his position. 

Happy to see Kante find his feet in new position, and agree that any changes there would lose impetus gained from new system 

Well said Enigma! 

HO and other youngsters have to be brought in very carefully. We've seen what happens when too much pressure (and expectation) is loaded on young shoulders. Sarri has got this right.

https://amp.theguardian.com/football/2018/nov/28/chelsea-players-meetings-sarri-tottenham-debacle

2 hours ago, EmeraldBlue said:

HO and other youngsters have to be brought in very carefully. We've seen what happens when too much pressure (and expectation) is loaded on young shoulders. Sarri has got this right.

Kind of, but is not giving any game time at all bringing them in carefully.

Kind of, but is not giving any game time at all bringing them in carefully.

It's not easy to keep everyone happy. If the player is not out on loan I think it is a sign that they're close to being in the first team, but in a results first business they will not get the minutes. Catch 22.

Also, many people want to have the youngsters given more playing time but if it doesn't work out then they're often the first to shout 'not Chelsea quality.'

You gotta love this man, he is so genuine. I'm so tired of our last few managers psychological portraits - denying things, avoiding hot topics, blaming concrete players, being harsh with the media.  

this man is finally going to be make us a classy top club with attractive football to watch and normal environment to work in. 

I do worry that Sarri is not utilising the squad to its fullest. We are likely to burn out much like Liverpool did/have done. Napoli burnt out as well. It doesn’t feel like he has learned his lessons. 

I do not like his Kante comments - he must be high. 

21 hours ago, Old Shaggy said:

Just catching up with the thread and saw this. If you didn't see this defeat coming, then you really haven't been watching us for the past few weeks! We have been piss poor lately and a defeat like this was coming. I'm just hoping that Sarri sees what went wrong and fixes it soon!

That is the worst we have played this season imo.The whole team were  below par.We will bounce back though.

3 hours ago, Zola said:

I do not like his Kante comments - he must be high. 

He's right, though.