5 minutes ago, Argo said:

Wenger had worse, Emery's defences have always been weak, it's the one reason i never wanted him here when we were looking for a new manager. 

Doesn't matter how we built the lead, the fact is we have and you are really over estimating how well they are playing they have been scraping home bar a few games.

I can still see improvements.......cant say the same with us sadly. I can see fight and hunger in that team. If we continue our and theirs trajectory then they will go ahead of us. But its footy, maybe we will buckle up and deliver who knows. And if they are scraping home wins, we are losing them badly.

I said a few weeks ago, we don't seem to really play to a plan, and got slated, i  hate to say it but Spurs now play how we did in 2005-2007, fast direct, clinical

Alonso and William slow our play up dramatically, and to an extent so does HaZ, we need to play Kante next to Jorginho, i'd change to a back 3 and play Kante just in front as security then a 4 and a 2, or a 3 and a 3, anybody now will know how to neutralise Jorginho, and we have no serious goal threat as a head of our attack, bringing in Higuain or Wilson aren't going to dramatically improve us, find us a new Essien.

Yeah I would be happy if we had scraped home against wolves and Leicester. 

Most of this squad needs to go on the scrap heap. For too long the Kepa's have been rare signings where the baka's and drinkwater's and zappacostas have been plentiful. 

For too long dross like Willian is seen as a first 11 player. Year after year our squad gets weaker as our only two good signings this past window was replacing one class keeper with another and signings one top midfielder that has forced another to go from being one of the best in the world at what he does to average. 

Before that we lose a world class striker for morata...what do we do next sell hazard and replace him with a victor moses?

Sarii will either live or die by this formation.......he wont change, otherwise he would have done already.

5 minutes ago, Ballack & Blu said:

I said a few weeks ago, we don't seem to really play to a plan, and got slated, i  hate to say it but Spurs now play how we did in 2005-2007, fast direct, clinical

Alonso and William slow our play up dramatically, and to an extent so does HaZ, we need to play Kante next to Jorginho, i'd change to a back 3 and play Kante just in front as security then a 4 and a 2, or a 3 and a 3, anybody now will know how to neutralise Jorginho, and we have no serious goal threat as a head of our attack, bringing in Higuain or Wilson aren't going to dramatically improve us, find us a new Essien.

 

16 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

If the purpose of the appointment was to overhaul the club culture and playing style rather than a results first approach then I would have liked Howe. 

I think he’s done a great job at Bournemouth and shown he’s capable of building a good side whilst playing decent football. That’s essentially what Sarri did in Italy and Napoli took a punt on him. Sarri knew the Italian football culture from basically grassroots upwards, Howe the same.

When you look closer at Eddie Howe, he's a lot like Swansea-era Brendan Rodgers. 

Indeed, Howe has cited Rodgers as a key influence and it's pretty obvious why - both Howe's Bournemouth and Swansea-era Rodgers favour a high-pressing/possession-oriented approach, favour a 4-2-3-1/4-4-1-1 formation, move the ball from side-to-side and use wingers to stretch the opposition defence. Both are also good man-managers.

However, much like Rodgers, Howe has never been able to organise a defence. The reason is because Bournemouth's high-pressing, high-line, man-marking approach leaves relatively few players behind to protect against counter-attacks - they are therefore quite helpless should the opposition be able to clear the ball and get attackers in behind their defence. Klopp exploited this weakness to quite devastating effect.

Sarri doesn't have that issue to the same degree because 1) Sarri's 4-3-3 allows a defensive midfielder (or regista, in Jorginho's case) to shield the defence more effectively than a 4-2-3-1/4-4-1-1 or a 4-4-2 since the midfielder is closer to the defence and 2) having 3 midfielders rather than 2 midfielders and a second striker (as Howe does) makes it easier to monopolise possession and thus reduce the opposition's ability to counter-attack.

Howe has also never turned a middling side into title challengers the way that Sarri has, nor has he even shown Rodgers' ability to turn his side from a possession-oriented side into a consistently counter-attacking side as Rodgers did at Liverpool. 

Put simply, if you wouldn't want Rodgers at Chelsea (I wouldn't) there's no real reason to want Howe at the club at this stage. Maximising the resources available to you at a smaller club is quite different to performing at a larger club - the expectations and corresponding pressure are far more difficult to deal with. That pressure was beyond the likes of Moyes and eventually Rodgers and it wouldn't surprise me if Howe suffered similarly.

In addition, both Howe and Rodgers have a patchy record in the transfer market and so you'd need to purchase a good Director of Football to supplement Howe. 

Quote

If it were based on previous successes, I would have preferred Jardim. I think he showed a lot of talent to win the title with Monaco and helped to develop a lot of young players into extremely good footballers. 

I wouldn't have minded Jardim, but his 'vertical', direct, counter-attacking style is much closer to Conte's than Sarri's. I think that the club were trying to move away from that approach; hence Sarri's appointment.

Ranieri also left a stronger platform for Jardim to build upon than Benitez did for Sarri. 

Edited December 24, 20187 yr by DaRick
Further clarification

9 hours ago, Ballack & Blu said:

I said a few weeks ago, we don't seem to really play to a plan, and got slated, i  hate to say it but Spurs now play how we did in 2005-2007, fast direct, clinical

Alonso and William slow our play up dramatically, and to an extent so does HaZ, we need to play Kante next to Jorginho, i'd change to a back 3 and play Kante just in front as security then a 4 and a 2, or a 3 and a 3, anybody now will know how to neutralise Jorginho, and we have no serious goal threat as a head of our attack, bringing in Higuain or Wilson aren't going to dramatically improve us, find us a new Essien.

Find us a new Drogba..

You lot really have no idea how far Sarri is going to take us. If you listen to people who are respected in their field talk about Maurizio, you should have faith. 

17 hours ago, Sindre said:

I'd disagree with that. Top four this season is incredibly important and the effects of missing out for the second season in a row would be terrible.

Sorry but there's no guarantee of top four and we have no divine right for it. The league is more competitive now than ever before. Liverpool and Spurs both missed out on top four under poch and klopp, but the club believed in the process and now they're thriving because of it.

Klopp could well win the league. I think the hire and fire plan that the club had needs to go, and it's time we showed some patience through good or bad. This isn't about the short term, but the future of the club long term too. 

If people want us to be a short term club, it's best they don't support the club. Football isn't just going to stop in 3/4/5 years, it will continue as a sport for a long time yet. The vision needs to be long term. I hope it includes youth integration too. 

7 hours ago, DaRick said:

When you look closer at Eddie Howe, he's a lot like Swansea-era Brendan Rodgers. 

I know a lot of people aren’t going to necessarily agree with me but my personal feeling were that when Napoli appointed Sarri they took a risk appointing someone with no experience managing a top team. He’d had one season managing in Serie A. It was a gamble of an appointment.

My perspective on the Sarri appointment was that he wasn’t being hired to win things. Because he’s never won anything, his appointment appeared to be about bringing in a cultural shift at Chelsea in terms of playing style but also someone who wasn’t going to make many demands from the club in terms of recruitment.

Objectively, I’m of the belief that we could have done with Howe what Napoli did with Sarri.

Sarri hasn’t shown me anything at Chelsea to suggest he knows how to defend. Since the beginning of the season teams have been slicing right through the middle of us getting numerous chances on goal. You say Liverpool exploited Howe’s Bournemouth, I look to Spurs absolutely dominating us for 90 minutes.

Howe wasn’t appointed, Sarri was so I’m not going to dwell on it, was just answering the question put to me of who my choice would have been instead of Sarri.

I’ll support Sarri all the time he’s here but I said before he took over that it had a bit of an AVB type feel to the appointment and as it stands I haven’t changed my mind yet.

12 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

I know a lot of people aren’t going to necessarily agree with me but my personal feeling were that when Napoli appointed Sarri they took a risk appointing someone with no experience managing a top team. He’d had one season managing in Serie A. It was a gamble of an appointment.

My perspective on the Sarri appointment was that he wasn’t being hired to win things. Because he’s never won anything, his appointment appeared to be about bringing in a cultural shift at Chelsea in terms of playing style but also someone who wasn’t going to make many demands from the club in terms of recruitment.

Objectively, I’m of the belief that we could have done with Howe what Napoli did with Sarri.

Sarri hasn’t shown me anything at Chelsea to suggest he knows how to defend. Since the beginning of the season teams have been slicing right through the middle of us getting numerous chances on goal. You say Liverpool exploited Howe’s Bournemouth, I look to Spurs absolutely dominating us for 90 minutes.

Howe wasn’t appointed, Sarri was so I’m not going to dwell on it, was just answering the question put to me of who my choice would have been instead of Sarri.

I’ll support Sarri all the time he’s here but I said before he took over that it had a bit of an AVB type feel to the appointment and as it stands I haven’t changed my mind yet.

So we lost badly to Spurs. Did we not then turn around and beat the unbeaten and seemingly (at that point) unstoppable City? You can’t just pick out the bad performances and ignore the good ones.

Sarri has said from day 1 that the defense is the hardest part of his system to get working right. His system is a whole integrated machine and until it’s running smoothly the defense is going to be vulnerable, and not just because of the defenders. At Napoli his defense was weak exactly like ours at first, but once the system clicked they became one of the most resilient defenses in Italy. 

We have to be patient. Some people calling for him to be sacked after half a season is unbelievable to me.

4 minutes ago, Kentonio said:

So we lost badly to Spurs. Did we not then turn around and beat the unbeaten and seemingly (at that point) unstoppable City? You can’t just pick out the bad performances and ignore the good ones.

Sarri has said from day 1 that the defense is the hardest part of his system to get working right. His system is a whole integrated machine and until it’s running smoothly the defense is going to be vulnerable, and not just because of the defenders. At Napoli his defense was weak exactly like ours at first, but once the system clicked they became one of the most resilient defenses in Italy. 

We have to be patient. Some people calling for him to be sacked after half a season is unbelievable to me.

This isnt Napoli and it aint seria A....you have time over there, its much slower and way less competetive. Teams here will fight for every point, you have upsets here on weekly basis, not in seria A. In epl you have zero time, cuz time is money. You either play to the best of the teams abilities and adapt or you are done and left behind. Best managers are in epl, so many tough teams.....they live or die by exposing your system. This group are not suited as of yet imo and its majorly holdng Sarii back.......if our mentality is sh*t then find a solution, fire a rockedt up their asses, you dont do well you are benched. He cant be the nice laid back guy every day with this lot. And in this forum I havent seen anyone wanting him sacked, we just have clear obvious flaws, many of them can be dealt with already now but he is too stubborn it seems. At the end of the day he is the manager, he decides when and what...........imo Conte was right all along.

30 minutes ago, Kentonio said:

So we lost badly to Spurs. Did we not then turn around and beat the unbeaten and seemingly (at that point) unstoppable City? You can’t just pick out the bad performances and ignore the good ones.

Sarri has said from day 1 that the defense is the hardest part of his system to get working right. His system is a whole integrated machine and until it’s running smoothly the defense is going to be vulnerable, and not just because of the defenders. At Napoli his defense was weak exactly like ours at first, but once the system clicked they became one of the most resilient defenses in Italy. 

We have to be patient. Some people calling for him to be sacked after half a season is unbelievable to me.

DaRick used Bournemouth’s loss against Liverpool as an example of Howe not being able to set his teams up to defend. I was countering the point by saying all season teams  have created numerous chances against us and Spurs in particular split us open all game long.

I’d counter that the City performance is the only good performance by us in the last couple of months and if anything that game/result masked a lot of problems we’ve been having.

Not sure that I’ve seen anyone on the forum calling for Sarri to be sacked? 

If anything anyone expressing an opinion against Sarri gets shouted down for lacking patience/not understanding the system/being knee jerk.

1 hour ago, ForeverCarefree said:

I know a lot of people aren’t going to necessarily agree with me but my personal feeling were that when Napoli appointed Sarri they took a risk appointing someone with no experience managing a top team. He’d had one season managing in Serie A. It was a gamble of an appointment.

Yes, and it succeeded.

Quote

My perspective on the Sarri appointment was that he wasn’t being hired to win things. Because he’s never won anything, his appointment appeared to be about bringing in a cultural shift at Chelsea in terms of playing style but also someone who wasn’t going to make many demands from the club in terms of recruitment.

I accept that Chelsea plumped for Sarri over (say) Jardim because of his more possession-oriented playing style, but I think that Chelsea's board still hold out hope that he will win something, given that he almost won the Scudetto against a powerful Juventus side, with a Napoli side that lacked depth and was substantially weaker on paper.   

I also think that people make a little bit too much of the fact that he's never won anything. With Empoli he was very unlikely to win anything substantial and even at Napoli his side wasn't the favourite to win any of the competitions that he was involved in. IMO what is more noteworthy is how he turned a middling Napoli side into title challengers, improving on their points total every season. 

Quote

Objectively Subjectively, I’m of the belief that we could have done with Howe what Napoli did with Sarri.

FTFY.

As mentioned before, Howe's weaknesses resemble those of Brendan Rodgers (weak defensive coaching record/patchy transfer record) and unlike Rodgers he's shown no capacity to modify his approach to suit his side. Rodgers was eventually consumed by the pressure of managing Liverpool, particularly after they made the CL. There's no evidence that Howe can handle that pressure any better than Rodgers.

Sarri's record with transfers is better than Howe's IMO and unlike Howe he has demonstrated that he can deal with the assorted pressures involved with managing a CL side, including the extra games, while mounting a title race against all the odds.

Quote

Sarri hasn’t shown me anything at Chelsea to suggest he knows how to defend. Since the beginning of the season teams have been slicing right through the middle of us getting numerous chances on goal. You say Liverpool exploited Howe’s Bournemouth, I look to Spurs absolutely dominating us for 90 minutes.

A lot of the goals have come from lapses in concentration by Luiz and to a lesser degree Alonso's inherent limitations as a defender, rather than because Sarri's style is inherently defective defensively. In 2017-18 Napoli conceded a mere 29 goals, for example. 

RE Tottenham, they bullied us off the park physically and showed more desire to win. That's partially Sarri's fault but it is also partially down to the squad's lack of physicality. Conte fared no better against Tottenham at Stamford Bridge last season (or at White Hart Lane in 2016-17) despite having a very different style. 

There is an issue with Chelsea switching off 2/3 of the way through a game, but I think that's at most only partially down to Sarri. I think the main issue is that while Azpi is a great guy, he doesn't have the commanding personality and thus ability to ward off complacency among his charges that JT had.  

Quote

Howe wasn’t appointed, Sarri was so I’m not going to dwell on it, was just answering the question put to me of who my choice would have been instead of Sarri.

I’ll support Sarri all the time he’s here but I said before he took over that it had a bit of an AVB type feel to the appointment and as it stands I haven’t changed my mind yet.

AVB had much less managerial experience and was put in charge of an ageing squad that was used to playing direct, counter-attacking football with a deep defensive line and frankly had limited aptitude and interest in playing a high-possession style with a high defensive line. Owing to age/ability the personnel at AVB's disposal also couldn't press enough to really make AVB's approach work. He was also backed in the transfer market even less than Sarri was.

Sarri has a younger squad that is more suitable for high-possession, high-pressing, high-line football. 

Ironically results for AVB really went south when he decided to try for a more defensive, pragmatic approach. He also had issues with man-management that Sarri does not appear to have.

Ultimately, it is certainly possible that Sarri could end his tenure as badly as AVB did, but I suspect that he will do so for different reasons if at all. 

Edited December 24, 20187 yr by DaRick
Further clarification

1 minute ago, DaRick said:

ageing squad that was used to playing direct, counter-attacking football with a deep defensive line and frankly had limited aptitude and interest in playing a high-possession style with a high defensive line.

This is very, very similar to our current squad in many ways. Before Sarri we had Benitez, Mourinho and Conte managing the team.
All of them play the way you described.

 

6 minutes ago, Sindre said:

This is very, very similar to our current squad in many ways. Before Sarri we had Benitez, Mourinho and Conte managing the team.
All of them play the way you described.

 

Yes and no.

Conte and Mourinho both favoured a direct, counter-attacking style but Conte was usually a bit more happy to monopolise possession and so his side was more free-flowing at its best. For example, his side scored around 85 goals in the 2016-17 PL, which even prime Mourinho never came close to matching. Conte also played with a higher line, owing to his 3-man formation.

You could call Conte a bridge between Mourinho and Sarri if you like. 

Oh sarri how many times have you seen kovacic and ampadu and yet neither of them to you could do the defensive job Kante does the way you play him in midfield to give you a back up for him.

Deary me. 

7 hours ago, rtwelch said:

You lot really have no idea how far Sarri is going to take us. If you listen to people who are respected in their field talk about Maurizio, you should have faith. 

I know how far Sarri is going to take us, with his blind faith in playing Kante so out of position, and sticking with Jorginho who at the moment is struggling with imposing himself in the PL, or am i imagining that?

58 minutes ago, Ballack & Blu said:

I know how far Sarri is going to take us, with his blind faith in playing Kante so out of position, and sticking with Jorginho who at the moment is struggling with imposing himself in the PL, or am i imagining that?

Kante has only played 6 PL games in the DM position you so desperately want to see him in, we conceded 9 goals and were ripped apart at will, Arsenal especially were taking full advantage of the gaps Kante was leaving trying to aggressively press higher up with no sitter to cover.

DM would restrict him even more than the current position does, if you want Kante at his very best, then we revert to 442 or 343, stick Drinkwater next to him as the sitter and play on the counter with 30-50% possession. I can't speak for you but i'd rather not!!

Edited December 24, 20187 yr by Argo

15 minutes ago, Argo said:

Kante has only played 6 PL games in the DM position you so desperately want to see him in, we conceded 9 goals and were ripped apart at will, Arsenal especially were taking full advantage of the gaps Kante was leaving trying to aggressively press higher up with no sitter to cover.

DM would restrict him even more than the current position does, if you want Kante at his very best, then we revert to 442 or 343, stick Drinkwater next to him as the sitter and play on the counter with 30-50% possession. I can't speak for you but i'd rather not!!

Kante hasn’t played as DM all season, you’re watching the wrong team.

23 hours ago, atomis said:

Sarii will either live or die by this formation.......he wont change, otherwise he would have done already.

 

And there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. If we are going to flip-flop between formations and style of playing whenever we lose a match than what was the point of bringing in Sarri? Sarri's style has potential, we've seen a lot of great performances this season and at this point, it is more about fixing the kinks and flaws, the players getting used to it, and getting personnel where needed such as a striker. It seems to me that every time we lose people are quick to say that our style and formation isn't good but they ignore the good performances we have had this season.

31 minutes ago, shedpensioner said:

Kante hasn’t played as DM all season, you’re watching the wrong team.

The first 6 games of Conte.

18 minutes ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

And there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. If we are going to flip-flop between formations and style of playing whenever we lose a match than what was the point of bringing in Sarri? Sarri's style has potential, we've seen a lot of great performances this season and at this point, it is more about fixing the kinks and flaws, the players getting used to it, and getting personnel where needed such as a striker. It seems to me that every time we lose people are quick to say that our style and formation isn't good but they ignore the good performances we have had this season.

For me it isn't that our style or formation "isn't good", I just think we need an alternative way of playing either when things aren't going our way or to give us the element of surprise (which doesn't involve just changing Kovacic for RLC/Barkley and carry on playing the same way). False 9 or not it's still 4-3-3, every opponent goes into a match against us having studied the video analysis and trained all week to counter it. Leicester for example knew exactly how we were going to play, to my eyes it was clear how drilled they were.

Edited December 24, 20187 yr by the special one

8 minutes ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

And there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. If we are going to flip-flop between formations and style of playing whenever we lose a match than what was the point of bringing in Sarri? Sarri's style has potential, we've seen a lot of great performances this season and at this point, it is more about fixing the kinks and flaws, the players getting used to it, and getting personnel where needed such as a striker. It seems to me that every time we lose people are quick to say that our style and formation isn't good but they ignore the good performances we have had this season.

No my friend...its not the loses per say, its the manner. The limp performances. And we have had much worse performances than good ones. Practically any team can just walk through our heart time and time again until they score. How we beat city in the second half was awesome, how we suddenly had a hard-on I dont know, only to revert back to limp displays. That means there are huge issues, whether its motivation, hunger or desire......and thats on the manager. He has to find a balance, be stirn and fair........We all know our team is badly balanced, lacking quality in so many positions, but that does not mean you must persist with a system in blind faith.........cuz it will surely get yoy the sack at some point and most of us dont want that for him. Lets get that f**king win vs Watford and see where the hell we are.

3 minutes ago, the special one said:

For me it isn't that our style or formation "isn't good", I just think we need an alternative way of playing either when things aren't going our way or to give us the element of surprise (which doesn't involve just changing Kovacic for RLC/Barkley and carry on playing the same way). False 9 or not it's still 4-3-3, every opponent goes into a match against us having studied the video analysis and trained all week to counter it. Leicester for example knew exactly how we were going to play, to my eyes it was clear how drilled they were.

Most def........we have zero element of surprise. We have one system and one way of playing and hence so easy to play against.

11 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

DaRick used Bournemouth’s loss against Liverpool as an example of Howe not being able to set his teams up to defend.

To be frank Howe has had problems with setting up his defence since entering the PL. The loss against Liverpool was just one of the most egregious recent examples of such.

2015-16: 16th in the league, 67 goals conceded, equal 2nd most goals conceded in the league

2016-17: 9th in the league, 67 goals conceded, 5th most goals conceded in the league

2017-18: 13th in the league, 61 goals conceded, 4th most goals conceded in the league

2018-19: 8th in the league, 28 goals conceded, equal 7th most goals conceded in the league

Comparing with Sarri (and acknowledging that Serie A is a bit more defensive than the PL):

2014-15 Empoli: 15th in the league, 52 goals conceded, 10th most goals conceded in the league

2015-16 Napoli: 2nd in the league, 32 goals conceded (after having conceded 54 the season before under Benitez), 19th most goals conceded in the league

2016-17 Napoli: 3rd in the league, 39 goals conceded, 18th most goals conceded in the league

2017-18 Napoli: 2nd in the league, 29 goals conceded, 18th most goals conceded in the league

The evidence is that 1) with an equivalent mid-table side Sarri is better at organising a defence and 2) Sarri's defence performs according to their side's league position, which Howe's defence never has. 

Basically it seems that Howe relies on consistently outscoring his opponents rather than keeping it tight at the back. Unfortunately, the likes of Brendan Rodgers can attest that this is not a sustainable approach for a top PL side (Liverpool conceded 50 goals in 2013/14 and so tried to consistently outscore opponents 3-1/4-2, which came back to bite them in that game at Anfield). 

11 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

I was countering the point by saying all season teams  have created numerous chances against us and Spurs in particular split us open all game long.

I’d counter that the City performance is the only good performance by us in the last couple of months and if anything that game/result masked a lot of problems we’ve been having.

We have been having problems yes, but I would say that a large part of the issue relates to erratic finishing and defensive lapses by Luiz/Alonso. Our xG for the Wolves/Leicester games was around 2. Put a consistent finisher upfront and we likely get something out of those games. Replace Luiz with a more reliable defender and those lapses are significantly reduced.