12 hours ago, Nibs said:

when he gets anywhere near the opponents box, he's about as useful as John Obi Mikel. 

Oh how we are crying out for Mikel at the moment.

1 hour ago, yorkleyblue said:

Oh how we are crying out for Mikel at the moment.

Mikel is Jorginho but with defensive abilities. So he would be an improvement for all of his critics.

Tell you what how about we bring back Kalou too. His finishing looks good by comparison to these days...

Edited February 19, 20206 yr by Spiller86

Might be an unpopular opinion, but think our current first team midfield are all dispensable in the summer. Kovacic, Jorginho and Kante are becoming less and less useful. Kante may retain his spot just because he's Kante. 

30 minutes ago, enigma said:

Might be an unpopular opinion, but think our current first team midfield are all dispensable in the summer. Kovacic, Jorginho and Kante are becoming less and less useful. Kante may retain his spot just because he's Kante. 

Unpopular opinion, but I think if we sell Kante to a PSG/Madrid for 100m+, that would be beneficial for us.

We can bring in a proper DM like Brozovic who can play behind Kova and Jorg and let them go more forward and I think they will thrive.

Kante should have never been used as a mid to go forward, i much preferred him as a defensive mid helping out the defence. If Kante is to be put back into a DM role, then I would absolutely keep him, but i cant see that happening.

Edited February 19, 20206 yr by driller97

8 hours ago, driller97 said:

Unpopular opinion, but I think if we sell Kante to a PSG/Madrid for 100m+, that would be beneficial for us.

We can bring in a proper DM like Brozovic who can play behind Kova and Jorg and let them go more forward and I think they will thrive.

Kante should have never been used as a mid to go forward, i much preferred him as a defensive mid helping out the defence. If Kante is to be put back into a DM role, then I would absolutely keep him, but i cant see that happening.

Did you just suggest Brozovic to replace Kante? You're taking the piss right?

1 minute ago, Spiller86 said:

Did you just suggest Brozovic to replace Kante? You're taking the piss right?

No I didnt. Read the bottom of my post. I said if we are going to carry on playing Kante in a more advanced role, I would rather sell him and get the money for it as that position isnt really suited to him. Jorginho and Kovacic are better at going forward than Kante, so in order to let them be free we would need to make an actual DM signing, someone like a Brozovic.

IF Lampard decides to put Kante where he belongs in the DM role, then nothing needs to be changed as Kante is probably the best in the world in that position, but for some reason hes being played out of position.

17 minutes ago, driller97 said:

No I didnt. Read the bottom of my post. I said if we are going to carry on playing Kante in a more advanced role, I would rather sell him and get the money for it as that position isnt really suited to him. Jorginho and Kovacic are better at going forward than Kante, so in order to let them be free we would need to make an actual DM signing, someone like a Brozovic.

IF Lampard decides to put Kante where he belongs in the DM role, then nothing needs to be changed as Kante is probably the best in the world in that position, but for some reason hes being played out of position.

My mistake I misread you. Agree now I read again.

Sorry... 

Edited February 19, 20206 yr by Spiller86

2 minutes ago, Spiller86 said:

My mistake I misread you. Agree now I read again.

Sorry... 

Apparently Kante is now out till the arse end of march.

2 minutes ago, Spiller86 said:

My mistake I misread you. Agree now I read again.

Sorry... 

No prob, it just confusing me why Kante, who is one of the best players in his position, isn't being played in his position... Sarri started that trend, and Lampard is carrying it on.

Kante as DM is the reason we won our 2 most recent titles, stupid to play him anywhere else

No prob, it just confusing me why Kante, who is one of the best players in his position, isn't being played in his position... Sarri started that trend, and Lampard is carrying it on.
Kante as DM is the reason we won our 2 most recent titles, stupid to play him anywhere else

Amen to that.

Sarri got heavily criticised for it with most assuming he was playing favourites with Jorginho.

I fully expected Lampard to right that wrong but he hasn't and, to date, has escaped the same criticism Sarri got because..well because he is Frank. But bottom line is its exactly the same mistake Sarri made being repeated.

11 minutes ago, loz said:

Amen to that.

Sarri got heavily criticised for it with most assuming he was playing favourites with Jorginho.

I fully expected Lampard to right that wrong but he hasn't and, to date, has escaped the same criticism Sarri got because..well because he is Frank. But bottom line is its exactly the same mistake Sarri made being repeated.

100%. If this is any other manager outside of Frank or another Chelsea legend, they would be getting a whole lot of stick but because its Lamps hes been given an easy ride!

21 hours ago, enigma said:

Might be an unpopular opinion, but think our current first team midfield are all dispensable in the summer. Kovacic, Jorginho and Kante are becoming less and less useful. Kante may retain his spot just because he's Kante. 

And that right there is the problem, Kante is playing the worst out of the three but all people keep saying is "because he's Kante" he's being supported on reputation. He's 29 next month with a season full of injuries and a game that heavily relies around pace, he's not going to be Kante for much longer, that's the harsh reality. 

12 hours ago, loz said:

Amen to that.

Sarri got heavily criticised for it with most assuming he was playing favourites with Jorginho.

I fully expected Lampard to right that wrong but he hasn't and, to date, has escaped the same criticism Sarri got because..well because he is Frank. But bottom line is its exactly the same mistake Sarri made being repeated.

I criticised Sarri heavily, but in fairness Kante was still playing well last season, we just didn't have his solid defensive contributions like we had under Conte's Kante that we desperately missed, particularly when Jorginho was getting left for dead around December-January period. His role this season I can't even make out, it's like he's lost his purpose, in the big games he has been very useful, besides that though he hasn't, he's playing as a 2nd striker and every now and then makes recovery runs. It seems like he doesn't really know what his position is, last season under Sarri there was an actual balance of his offensive/defensive contribution, I wasn't a huge fan of it myself but it was a 100% better than it was under this current Lampard’s Kante for sure. 

However, injuries could be a factor to this, I mean this is like his 5th injury now this season, right? That's not healthy for any player. 

45 minutes ago, Slojo said:

And that right there is the problem, Kante is playing the worst out of the three but all people keep saying is "because he's Kante" he's being supported on reputation. He's 29 next month with a season full of injuries and a game that heavily relies around pace, he's not going to be Kante for much longer, that's the harsh reality. 

Honestly, I would not be mad at selling Kante and bringing in maybe Ndidi if possible and for a reasonable fee. With any remaining money, use it towards buying top quality or a game changing player, like Sancho. If we can bring the cost down, I wouldn't be opposed to Sancho. I just worry the fee is too big for the risk. We need to strengthen our defence, that is for certain.

Loftus-Cheek, Mount, Gilmour, Barkley, Kovacic, Kante, Jorginho. We could also use Ziyech in the no.10 role, so we can offload a key midfielder or two, then bring in another quality midfielder for cheaper, and strengthen the rest of the side. Seeing as we need to sell to buy, it makes more sense. 

15 hours ago, loz said:

Amen to that.

Sarri got heavily criticised for it with most assuming he was playing favourites with Jorginho.

I fully expected Lampard to right that wrong but he hasn't and, to date, has escaped the same criticism Sarri got because..well because he is Frank. But bottom line is its exactly the same mistake Sarri made being repeated.

To be fair Sarri got criticism for everything, even his smoking habit was said to be a sign of his weakness.

2 hours ago, enigma said:

Honestly, I would not be mad at selling Kante and bringing in maybe Ndidi if possible and for a reasonable fee. With any remaining money, use it towards buying top quality or a game changing player, like Sancho. If we can bring the cost down, I wouldn't be opposed to Sancho. I just worry the fee is too big for the risk. We need to strengthen our defence, that is for certain.

Loftus-Cheek, Mount, Gilmour, Barkley, Kovacic, Kante, Jorginho. We could also use Ziyech in the no.10 role, so we can offload a key midfielder or two, then bring in another quality midfielder for cheaper, and strengthen the rest of the side. Seeing as we need to sell to buy, it makes more sense. 

Barkley definitely needs to be sold, Mount isn't good enough for now, Gilmour is too young and not sure if he's ready yet. RLC is coming back from injury, but I'm not sure if he'll hit the same heights he did before injury.

This is probably one of the last years we'll be able to sell Kante and still get a high fee.

Agreed, as all our other midfielders are varying degrees of inadequate, we should sell the only one who is actually any good.

2 hours ago, coco said:

To be fair Sarri got criticism for everything

He wore a tracksuit, how dare he.

Sarri improved Kante's ball skills, what should have happened imo is that Kante should be played as a box to box midfielder focused on harrying players and collecting loose balls with the added value of venturing forward occasionally. This improves his effectiveness even further but what happened was Kante was used like a pseudo-Pogba which he is not and never will be.

7 hours ago, Amputechture said:

He wore a tracksuit, how dare he.

He had an Italian accent, what a prick. 

11 hours ago, Munkworth said:

He had an Italian accent, what a prick. 

At least Conte had nice hair. I can only imagine what showing up to work in pajamas and a cigarette butt in your mouth does to a player's confidence.. Fans moaning that he didn't jump around like a madman every time we scored may not have realized that he was physically incapable of doing so.

12 minutes ago, Amputechture said:

At least Conte had nice hair. I can only imagine what showing up to work in pajamas and a cigarette butt in your mouth does to a player's confidence.. Fans moaning that he didn't jump around like a madman every time we scored may not have realized that he was physically incapable of doing so.

Conte had a weave.

2 hours ago, Andy North said:

Conte had a weave.

Made of arse hair. 

1 minute ago, Munkworth said:

Made of arse hair. 

Surely arse hair wouldn't grow that long...

1 minute ago, Spiller86 said:

Surely arse hair wouldn't grow that long...

I can position a mirror and take a picture if you want