Or so day the sky sports experts: https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11668/11668881/graeme-souness-says-chelseas-trophy-winning-days-look-to-be-over-after-everton-loss

 

We are doomed, doooooommmmmeeed.

Some get that private Frazier gif posted!

Hard to argue with him really. We've got an aging squad of past their best or 'number maker upper's' type players plus a more than likely soon to depart Hazard. The club is run chaotically by non football people and our rich owner is nowhere to be seen. Our current manager is seemingly trying to implement a style of football that is quite possibly unsuited to this country. And with a transfer ban looming, its very difficult to see a way out of this. Of course we may win some trophies again - Leicester and Wigan have won things recently but, I think the days of us being favourites or expected to win a couple of pots every year or two do look very much to be slipping away.

We're bang average and beating a Ukrainian pub team doesn't change that.

This is about the 10th time our decline has been predicted since 2010.

This is the 1st time we've looked like a basket case since about 1982.

It's the umpteenth time we believe this bad time is worse than the other bad times 

We have no god given right to regularly win anything or to have an amazing squad. Be happy life or fate made us Blues, and not anything else.

We are currently still FA Cup holders and in the quarter finals of the Europa League.

While I think our days of challenging for the title are gone with no bounce back in sight I dont think anyone can say our trophy winning days are over yet.

I remember when we were gonna be relegated under Mourinho.

Graeme Sourness

As much as I think our bad seasons are extremely exaggerated in the media. I think it could be the beginning of the end of our dominance in winning trophies, of late it’s became the norm we hoist something at the end of each season, it’s usually an anomaly when we don’t! We might challenge for cup competitions now but I don’t think we’ll be scrapping for titles every season, which I’m ok with - provided we at least start to integrate our youth, less pressure on managers will hopefully mean that after all these years we finally get to see our youngsters make it, this will more than comfort me personally that we’re no longer battling out for the title. Maybe in 3/4 years time with our talented young guys fully developed we’ll be able to mount a challenge again and it won’t have cost £750m to do it. 

 

Lets not forget we’re still in the EL and are favourites to at least make the final with the draw, we might end up with a trophy at the end of the season after all.

 

In the worst case scenario at least there will be less chance of me being sacked on Football Manager or FIFA because the expectation won’t be win every tournament every year  

 

In all seriousness, we have been extremely lucky over the last decade with how successful we’ve been, I’ll forever be greatful to Roman & the club for that, no matter how much of a basket case we can be at times. If our time is over at the top then that’s fair enough, a lot of clubs don’t get what we have had for the last 10 years. Personally, I still think the club hasn’t enough fight and enough about them that we’re not going to fade away to a bottom half team anytime soon. It’s not over yet 

 

KTBFFH

The club needs a long term plan, rather than this slapdash approach that we have had ever since the Abramovich era started.

With that in mind; I think the transfer ban *could* be a blessing in disguise. Whoever the manager is next season (Frank Lampard for arguments sake) will have absolutely 0 expectation to compete for or win anything. 

It would give us the chance to sell all the players who aren't quite good enough anymore, and integrate the youth prospects (Mount, CHO, James). This means that i think the club, both the board and the fans need to accept 2 years or so of finishing 6th-10th, if we win any cup in this period, take that as a bonus and then from the third season is when we should expect to kick on and challenge for the top titles.

Sarri isn't the right man for Chelsea, but the problems do run higher than him. Far too often we have sacrificed long term prospects for short term gain. We would be in a much better position now, if we had not sold KDB or Salah in Mourinho's second run. 

So if the club are forced to look at what we already have and realise that the younger players are good enough, rather than spending £35m on another Danny Drinkwater or £20m on Zappacosta then once the ban is over, that money could be used to actually strengthen the squad rather than spending big on back up players.

I think fans would accept this if we could see there was a long term plan, and were working towards long term sustainability. Right now though under the current manager, and the way the club is currently run; it doesn't seem as though there is reason to be optimistic for the future.

However, how likely this is to actually happen is anyone's guess. 

Edited March 18, 20197 yr by drjonesy1994
forgot to add something

4 minutes ago, drjonesy1994 said:

double post

 

Edited March 18, 20197 yr by drjonesy1994
double post

Assuming we don't win the Europa League, this will actually be our SIXTH season without Silverware in the Roman era ... no need to panic just yet eh !

The other seasons :

2003/04 Ranieri

2007/08 Mourinho/Grant

2010/11 Ancelotti

2013/14 Mourinho

2015/16 Mourinho/Hiddink

Edited March 18, 20197 yr by Sexyfootball

11 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Assuming we don't win the Europa League, this will actually be our SIXTH season without Silverware in the Roman era ... no need to panic just yet eh !

But the first time we'll likely end up outside top 4 for the second time in a row. Which next year may very well turn into three years in a row considering the circumstances we face this summer.
Establishing ourselves as a non-CL club would be something quite different than a season without silverware here and there.

2 minutes ago, Sindre said:

But the first time we'll likely end up outside top 4 for the second time in a row. Which next year may very well turn into three years in a row considering the circumstances we face this summer.
Establishing ourselves as a non-CL club would be something quite different than a season without silverware here and there.

I guess we'll have to wait and see ... we could still get 3rd as it stands ....

20 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Assuming we don't win the Europa League, this will actually be our SIXTH season without Silverware in the Roman era ... no need to panic just yet eh !

The other seasons :

2003/04 Ranieri

2007/08 Mourinho/Grant

2010/11 Ancelotti

2013/14 Mourinho

2015/16 Mourinho/Hiddink

In some of those seasons we probably finished close runners up or made a Champions League semi or final and weren't boring as hell to watch passing ourselves to sleep either.

This isn't really about trophies as such though. Apart from so far maintaining a run against some Vauxhall Conference standard teams in the UEFA Cup, it's clear from our domestic football that we've allowed this squad to deteriorate to outside the top four quality. Its not even like a couple of the other seasons listed above where the very good players simply downed tools because they didn't like the manager. Most of those seasons above also featured strong players who were part of our famous spine. This year we've got the strength of a blancmange. I don't know of a football style that successfully utilises a bunch lazy, half arsed narcissistic fairies.

Bad management is the bottom line here. Who thought that a worthy successor to Ashley Cole would be Alonso or to Lampard would be Barkley or to Ballach would be Drinkwater or to Drogba would be Morata or Batshuai or Higuain. Chech or Kepa? Robben or Pedro? Luiz or Desailly? Rudiger or Terry?

I know we are in a sh1t spot right now, but it's not like it's over, over forever like f* Souness suggested. The transfer ban may just be what we needed, a proper chance to evaluate current players, instead of sending 30+ on loan. Get rid of the bad eggs, promote the upcoming players, and some proper planning for 2020 even the transfer ban is not overturned. liverpool and Spurs haven't won s* for almost a decade, you don't hear people saying their days are over.

Interesting!

 

 

Whether our trophy winnings days are over is down to one man really. Roman Abramovich. 

He hasn't got a Visa, but should that really stop him making decisions with the club? 

If Roman is happy with us being a top 6 side, then that's where we will stay, if he wants us to compete for titles and be amongst Europe's big boys, then he will get his hand in his pocket, and bring in players and staff to achieve that, like he did 15 years ago.

He's spent alot of money, even recently, and we are still paying high end wages, so I'm hopeful he is as pissed off as the rest of us, and he does something about it.

I guess we will find out where Roman sees us going in the next 18 months. 

I think Souness was stating the obvious based on the fact that we face a 2-window ban on transfers.  He was talking about the short term (next season or 2) and it is hard to disagree with that assuming we will be losing a few players and unable to sign new ones. Yes we have some very talented youth players, but even if we have a manager that is prepared to play them I wouldn't expect that to suddenly make us title contenders.

16 hours ago, Snedger said:

This is the 1st time we've looked like a basket case since about 1982.

2015/16 Mourinho was 100x worse than this season.

We could be in a fix due to our owner.

Persona non-grata and just possibly in the current geopolitical climate they might look to take his funds if he tries to sell the club. I can understand why the club is in limbo.

That could be the real issue not willing to invest so we would need to rely solely on players sales and revenue and with players like Drinkwater, Higuaín and Zappacosta that we might be inclined too offload we are unlikely to recoup much.

 

I think that if the board invests in the youth and build a new generation around our best young players, it won't matter if we don't win much in the next 2 years.

What I really don't want is to see the board continue with mediocre signings that are supposed to make us a better team while in reality we continue to be bang average.

This team right now is lacking a lot and our manager is not even trying to see who are his players he just wants the team to play like a Serie A Napoli but in Premier league, so we might not win anything this year and next year and the year after that but if the club has a good vision and embraces our most talented players Chelsea can become a top team in Europe in 4 years.

14 hours ago, drjonesy1994 said:

The club needs a long term plan, rather than this slapdash approach that we have had ever since the Abramovich era started.

With that in mind; I think the transfer ban *could* be a blessing in disguise. Whoever the manager is next season (Frank Lampard for arguments sake) will have absolutely 0 expectation to compete for or win anything. 

It would give us the chance to sell all the players who aren't quite good enough anymore, and integrate the youth prospects (Mount, CHO, James). This means that i think the club, both the board and the fans need to accept 2 years or so of finishing 6th-10th, if we win any cup in this period, take that as a bonus and then from the third season is when we should expect to kick on and challenge for the top titles.

Sarri isn't the right man for Chelsea, but the problems do run higher than him. Far too often we have sacrificed long term prospects for short term gain. We would be in a much better position now, if we had not sold KDB or Salah in Mourinho's second run. 

So if the club are forced to look at what we already have and realise that the younger players are good enough, rather than spending £35m on another Danny Drinkwater or £20m on Zappacosta then once the ban is over, that money could be used to actually strengthen the squad rather than spending big on back up players.

I think fans would accept this if we could see there was a long term plan, and were working towards long term sustainability. Right now though under the current manager, and the way the club is currently run; it doesn't seem as though there is reason to be optimistic for the future.

However, how likely this is to actually happen is anyone's guess. 

“Club needs a long term plan”.......”sack Sarri” hahaha you guys are so blind. Definition of insanity. 

Before Sarri it was Emenalo and Oscar as the boogy men. Nothing you wrote will fix anything. 

Edited March 18, 20197 yr by cuppaT

9 hours ago, cuppaT said:

“Club needs a long term plan”.......”sack Sarri” hahaha you guys are so blind. Definition of insanity. 

Before Sarri it was Emenalo and Oscar as the boogy men. Nothing you wrote will fix anything. 

Yes the club does need a long term plan. IMO Sarri hasn't shown anything to suggest he is capable of delivering a long term project. If he was to have the job long term, he at least needs to be showing potential in the short term for the fans and more importantly the board to have patience with him. And at present, the results and performances haven't been good enough for a few months now and it gives me absolutely no optimism that things will get any better under Sarri.  

On 17/03/2019 at 20:57, Snedger said:

Hard to argue with him really. We've got an aging squad of past their best or 'number maker upper's' type players plus a more than likely soon to depart Hazard. The club is run chaotically by non football people and our rich owner is nowhere to be seen. Our current manager is seemingly trying to implement a style of football that is quite possibly unsuited to this country. And with a transfer ban looming, its very difficult to see a way out of this. Of course we may win some trophies again - Leicester and Wigan have won things recently but, I think the days of us being favourites or expected to win a couple of pots every year or two do look very much to be slipping away.

We're bang average and beating a Ukrainian pub team doesn't change that.

They would either be a Ukrainian team or a pub team. But kiev are not a Ukrainian pub team. 

We've got a route to the final in the europa. That's the focus.