Sarri - In or Out?

[bisright1]

1 minute ago, Boston Blue said:

Owner, board, manager, players.  All of them to blame for recent actions and inactions and performances.

But I think we all agree that our collective squad of players is better than our recent performances and league position. 

Where would we be if someone else other than Sarri had been appointed?  What if a different manager kept Kante in the?? defensive midfield role?  What if we had appointed someone more flexible tactically that was able to help us be more solid and close out matches.  I think Sarri has cost us more points this season than he's earned us.

Who knows. We could be where United are without the OGS bounce. We might have lost more than 1 home game in the league all season. We might have conceded more goals at home. We probably wouldn't have capitulated against City + Bournemouth. But then we probably wouldnt have got to the league cup final or beaten City at home. Our players - who have all got old and tired - could have been quite indifferent to a manager coming in and just doing the same as Conte but this time, with 4 at the back. Hazard might not have had his best performing season as Chelsea player. CHO could have been loaned out to a championship side. 

We simply don't know. Personally I think with this load of players, 3rd is absolutely the limit of their performance. I don't think we are better than this. So I don't agree that our squad of players is better than a top 6 finish and a semi final / final / winners of the europa league. I do think we've been the 4th best team in England over the past 2 months. Arsenal and United haven't looked as good as we have recently. 

[Remodez]

24 minutes ago, Boston Blue said:

Owner, board, manager, players.  All of them to blame for recent actions and inactions and performances.

But I think we all agree that our collective squad of players is better than our recent performances and league position. 

Where would we be if someone else other than Sarri had been appointed?  What if a different manager kept Kante in the defensive midfield role?  What if we had appointed someone more flexible tactically that was able to help us be more solid and close out matches.  I think Sarri has cost us more points this season than he's earned us.

I don't agree at all, no.

Without Hazard we don't have a forward line up. Our midfield is shockingly bad, I would say the worse in the top 6 although United are giving us a run for our money. Defence is the probably the worst it has been in quite some time. 

4th is exactly where we should be all things considered. Perhaps under a more flexible manager we would be able to take 3rd from Spurs but even that's a bit of a reach. 

[Stim]

37 minutes ago, Boston Blue said:

What if a different manager kept Kante in the defensive midfield role?

Last manager to play Kante at DM was Conte where after a 3-0 loss to Arsenal he changed to his favoured formation and Kante never played DM again. Before that, he was never played at DM either. So probably worse off.

Perplexing how it's still talked about. In midfields sitting beside Drinkwater, Matic, Fabregas it's Kante who was apparently the deep lying defensive player and not the one doing the running around the midfield, the thing Kante is famous for.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Stim

[Desailly123]

Napoli fans protesting for the return of Maurizio Sarri as they wish to sack Carlo Ancelotti.

 

It's almost like they know how good Sarri is if he's given time and trust. But our fans will beg for Ancelotti and then when we're in the same position next season wonder what the problem is.

So sick of this, why can't we actually give managers chances? City kept Pellegrini and Pep, Liverpool kept Klopp, Spurs kept Pochettino. None of them would have lasted at Chelsea. Rome wasn't built in a day, and whether people like it or not, our team isn't good and so cannot compete for titles at the minute. 

In fact of the 4 key aspects of the club; players, manager, board and owner. I actually think Sarri is the one with the least issues. But yet our fans will expect Sarri to turn Kovacic into a 10 goal a season midfielder, Willian and Pedro into good wingers and Alonso into prime Cole.

Are Sarri's lineups poor? Yes. But it seems in recent years we as fans don't understand that managers have bad spells. When Pep lost 4-0 to Everton in his first season, we'd have campaigned for him to get the sack and brought in someone like Simeone. 

[bluedave]

3 hours ago, wallosh said:

3 hours ago, Stim said:

You have no idea how incredibly bad that United team will perform if they have Sarri as there manager! Let's see if we can get the better of them this weekend.

Neither do you. Let’s try not to confuse opinion with actual knowledge.

[robdog]

31 minutes ago, Desailly123 said:

Napoli fans protesting for the return of Maurizio Sarri as they wish to sack Carlo Ancelotti.

It's almost like they know how good Sarri is if he's given time and trust. But our fans will beg for Ancelotti and then when we're in the same position next season wonder what the problem is.

I wanted add this to your post

 

[dansubrosa]

As ridiculous as this may sound, I’d rather keep Sarri than Ancelotti. I seriously doubt Ancelotti is anywhere near as good as he was in his Milan, Chelsea days.

We’ve seen what happened to Mourinho, I think the game has moved on from Ancelotti too. I don’t think Guardiola will be at the top for much longer either, maybe a few more years.

Alex Ferguson was one of a kind. Amazing how he has kept up with the game.

[robdog]

9 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

As ridiculous as this may sound, I’d rather keep Sarri than Ancelotti. I seriously doubt Ancelotti is anywhere near as good as he was in his Milan, Chelsea days.

Also Chelsea had a very strong team when Don Carlo was in charge. Bison Essien & Ballack. Malouda was still funky fresh. Deco. Alex & Ricci paired with JT. Anelka paired with Drogba was awesome, but we didn't see that much. Much stronger side than what we have now.

Edited April 23, 2019 by robdog

[Boston Blue]

2 hours ago, Remodez said:

I don't agree at all, no.

Without Hazard we don't have a forward line up. Our midfield is shockingly bad, I would say the worse in the top 6 although United are giving us a run for our money. Defence is the probably the worst it has been in quite some time. 

4th is exactly where we should be all things considered. Perhaps under a more flexible manager we would be able to take 3rd from Spurs but even that's a bit of a reach. 

But our collective squad IS better than recent performances suggest......our current squad, despite it's problems, should be good enough to beat Burnley.  Good enough to beat Everton.  Good enough to beat Wolves (at least once).  Good enough to beat Bournemouth.  Good enough to beat Southampton.  Good enough to beat Leicester (pre Rodgers), 

[Valerie]

23 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

If I invest a lot of money into my home. Spending money on the garden, replacing windows, decorating etc. I should expect my home to improve especially in comparison to my neighbour who isn’t investing money into home improvements.

Otherwise why bother investing in my home in the first place? 

However, if I stop investing in my home and neglect maintaining it but expect it to be in better condition than my neighbours (who are now investing in their own homes) then that would make me entitled.

In other words it’s apples and oranges comparing my opinion on where our club should be to Liverpool fans speaking about history. We’ve won the title a couple of years ago, we’ve continued to invest in the squad but despite this we’ve gone backwards and it’s not “just because” it’s because we’ve not managed ourselves properly both on and off the pitch.

If clubs are spending less than us but are better positioned than we are shouldn’t we be asking the question why? Rather than just accepting it as one of those things.

So you agree with me that all the money isn't an argument to be used when claiming we "should" be above teams who spent considerably less than us, whilst pointing at past successes. That's what I've been saying all along, and it amounts to entitlement. Whatever the reason for going backwards, and other clubs getting better: it happens. I accept that, yes, because I'm a realist. That is not the same as passively waiting till the wheel turns again in our favour.

[Ray_Cfc]

38 minutes ago, robdog said:

Also Chelsea had a very strong team when Don Carlo was in charge. Bison Essien & Ballack. Malouda was still funky fresh. Deco. Alex & Ricci paired with JT. Anelka paired with Drogba was awesome, but we didn't see that much. Much stronger side than what we have now.

Always thought he was kinda s**t for us back then.Decent with Porto and Barcelona though.

[Desailly123]

1 hour ago, robdog said:

I wanted add this to your post

 

Ancelotti is finished, not hard to see that. Napoli fans know it and Chelsea fans who rather than wanting to hire him on nothing more than sentiment and how he performed in the past at the club (we were horrendous in his second season by the way, with a vastly superior squad to what we have now). 

Napoli fans have experienced both in quick succession and they all know that Sarri's a superior manager. Ancelotti was awful last season at Bayern, and has been awful this season at Napoli. 

The fact is Ancelotti has been finished since he won the Champions League with Real, and we managed to reach a Champions League final with Avram Grant as manager. Avram Grant. We'd be horrendous under Ancelotti and I ask anyone why we wouldn't be with the squad we have now. 

[strider6004]

16 minutes ago, Desailly123 said:

Ancelotti is finished, not hard to see that. Napoli fans know it and Chelsea fans who rather than wanting to hire him on nothing more than sentiment and how he performed in the past at the club (we were horrendous in his second season by the way, with a vastly superior squad to what we have now). 

Napoli fans have experienced both in quick succession and they all know that Sarri's a superior manager. Ancelotti was awful last season at Bayern, and has been awful this season at Napoli. 

The fact is Ancelotti has been finished since he won the Champions League with Real, and we managed to reach a Champions League final with Avram Grant as manager. Avram Grant. We'd be horrendous under Ancelotti and I ask anyone why we wouldn't be with the squad we have now. 

Not disputing what you say yet they look comfortable in 2nd place, realise they have recently had some mixed results.

[bisright1]

45 minutes ago, Boston Blue said:

But our collective squad IS better than recent performances suggest......our current squad, despite it's problems, should be good enough to beat Burnley.  Good enough to beat Everton.  Good enough to beat Wolves (at least once).  Good enough to beat Bournemouth.  Good enough to beat Southampton.  Good enough to beat Leicester (pre Rodgers), 

That's not how football works and it's been ages since we played Bournemouth. 

Also wolves and Everton are pretty good teams! 

[robdog]

21 minutes ago, Desailly123 said:

Napoli fans have experienced both in quick succession and they all know that Sarri's a superior manager. Ancelotti was awful last season at Bayern, and has been awful this season at Napoli. 

 

4 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

Not disputing what you say yet they look comfortable in 2nd place, realise they have recently had some mixed results.

checkout this video with the comparison of Napoli under both Sarri & Ancelotti - just remember this video was done back in January

 

[Desailly123]

Chelsea 2-2 Burnley review:

Sarri put out the defence most wanted, but overall the lineup had cons. It meant we were defensively weaker, we wouldn't win 50/50s, our positional awareness would be poor and a lack of strength. And this was all evident.

The first goal we conceded: Azpi's defensive header could've been better but in the circumstances, it's the best he could've done. And Hendrick's never going to score another goal like that again, it was an incredible shot. It would have been great to see players throwing themselves into the shots, but that comes down to the personality mentality of the players. And we need to accept that we don't have Ballacks or Essiens or Lampards anymore, we don't have that profile of player that does that on their own accord. You can't fine-tune and coach every single aspect of a game and its details into players. This is why players performing at the best they can range in ability, it's down to the individual player and how they've developed their abilities over time.

Our weakness is set pieces, a huge reason why I wanted Emerson to play was because I wanted us to reduce the number of times we gave away corners and free kicks, but naturally, during football, it's impossible to never concede a foul. But the reality we need to accept is we don't have the players to help us defend set pieces. The reason we have to use a zonal system is that man-to-man, we're not a physical enough team to be able to cope with some of the physical presences you'll face in the Premier League. So by using a zonal system you're hoping that when the ball's in certain areas, you'll have enough players to out-man the opposition player. Azpi for instance, he's decent when it comes to defending at the back post, but he's not very physically strong, and it's natural that, if he's going to face a strong opponent he's not necessarily going to win every single battle. Even under Conte, we saw that he struggled at times defending aerially because he's not the tallest. So when we get mad at players for things like that, we have to accept the realities of their limitations. 

The only thing you can do to prevent those goals is to prevent the fouls in the first place, but the areas that the ball was getting played in weren't too dangerous and weren't too close to goal, so you'd hope we'd do much better when it came to that. But, credit to Burnley, they played to their strengths, their physicality, and I thought them playing 2 up front was genius. Dyche basically told his players "go man-to-man versus Luiz and Christensen, I want you to battle them because I know most times you're the stronger player and you're going to win the battle, and then you'll win the ball, and thus help us start attacks and we'll be able to play through them."

Christensen did struggle yesterday, I thought he tried and was valiant with his effort, a lot of times he was throwing himself into tackles, and it was unusual how many fouls he gave away because a key feature of his play is he doesn't give them away. It really emphasised his struggles this season, probably mostly coming down to the fact he hasn't played consistently enough. He needs a run of games where he can get that match confidence back. But he was one of the reasons we conceded. 

If I was Sarri, I'd try to be smart on how I use the defence, and the game highlighted one thing, using the right players in the right context. Christensen's better when it comes to playing against counter-attacking teams that rely on playing out to the wide areas, runs in behind and down the flanks because you see his positional play, his 1v1 defending ability, his recovery pace etc, and in games like that we see Rudiger struggle because his positional defending isn't as disciplined and neither is his 1v1 defending ability. But in games like this where it's physical, where opposition strikers are going to get in your face and will go for every single 50-50 and even kick you if they have to to try and get the ball. This is where Rudiger's great because he rises to that type of challenge, but we couldn't have done anything about this because he was injured. But if he was playing he would've definitely made a massive boost to the team, would've been much better-defending set pieces.

There's not much point getting mad about the game because we need to understand that the lineup had major weaknesses, defensively we were going to be poor and set pieces are a major weakness. When people used to clown Sarri for why he chose Alonso, that's because Alonso helps us in these areas. Set pieces are huge in the Premier League, if you're a strong enough team they can be a massive source of goals for you and you're going to get that advantage if you're stronger than your opponent. 

Still, there were positives yesterday. Some of our football was exceptional, the rotational play on the left-hand side was great and the beauty of seeing Hazard take up these central positions and he's able to do that when he has Emerson and Ruben to play alongside him. Burnley was getting stressed trying to deal with him and he's a massive source of goals playing in this type of role. Some of the wide play was great too, the way we scored our goals was exceptional. Kante's run was great and it showed how he's progressed and he's only going to be better next season and that's exciting to see. Higuain took his goal fantastically well, and for me, this is why I always like him because he's the only striker since Costa that would score a goal like that.  But a reality we have to accept is that he came during the halfway point of the season to a new league where he's getting used to his teammates and understanding their plays, it's going to take time. And it's quite obvious why his goals have been individualistic because the team and Higuain aren't fully understanding of each other. It does mean that I think Giroud should've come on way earlier, because with Higuain, as he's a poacher, he's not going to be involved in the play and that'll obviously affect your buildup at times because you're almost a man short, and when Giroud plays he does drop deep and allows people to make runs in behind him. Higuain did do well, but I think if Giroud would've come on in maybe the 60th minute, we could've won. We would've seen more movement in behind by players like Hazard and Ruben. I don't think Hazard would've had to take so many wide positions in the second half.

Hudson-Odoi's injury is awful, and it was obvious the difference between him and Pedro. We were much more fluid when he was playing and was finding space between the lines and Azpi's interplay was much more effective when Hudson-Odoi plays you see Azpi making runs inside the opposition box, but when he's not you don't see that and that was a massive loss. Kante's injury was sh*t too, he's been carrying this midfield on his back for too long. 

I thought Kovacic did well when he came on too, he kept the intensity and this is why I like him because I like his versatility. If you think about the squad over the course of the season players like Kovacic are very valuable and useful. 

[wallosh]

you are entitled to your opinion, sir, though not sure how one backs that view up. i would also caution that i once thought Vialli was destined to become a great manager [emoji846]

Slolskjaer can adapt his tactics based on the team he wants to play, but Sarri doesn't make any adjustment to tactics. If he is been put under too much pressure by fans, he can twist his lineup at times, but the tactics is always the same. Between Sarri and Solksjaer, I know who I can put my money on to have a more successful career as a manager.

[wallosh]

Am very serious!

[Argo]

6 hours ago, wallosh said:

On 22/04/2019 at 15:36, Argo said:

We can forget the dream of the youngsters coming in if we got Allegri. Odoi may be okay because of the games he's got already but James, Ampadu, Mount? Forget it. Sarri is playing Odoi and Loftus more than Mourinho, Conte would have done and more than any pragmatic win now manager will.

Do you think Sarri is playing Odoi and RLC because he thinks they deserve to be in our starting lineup? I like to know your opinion.

I would say more because both have vastly improved their discipline when not in possession. 

[wallosh]

Last manager to play Kante at DM was Conte where after a 3-0 loss to Arsenal he changed to his favoured formation and Kante never played DM again. Before that, he was never played at DM either. So probably worse off.
Perplexing how it's still talked about. In midfields sitting beside Drinkwater, Matic, Fabregas it's Kante who was apparently the deep lying defensive player and not the one doing the running around the midfield, the thing Kante is famous for.

You know neither Matuidi nor Pogba played the defensive midfield position for France at the world cup. But someone played that position.

[Boston Blue]

51 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

That's not how football works and it's been ages since we played Bournemouth. 

Also wolves and Everton are pretty good teams! 

And it was ages since we beat Burnley, yet we couldn't beat them yesterday.  At Stamford Bridge...…..

Wolves and Everton may very well be good teams.  But they are considered the "best of the rest", allegedly a level below Top Four contenders where we are supposed to be.  

[bisright1]

Just now, Boston Blue said:

And it was ages since we beat Burnley, yet we couldn't beat them yesterday.  At Stamford Bridge...…..

Wolves and Everton may very well be good teams.  But they are considered the "best of the rest", allegedly a level below Top Four contenders where we are supposed to be.  

You know that the team that is 5th best doesn't mean they beat every team between 6th and 20th...

We will always lose games if we aren't winning the league. 

[bisright1]

2 minutes ago, wallosh said:

3 hours ago, Stim said:

Last manager to play Kante at DM was Conte where after a 3-0 loss to Arsenal he changed to his favoured formation and Kante never played DM again. Before that, he was never played at DM either. So probably worse off.
Perplexing how it's still talked about. In midfields sitting beside Drinkwater, Matic, Fabregas it's Kante who was apparently the deep lying defensive player and not the one doing the running around the midfield, the thing Kante is famous for.

You know neither Matuidi nor Pogba played the defensive midfield position for France at the world cup. But someone played that position.

Still playing in a 2 typically and giving Kante licence to do what he does best. Run.

Kante rarely plays a holding defensive midfielder role because it limits his biggest strength. 

[wallosh]

Napoli fans protesting for the return of Maurizio Sarri as they wish to sack Carlo Ancelotti.
 
It's almost like they know how good Sarri is if he's given time and trust. But our fans will beg for Ancelotti and then when we're in the same position next season wonder what the problem is.
So sick of this, why can't we actually give managers chances? City kept Pellegrini and Pep, Liverpool kept Klopp, Spurs kept Pochettino. None of them would have lasted at Chelsea. Rome wasn't built in a day, and whether people like it or not, our team isn't good and so cannot compete for titles at the minute. 
In fact of the 4 key aspects of the club; players, manager, board and owner. I actually think Sarri is the one with the least issues. But yet our fans will expect Sarri to turn Kovacic into a 10 goal a season midfielder, Willian and Pedro into good wingers and Alonso into prime Cole.
Are Sarri's lineups poor? Yes. But it seems in recent years we as fans don't understand that managers have bad spells. When Pep lost 4-0 to Everton in his first season, we'd have campaigned for him to get the sack and brought in someone like Simeone. 

Napoli fans will always want Sarri back because his pattern of play works best in the Italian league not because he is a top manager!

[wallosh]

Still playing in a 2 typically and giving Kante licence to do what he does best. Run.
Kante rarely plays a holding defensive midfielder role because it limits his biggest strength. 

He played in a three man midfield at the world cup