1 hour ago, Argo said:

I disagree, losing a final is the worst even if we will likely get back in one soon enough.

Drogba once said he'd rather lose a semi than a final and I agree with him, I've seen Chelsea lose finals and I've played myself in losing sides in finals (not just in football), every single one of them will bug me forever.

For me every time we win at semi final it feels like half time, my thoughts go straight to the final.

That semi final defeat on pens to Liverpool in 2007 and Barca in 2009 felt way worse than every fa cup final defeat. Personally speaking.

27 minutes ago, Argo said:

Something that's not really getting discussed a lot, but why didn't Lamps swallow his pride and get an experienced coach in to assist him? If not last year certainly this, especially once our style of play was eroding.

It's no shame to admit you need assistance, Sir Alex is the best ever and part of that reason was he realised what he wasn't great at and appointed the appropriate staff to counter balance that, Carlos Queiroz and Rene Meulensteen the two major examples. Avram Grant/the club quickly got Hen Ten Cate in when he/they realised he just simply wasn't cutting it tactically. 

While I admire Lampard's boldness in going for a young fresh coaching staff the lack of balance was always going to be a big gamble and unfortunately it backfired.

This may not have anything to do with pride at all. Just inexperience that contributed to a few things not being addressed well enough.

5 minutes ago, Argo said:

He didn't even have to get rid of Jody, there's no limit to the amount of coaches you can have in you're backroom staff.

Henk Ten Cate is one example of a coach who would have probably jumped at the chance to return and help out, I personally believe he was the tactical brains behind our 07/08 season under Avram.

Like I said he got in Anthony Barry & if he got in someone experienced they would've clearly been his number 2 resulting in a demotion for Jody.

My original point is that last season was a decent outcome for Frank and Jody so no change at the top of the coaching staff was required, they needed someone to work on the defensive side and they got in Anthony Barry. When things went wrong immediately people start calling for his head (Yourself included) and within 8 weeks Frank was sacked.

Had he made it to the end of the season and if his job was safe he may have thought of bringing someone in but the club did not give him that opportunity nothing to do with his pride or anything.

1 hour ago, Argo said:

Something that's not really getting discussed a lot, but why didn't Lamps swallow his pride and get an experienced coach in to assist him? If not last year certainly this, especially once our style of play was eroding.

It's no shame to admit you need assistance, Sir Alex is the best ever and part of that reason was he realised what he wasn't great at and appointed the appropriate staff to counter balance that, Carlos Queiroz and Rene Meulensteen the two major examples. Avram Grant/the club quickly got Hen Ten Cate in when he/they realised he just simply wasn't cutting it tactically. 

While I admire Lampard's boldness in going for a young fresh coaching staff the lack of balance was always going to be a big gamble and unfortunately it backfired.

A lot of the reports I've read about Lampard's sacking have said that one thing the club pushed back on was some requests for coaching appointments, one being bringing in Shay Given as goalkeeping coach allegedly. 

The club supposedly wanted to avoid a repeat of Sarri's bloated coaching team. Typically Chelsea have appointed a a former player as assistant coaches so that there is someone there who has a previous connection with the club (Zola, Clarke, Di Matteo, Wilkins), Steve Holland being promoted from the reserves coaching team. But Lampard and Morris already had that club history and by all accounts had done extremely well in the first season so there wasn't much need for extra experience initially.... Joe Edwards was bought in during the summer to bolster the coaching team, so it's not like additions weren't made. 

Someone put a banner up at Stamford Bridge this morning.

’The circus continues’ banner on the gate. I’ll see if I can find a picture. 

Here.

 

3 hours ago, Stim said:

I heard Tuchel is just a front. It is actually just Ruediger in a mask.

We Are The Shed fan group:

 

1 hour ago, Argo said:

He didn't even have to get rid of Jody, there's no limit to the amount of coaches you can have in you're backroom staff.

Henk Ten Cate is one example of a coach who would have probably jumped at the chance to return and help out, I personally believe he was the tactical brains behind our 07/08 season under Avram.

Not so sure about that, I remember stories that all Ten Cate could do was yell, to a degree that the players stopped listening, they were fed up with his shouting. 

9 minutes ago, Valerie said:

Not so sure about that, I remember stories that all Ten Cate could do was yell, to a degree that the players stopped listening, they were fed up with his shouting. 

Yeah I heard his people skills were a bit sh*t (which probably explains why he never properly made it as a number one as just a coach you don't need it as much) but I do remember the performances improving a lot after he was brought in and I remember AVB talking about his influence on our season as he studied that and how the Ronaldinho era at Barcelona waned after he left.

Edited January 27, 20215 yr by Argo

51 minutes ago, Valerie said:

Not so sure about that, I remember stories that all Ten Cate could do was yell, to a degree that the players stopped listening, they were fed up with his shouting. 

That shows a bad manager in any walk of life, shouting and screaming at people may work once, possibly twice. But then if thats all they do it becomes totally counter productive.

I once left a company due to a manager being a d**khead (well it was the final straw having to deal with him) I told my manager that it will bite the company in the arse eventually having him. Well it did not long after I left. A piece of plant went down and an outside company had to be brought in to get it going. The d**khead was all over them constantly berating them and the job ran 3 days over costing about half a million pounds more. When I spoke to one of the contractors he said it took 3 days longer because they just stopped working, made sure everything took 3 times as long basically to shove it up the arse of the d**khead.

I suppose i had better stop sulking and get behind the new man

Just for the record i was disgusted with the way Frank was used by a club that he served so well as a player, but i learned a long time ago that this club along with many other top flight clubs sold its soul, in our case to a load of Russians that know little about Morals and Sentiment.

To the younger supporters on this forum that have known nothing other than the Abramovic era, we might sound like whinging old farts, but you were unfortunate to have missed the pre Abramovic years, when this was a proper club with an identity and Balls, the way the club conducts its business these days just is'nt the Chelsea Way, Its shameful and embarrassing for us "old farts".

However, its not Thomas Tuchel's fault and im Chelsea till im pushing them up despite everything, so i would like to wish him the very best of luck#carefree

5 minutes ago, Osgoodwasgood said:

To the younger supporters on this forum that have known nothing other than the Abramovic era, we might sound like whinging old farts, but you were unfortunate to have missed the pre Abramovic years, when this was a proper club with an identity and Balls, the way the club conducts its business these days just is'nt the Chelsea Way, Its shameful and embarrassing for us "old farts".

Yes, the honest and practical way Old Batesy ran the club was much more agreeable! 

3 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

Yes, the honest and practical way Old Batesy ran the club was much more agreeable! 

Free Electric , what are you moaning about

1 minute ago, Osgoodwasgood said:

Free Electric , what are you moaning about

Only useful if you were at the front of the stand and your heart stopped 

At least you knew where you stood with Bates!

2 hours ago, Imran_CFC said:

Like I said he got in Anthony Barry & if he got in someone experienced they would've clearly been his number 2 resulting in a demotion for Jody.

My original point is that last season was a decent outcome for Frank and Jody so no change at the top of the coaching staff was required, they needed someone to work on the defensive side and they got in Anthony Barry. When things went wrong immediately people start calling for his head (Yourself included) and within 8 weeks Frank was sacked.

Had he made it to the end of the season and if his job was safe he may have thought of bringing someone in but the club did not give him that opportunity nothing to do with his pride or anything.

Things went wrong because too many things happened at once; 

- Squad was too big, too many egos to manage that Lampard had no experience in 

- Fixture congestion paired with intensive training sessions meant players were fatigued. Something Lampard did not have the experience to anticipate. 

- Opposition teams worked out we were weak against a "low block". Lampard light in tactical acumen and was not able to drill into his players how to solve. 

- Negative reaction within the squad to a downturn in form. Something Lampard has never had to resolve in his career before. 

Fans didn't call for his head. No one was writing letters to the board. The "fans" paid for a banner in the Bridge backing Frank. The fans had 0 impact on the boards decision. 

What happened is the board looked into the downturn and decided to either let events play out until the Summer or act decisively. I imagine they figured Lampard would not be able to stop the rot - it is likely the experienced players (Azpi, Rudiger), Cech and other coaches closer to the board weighed in. What impact would the next 4 months have if the above issues were not resolved? A bottom half finish? A diminished reputation on the global stage? A hammering to Atl Madrid? A reduced ability to acquire our transfer targets in the Summer?

Edited January 27, 20215 yr by bisright1

Just now, Munkworth said:

Only useful if you were at the front of the stand and your heart stopped 

At least you knew where you stood with Bates!

Say what you like about Ken but he was Chelsea. I even think he used to privately quite enjoy it  when we had just smashed someone's Ground up

26 minutes ago, Osgoodwasgood said:

I suppose i had better stop sulking and get behind the new man

Just for the record i was disgusted with the way Frank was used by a club that he served so well as a player, but i learned a long time ago that this club along with many other top flight clubs sold its soul, in our case to a load of Russians that know little about Morals and Sentiment.

To the younger supporters on this forum that have known nothing other than the Abramovic era, we might sound like whinging old farts, but you were unfortunate to have missed the pre Abramovic years, when this was a proper club with an identity and Balls, the way the club conducts its business these days just is'nt the Chelsea Way, Its shameful and embarrassing for us "old farts".

However, its not Thomas Tuchel's fault and im Chelsea till im pushing them up despite everything, so i would like to wish him the very best of luck#carefree

I thought as one of the young (ish) ones I'll pipe in with my perspective.

When I first started watching Chelsea religiously was in the early-mid 90s (before Zola, Robbie etc turned up). Now even though I was pretty young at the time I was clued up enough (thanks to a combination of being a football obsessive kid and a bit of help from my fellow CFC supporting uncle) to know that we were doing as good as can be realistically expected from the squad we had, so despite going to school with a bunch of unbearable Liverpool and United fans I had no qualms or criticism about where we were, I got mercilessly teased by those supporters because we were "crap" and they were "the best" apparently but I didn't care, Chelsea was my club and we were doing the best or close to the best we could which is all I cared about.

For me I scale expectations compared to the quality of the squad, if we have the worst squad in the league and get relegated then i will applaud our players and management for a good effort against the odds (aslong as it wasn't a Derby 07/08 esque shambles) and if they managed to finish 17th I'd idolize the players and demand a statue for the manager, Tuchel does either of those things next season then he's the worst manager in our history. My uncle who was here through the second tier years and the 6-0 and 1-4s to Rotherham feels exactly the same way about things I do.

14 minutes ago, Argo said:

I thought as one of the young (ish) ones I'll pipe in with my perspective.

When I first started watching Chelsea religiously was in the early-mid 90s (before Zola, Robbie etc turned up). Now even though I was pretty young at the time I was clued up enough (thanks to a combination of being a football obsessive kid and a bit of help from my fellow CFC supporting uncle) to know that we were doing as good as can be realistically expected from the squad we had, so despite going to school with a bunch of unbearable Liverpool and United fans I had no qualms or criticism about where we were, I got mercilessly teased by those supporters because we were "crap" and they were "the best" apparently but I didn't care, Chelsea was my club and we were doing the best or close to the best we could which is all I cared about.

For me I scale expectations compared to the quality of the squad, if we have the worst squad in the league and get relegated then i will applaud our players and management for a good effort against the odds (aslong as it wasn't a Derby 07/08 esque shambles) and if they managed to finish 17th I'd idolize the players and demand a statue for the manager, Tuchel does either of those things next season then he's the worst manager in our history. My uncle who was here through the second tier years and the 6-0 and 1-4s to Rotherham feels exactly the same way about things I do.

I had a similar experience at School Argo. I live in Oxford and Chelsea were a poor, Bottom half Division 2 side, imagine what the man Utd, Liverpool etc fans were like then, and we weren't even playing in the same league. It did'nt matter to me, i was in a school where i was alone in supporting chelsea, and i loved it as i was different and nothing was ever going to change how i felt about my club.

Unfortunately Football has evolved and its all about Business these days, im just thankful i got to experience the support and the club as it was back then.

35 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

Things went wrong because too many things happened at once; 

- Squad was too big, too many egos to manage that Lampard had no experience in 

- Fixture congestion paired with intensive training sessions meant players were fatigued. Something Lampard did not have the experience to anticipate. 

- Opposition teams worked out we were weak against a "low block". Lampard light in tactical acumen and was not able to drill into his players how to solve. 

- Negative reaction within the squad to a downturn in form. Something Lampard has never had to resolve in his career before. 

Fans didn't call for his head. No one was writing letters to the board. The "fans" paid for a banner in the Bridge backing Frank. The fans had 0 impact on the boards decision. 

What happened is the board looked into the downturn and decided to either let events play out until the Summer or act decisively. I imagine they figured Lampard would not be able to stop the rot - it is likely the experienced players (Azpi, Rudiger), Cech and other coaches closer to the board weighed in. What impact would the next 4 months have if the above issues were not resolved? A bottom half finish? A diminished reputation on the global stage? A hammering to Atl Madrid? A reduced ability to acquire our transfer targets in the Summer?

I didn't state in my post that the fans had any bearing on the decision of sacking Frank the point was that 30% of people on this forum wanted him sacked immediately rather then giving him the opportunity to potentially get someone experienced in as a number 2. 

Like you have stated above a number of things went wrong and were not exclusively Frank's fault, apparently it was a board decision to keep hold of Rudiger & Alonso in the summer. Fixture congestion combined with injuries in key areas such as the wing where we did not have sufficient backup. A lot of the limitations Frank was showing were mainly down to inexperience and the reason why a number of Fans are unhappy with the board is that they knew exactly what they were getting into when they appointed Frank as the Manager, we were always going to have a tough period at some point this season & unfortunately for Frank it came during the most congested period in the calendar and he just did not have sufficient time with the squad to make any meaningful changes.

This was a time to back their appointment and the board decided to move onto the next shiny thing, people call it a brutal business etc. but the fans hurting from this are the ones who expected more from the board. People would've been able to live with the decision if it came at the end of the season, if Frank failed to qualify for the CL and didn't win any trophies the board could have tuned around and said we've given you the opportunity but you've failed to turn the ship around fans such as myself would've been absolutely fine with that.

Their will be people stating that missing out on CL would cost us £100m etc. but Frank achieved his target of CL football last season against all odds and in addition has skyrocketed the value of a number of assets at the club. Mount, Tammy, CHO & Reece have potential market value of £200m+ combined, Lampard was a big reason in getting a lot of the youngsters in signing new contracts and had it not been for him we would probably not even have Billy, Mount and potentially Tammy anywhere near this squad. 

Lampard has done a lot for this team in a very limited amount of time and the board were not willing to give him this season to even see whether he could turn the tide is just appalling in my opinion.

I started watching Chelsea around 25 years ago, when we had an influx of swashbuckling Italian footballers joining the club such as Zola, Di Matteo, Vialli and so on. From what I could remember, Gullit really have transformed the club and we became a really attractive team to watch.

We played some pretty good stuff too.

50 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

I started watching Chelsea around 25 years ago, when we had an influx of swashbuckling Italian footballers joining the club such as Zola, Di Matteo, Vialli and so on. From what I could remember, Gullit really have transformed the club and we became a really attractive team to watch.

We played some pretty good stuff too.

I go back to the late 60s, so I saw us plummet from being a successful and hugely glamorous club to bankrupt Div 2 strugglers. The 83-4 team turned that around, but Hoddle and Gullit laid the foundations for where we are now. Gullit certainly restored the glamour and the style and some of his signings - notably those three Italians - were unbelievable. They were brilliant days, full of trophies, and we knew we were back in the big time. Sacking Gullit and Vialli was mind-blowing at the time.

Thanks for the memories Frank. 

I had a lot of doubts with his appointment at first but he pulled through. The second year was not to be, it was a huge job tackling covid, fixture congestion, injuries whilst developing the young players. 

I gave a lot of leeway to Frank not because he's a club legend but because he was building a new Chelsea starting with the younger players. I thought we could finally utilize the academy products and reseeve the funds to buy just the top stars. 

The window was almost everything I could hope for but sadly a majority of the signings flopped. We were unbeaten for awhile then for some reason the wheels came off and we slid into a terrible 2 month period. 

So to see Tuchel coming in and immediately went for "experience" disappointed me because it just means that we'll sell off all the younger players and keep buying proven players again. There's going to be a KdB scenario in the near future for sure

Edited January 28, 20215 yr by Deino

12 hours ago, Backbiter said:

I go back to the late 60s, so I saw us plummet from being a successful and hugely glamorous club to bankrupt Div 2 strugglers. The 83-4 team turned that around, but Hoddle and Gullit laid the foundations for where we are now. Gullit certainly restored the glamour and the style and some of his signings - notably those three Italians - were unbelievable. They were brilliant days, full of trophies, and we knew we were back in the big time. Sacking Gullit and Vialli was mind-blowing at the time.

Yeah Hoddle and Gullit deffiantly laid the foundations, Hoodle attracting players like Gullit and Hughes, then Gullit with players like Zola, Di Matteo, Leboeuf etc. Was deffiantly great days, should have won the league in 99 too but for lots of injuries and that bad week against Boro and Leicester.

I know the transfer never worked out but signing Laudrup on a free transfer was massive at the time. They was very exciting times looking back on them now.

On 27/01/2021 at 15:28, Osgoodwasgood said:

I had a similar experience at School Argo. I live in Oxford and Chelsea were a poor, Bottom half Division 2 side, imagine what the man Utd, Liverpool etc fans were like then, and we weren't even playing in the same league. It did'nt matter to me, i was in a school where i was alone in supporting chelsea, and i loved it as i was different and nothing was ever going to change how i felt about my club.

Unfortunately Football has evolved and its all about Business these days, im just thankful i got to experience the support and the club as it was back then.

I met Uncle Ken a few times. Actually sold me match tickets from the temporary portakabins that were used as the ticket offices in the entrance to the ground when it was being redeveloped.

The last time was before our first ever home game in the CL against AC Milan. I was there early afternoon and met him on the staircase coming out of Bluebells. We had a brief chat and I thanked him and remember saying I never thought I would see Chelsea in a game like this in my lifetime. He actually got a little bit emotional talking about it and all the club had been through to get to this point.

I won't hear a bad word said about Batsey. For all he did for Chelsea, at any other club except ours there would be a statue of him outside.