This Jose talk has me wondering what would've happened if say Carlo or Conte took the reins back then (with the same level they were when with us)

Would they have achieved the same?

Regardless of where we are today, as circumstances change people and perspective alters over time, I will forever feel blessed that we brought Jose Mourinho to our club having just won the champions league with Porto and he completely revolutionised our team, a team which had already had an uplift, step bey step, through Hoddle, Gullit, Gianluca and Matthew Harding. he took us to another level and redefined us as a club.

For all the subsequent flaws in style and character and the water that has passed under the bridge, with the ultimate disappointment of Mourinho II, life under Mourinho I was fantastic. On the pitch and off. Selecting Rijkaard's Barcelona side for him leading up to the game, stealing Willian literally from under the noses of Spuds, and the Wenger specialist in failure quote. Media gold. Fantastic character, and an excellent manager that help galvanize this club and move us to the top of the game.

Thanks Jose.....although you still did the dirty by going to spuds and now you've gone from to

He's always been a mean-spirited bitter little man. The only thing that's changed is our perspective. 

Bit harsh on stevo

4 hours ago, ozboy said:

I do think Lampard’s willingness to be tactically flexible gives the ability to surprise the opponent. And surprise us a key to success. The formation in this game and the sudden return of Alonso from the wilderness surprised me for sure. And it worked so well. 

Alonso has taken a fair amount of stick on Chelsea forums over the years. But he has always looked so much better as a wing back in a defensive 5, than he does as a left back. It will be interesting to see whether Frank persists with this formation. Certainly it is a good option to have. Either way a huge win in so many ways and Frank finally has that win against one of the big rivals. Should do wonders for the confidence of the whole squad and management team as we head into the busy festive fixture list 

2 hours ago, mojo said:

 

Dude, I raise you

 

 

SFL looks to imitating the Internet Troll face

1 hour ago, Mod Stark said:

This Jose talk has me wondering what would've happened if say Carlo or Conte took the reins back then (with the same level they were when with us)

Would they have achieved the same?

Indeed I asked the same question further up in the thread. Obviously we’ll never know, but I think it’s simplistic to judge a manager’s quality in silverware terms alone, without taking circumstances (above all financial) into account. 

Spurs have appealed the red card. What a joke!

2 hours ago, Liam said:

He's always been a mean-spirited bitter little man. The only thing that's changed is our perspective. 

Not surprising our perspective has shifted over time when you look at his clubs since, between and after us,

Inter Milan - Love you still Jose

Real Madrid - Now your starting to look a bit of a ...... !

Man Utd - You are a ..... !

Spuds - Confirmed, .... of the highest order. No return, Bridges burned.

Spurs have appealed the red card. What a joke!

The real answer to that is: who the hell cares?

No disrespect. We won fair and square. No need to kick them when they're down.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/dec/23/chelsea-supporter-arrested-for-racially-abusing-tottenhams-son-heung-min

 

At least this stupid Chelsea fan was reported to the police by a civil Chelsea fan. Why are the spuds protecting their Retard. I am sure there were spurs fans next to the monkey chanting or gesturing fan.

Edited December 23, 20196 yr by The Don Antonio

2 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

Regardless of where we are today, as circumstances change people and perspective alters over time, I will forever feel blessed that we brought Jose Mourinho to our club having just won the champions league with Porto and he completely revolutionised our team, a team which had already had an uplift, step bey step, through Hoddle, Gullit, Gianluca and Matthew Harding. he took us to another level and redefined us as a club.

For all the subsequent flaws in style and character and the water that has passed under the bridge, with the ultimate disappointment of Mourinho II, life under Mourinho I was fantastic. On the pitch and off. Selecting Rijkaard's Barcelona side for him leading up to the game, stealing Willian literally from under the noses of Spuds, and the Wenger specialist in failure quote. Media gold. Fantastic character, and an excellent manager that help galvanize this club and move us to the top of the game.

Thanks Jose.....although you still did the dirty by going to spuds and now you've gone from to

Totally respect this point of view btw, even if mine differs 

3 hours ago, chi blue said:

Bloody hell, still buzzing from yesterday, from the pre match beers Liverpool Street, the journey on the train with all the singing Chelsea, the police escort to the ground, the atmosphere in ground, the game itself, wonderful performance!! then the march back round the streets to the underground thanks to the met police and obvious piss take as we went past Spurs pubs, walked the dog this morning humming and singing "Tomori at the back, Tammy in attack". Happy Bloody Christmas UTC

How did you end up in the police escort? Me and my old man just walked out the station and kept going straight past them all!

The whole forcing us all towards Northumberland Park, past loads of Spurs pubs and in to a large group of their supporters thing afterwards was a joke too. We ended up following a group of them to Tottenham Hale in the end without any problems.  

55 minutes ago, evissy said:

The real answer to that is: who the hell cares?

No disrespect. We won fair and square. No need to kick them when they're down.

Kicking when you're down? That's why Son was sent off. He has zero chance of avoiding a ban. The defence of not being that type of player is hard to maintain when you've had three reds in a year.

Perhaps Mourinho told them to make an appeal, knowing it’d get turned down so he can create a siege mentality. Seen it all before.

The real answer to that is: who the hell cares?

No disrespect. We won fair and square. No need to kick them when they're down.

Of course there is. Its Spurs. I'd kick them if they were drowning!

1 hour ago, evissy said:

The real answer to that is: who the hell cares?

No disrespect. We won fair and square. No need to kick them when they're down.

I disagree.

Jesus, some of the spurs fans are absolutely vile. On the fighting cock forum

”Rudiger is having quite the laugh isn't he? He gets our starting player banned for 3 games and then puts the entire Spurs base in disarray. And people ask why would it be in any of his best interest to use the race card? Maybe for the 100k likes on his Twitter account.”

”This is why Rudiger used the race card. Even the most hardcore Spurs supporters get on their knees and wave the flag without a single shred of evidence while he looks like Martin Luther King Jr.”

”If he wanted to miss 3 games he might as well have went all in and broke his ribs so he didnt have time to drum up the racism theatrics.”

 

 

Edited December 23, 20196 yr by dansubrosa

I had a read to TBF some said if there was a racist fan to get them banned and some added it was just one bloke and his boy.

Others said it was ironic because of Nazi loving Chelsea fans tp which I thought you are about 25 years behind what's happened since.

 

not sure if you peeps seen this but it's hilarious

 

6 hours ago, mojo said:

 

Dude, I raise you

 

I wondered when I saw that if JM thought of confronting him like he did to Conte that time.

Perhaps it does not suit the image of the humble one these days.

 

7 hours ago, Argo said:

Sometimes part of building a side is not winning all the time but seeing the signs going forward, sometimes you have to sacrifice points for the greater good. For example, we could have got a result against Liverpool by camping in our box however it wouldn't have got us anywhere in the grand scheme of things, 1/3 points up in the table but in terms of actually competing with Liverpool properly a giant step back. Despite the result that game left me with huge confidence we will eventually compete with Liverpool in the table.

I think the fact we've gone toe to toe with the two best teams in Europe and not looked slightly out of our depth this early in our rebuild outstanding.

I understand what you're saying, long arc of history etc. My concern is always that losing the big games while progressing your project is what Arsenal did for a decade. Turned out they developed their players who then went somewhere they could win things. 

There has previously been a naivety to our play in big matches. I didn't see that today. That for me is progress and I hope to see it repeated next week.

Like all of us, I'm always on edge watching us in big games and it's hard to enjoy them at the time due to the nerves. Even 2-0 up going into injury time you're thinking, "f**k, 8 minutes? I can still see this going  wrong!".

So it was nice to re-watch the highlights and appreciate just how good we were. Their big-game players were not in it with only Sissoko causing us a few problems. Great to see that w**ker Ali totally bossed by Kante, Kovacic and Mount - all three of them making him look a right mug. And as for Kane - Harry who?

As annoying and frustrating the defeats against West Ham and Bournemouth were, that performance yesterday makes up for it AND SOME!

Like all of us, I'm always on edge watching us in big games and it's hard to enjoy them at the time due to the nerves. Even 2-0 up going into injury time you're thinking, "f**k, 8 minutes? I can still see this going  wrong!".
So it was nice to re-watch the highlights and appreciate just how good we were. Their big-game players were not in it with only Sissoko causing us a few problems. Great to see that w**ker Ali totally bossed by Kante, Kovacic and Mount - all three of them making him look a right mug. And as for Kane - Harry who?
As annoying and frustrating the defeats against West Ham and Bournemouth were, that performance yesterday makes up for it AND SOME!

Exactly the same. In about the 85th minute I was thinking 'probably a good 13 minutes left to play here. If we concede now we will panic and start defending deeper and deeper.'

Watching it again rely just highlighted quite how exceptional Willian's performance was. Best 90 minutes from any Chelsea player this season. His full range of ability shown to its maximum. We have seen it so rarely recently.

5 hours ago, JM7 said:

Spurs have appealed the red card. What a joke!

Dont think Son is as innocent as he likes to make out. Not Vertongan level of dirty but a dirty player nevertheless.

Well I was sweating balls before that game, can't deny it.

 

Turned out to be one of the best games of the season.  ??