1 hour ago, forbzy said:

Sarri overcame some mid-season challenges to finish quite strongly that season. Certainly it was a stylish and memorable win over Arsenal in the Europa final. That being said I never got the impression that he left because he had been given a hard time by some of the fans. Pretty sure it had more to do with knowing we had a transfer embargo, and were losing our best player in Hazard.  

We were terrific in that final, looked like we abandoned Sarri ball for  that night.

Why have we all abondoned the absolutely true theory that there is a conspiracy against our club by refs, linesmen, the media, FA, VAR, EUFA, the FA , Government,  pundits , etc ?

We can't suddenly lose focus, we need to keep on top of this. They need to take responsibility too for our poor form surely, otherwise no one will believe us and just assume we're not very good

 

Edited March 5, 20233 yr by The Rising Sun
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4 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Maybe because he was getting sh*t and boos from the home support every match week? I find it utterly incredible how Sarri was genuinely tasked to change the entire philosophy and culture of the club, and the fans who wanted him out midseason are now ironically telling us to be patient with Potter. 

Unlike Potter, I could see what Sarri wanted to do DAY 1. He had assurance in the football he wanted to implement and he stuck by it, which led to one of the best European nights in the club's history. Matter of fact, he laid the foundation for this club to play in a progressive manner that led Tuchel to being able to manage this team to run circles around Real Madrid and dominate City in the Champions League final. 

f**k me. Let's not be patient with Sarri, who literally had to change everything, but let's be patient with Potter. 😄

Wow. Unbelievable. I had to read that twice. The revisionism rolls on unabated. Sarri "tasked with changing the entire philosophy and culture of the club"!! I'd laugh, but you seem naieve enough to actually believe that. I'm 100% sure Roman never brought that up as a key objective at the job interview. And even if he had, you do realise Sarri could have stayed don't you? He didn't have to leave. If he loved being HERE, he could have toughed it out with no Hazard and a transfer ban, instead focusing on his alleged mission statement to realise said "change in philosophy and culture".

Perhaps the fans might have taken to him more then.

4 hours ago, Dean said:

I know what total football was Just :). Is it really the same thing though? 

anyway look. I know I’m not going to make you like Sarri. I don’t love him, I don’t think he was the right fit for Chelsea and indeed he left of his own volition , so it’s kind of academic.

 

I just think he’s given excessively short shrift by a lot of our fans. there’s something about him that really didn’t appeal. People have been a lot more generous to Potter, cut him a lot more slack, and I don’t think Sarri was dealt a better hand. The opposite if anything.
 

Re not being a good communicator - sure. Have you ever tried running an operation in a language you can hardly speak though? This was quite a handicap, which none of the detractors seem willing to acknowledge. Of course he’s less charismatic in English than Italian. 

The other under-appreciated point imo is that he entered the world of football with basically zero starting capital - A nobody in the football world. When I watch my 10 year old’s league I’m really impressed by some of the coaches. When you think about how many levels below that is, it’s pretty amazing what Sarri achieved. He took a big risk too. Shouldn’t that story alone temper some of the hate and inspire SOME admiration? I mean - that can’t be a fluke, and he can’t have done that without charisma. 
 

To judge his merits as a coach during his tenure at Chelsea, when you strip out our respective biases, I’d say neither of us has enough proof really. Would have needed another season, and the consensus was willing to give him that iirc. Then he decided to leave. Wasn’t a good match and wasn’t to be.  I accept that and probably won’t say more on it. 

Good stuff Dean. The background from humble beginnings and the rise from the lower echelons of football. Agreed. Lots of parallels with Graham Potter there. And I get the couldn't speak good English argument, but 90% of effective communication is via body language. A smile every once in a while also helps. We both know he never, at any point, looked like he really wanted to be here. IMO most fans homed in on that pretty quickly.

During his breif tenure one of the funniest jokes someone said to me, and not a Chelsea fan by the way, was that the UK figures for suicides always went up during his press conferences.

3 hours ago, Argo said:

We've only conceded 1 more league goal under Potter than United have against City and Liverpool alone.

(Before anyone says anything I'm not using it to defend Potter I just found it funny).

I think it's well agreed that we have quite a solid defence for a team that is on such poor form as we are which is why many of our poor results end up in draws rather than losses. Our main issue is that we can't score and sadly until we solve that issue I don't see the team moving forward.

6 hours ago, dansubrosa said:

Honestly makes me angry thinking we were on same points as Liverpool just a couple of weeks ago and now they are 3 points off 4th.

The bar is really low this season that just stringing 3 wins together can have you jump about five positions. If we can string some results together and build some momentum that might honestly give the boys some confidence for a strong season finish.

5 hours ago, Drogba1 said:

I know we're awful but can we take a second here to all laugh at United 😂😂😂

At least we haven’t been beaten 7-0 under Potter yet.

8 hours ago, Drogba1 said:

3rd highest goals scored in the league with a dire set of attackers would say otherwise. That was in spite of an injury crisis. How many of our attackers last year would even start for Liverpool? Arguably not one. 

For every stat like that you give (3rd highest goals etc) - I can give you 100+ posts on here of fans who were frustrated and angry at the style of play. 
 

The eyes don't lie.

For a long time under Tuchel - we were playing awful, negative , passive football. He showed nothing (with consistency) that he could, or wanted, to change that.

Regarding Sarri ('s time at Chelsea),.....
He had the 3rd best squad in the league at the time and in his 1 and only season here finished..........3rd.

On the golf course, you'd call that par.

People don't like his style, demeanour, tactics, the way he related to the fans, etc........but results wise, he was par. Not great, but hardly the disaster some make out. 

Edited March 6, 20233 yr by Guest

1 hour ago, Qaz said:

Regarding Sarri ('s time at Chelsea),.....
He had the 3rd best squad in the league at the time and in his 1 and only season here finished..........3rd.

On the golf course, you'd call that par.

People don't like his style, demeanour, tactics, the way he related to the fans, etc........but results wise, he was par. Not great, but hardly the disaster some make out. 

That's exactly right. Personally never minded Sarri other than the smoking. His tactics were ok, not as exciting as Conte or Tuchel but he had a clear system and achieved the minimum acceptable result, that is top 4 and a piece of silverware.

Regarding top 4...we are not getting there this season and you have to consider 3 clubs that have sprung to life that weren't this good last season: MU, Newcastle and Arsenal.

1 hour ago, ozboy said:

That's exactly right. Personally never minded Sarri other than the smoking. His tactics were ok, not as exciting as Conte or Tuchel but he had a clear system and achieved the minimum acceptable result, that is top 4 and a piece of silverware.

Yes, the language barrier definitely hindered his progress, maybe the smoking too😄 but I don't think most male fans got offended by that. He had a certain style, you know exactly what you get from him. So if he's style was not suited or not liked by owner and the fans, then it's really the fault of the owner to hire him. If he's not supported in recruitment with his type of players, he'd struggle too. I recall he actually had a really good start, but opposition figured it out after about 10 games and teams started to punish us, which happen to a lot managers. He won the Europa, got the top 4, and couple of kicks away from beating City in the cup final ( not going to rewind to Kepa incident), so he certainly didn't fail during that season.

23 hours ago, OriginalS said:

Badge is last season. The dot is the season before that one.

So they got progressively slower under him basically.

I think the fact Brighton are the only 'small team' that can play in a similar way to City, Chelsea, Utd etc. according to that graph is impressive

23 hours ago, Gol15 said:

Sarri made Hazard prime. And no, this wasn't Kante in his prime this was Kante trying to do something in the final third, under Sarri his most productive season but not his prime.

Sarri is a better manager than Potter, Potter would have lost that final.

Hilarious. 

26 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

I think the fact Brighton are the only 'small team' that can play in a similar way to City, Chelsea, Utd etc. according to that graph is impressive

Yeah, don't disagree with you there. I don't mind control based football which is Potters ideal too despite his obvious struggles so far.

But if one wants fast & direct football one shouldn't want Potter. My impression from the guy I responded too was that he thought Potter was the man to usher in some kind of direct style of football and that won't happen.

13 hours ago, Drogba1 said:

Think the foundations that Sarri set were one of the main reasons Lampard's first season went so well to be honest, especially when you look at his time with Everton.

What? Lampard spend most of his time trying to undo Sarris safety first approach. We played nothing like Sarri, we played fast, direct football not slow possession give it to Hazard and inshallah football we played under Sarri  He even dropped Jorginho.

10 minutes ago, bacik said:

What? Lampard spend most of his time trying to undo Sarris safety first approach. We played nothing like Sarri, we played fast, direct football not slow possession give it to Hazard and inshallah football we played under Sarri  He even dropped Jorginho.

That's not true, there was many times before lockdown we had lots of possesion but not a great deal of chances, especially at The Bridge.

You are sort of right though, post lockdown Sarri's work was totally undone, but not for the better.

13 minutes ago, Argo said:

That's not true, there was many times before lockdown we had lots of possesion but not a great deal of chances, especially at The Bridge.

You are sort of right though, post lockdown Sarri's work was totally undone, but not for the better.

Not for the better? Ever since Sarri came and we focused more on possession, we havent been competitive in the league once. We are still suffering from it, passing the ball endlessly.. Before he came, we played fast and direct football..

Edited March 6, 20233 yr by bacik

2 minutes ago, bacik said:

Before he came, we played fast and direct football..

And there were endless amounts of complaints about the style of which we played under Mourinho and Conte. Not from me but the general consensus was that we should move on from that kind of direct football.

6 minutes ago, bacik said:

Before he came, we played fast and direct football..

2 of the 3 season's before he came in we played absolutely dog sh*t football and fell apart against even half arsed pressing let alone committed. Conte briefly found an (unbelievably effective) sticky plaster solution but as soon as ironically Jose beat us comfortably with a high pressing match we were never the same again.

Sarriball may not have lived up to the hype but it was still better than the crap Conte served up the year before and don't even get me started on the Jose meltdown season.

8 minutes ago, bacik said:

Not for the better? 

After lockdown no, we struggled to progress the ball properly let alone create chances and there was no visible patterns of play whatsoever and it was basically get it out to the fullbacks and lump it in the mixer or hope Pulisic does something (which is ironic as the supposed reliance on Hazard is a big stick used against Sarri).

Be a bit mad if Brighton finished fourth lol. Then again i expect that to be a fight between Newcastle, Tottenham and Liverpool. Not sure Brighton or Fulham will do it, but getting a European place is still admirable for those two clubs. 

11 hours ago, Qaz said:

Regarding Sarri ('s time at Chelsea),.....
He had the 3rd best squad in the league at the time and in his 1 and only season here finished..........3rd.

On the golf course, you'd call that par.

People don't like his style, demeanour, tactics, the way he related to the fans, etc........but results wise, he was par. Not great, but hardly the disaster some make out. 

Results - Par

Trophies - Par

style of football and entertainment - quadruple bogey 

15 hours ago, just said:

Wow. Unbelievable. I had to read that twice. The revisionism rolls on unabated. Sarri "tasked with changing the entire philosophy and culture of the club"!! I'd laugh, but you seem naieve enough to actually believe that. I'm 100% sure Roman never brought that up as a key objective at the job interview. And even if he had, you do realise Sarri could have stayed don't you? He didn't have to leave. If he loved being HERE, he could have toughed it out with no Hazard and a transfer ban, instead focusing on his alleged mission statement to realise said "change in philosophy and culture".

Perhaps the fans might have taken to him more then.

It's getting really irritating reading your posts expecting to see some form of a rational counter argument, but I continue to get only wordplay from you. 

For years this club had a focus on implementing a compact system that was primarily focused on strict positioning off the ball with a direct build up on the ball. Sarri then shifted this entire philosophy in favor of a possession oriented system that was primarily focused in taking the initiative and controlling matches whilst believing the best defence is retaining the ball.

Please explain to me how this isn't a cultural/philosophy shift. Or were there too many buzzwords in there for you to bother?

 

4 hours ago, enigma said:

Be a bit mad if Brighton finished fourth lol. Then again i expect that to be a fight between Newcastle, Tottenham and Liverpool. Not sure Brighton or Fulham will do it, but getting a European place is still admirable for those two clubs. 

I hope they do. Would much rather them than some of the other options.

5 hours ago, bacik said:

Not for the better? Ever since Sarri came and we focused more on possession, we havent been competitive in the league once. We are still suffering from it, passing the ball endlessly.. Before he came, we played fast and direct football..

I think not having a world class striker since Costa left has been a bigger factor. Not replacing Hazard and Fabregas was the icing on the cake.