1 minute ago, WhiteWall said:

Ah god i agree with you @Argo as these points are spot on, but I also agree with @Carloseyebrow as his points are also valid. Good grief, i'm so conflicted.

Eddie Howe has proven the differnce that a quality coach can make with a defined structure in place. But Carlos is also right. It cannot be just down to the manager if teh same set of players have seen off three managers. I stil feel that fitness levels play a major part, but i can concede that it is no way as simple as that.

Don't get me wrong I don't think the players are blameless but the coach only gets so much tax. Similar to my example of Conte in 17-18, the board get the blame for us not challenging to retain our crown but falling out of the top 4 was on Conte.

No matter how bad it got under Tuchel, Sarri or even Potter I can't recall our team shape looking as bad as this (two examples from two different spells and multiple different players).

17 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

Really like this. This may need to be pinned and revisited in a couple of years.

I read your third paragraph and thought yep, Ozark in real life.

Read your fourth paragraph and again thought, ah, yep, can see that as well 

Thanks! Though honestly I’d rather it’s pinned to become an object of ridicule :). 
 

btw weirdly I’m just settling into the final episode of season 2 of Ozark. Came to it a bit late. Hugely entertaining! 

33 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

I am actually starting to wonder if Frank has decided to come back and commit the footballing equivalent of revenge porn for us sacking him the first time

Not really , he is just a tactically naïve manager.  We even looked better in the one game Bruno coached us which was against Liverpool. 

It's fun to have hopes and dreams, only to be given a reality check in about 20 minutes. I was wrong about this, players completely did not show up for this one. For the first goal, how could our defenders not even tracking their best player after barely 20 minutes on the field, and then we repeated the goal. We just offered nothing, and to be honest Arsenal felt bad for us and stopped playing after 3 up. It was not even an EPL standard contest, we looked a side just come from a long break instead of in the final runs of the season. Players had no chemistry, set piece defence was a mess between man mark, zonal and no marking, and some players just so hilariously bad they should be playing in the over 40 league.

I think we deserve to get relegated, and I'm totally expect to be dragged into the relegation battle against Bouremouth and Forest

12 minutes ago, Carloseyebrow said:

My ultimate point here is not a 5 yard misplaced pass, it’s the fact that these players are getting rinsed for not being good enough, should never wear the shirt again type comments for most of the season, not just the last 4 weeks.

We have reaped everything and more than that we sowed.

I have not nor never have said Lampard is the solution, but he is not the problem.

I don’t understand how after 4 managers this season, some people still believe this is a manager issue.

My humble opinion is that it is overwhelmingly a players issue, who should be able under any circumstances play a short pass.

I agree our problems are much bigger than Lampard. No manager in the world would have made a miracle in these circumstances, in which we could even put the attitude of some of the players into question. So in terms of that, he will always have my utmost respect for accepting this impossible task, putting his managerial future at risk. 

On the other hand though, we have to admit what we're watching right now is a poorly managed team. Now don't get me wrong, I was all for sacking Potter, but since Lampard came in things are looking even worse, starting from team selection, questionable tactics that don't work with these players, attacking patterns, and most importantly - defending. That is where the biggest difference is. Especially when it comes to defending set pieces, it feels like it's 19/20 all over again when every single corner was a chance for the opposition. 

What makes me disappointed is the fact Lampard didn't learn from his mistakes, he hasn't got a plan B, and every single team is outplaying us with ease. The game against Brighton for example, will be stuck in my memory for a long time. We made them look like prime Barcelona at home, and if it wasn't for their poor finishing, it could've easily turned into a complete disaster.

10 minutes ago, The Don Antonio said:

Not really , he is just a tactically naïve manager.  We even looked better in the one game Bruno coached us which was against Liverpool. 

mate we looked better under Potter and that's saying something. One thing though if the players aren't fit enough who's that down to?

What a sorry-assed football club atm 🤬🤬🤬

our club chelsea making a mockery of mental health awareness day by making every fan depressed

16 minutes ago, icecoolguy22 said:

set piece defence was a mess between man mark, zonal and no marking

Zonal defending on corners is probably the most bothering thing for me tonight.

6 minutes ago, azpi28 said:

our club chelsea making a mockery of mental health awareness day by making every fan depressed

At least we have a candidate for goal of the month, and it's only the second day of the month🫢

8 minutes ago, icecoolguy22 said:

At least we have a candidate for goal of the month, and it's only the second day of the month🫢

progress! 

 

31 minutes ago, icecoolguy22 said:

It's fun to have hopes and dreams, only to be given a reality check in about 20 minutes. I was wrong about this, players completely did not show up for this one. For the first goal, how could our defenders not even tracking their best player after barely 20 minutes on the field, and then we repeated the goal. We just offered nothing, and to be honest Arsenal felt bad for us and stopped playing after 3 up. It was not even an EPL standard contest, we looked a side just come from a long break instead of in the final runs of the season. Players had no chemistry, set piece defence was a mess between man mark, zonal and no marking, and some players just so hilariously bad they should be playing in the over 40 league.

I think we deserve to get relegated, and I'm totally expect to be dragged into the relegation battle against Bouremouth and Forest

Assuming we lose all our games, and assuming that Everton can’t win all theirs, Leicester, Leeds and Forest all need 3 wins and a draw from their last 4 games to drag us into the relegation battle. West Ham, Wolves and Bournemouth also need to get ahead of us. The odds are infinitesimally small. 

1 hour ago, BewareoftheDrog said:

I suppose every team has cycles for better or worse. Liverpoo, Man Ure, Arse, Man City have all gone thru bad patches at some point and underachieved. Look at when Leicester won the Prem. Who wudda thought that. But the big teams were all off form which helped   This is our bad patch. We'll be back. We are Chelsea. Til Saturday KTBFFH

City have never really fallen off. They've finished top 4 every season since the Sheiks arrived.

I'm very worried about our future as a top club. We've done what no other big club has done. Spent a 100s of millions and gone backwards. Man Utd have been bad too but they've never lacked goalscorers and last minute winners has never left them. I just wish we never spent a penny in the last 12 months so the hope of actual investment would improve the team. The recruitment has been awful from the very beginning. Sterling, Koulibaly, Fofana, Auba, Cucurella and Felix have just been very bad investments.

I think it is somewhat complicated, you have players bought to play under TT who was sacked.

Then you have players looking towards earning a bonus for winning comps under new contracts and then they go and sack TT who had won things for Potter who could not get us winning.

Then you have the new additions basically giving us 3 players for each position limiting their specific 1 on 1 coaching time.

We all knew there was a risk with new owners in that they don't understand the game and this has indeed been the case they have thrown money and played hard and fast with FFP and players contracts and created a squad that are somewhat shell-shocked and don't know anymore what they are playing for and even if they want to be here.

No manager until the Summer will be able to sort this out.

No point in changing manager now it will only take away from their authority next season.

Just in case you read this forum... there's a job going at Sky Sports Frank.

Well, starting Aubameyang with Sterling didn’t work out. Come to think of it starting Sterling with anyone hasn’t really worked out. 

That was a shocking first half. We looked brighter second half, probably because they felt sorry for us.

Things are just getting worse. Frank should never have accepted the job really.  But he should never have been offered it in the first place. Just one more terrible decision by the Board to add to the growing list. Hope Pochettino can make sense of all this nonsense. 

This ain't Frank's fault 

Ring a ring o' roses, a pocketful of posies, a tishoo, a tishoo, we all fall down

 

Logic tells me that maybe the real problem now, is most players want to leave...

How do you get on the leaving list -> don't try and play shyte

How do you get on the staying list -> try hard and play well

Number of players trying and playing well = Kepa - 1

Number of players not trying and playing shyte = Assuming Madueke's goal was a mistake - 15 others as it wouldn't be fair to count the subs who didn't get on.

 

 

Why do the player's want to leave - who wants to stay at a club going nowhere under crappy management who don't know what they're doing?

Edited May 2, 20233 yr by Bebe1980

3 hours ago, Snedger said:

This is such a mess. I find it incredible how most people seem to think that this is just an isolated bad season and that a new manager will see us suddenly be good again.

I actually believe that next season will feel worse than this. This disaster was not expected and has felt quite surreal. Almost like an out of body experience. But next season will be an awful slog as we struggle to an eighth or ninth place finish and without the distraction of CL football. Even with my optimistic hat on, we are three or four years away from even being top four material again.

Given we have been the worst team in the league since October, id take finishing eighth/ninth right now.

Meanwhile arsenal fans showed (again) why they’re such w**kers…booing an ex player who won them their last major trophy…booing Mudryk just cos he didn’t join them cos arsenal fcuked up a deal they assumed was in the bag…then some tosser shines a laser pen in his face.

come on citeh!

Why start Aubameyang when David Fofana is available? Why Sterling rather than Mudryk? What was the point in bringing on Ziyech? Why start Kova over Gallagher? Come on Frank, give the players who actually want to be here next season a start. 

Enzo cost over 100M .hmmm 

https://www.chelsea-news.co/2023/05/enzo-fernandez-disappoints-as-arsenal-overrun-midfield/

Quote

Enzo Fernandez was disappointing in midfield for Chelsea tonight as the Blues were crushed 3-1 by Arsenal.

The same can be said of pretty much the whole team, but Fernandez was particularly poor as the Blues lost out on midfield control despite using a 3. N’Golo Kante and Mateo Kovacic also didn’t do enough to control the game, and so the whole XI fell apart from the middle.

The Argentine’s quality is still obvious even on his off days, but he needs to match that with awareness and work rate. He’s one of the worst offenders in the “doesn’t look bothered” department at the moment.

Fernandez is a big money signing but can’t rest on his laurels. Every game from now until the end of the season matters to the fans, and he needs to play like he knows that. He is supposed to be the future of this club, but the present is happening now, around us.

 

Edited May 3, 20233 yr by KokeFran96

4 hours ago, Dean said:

Yeah this is close to where I am unfortunately. Too much “return to normal” expectation for next season. I remember back in early season a lot of us were seeing parallels with Man U post Ferguson, implying some time in the wilderness. I was in that camp, as I think there’s just something about major overhauls / the bursting of bubbles/regime change or whatever this is. The unwind is slow and painful. But I now think ours - the Roman era - was a much bigger bubble, particularly when you consider we were / are - let’s face it - a much smaller club than United.

So we were in for a rough spell no matter what post-Roman. But to make matters worse, we have these new owners that are a) arrogant wxnkers and crucially b) almost certainly overpaid. People aren’t making enough of this. When you overpay for stuff, bad things happen, especially when you do it with borrowed money. And that’s before you even get to the subsequent spending. How the hell is this going to work out? 600 million!  If it does, I’ll have to start assuming no business will ever fail again. Maybe I should just go and start a business… any business. 

The supposed wealth of these current owners is much more brittle than many realise. They are the beneficiaries of a 12 year US-centric bull market - a period during which all sorts of stupid investments were made at silly prices. As with any cycle, as it matures the aura of invincibility grows and people make increasingly stupid decisions with increasing levels of borrowed money. Boehly and co epitomise the phenomenon. It’s almost too textbook to be true. 
 

For all these reasons, I fear our unwind will be way more painful than any analogue suggests (Man U post-Ferguson would be a dream). 

Totally agree. A new season will inevitably bring some renewed hope and optimism, but I will be surprised if we just bounce back from this disaster like we did in Conte's first season, after the mid-table finish the previous year. We will need to move on a chunk of the squad this summer. While that hopefully includes a number of players that need to be offloaded, we will be left with limited players that have much experience of playing for our club, and we are desperate need to leaders right now. Realistically the aim of the next manager should be to steady the ship and hopefully get us back challenging for European spots, rather than worrying about relegation. But I think the next manager will need some time and patience from both owners and fans.

The midfield was particular embarrassing, considering we played 3 of our best ( at a combined price tag of 150M+), and get over run by Jorginho and Xhaka. Nobody was tracking Odegard for the first goal ( and second), absolutely ridiculous in terms of effort and decision making. 

When this season ends, whoever doesn't want be here next season should be allowed to go ( pending FFP and take cut ). Half of the players didn't want be there last night, next manager has little chance with the way it is. Ziyech 🤫, what the hell did we do not letting him on deadline day?