39 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

This is on him...

1) Establish "favourites" who everyone can see are not good enough.

2) Divide the squad by having a clear and inflexible A and B team. 
 

3) Fail to address poor performances from A team players, and keep selecting them despite how bad they have performed.

4) Fail to keep morale up, by failing to integrate B team players into the first team - despite how well they may be doing. 

5) Over the busiest period of the year - fail to use the squad logically - instead stubbornly stick to the same starting 11 with minimal subs.

6) When the wheels fall off - throw a load of wholesale changes to the team for a 1 off away game - expecting these players, who have not been integrated into the first team, to come in and perform like a fully oiled team.

 

the B team players have mostly been doing well in games against European minnows. So perhaps it is not so surprising when they fail to make the same impact against Premier League teams. Most of the B team players that have featured in the A team do not look good enough to be regular starters, and in some cases they don't even look like they are playing as though they want to stake a claim for a regular first team slot. I would rather see some of the academy players from the B team like Acheampong or George get a chance next time we are going to rotate.

3 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

Blamed tiredness. Tired? We played Conference League with a mix of B and C team to avoid this. If tiredness is to blame, it's because he played the same attack and midfield in pretty much every game in the busiest part of the season.

Up until the festive fixtures we managed to keep most of our starting 11 to 1 game per week thanks to using B team in other competitions. The last couple of weeks is the first time that most of our first team regulars have played twice per week and it hasn't gone well. Doesn't reflect well on their fitness or the ability to cope with Campions League in future should we manage to qualify.

13 minutes ago, forbzy said:

Up until the festive fixtures we managed to keep most of our starting 11 to 1 game per week thanks to using B team in other competitions. The last couple of weeks is the first time that most of our first team regulars have played twice per week and it hasn't gone well. Doesn't reflect well on their fitness or the ability to cope with Campions League in future should we manage to qualify.

Yup Maresca has treated them with kid gloves, and look at his reward. Cannot play more than 1 game a week? When you think what our first team years ago was capable of. Shesh.

2 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Sadly he will fail to take us to where we want the club to go. 

So will the next manager, and the one after that, and the one after that etc. 

Because they are all ultimately screwed over by this ownership and the bonehead directors.

What a positive way to look at things. I know you are disappointed, we all are, but the progression this year is clear. This is just a blip same as man city had and Liverpool will have in the future.

The so called 'B' team players need to do better, can't rely on Palmer to win us every game. The likes of Felix, Diasi, Nkunku aren't kids but expensive players, really should have done better. Our position on the table is better than expected, we are on track ( if not better) in terms of reaching the season objective.

2 hours ago, forbzy said:

Last couple of games, we've seen what some of the B squad have done when given a chance. Some of them don't look up to the physical requirements of the Premier League, or just aren't good enough.

You can't have great b squad and pay your a team in FFP era. This season our b squad is already too expensive. 

A lot of people want improvement over Disasi. Disasi is our 3rd choice rb and 5th cb. This was Alfie and should be acheampong role. 

Do we need a backup st? Yes but we already have two expensive att this season already who are barely playing in Nkunku and felix (3 if you count Mudryk). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

36 minutes ago, Gentian said:

What a positive way to look at things. I know you are disappointed, we all are, but the progression this year is clear. This is just a blip same as man city had and Liverpool will have in the future.

The blip is more our first 3 months this season, based on our previous 2 years. That's the sample pool we have to look at, Clearlake time lf ownership 

2 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

You can't have great b squad and pay your a team in FFP era. This season our b squad is already too expensive. 

A lot of people want improvement over Disasi. Disasi is our 3rd choice rb and 5th cb. This was Alfie and should be acheampong role. 

Do we need a backup st? Yes but we already have two expensive att this season already who are barely playing in Nkunku and felix (3 if you count Mudryk). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alfie Gilchrist, a proper defender, better than Disasi, Badiashile and Tosin, imo, and likely to end up on the scrap heap with Conor, Trev and co so we can afford the FFP of signing Disasi, Badiashile, Enzo etc.

Subs needs sorting out, gameplan needs sorting out.

We have a deep squad, tiredness should have never been an issue

3 hours ago, forbzy said:

the B team players have mostly been doing well in games against European minnows. So perhaps it is not so surprising when they fail to make the same impact against Premier League teams. Most of the B team players that have featured in the A team do not look good enough to be regular starters, and in some cases they don't even look like they are playing as though they want to stake a claim for a regular first team slot. I would rather see some of the academy players from the B team like Acheampong or George get a chance next time we are going to rotate.

It is a squad management and integration issue. Nkunku is good enough to play against Ipswich. Felix is good enough to play against Ipswich. KDH is good enough to play against Ipswich. Disasi is good enough to play against Ipswich. 

All in isolation they are fine -  but wholesale changes when none of them have been integrated in any meaningful way is madness. 

His post match interview sums him up.

Utter wep wipe who seems to accept results like these.

Another one who will be off before the season ends.

9 hours ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

He's a student of Guardiola, even at gun point he won't change his tactics unfortunately.

I hear and read a lot of this. Guardiola, Maresca, Russell Martin all "students" of the game that won't change their tactics.

Problem is that their tactics assume that by playing this way results will naturally occur and they will to a certain point.

But with no specific tactic to win, with no focused approach on scoring, on defending, on set pieces, it's an assumption that falls apart because no allowance is made for opposition managers who have employed a style to stop us. Therefore results will just even out over time to being just average. Guardiola has suddenly fallen foul of this.

Much as I despise the man Arteta's first approach is to beat the opposition.  He will play flowing football,  but he will also get the ball forward quickly or rely on set pieces.

Adapt or die. It's relevant in all things.

9 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

All of these players have talent in them, they just don't excel in multiple areas. They are all good at one or two things and aren't really good at anything else. Neto is a hard working winger with a decent cross, doesn't have goals, isn't going to open teams up with a good pass. Sancho, probably has the best touch in the entire squad, but he's physically weak, too slow for a winger, doesn't score goals and is incapable of tracking back. Madueke, good at cutting in and getting a shot away, but his dribbling ability is weak and control of the football is too loose which results in a lot of attacks dying. Felix, he's good at finding gaps to run into and has trickery in his game, but he doesn't protect the ball well enough, doesn't make the most of his chances and is in and out of games.

This is where the manager needs to earn his money. Find the right combinations for the right game. Ipswich press hard, fight for their lives, don't give you a second on the ball. Not the right game for Felix and Madueke on the wings and Nkunku as the striker. Guiu may not be ready for this level, but I think he is in a better head space than Nkunku who just doesn't look like he cares anymore and would fight as hard to win a ball as much those Ipswich players would. Madueke's touch was too loose, and with Ipswich players fighting for everything, we couldn't afford to have that today. Palmer on the right would have been ideal, with Felix in the middle and Neto on the left. Palmer can cross the ball and take on the full backs and link up with Felix, Guiu could be a hassle in the box and keep the defenders occupied whilst Felix finds space for himself. Neto could do the dirty work and press Ipswich when they looked to counter.

Defence would still be a mess though, like it is in every game, because Maresca has neglected to do any defensive coaching all season.

Great summary.

8 hours ago, RMH said:

Agree, Maresca was still using Cucurella as an inverted FB until Brentford. Today he was used more as a winger, I think because of Felix.

Inverted midfielder, winger, 2nd centre-forward. Here's a novel idea. Why doesn't he use him as a left back who has to defend first?

There was some light comedy relief last night in watching him; A) trying to catch up with Delap and B) bouncing off Delap on the few occasions he manged to get there.

Worryingly out-coached by Silva and now be McKenna. This has a Potter deja-vu feeling about it. Very good start only for it all to go horribly wrong.

All teams have a blip and maybe this is ours. I hope so, as we shouldn't be dropping so many points against teams like Everton, Fulham and Ipswich and now every fixture suddenly looks a tough one the way our form has dropped off a cliff.

 

29 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

I hear and read a lot of this. Guardiola, Maresca, Russell Martin all "students" of the game that won't change their tactics.

Problem is that their tactics assume that by playing this way results will naturally occur and they will to a certain point.

But with no specific tactic to win, with no focused approach on scoring, on defending, on set pieces, it's an assumption that falls apart because no allowance is made for opposition managers who have employed a style to stop us. Therefore results will just even out over time to being just average. Guardiola has suddenly fallen foul of this.

Much as I despise the man Arteta's first approach is to beat the opposition.  He will play flowing football,  but he will also get the ball forward quickly or rely on set pieces.

Adapt or die. It's relevant in all things.

This is why I wanted McKenna over Maresca in the summer when it seemed it was between the two. Their metrics in the Championship were all in the middle, which to me means they were able to adapt and play the style the game required. 
But hey, we’re well placed in the league and theres time for Maresca to turn it around so theres no need to panic yet - even if he looks a little lost at the moment

(just stop the madness of Disasi as a wide defender, eh Enzo?)

7 hours ago, nonotnowjim said:

After being alienated and mistreated, not given a look in at the first team -do you really expect them to come on for a one off away game, and perform as if they are fully integrated first team superstars?

They need a run, as with any player, to gel and get into some type of form. 

I expect them to be professionals and put in a professional display. I expect them to want to show the boss what he’s missing by not playing. If they don’t want to play for Chelsea, they should tell the boss and rescind their contract. Otherwise I expect them to play their best whenever the coach says they’re playing.

1 hour ago, just said:

Inverted midfielder, winger, 2nd centre-forward. Here's a novel idea. Why doesn't he use him as a left back who has to defend first?

There was some light comedy relief last night in watching him; A) trying to catch up with Delap and B) bouncing off Delap on the few occasions he manged to get there.

He still was our best defender.

3 minutes ago, RMH said:

I expect them to be professionals and put in a professional display. I expect them to want to show the boss what he’s missing by not playing. If they don’t want to play for Chelsea, they should tell the boss and rescind their contract. Otherwise I expect them to play their best whenever the coach says they’re playing.

I repeat what I said earlier -  After being alienated and mistreated, and not given a look in at the first team - do you really expect them to come on for a one off away game, and perform at their best as if they are fully integrated first team superstars?

They need a run, as with any player, to gel and get into some type of form. Madness to just expect all these outcast to perform as if they have never missed a game. 

3 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

I repeat what I said earlier -  After being alienated and mistreated, and not given a look in at the first team - do you really expect them to come on for a one off away game, and perform at their best as if they are fully integrated first team superstars?

They need a run, as with any player, to gel and get into some type of form. Madness to just expect all these outcast to perform as if they have never missed a game. 

And I repeat what I said, yes, I expect them to give their all every opportunity they put on a Chelsea shirt on. Not trying any 50/50 is not good enough and I’d be sacked if I did that just out of not wanting to be at my job.

Seems like he’s gone from zero to hero and back to zero again on here. Three bad results and he’s not without blame but I wouldn’t be writing him off yet. First half of the season has been largely positive.
 

Yesterday was probably the low point of the season in terms of result/performance but on another day we scrape a win and are being talked about as the closest contenders to Liverpool. 

2 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

I hear and read a lot of this. Guardiola, Maresca, Russell Martin all "students" of the game that won't change their tactics.

Problem is that their tactics assume that by playing this way results will naturally occur and they will to a certain point.

But with no specific tactic to win, with no focused approach on scoring, on defending, on set pieces, it's an assumption that falls apart because no allowance is made for opposition managers who have employed a style to stop us. Therefore results will just even out over time to being just average. Guardiola has suddenly fallen foul of this.

Much as I despise the man Arteta's first approach is to beat the opposition.  He will play flowing football,  but he will also get the ball forward quickly or rely on set pieces.

Adapt or die. It's relevant in all things.

I think we're on the cusp of the game changing again. Everyone is playing diet coke Pep light football. Some teams have got better at it, Nottingham forest or Bournmouth for example. Smaller teams are doing it better than the big teams. United have looked sh*te for years now trying to do it. 

the next dominant team will ditch pressing only systems in favour of something more pragmatic or tactical and everyone will do it. When everyone does the same do something different. Disrupt... 

Honestly, six months on from poch, our defence is still shocking and over the last month we've stopped scoring. no offence, I want to see what we were serving up under pochs last six months and Maresca's first four months. Palmer central looks lost and is far easier to mark out of a game. 

I think Noni is earmarked for January/summer departure regardless of what he does, as are probably a number of others and hence the slump in form for many. 

Its three really really bad results that could screw the top four for us.

 

This is the old adage "say it, believe it, and achieve it" for me.

He's repeatedly said recently that we aren't ready to win the league, and now the players have bought into it, and performance levels have dropped.

What he should have said, and I'm surprised he didn't seeing as he's been pretty good with the media up to now, was something like "We've been playing well, and we are in a great position ahead of schedule. Our aspiration is to be the best that we can be, so we'll take it game by game, and we'll see at the end of the season where that puts us."

55 minutes ago, RMH said:

He still was our best defender.

6/10 performance from him at most. So, yes, you are right. 

1 hour ago, RMH said:

And I repeat what I said, yes, I expect them to give their all every opportunity they put on a Chelsea shirt on. Not trying any 50/50 is not good enough and I’d be sacked if I did that just out of not wanting to be at my job.

Oh - you are talking about effort? As in you think the players didnt try to win? Think that is far fetched, and it is far more likely that the more mundane and realistic scenario is that it was a bunch of players were thrown together, who were not integrated into the team, or used to playing together, and as a result all looked disjointed.