3 minutes ago, RMH said:

Sacking Maresca doesn’t solve the issue. We’ve got to get rid of the SDs and owners. Their policy is what’s driving the club’s performances. What do you expect from such a sh*t group of players? No attacking quality other than Palmer, no midfield with defensive capacity nor a goal scoring or creative midfielder, a defensive line as bland as it gets, and no quality goalkeeper. We are where we are independently of the coach. There’s no winning mentality above so we can’t expect it from the team.

As I posted before there are definitely much bigger issues at the club than Maresca. But he will likely be the one to make way as the owners will not take accountability for the mess they created. Not sure when but feels inevitable after the recent decline. Players do not look like they are with him.

I hate the fact Maresca is being shielded by the owners and sporting directors incompetencies, as he’s clearly abysmal on every possible performance metric we can hold him to. How can you get so lucky? Almost bottled promotion with Leicester on ‘give it to Vardy’ tactics, land yourself the f**king Chelsea job! From a piss poor CV.. AND get even luckier because guess what ‘circumstances’ are to blame. 

Yes, the former is a bigger problem, sure, but every shred of blame aimed at that bald head is justified. 

5 minutes ago, forbzy said:

As I posted before there are definitely much bigger issues at the club than Maresca. But he will likely be the one to make way as the owners will not take accountability for the mess they created. Not sure when but feels inevitable after the recent decline. Players do not look like they are with him.

Yes, I agree that they’ll take the cowards option of changing the coach to keep things the same. It’s when the real owners, the investors, come asking for their profits that they’ll be made responsible for the decline. Because they aren’t going to be making much profit of sh*t 20 yo players.

2 minutes ago, RMH said:

Yes, I agree that they’ll take the cowards option of changing the coach to keep things the same. It’s when the real owners, the investors, come asking for their profits that they’ll be made responsible for the decline. Because they aren’t going to be making much profit of sh*t 20 yo players.

I won't be surprised if they avoid taking action until things get much worse on the pitch. I remember back to the season under Potter, and the writing was on the wall months before they finally decided to cut their losses. Despite the fact that we were getting pulled into a relegation battle at the time.

At the moment Maresca isn't even a frontrunner in the manager sack race at the bookies.

8 minutes ago, forbzy said:

I won't be surprised if they avoid taking action until things get much worse on the pitch. I remember back to the season under Potter, and the writing was on the wall months before they finally decided to cut their losses. Despite the fact that we were getting pulled into a relegation battle at the time.

At the moment Maresca isn't even a frontrunner in the manager sack race at the bookies.

The difference is that back the it was Boehly that was running the club and now it’s Egbahli and blueco, if we have to trust the reports. But you’re probably right. As long as they make some spare change buying and selling youngsters with potential, they won’t change things.

Enzo says we controlled the game but we're hindered with no number 9.

Our last 6 away games.

0-0 D to Everton

2-0 L to Ipswich

1-1 D to Palace

3-1 L to Man City

2-1 L to Brighton

3-0 L to Brighton

Just eff off with the excuses. I would rather lose by trying something different than trying to win with the same boring system that hasn't worked even with a number 9. I really hate football now. The money spent doesn't justify the output at our club and that really sickens me.

Sorry to all the Leicester fans who I said were wrong. I hold my hand up on this one and eat the humble pie. He’s exactly as you said he was going to be.

3 hours ago, KonaKai Blue said:

Enzo says we controlled the game but we're hindered with no number 9.

Our last 6 away games.

0-0 D to Everton

2-0 L to Ipswich

1-1 D to Palace

3-1 L to Man City

2-1 L to Brighton

3-0 L to Brighton

Just eff off with the excuses. I would rather lose by trying something different than trying to win with the same boring system that hasn't worked even with a number 9. I really hate football now. The money spent doesn't justify the output at our club and that really sickens me.

He has been hiding behind this excuse for the past month, why can’t he devise another tactic that makes up for the lack of a No 9? And why has he got 3CBs on the bench when he could pull a CF or 2 from the U21s?

He's a loser.

Simple

It's got to the point where i feel like kicking the telly everytime I see his incompetent boat either jibbering waffle at a presser or standing on the touchline looking f**king confused!!🤬

The thing is surely if you are pursuing a player trading model as blueco seem to be doing with laurel and hardy implementing, a key part of such a strategy is to have a manager that improves players. Brighton do that for example. 
 

Our players have got worse under maresca not better. So how can he be the right manager for the project?  Of course I would argue any  manager who does not point out the failings of Stewart and Losestanley is probably not equipped to improve players. Also the best way to improve player value is for them to be winning things. 
 

this whole thing is a shambles. What we need right now is leadership. Something we always got from Roman.  But the layers and layers of pointless clowns now at Chelsea are probably incapable of strong effective leadership. 
 

Regardless of all the mitigating circumstances , maraca is a one dimensional fraud who has eliminated the best qualities of all of the squad.  He needs sacked.  
jorgensen / Sanchez - worse than previous clubs

gusto / James - both underperforming v past

centre backs - gone back massively 

cucu - from starving the euros to this

enzo - World Cup winner diluted

 caicedo - over worked 

wingers - all misfiring versus historic performances (perhaps madueke aside)

nkunku - absolutely ruined the guy

Jackson - ok maybe he has improved a bit  

nearly ever player is going backwards. So surely only one outcome.   

 

On the bright side if we finish 14th in the premier then we don't have to buy Sancho ..apparently 

He is a rookie manager and want to give him time but questions starting to be asked now. This inverted FB stuff is being worked out. He froze out Chilwell, Felix and Chukz and did not get them a sniff. We defo should of had Chilwell as a squad player, regardless of his wages. He offers much more of an attacking threat than Chilwell. We have no plan B from that side of the pitch. We did not manage one shot on target yesterday. Just really bad. I preferred the football we were playing under Poch than watching this crap at the moment. He really needs to buckle his ideas down, because that is 2 games against Brighton where we were completely outclassed. Men against Boys.

1 hour ago, jaffaboy said:

The thing is surely if you are pursuing a player trading model as blueco seem to be doing with laurel and hardy implementing, a key part of such a strategy is to have a manager that improves players. Brighton do that for example. 
 

Our players have got worse under maresca not better. So how can he be the right manager for the project?  Of course I would argue any  manager who does not point out the failings of Stewart and Losestanley is probably not equipped to improve players. Also the best way to improve player value is for them to be winning things. 
 

this whole thing is a shambles. What we need right now is leadership. Something we always got from Roman.  But the layers and layers of pointless clowns now at Chelsea are probably incapable of strong effective leadership. 
 

Regardless of all the mitigating circumstances , maraca is a one dimensional fraud who has eliminated the best qualities of all of the squad.  He needs sacked.  
jorgensen / Sanchez - worse than previous clubs

gusto / James - both underperforming v past

centre backs - gone back massively 

cucu - from starving the euros to this

enzo - World Cup winner diluted

 caicedo - over worked 

wingers - all misfiring versus historic performances (perhaps madueke aside)

nkunku - absolutely ruined the guy

Jackson - ok maybe he has improved a bit  

nearly ever player is going backwards. So surely only one outcome.   

 

I think that you’re wrong. Players are just not that good.

Sanchez and Jorgensen - the one wasn’t playing for Brighton and was bad last season too, and Jorgensen wasn’t ripping it up with Villareal in a completely different league.

Gusto and James - I give you Gusto, who’s been quite bad this season v last, but James is not underperforming when he plays, simply gets injured too often.

CBs - they haven’t regressed, Tosin was acquired on a free from Fulham, Fofana broken, Disasi and Badiashille are just sh*t. Chalobah has his up and downs as always and Colwill hasn’t shown much last nor this season in Chelsea blue.

Cucurella is having a very decent season, probably the best of our bad bunch of defenders, his only down side is that he’s been played as an arriving CF and he’s no goal scoring machine.

Enzo was sh*t last season as this, he hasn’t regressed really. His only good game for us was his first game against Liverpool, he was superb there. Going down the hill since then.

Caicedo overworked, yes, but not worse than last season.

Wingers are what was expected. Neto wasn’t a scoring machine at Wolves, who played counterattacking system, and he’s isn’t doing much worse for us. Samcho is living off his first stint at Dortmund and has been regressing ever since. Madueke is very inconsistent but not worse than last season.

Nkunku hasn’t shown much for us to say that we’ve ruined him. Surely we can say that he’s been mistreated but he just jogs around and puts no effort. He’s coming from Bundesliga where Werner was also fired up.

Jackson is and will never be a world class CF. He’s improved a bit but not much imo.

He is blatantly not good enough but lets be under no illusions. Whoever they bring in next after he's sacked won't be good enough either so whats the point? Maresca, McKenna and Frank was the options in the summer remember.

We can forget about Ancelotti, Conte, Inzaghi or anyone else thats hellbent on winning because thats not what this club is about anymore. They are attempting to build a player-trading operation (shame for them they suck at that too) which is why they sack everyone who gives them some harsh truths (Tuchel, Pochettino, Bath etc). In addition to the PTO they are simultaneously asset stripping the clubs and putting said assets into continuation funds over at Clearlake for perpetual trading and profit for themselves while they don't give two sh*ts about team performance other than forcing the likes of Enzo Fernandez down the managers throat to protect their stupid investment.

If we aren't already we'll be a shell of a football club in two-three years. Just like most other companies that private equity guys gets their greasy hands on.

11 hours ago, KonaKai Blue said:

Enzo says we controlled the game but we're hindered with no number 9.

Our last 6 away games.

0-0 D to Everton

2-0 L to Ipswich

1-1 D to Palace

3-1 L to Man City

2-1 L to Brighton

3-0 L to Brighton

Just eff off with the excuses. I would rather lose by trying something different than trying to win with the same boring system that hasn't worked even with a number 9. I really hate football now. The money spent doesn't justify the output at our club and that really sickens me.

When will this fking idiotic classroom managers ever learn that keeping the ball for 70% of the time without having a shot is not controlling the game. In fact to put it in even clearer perspective for the clueless moron in charge , at no stage during the games above were the opposition in an uncontrolled state. They were just resting, biding their time before dispatching our sandcastle structure. 

13 hours ago, icecoolguy22 said:

The owners won't go anywhere until they get their money back and doubled, so likely we will get another manager with similar traits, or just stay the same and save some money,  Like Maresca, there are positives in losing,

They are not going to get their money back (let alone doubled) for a mid-table team. Their philosophy is, to say the least, illogical. The focus is on player trading. Buy young and cheap, sell for a profit. A long-term strategy that doesn't guarantee anything at all. CL is the key. Profile, buckets of money, et al. Get their money back at the very least. The mismanagement of the playing squad - GK, CBs, striker, etc - involving failing SDs on top of a suspect coach will be their undoing.

The way we are going we might struggle to win the conference league. Real Betis, who could be our next opponents, are actually a fairly decent La Liga side. That would be embarrassing considering West Ham won that competition. I still think the coaches are becoming the fall guys right now. But the problem is, even if Maresca isn't good enough, who else is there out there? I would say Allegri, but are fans going to enjoy that style of football? Probably not. Who else has won major trophies and is available? There is nobody that I know of. 

Edited February 15, 20251 yr by Sunspear_88

23 minutes ago, Sunspear_88 said:

The way we are going we might struggle to win the conference league. Real Betis, who could be our next opponents, are actually a fairly decent La Liga side. That would be embarrassing considering West Ham won that competition. I still think the coaches are becoming the fall guys right now. But the problem is, even if Maresca isn't good enough, who else is there out there? I would say Allegri, but are fans going to enjoy that style of football? Probably not. Who else has won major trophies and is available? There is nobody that I know of. 

I think there are many managers out there that could make a name for themselves and do better with this squad. 

All it takes is someone that can adapt. If possession isn't working, go to counter attacking. 

If 3 at the back doesn't work, go to a 4. 

Just tweak stuff and figure out what works. Maresca wasted 4 games over Xmas with utter bs and his rigid boring non effective style.

I am available since i quit the Norwich coaching a while ago

1 hour ago, Sunspear_88 said:

The way we are going we might struggle to win the conference league. Real Betis, who could be our next opponents, are actually a fairly decent La Liga side. That would be embarrassing considering West Ham won that competition. I still think the coaches are becoming the fall guys right now. But the problem is, even if Maresca isn't good enough, who else is there out there? I would say Allegri, but are fans going to enjoy that style of football? Probably not. Who else has won major trophies and is available? There is nobody that I know of. 

We are also playing next round of Conf League in early March. We will not have many if any of the injured players back by then.

Bring back poch... 😂 Less spursy than the current out of depth manager we have. 

I've not wanted something  out so much since I found a tick in my left testicle.

I am almost beyond the point of caring who it is.  Even a short term option using an established but available name who may be keen to prove a point and secure a longer term deal (and if they don't it won't cost a fortune when we look for a longer term option)

 

Someone like Allegri if he was interested might be a shout 

Apparently it was going really well until a week or two ago. Deluded. 

Speaking after the match, Maresca told BBC Sport: "It is difficult when you don't have a proper number nine. In the last third we struggled doing things that until a week or two ago we were doing well.

 

I remember back to the old days on the old CSR forum when Abraomovich was one/two seasons into his Chelsea reign and a commenter made (poorly) the argument that we were better off under Bates and proceeded to cherry pick all the successful (incoming) transfers of the previous 12 months as ones we would have made under Bates and put all the unsucessful/bad transfers (and there were many) as Roman and then say "we could have spent x millions less and had an equal/better team" which is techically correct with perfect hindsight but ridiculous in reality.

Well guess what, I am going to do almost the same thing 🤣 (but being aware of it I hopefully won't fall into the same traps of cherry picking with the benefit of hindsight), of doing an alternative history.

My alternative history is: What if Pochettino had gotten his way, wasn't sacked and the sporting directors (who sacked him were instead subservient to him as in giving him what he wanted).

Doing so I came up with the alternative history

1. We kept Gallagher (who Pochettino said multiple times he wanted to keep). We get 1x Gallagher but lose €42.00m transfer incomings

2. We don't buy Felix. We lose Felix but gain €52.00m in money we could have spent elsewhere. Net them out, we keep Gallagher + 10million but don't get Felix. I don't think Pochettino would have really wanted Felix and definitely wouldn't have traded Gallagher for Felix so I think this is a reasonable (non-cherry picked altnerate history thesis).

3. With Gallagher at the club and no Maresca, there probably wouldn't have been the drive (or need) to buy Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall from Leicester City for €35.40m. The deal was made partly to convince Leicester to give us Maresca, to bail them out of their own FFP/PSR issues and to help us Michael Golding. I don't think it would have happened if we hadn't brought Maresca to the club.

4. Michael Golding isn't sold the other way for 5million and that revenue is lost as he was never worth that and was just make-weight in the KDH deal.

5. Stirling isn't loaned out to rival Arsenal with us paying over half his wages as while clearly not a good buy from us, Pochettino could work with him and Maresca for tactical reasons it seems cannot. Undoing this would lead to us funding his full wage but keeping the player.

6. Keeping Stirling means we probably don't buy Neto. This would save €60.00m in transfer fees and with Stirling staying to fill the role. 

7, Chilwell would have been an important part of a Pochettino team (if he stayed fit which I admit is an assumption). 

8. Chalobah (our best defender last season) would never have been loaned out and would have been here the whole season. We lose whatever half season wages Crystal Palace were covering but gain Chalobah for the first half of the year.

9. Possibly, maybe, we MIGHT have not gotten Tosin in on a free transfer if we had kept Chalobah as it might have been decided we had enough CBs already. That would be a loss as I actually think he's been decent and well worth it on a free transfer.

As for things that don't change

I still think we probably still would have bought Sancho, Jorgensen, Penders, Anselmino, Veiga and Guiu. I think probably we would have sold Maatson (who Pochettino just didn't rate), Lewis Hall (unfortunately), Lukaku, Hutchinson and Angelo.

Sancho I really do think has been an opportunistic bargain for us and his recent poor form is because he isn't receiving the ball early enough or with enough support (having to always dribble 1v2) vs a lack of ability. And as for Lewis Hall, this one kind of kills me as I think he's now showing at Newcastle he's a really good player and we bluntly f*cked up selling him for just €33.00m. I would love to make the argument that Pochettino (if he had the choice) would have kept him, but I don't know. But I think selling him makes even less sense in a Maresca (inverted wingback) system than a Pochettino (traditional wingback's) one and it was just a really poor decision.

Overall not buying Neto, Felix or KDH saves us €147.4m (all figures from transfermarkt https://www.transfermarkt.com/fc-chelsea/alletransfers/verein/631) but not selling Gallagher and Golding means €47m less imcomings.  Players wise, we lose Neto, Felix and KDH but gain Gallagher, Stirling, Chilwell and half a Chalobah.

I think our squad would be of comparible overall quality (just less suited to Maresca which is fine as he wouldn't be the manager in this alternative history scenario), but would have had an additional €100.4m to spend. Which probably would have gone on a striker but I don't want to speculate on that as I think that would be too "cherry pickey". BUT.............that kind of cash would have gotten us an Osimhen.

Now onto Maresca vs Pochettino. I think Pochettino is a better manager. He's more adaptable, versatile where Maresca is far more specific about player roles and unable to fit players (like Chilwell or Nkunku) who don't fit his specific player roles. I don't think Maresca had he been manager last season, given the generationally bad injury crisis we suffered, would have gotten the 6th place finish (with an xG/xPTS that would have had us in 5th) that Poch got. And I beleive even with the current squad, Poch would have us doing better this season than Maresca is. But if you did do these alternative history transfers, I think we'd be in a much stronger position this year.

My alternative history is obviously full of assumptions and as much as i've tried not to, some hindsight cherry-picking. But I think it's a strong argument that we would have been better off if we'd just stuck with Pochettino.

Edited February 16, 20251 yr by Qaz