The thing is, for those people not liking the style of football, when did we ever play particularly great football? Even under Roman we often had coaches who were pragmatic and a little more defensive. Tuchel, Conte, Mourinho. I remember many fans not enjoying Sarri's style of play. I don't think we'll ever be happy with a style of play. We may as well go for Big Ange if we want overly attacking football.

When people say Meresca has brought balance to the side and we are much better defensively. That we play controlled football I really can’t see it.

This is why I’m not big on stats. The stats say we are a good side at the back and Sanchez statistically is a decent keeper but I watch the games and there are times we look wide open at the back with Cuca gone walk about and we would all take a top centre half and keeper tomorrow.

I sometimes feel I’m watching a different game.

On 17/06/2025 at 10:55, Ukraine Bolt said:

Can people stop saying football under Jose was boring its the laziest rhetoric I've heard and its a complete lie. Not only were we winning the league with a record fewest goals against we were also scoring more than Maresca's Chelsea. That team was electric on the break and got you out of your seat with excitement.

Only our enemies said it was boring, we loved it.. 🙂

9 minutes ago, guddy69 said:

Only our enemies said it was boring, we loved it.. 🙂

Sai it before, it was boring because not only could they not beat us, they couldn't even score against us. Boring for them getting smashed all over the place, lovely for us watching us smash teams all over the place.

23 hours ago, Zeta said:

This is the first season basically in my whole adult life where I've chosen not to watch games and to do something else, because i'm so bored watching us.

This is me this season and probably the new season if this sh*te continues. After the exciting start I was pumped but as soon as he finally started to get “HIS IDEAS” across I lost all interest.

There were games I just choose to not get punished by not watching because I knew it would just drain me.

Am planning on doing the same next season.

We always remember games in hindsight. Jose 2005 had us playing sit back and bum rush the mid then break fast with Robben and Duff

Conte did the same but used WBs

Both were called boring when we went on winning streaks

Carlo's side were the aesthetically pleasing football and we had Kalou and Malouda on the wings

counter attacking football is much more exciting than slow controlled possession BTW

49 minutes ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

counter attacking football is much more exciting than slow controlled possession BTW

I agree. I remember when Bayern won the treble under Heynckes they absolutely destroyed Barcelona in that two legged tie in the Chamoions League. They took Barca apart with excellent counter attacking football.

We have also shown great counter attacks under Pochettino and Maresca as we have the players for it.

Enzo doesn't see that as his style. Hopefully we can be a bit more surgical this season with finishing. Because we can win a ton of games with this a bit more balanced football. Scoring early in games would let us be more adventurous but we seldom do that. We have sprung to life in the second half this last bit of the season.

Wins clearly trump style at least with the history Chelsea has from the last 20 odd years. To me in this stretch it time we have mostly played defensive style football. Some coaches have tried things with not that good results.

In that way Enzo fits the Chelsea history timeline as he wants the team to be able to defend. To me absolutely too much is made of us recycling the ball. Not that it is entertaining to me but I understand why we do it.

4 hours ago, Sunspear_88 said:

The thing is, for those people not liking the style of football, when did we ever play particularly great football? Even under Roman we often had coaches who were pragmatic and a little more defensive. Tuchel, Conte, Mourinho. I remember many fans not enjoying Sarri's style of play. I don't think we'll ever be happy with a style of play. We may as well go for Big Ange if we want overly attacking football.

Some of my favourite wins were when we defended and broke the opponents hearts with breakaway goals. Liverpool away ( Gerrard slip) and a 2nd half breakaway goal . Barca away ( Torres breakaway goal). Which always gets all the praise, but Ramirez scored a beautiful goal which is always overlooked..

The thing is, I can't remember either of those teams playing slow, multi passing possession based football? We forgive a lot though, if the team.is winning Champions Leagues , titles, trophies etc..I want to see the beautiful game, but I ain't complaining if we are winning another way .

Come on you BLUES !

7 hours ago, dkw said:

On the defending thing, I hate that it now is looked upon as some kind of cowardly thing in football, the snearing when a team is defensively excellent, wins a game against better opposition due to a superb defensive structure etc.

Its 50% of a game of football, or at least it used to be, its now so diluted as a skill that tackling is almost dead as a skill. That game V liverpool was just an incredible management effort, to create a build with such a mix of players, so many missing etc, it was an absolute masterclass by Jose.

I agree. I remember reading an article that actually said to defend the way we did takes massive concentration, will power, togetherness etc etc. It's not anti football,however we also moan about low blocks etc ,, it's up to us to overcome it. When Allerdyce got the Hammers a point in a 0-0 at the Bridge José moaned about them " parking the bus" Allerdyce burst out laughing when he was told , said something like " he doesn't like it when someone does it him!"

Watching Boca the other night was a thrill a minute, I know most good possession based European teams would beat them, Benefica almost did, but I just loved their swashbuckling style, hard tackles, fantastic individual skills, and if course their fans.

A glorious game .

Being defensive and being boring are two different things.

You can be defensive are we entertaining and exciting.

On 18/06/2025 at 13:26, El regreso said:

This is me this season and probably the new season if this sh*te continues. After the exciting start I was pumped but as soon as he finally started to get “HIS IDEAS” across I lost all interest.

There were games I just choose to not get punished by not watching because I knew it would just drain me.

Am planning on doing the same next season.

Same here. As well as watching it, I would rather listen to how scientifically paint dries.

Got it wrong again. Out coached by rookie Felipe Luis. He told them to press our players high, it worked, because we have RB Reece James in midfield when we could use Santos or Lavia. Lavia especially is good at playing through the midfield, but Maresca won't see that because he loves to overcomplicate things.

Folically deprived blagger.

Finishing 4th in the weakest PL of the last 2 decades and winning the European Milk Cup have glossed over his tactical inadequacy.

This season is gonna be an absolute write off, Maresca is just a sh*t manager, complete and utter sh*t.

It's embarrassing how many of our fans were backing him because we win a trophy and scraped top 4. Sack the useless prick.

1 minute ago, timetowaste said:

This season is gonna be an absolute write off, Maresca is just a sh*t manager, complete and utter sh*t.

Yep. Can see what happened tonight being repeated in the Champions League with clueless Maresca out of his depth and playing the likes of Sanchez, Gusto and Jackson.

Just pick you best 11 in their best positions. If they aren't fit, pick the next best player for that position. Stop fitting players in where they aren't comfortable....you dumb prick.

We are in for a very looooong looong season clueless twat. His stupid ideological view of football with no desire to change because his way is the right and only way will be disastrous.

I will not be watching majority of our matches next season don’t have the energy for that sh*te.

Maresca is the absolute perfect example of a bullsh*t artist. Pretends to act cool and know what he is talking about in interviews, but he's full of it. The owners tell him to say one thing about certain players and then he spins some bullsh*t to explain why they are not playing.

The fans will never take to this guy, and in all honesty, I don't see why we should. The guy will never stand up to the owners and make demands, he will continue to talk bullsh*t lies to our faces, talk like he has everything figured out, then f**k it up on the pitch.

The frustrating thing is, we have the foundations of a very good squad. But you just know we will go into next season and Maresca will be his stubborn self and he will continue to play players out of position and he won't be able to resist selecting Sanchez, Gusto and Jackson and he does that and we're f**ked.

We need a coach who isn't a yes-man and who won't let players like Petrovic and Santos get sold. Alas, I think we're stuck with him for the foreseeable.

I haven’t being here for a while because to be frankly honest we have a very poor coach and the talent we have in our team will be wasted if we persist with Maresca.

I've been saying it for half a year now but Maresca still has a career because of the early season form we retained off the back of Poch. Our form since Christmas has us sitting in mid table and we scraped top 4 with every team around us falling off. We won the conference league but even West Ham managed to do that unbeaten.

He was ran out of Italy after a handful of games because he was in over his head and hobbled over the line in the Championship on the last day with one of the strongest squads that league has seen.

He's safe so long as he keeps peddling what the owners want him to say to the media but long term we might be finished as a serious club.

Petrovic already has one foot out the door, lets see how Santos gets on for the rest of this tournament.

9 minutes ago, Nibs said:

The frustrating thing is, we have the foundations of a very good squad. But you just know we will go into next season and Maresca will be his stubborn self and he will continue to play players out of position and he won't be able to resist selecting Sanchez, Gusto and Jackson and he does that and we're f**ked.

We need a coach who isn't a yes-man and who won't let players like Petrovic and Santos get sold. Alas, I think we're stuck with him for the foreseeable.

Many of us have said this club is fcked from top to bottom with these owners and this feels like a perfect example of it. Why would any young player want to come to us except as a stepping stone to a real club. Santos at Newcastle with Guimares will be cooking, I bet.