The vitriol around Sarri is really odd to me. I'd have his football over Maresca's tomorrow as his system gets the best out of attacking players... its why he became manager before us, he got bang average players in Serie a scoring a lot of goals.

The downside to his football was we got smashed every now and then. But Pep loved his philosphy and we've had many managers since then doing exactly the same thing and thegame has become so dull to watch.

Anyhow. Long gone, give me a manager who can set this side up for three playing styles and isnt afraid to mix up style and substance.

Lets start with the dippers.

I remember reading this at the time. Loads of similar media reports were circulating at the time.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8253170/chelsea-squad-confused-sarris-training-fear-injuries/

18 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

Yes, and it's absolute sh*t. Imagine telling Hazard, Salah, Messi, Ronaldinho to play this fake controlled sh*t. That is what he is doing to Palmer and will do to Estevao. He'll turn them into robots when they should be doing what PSG or Barcelona's youngers do.

Exactly why I hate modern managers approach to football. They are killing excitement and creativity in young footballers. If we had these idiots around when R9, Zidane, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho we would never have gotten the memories we have now. The quicker we get rid of this nonsense the better

8 hours ago, Bob stark said:

This is just my personal opinion. I think playing positional ball is better in term of getting result, you minimize risk, you maximize your advantage, from structure/tactical pov you will rarely be out coached and defensively especially in term of rest defense it is not even comparable. 

However from entertainment pov 😴😴😴

Thats how I see it too. Pep changed the game for better and for worse.

It’s only entertaining when everything clicks, but that takes a tremendous amount of patience and/or $$$$.

18 hours ago, Gol15 said:

The opposite is true.

It was all about movement without the ball.

2 Cup finals, top 3 finish, got the best out of so many players, there actually wasn't a single one that didn't enjoy attacking under Sarri, including Kante.

Learn the game.

. Stats are one thing, but we were awful to watch . We broke records for the amount of passes , Jorghino broke a passing record for an individual player against West Ham and created not one goalscoring chance. .

"Jorginho completed the most passes in a Premier League match since records began against West Ham on Sunday.

The Chelsea midfielder played 180 passes, one every 30 seconds, but could not break the Hammers down as the Blues were held to a goalless draw"

From 2019 below...

"Chelsea fans showed their dissatisfaction towards Maurizio Sarri and his philosophy against Manchester United as some sections of the fans were heard shouting 'F*uck Sarriball'.

One thing is to hate a coach and another is to hate his brand of football but the reality is that Chelsea supporters are fed up with the both Sarriball and the stubborn Italian manager.'

Edited October 4, 2025Oct 4 by The Rising Sun
Information

Despite some of our best players injured we beat the supposed favourites for the title, who've just spent 200m+ this window. And we were the better team

Think people are hitting the panic buttons too quick here, I'd be shocked if we finished outside the top 4

Give me this Choas ball Maresca that’s what I want to see. Take the breaks off the attackers.

We should be ALL GAS and NO BRAKES!!

10 minutes ago, Drogba1 said:

Despite some of our best players injured we beat the supposed favourites for the title, who've just spent 200m+ this window. And we were the better team

Think people are hitting the panic buttons too quick here, I'd be shocked if we finished outside the top 4

You could well be right. But equally, I could be right saying that we’ll huff and puff to a draw against someone like Burnley in our next game. As much as one bad game in isolation means little, one win also means little in isolation.

I do feel more positive after tonight’s result, and would love to ‘trust the project’, but we need more consistent positives and less bloody injuries before I get overly excited.

Fair play to him for the celebration, good to see him show some passion.

Has to build on this and learn from his mistakes.

He simply must.

14 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Has to build on this and learn from his mistakes.

He simply must.

I expect Maresca ball against Forest but if Ange is still in charge we know he his high line is there for the taking

2 hours ago, El regreso said:

Give me this Choas ball Maresca that’s what I want to see. Take the breaks off the attackers.

We should be ALL GAS and NO BRAKES!!

Not really chaos ball for the winning goal. People been asking for more directness, but the winner was anything, but that. It was still "slow and boring Maresca ball" as some like to say and the defenders did not simply threw the ball away as it was the very last minutes and Liverpool was pressing very high. Kudos to Caicedo for brilliantly unlocking that passage of play. Had the players not built that from the back and slowly take the ball forward, the game would have ended in a draw.

Cannot stand the bloke. James in midfield, Estevao on the bench. But there can be no doubt Pepilini has big slice of Kylie Minogue on his side.

We have been here before. There have been odd games here and there where he has taken the handbrake off - and he has us play on fast forward...and then he usually has us revert to type the following week. So let's see.

As one of the most vocal critique of his usual slow and sterile play, I am so happy to see it vindicated that good things happen when we play fast and progressive, adventurous football.

We hear from some of olathe forums tactical gurus that fast football isn't possible with this team, and that Maresca has to play slowly because the players are not capable. Well - this is another game that shows that is bo**ocks.

More of this. Less of the sideways backwards nonsense.

Haha, on MOTD Rooney highlighted Maresca screaming at Sánchez to play the ball long to Garnacho who was behind Bradley.

Presumably he got himself sent off on purpose to spare his blushes.

Edited October 5, 2025Oct 5 by PloKoon13

What is this chaos ball bo**ocks. The objective of the game is to get the ball in the oppositions net. In order to do that you need to attack.

It’s best to attack teams quickly before they get set, What is chaotic about that?

I'd rather chaosball than the slow build up that leads to 3 red cards back to back.

I really want Maresca to design a gameplan that doesn't involve our GK and CBs hold the ball for too long whilst our attackers is so far up that it creates a huge gap in midfield.

3 CMs

Traditional CBs

Let’s roll with that and see how it goes.

Our next 5 leafur games are:

Forest (A)

Sunderland (H)

Spurs (A)

Wolves (H)

Burnley (A)

Before we play Arsenal at home. Those 5 should be 15 points. No excuses.

Just like Brentford, United and brighton should have been 9 points not 1!

22 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Our next 5 leafur games are:

Forest (A)

Sunderland (H)

Spurs (A)

Wolves (H)

Burnley (A)

Before we play Arsenal at home. Those 5 should be 15 points. No excuses.

Just like Brentford, United and brighton should have been 9 points not 1!

It SHOULD be 15 points but you know how we are now!!

On 04/10/2025 at 19:51, Drogba1 said:

Despite some of our best players injured we beat the supposed favourites for the title, who've just spent 200m+ this window. And we were the better team

Think people are hitting the panic buttons too quick here, I'd be shocked if we finished outside the top 4

This is exactly the issue though. We know the squad we have is good enough to be challenging at the very top. It was proven at the start of last season, it was proven in the second half of the conference league final, it was proven against PSG and it was proven again yesterday. All games where we don’t f**k about knocking it between our CB’s and giving away easy chances while creating zilch.

I don’t know how Maresca can see what our strengths are so often then try to do the complete opposite the following game. Stupidity or arrogance, take you pick.

Also bald.

I said in the match thread, it's so puzzling how we can be so bad in some games, but then put out a performance like we did against Liverpool, with so many injuries.

I know young players are inconsistent so we will get the peaks and troughs but Maresca HAS to learn and STOP playing so negatively, when we look so much better playing more attacking football. If Liverpool had got the late winner rather than us and we had lost 2-1, as gutted I would be, I would still rather that than watch the tedious, dull, negative football and try and nick a point.

I voted for Maresca to go in the other poll, but if we can see more of the style of football we played against Liverpool, then I'll be okay with him staying. Loved his passion for the late winner too - despite the resulting red card.

That is the best result we've had in the Premier League since the new owners came in.

It's been a long time since we've managed to beat one of the best teams in the league, I think the last time we were doing that was under Tuchel.

We do strangely always seem to turn up against Liverpool, but I wrote us off completely that day, especially when I had one glance at the lineup and how many critical players we had missing, we had no right to get a result, never mind such a good performance on top of it, fully deserved.

But I'm not getting carried away, it's usually back to business as usual after a good result/performance under Maresca.

It's amazing what we can do when we don't lose a player to a red card with half of the game to go! Absolutely loved that last minute goal, and absolute rocket from Caicedo.

I think we played good football throughout - Liverpool are out of sorts but still not easy opponents. Funnily enough I don't think Maresca really changed our style in this game. There was still the slow build up, attempted controlled play. Caicedo's goal came from recycling the ball back to the CBs then exploiting the space in midfield when liverpool weren't tracking our CMs.

The big difference is Liverpool were trying to win the game, not grind out a draw/snatch a goal. That created space for us to exploit, as it did against PSG. I think this style works best against top quality opposition and we need to get better at breaking through packed defences which leave no space.

1 hour ago, Victor90 said:

That is the best result we've had in the Premier League since the new owners came in.

We literally beat Liverpool 3-1 last year