7 hours ago, strider6004 said:

Failure, with less of a third of the season gone that sounds like hyperbole.

We are in the 1/4s of the league cup and in a good position to go further in the Champions league and still in the top half of the league.

Sure we have problems on the pitch yet it is hardly a crisis and there is still time to turn things around. If we are in the bottom four at Christmas I would be more inclined to agree we are heading for failure.

I do think he will sacked if we don't get to top four unless of course he wins a major cup.

If a man was running at you with a knife would you preempt the attack and avoid it or do you wait until the knife is in your stomach to say there's an issue?

Do you watch us week in week out? Have you seen our performances on the pitch for the last 12 months?

36 minutes ago, petre ispirescu said:

I feel that we have a core of players developed enough to finally start pushing for the big things - James, Cucurella, Caicedo, Enzo, Palmer, Neto, Joao Pedro. And Lavia to some extent although he is still very young, but he is already an impressive footballer. Other youngsters like Estevao, Gittens, Garnacho and the rest cand produce high quality depth.

Still the elephant in the room must be addressed. The center back area and the goalkeeper will put this team on hold for years if the board do not understand once and for all that defence wins titles. No point in assembling a squad full of top talents if defence lets them down time and time again. Some attacking players will develop faster and start doing the things we are all waiting for, but it's all in vain if they do not get protected from the back.

Arse only have rice, 2cb, saka, ode and they have been contending in the last 3/4 seasons.

Either Maresca is bad or some of the player in your core list doesn't belong there.

3 hours ago, Bob stark said:

I am pretty sure they have training session vs low block in general however you have to be specific as you are preparing a gameplan vs Sunderland.

Now how detail your gameplan is depend on the manager and as we saw throughout the years fans love it when manager come up with specific gameplan. It feel like every player communicate and move telepathically and if you want detail gameplan you need to allocate more time for it and of course if the opp change their approach, those gameplan will go to the bin.

When does Maresca ever do a detailed gameplan? We can predict how he'll line up and play every single game so its not like he's spending hours a week mixing things up. One minor tactical change shouldn't completely unravel a professional managers preparation.

1 hour ago, Bob stark said:

Talking about vs low block. We are not the only one who struggle vs low block.

There is no magic tactical solution vs low block as you have less space to operate and it is hard to get overload.

The easiest solution is to sign winger who is strong at 1v1 aka dribbler (better yet if you have one please don't sell him), get good crosser/passer (Cesc/KDB/Reece), load the box with player who is good in the box (st).

You can always take more risk by giving up the ball, add more rotation, or play more attacker (play estevao over Enzo or Cucu) but you need to asses the risk of doing this

As ever you get it completely wrong, no surprise. The easiest way to beat a low block is speed, speed of passing speed of thought. As soon as the ball is turned over get it forward, dont give them a chance to organise everything. Pretty much the exact opposite to how our clown sets us up.

Theres been plenty of teams over the years successful against a low block, liverpool under Klopp as the most recent good example. They basically bypassed the midfield entirely at times, get 3 up front to stay up front and hit them early as possible and wide as possible, then get bodies to them immediately.

4 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

They would have had at least 4 and that's just after the A**x game. No need to do hyperspecific sessions for any opponent let alone Sunderland. The issues that caused the loss aren't unique to Sunderland, it is likely vs any team that sits back against us, back 5 or not

Its not even just the sunderland game, we come up against this defence all the time and he hasnt even attempted to change the way we play to counteract it, he just keeps us plodding away passing the ball around as slow as possible to allow them to get their 2 banks set up, its literally the exact opposite of how to play against this defence. He hasnt once changed anything, the only time weve beaten it is when our players got f**king pig sick of his sh*t and took it upon themselves to run at the defence.

2 minutes ago, dkw said:

As ever you get it completely wrong, no surprise. The easiest way to beat a low block is speed, speed of passing speed of thought. As soon as the ball is turned over get it forward, dont give them a chance to organise everything. Pretty much the exact opposite to how our clown sets us up.

Theres been plenty of teams over the years successful against a low block, liverpool under Klopp as the most recent good example. They basically bypassed the midfield entirely at times, get 3 up front to stay up front and hit them early as possible and wide as possible, then get bodies to them immediately.

Yes transition is one way but that is not the main way how Klopp team beat low block. They will pepper you with crosses after crosses and attack the rebound quickly so you can't reorganize. It is freaking relentless.

What is the problem with doing this? The opp can't reorganize but you also can't reorganize.

Klopp played 3 ball winner in midfield + 2 fast cb. We have one ball winner and Tosin has conceded the exact same transition goal again and again and he is one of our main cb rotation.

5 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Yes transition is one way but that is not the main way how Klopp team beat low block. They will pepper you with crosses after crosses and attack the rebound quickly so you can't reorganize. It is freaking relentless.

And how exactly do they get the ball into those crossing positions? Also, no they didnt, they absolutely did not throw loads of crosses into the box, they played on getting the ball up front fast behind defences, getting bodies in the box to then play off/around/through to create shooting lanes.

1 minute ago, dkw said:

And how exactly do they get the ball into those crossing positions? Also, no they didnt, they absolutely did not throw loads of crosses into the box, they played on getting the ball up front fast behind defences, getting bodies in the box to then play off/around/through to create shooting lanes.

pumping the ball into the box for 5'9 Salah and 5'9 Mane to win the header haha its amazing Liverpool ever won anything based on Bob's analysis!

CaughtOffside

Chelsea board make secret plans to replace Enzo Maresca w...

According to a transfer insider, certain officials from the Chelsea board are not on the same page with Enzo Maresca and have identified Andoni Iraola as replacement.

Get your rosary's out 😁

41 minutes ago, GarnachoCheese said:

pumping the ball into the box for 5'9 Salah and 5'9 Mane to win the header haha its amazing Liverpool ever won anything based on Bob's analysis!

Your reply is so good that I simply can't counter

Edited October 30, 2025Oct 30 by Bob stark

45 minutes ago, Bebe1980 said:

CaughtOffside

Chelsea board make secret plans to replace Enzo Maresca w...

According to a transfer insider, certain officials from the Chelsea board are not on the same page with Enzo Maresca and have identified Andoni Iraola as replacement.

Get your rosary's out 😁

Absolutely want this to happen. In the words of Kevin Keegan "I would LOVE it...................................."

Problem solved:

https://www.trtafrika.com/english/article/3c26556be02e

It's crazy how this manager's best traits is he's lucky.

Never have I watched a Chelsea team pick up so many reds. 6 red cards in 9 games?

Losing to Sunderland was stupid enough then we can't even see out a game without chaos everywhere.

We need a manager that can instill discipline and play fast football.

He doesn’t have the respect of the team else you wouldn’t be getting that many cards.

Iraola would be a great appointment.

Warnock on talksport mentioned he turned down the Chels job when he was at Notts County and always regretted it.

I know it’s 30 years too late but if we asked nicely enough he might consider replacing this fraud?

Lose at Tottenham and he could be gone, last night was papering over the cracks 4-3 against Wolves reserves, players look to have fallen out with Coco, no Guiu and no Garnacho in squad yet his two boyfriends both got to play

I thought that Pochettino's team lacked discipline because of the fights we saw to take penalties; but under this bald fraud, I wish the players were fighting to take penalties rather than fighting to see who could get sent off more times!

The whole season is just spiralling down after the CWC win. Rather than credit and a winning mentality, the Mickey Mouse cups won last season seems to have provided more entitlement to the players and complacency to the coaching staff. If there's any intention to rescue the season, Maresca has to go and the board needs to bring in some experienced coaching team with winning mentality.

2 hours ago, Bebe1980 said:

CaughtOffside

Chelsea board make secret plans to replace Enzo Maresca w...

According to a transfer insider, certain officials from the Chelsea board are not on the same page with Enzo Maresca and have identified Andoni Iraola as replacement.

Get your rosary's out 😁

= Some mountebank off Twitter

If you support bomb squads, and the playing of certain players regardless of form, then I think you're always going to be creating problems for yourself. We've had countless examples of Maresca immediately benching a young player that has some sort of good game or break through. It must be soul-destroying and kills any chance for the player to build momentum.

Maresca has to go, but I don't think we can move forwards without the SDs going as well though, as otherwise it's just going to be rinse and repeat, and frankly, I doubt that any credible manager that might improve us is going to accept working under the current conditions. I think Eghbali needs to take a back seat as well.

Bring in a manager that will play a natural number 9, start Estevao, get Palmer back on the wing, make Enzo Fernandez 4th choice CM and play full backs that overlap.

49 minutes ago, RMH said:

The whole season is just spiralling down after the CWC win. Rather than credit and a winning mentality, the Mickey Mouse cups won last season seems to have provided more entitlement to the players and complacency to the coaching staff. If there's any intention to rescue the season, Maresca has to go and the board needs to bring in some experienced coaching team with winning mentality.

Disagree.

The only entitlement came from the directors, as the CWC fluke win somehow vindicated their absurd transfer strategy.

I don’t like defending Maresca at this rate, but he expressed his concerns on the squad. Said he needed another CB after Colwill got injured. Said his current CBs can’t do dick (now looking true). Said he needed another ST or at the very least keep Jackson. Said he needed more experience. Also no doubt he pushed for Maignan and it must of been a dagger when the directors opted to stick with Sanchez.

They promised CL qualification would raise the standards of transfer targets, as well as doing their “due diligence” in January would transition easily into the summer market. What did we do? Weaken the squad as a whole and they finally got to bust their nut in their 6 month pursuit in Garnacho.

f**k WINSTANLEY AND STEWART.

5 hours ago, GarnachoCheese said:

If a man was running at you with a knife would you preempt the attack and avoid it or do you wait until the knife is in your stomach to say there's an issue?

Do you watch us week in week out? Have you seen our performances on the pitch for the last 12 months?

We've been poor for a number of seasons, masked by winning the Champions League under TT.

TT for me was boring, Pochettino was more exciting though every time we lost the ball looked like they would score.

Maresca has a nightmare with his centre backs as they can't stay fit. Enzo still does not seem a EPL midfielder.

Neto, Estevao, and Palmer when fit are still exciting to watch and Caicedo is a class act.

Maresca has made more subs this season tohugh thought against Sunderland left it too late.

Yes as for knives 3 people have threatened to stab me and was once asked to leave Burger King by security as I anticipated it. I also have had someone threaten to shotgun me.

1 hour ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Disagree.

The only entitlement came from the directors, as the CWC fluke win somehow vindicated their absurd transfer strategy.

I don’t like defending Maresca at this rate, but he expressed his concerns on the squad. Said he needed another CB after Colwill got injured. Said his current CBs can’t do dick (now looking true). Said he needed another ST or at the very least keep Jackson. Said he needed more experience. Also no doubt he pushed for Maignan and it must of been a dagger when the directors opted to stick with Sanchez.

They promised CL qualification would raise the standards of transfer targets, as well as doing their “due diligence” in January would transition easily into the summer market. What did we do? Weaken the squad as a whole and they finally got to bust their nut in their 6 month pursuit in Garnacho.

f**k WINSTANLEY AND STEWART.

I don't disagree with you regarding the SDs, and ultimately the board is responsible for the direction taken by the club, so I'd like them gone as well.

However, the Club could have brought prime Ronaldo or Messi and Maresca would still be playing the boring side-ways passing we've seen for a year. He's shown that he's not capable of learning nor willing to try different approaches, stubborn, very inexperienced and has no capacity to improve a single player. He has to go, with the SD and board or without, but he's part of the problem.

23 minutes ago, strider6004 said:

Yes as for knives 3 people have threatened to stab me and was once asked to leave Burger King by security as I anticipated it. I also have had someone threaten to shotgun me.

pmsl I mean at this point you probably need to ask yourself what you’re doing wrong.