I've got to admire Maresca for just getting on with it after the club deprived him of his " perfect number 9 ." Hasn't made a fuss at all.

I suppose it's because he knows his " perfect number 9 " will be returning ?

Sometimes I wonder whether some would rather Maresca loses and fails, than to see us start winning and building up a run of steam...

I mean we totally outplayed Spurs, should have won by 3 or 4 easily but still Maresca is being criticised for us not killing off the game. You do realise he's not allowed to go on the pitch and put the ball in the net, don't you? The chances the team created in the game were more than enough. I think XG was nearly 3, whatever that means. That suggests our players did a bad job finishing off chances, not the manager getting his tactics wrong...

Talking about Spurs game only here.

23 hours ago, TheCeleryKing said:

Maresca. sigh. He is an inexperienced coach/manager and when you have a squad of amazing, but inexperienced players, it might be a good idea to get a manager with deep experience and good player management. Maresca has never felt right as a Chelsea manager. We all know this. That said, what manager out there would be better?

Frank Lampard remontada, i will be there no matter what.

15 hours ago, The Rising Sun said:

I've got to admire Maresca for just getting on with it after the club deprived him of his " perfect number 9 ." Hasn't made a fuss at all.

I suppose it's because he knows his " perfect number 9 " will be returning ?

More likely the wage payer told him to keep quiet and he listened like a good little doggy.

He'll be in the pressers waxing lyrical about Kellyman as soon as the club want to sell.

3 hours ago, Shweaves said:

Sometimes I wonder whether some would rather Maresca loses and fails, than to see us start winning and building up a run of steam...

I mean we totally outplayed Spurs, should have won by 3 or 4 easily but still Maresca is being criticised for us not killing off the game. You do realise he's not allowed to go on the pitch and put the ball in the net, don't you? The chances the team created in the game were more than enough. I think XG was nearly 3, whatever that means. That suggests our players did a bad job finishing off chances, not the manager getting his tactics wrong...

Talking about Spurs game only here.

It's the very reason why they are going to stick with him until the very end.

Maresca's principles in how the game should be played is what allows us to go toe to toe against the very best. It's when he faces adversity does his inexperience as a manager show, as his game management more than often is horrendous. (fully rotating the squad, reactive, poor game plan, etc)

Unless he somehow gets better, this is Maresca's ceiling. It's just a matter of how long the directors are fine with it. Which evidence shows, they are.

Edited November 5, 2025Nov 5 by Sconnie Blue

32 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

It's the very reason why they are going to stick with him until the very end.

Maresca's principles in how the game should be played is what allows us to go toe to toe against the very best. It's when he faces adversity does his inexperience as a manager show, as his game management more than often is horrendous. (fully rotating the squad, reactive, poor game plan, etc)

Unless he somehow gets better, this is Maresca's ceiling. It's just a matter of how long the directors are fine with it. Which evidence shows, they are.

The ridiculous thing is that during his eternal quest for controlling Mogadon, possession based football, the only matches where we have performed really well, pulled of exciting wins, won trophies and played a brand of football that is successful and entertaining is when teams have come after us and played openly thus creating a transitional game.

I come from a generation where "end to end" football was the catchphrase. It had positive connotations that the game was open and exciting to watch. "Even as a neutral, the Spurs vs Chelsea game is a must watch. Its so end to end and open"

Today the substitution of this buzzword with the synonym "transitional" seems to have developed a much more negative inference of chaos, loss of control. "The Spurs vs Chelsea game was crazy. 7 goals. So transitional, it was crazy. Managers must have been pulling their hair out"

Give me Brian Moore, Hugh Johns, Gerry Harrison and exciting end to end football any day.

Apologies, i veered off on a tangent then.

The point being is that Maresca has been at his most successful and his personally most emotional when the team have been employing the complete antithesis of his actual philosophy.

4 hours ago, Shweaves said:

Sometimes I wonder whether some would rather Maresca loses and fails, than to see us start winning and building up a run of steam...

I mean we totally outplayed Spurs, should have won by 3 or 4 easily but still Maresca is being criticised for us not killing off the game. You do realise he's not allowed to go on the pitch and put the ball in the net, don't you? The chances the team created in the game were more than enough. I think XG was nearly 3, whatever that means. That suggests our players did a bad job finishing off chances, not the manager getting his tactics wrong...

Talking about Spurs game only here.

I will say what I always say when this kind of thing gets mentioned, I would love nothing more than for Maresca to be the best manager in the world. I will never wish for the failure of anybody at this club.

Maresca has shown he is capable of tweaking things to get a result, but he has a stubborn side to his coaching that has been costing us points since last December. We will never be more than a top 4 competing side because of this. I also think the football overall is absolutely sh*te to watch for the most part. It's the type of football I can only put up with if we are winning every week. This is easily the worst style of football I have watched from a Chelsea side after Graham Potter. I even enjoyed watching Sarri's football over this, and I hated our football under him too. I just can't enjoy slow possession, low risk football. It's a very limited style of football and needs specialist footballers to make it work consistently.

3 hours ago, GarnachoCheese said:

More likely the wage payer told him to keep quiet and he listened like a good little doggy.

He'll be in the pressers waxing lyrical about Kellyman as soon as the club want to sell.

I mean I have zero problem with this. I don't want my manager mouthing off to the press about being unhappy. It's a waste of energy.

Keep it internal, focus on the tools you have. Managers who start mouthing off in role are only ever doing it to force an exit to get their payout.

We have a strong enough squad to be competitive. It's on Maresca to get us there.

Sack the twat in the tunnel.

Maresca has done it again. A massive amount of changes, f**ked about with the CB's again (both of them were a disaster) Forced to make multiple changes again because he f**ked up so badly with the first 11 and still managed to sub on the wrong player.

The fact that he subbed on Enzo and thought Santos was one of the problem players says it all for me. He will probably still think Enzo's 2nd half was better, even though he was the worst player on the pitch in the 2nd half.

Edited November 5, 2025Nov 5 by Scott Harris

Another embarrassing result and ridiculous line up from the fraud. It’s beyond a joke now and if the owners are serious about us being a top club then they simply can’t allow this clown to lead us anymore

Palace, Brentford, United, Brighton, Sunderland and now Qarabag. Terrible performances and poor results. Useless.

Devils advocate.

Fofana simply can’t play 2 matches a week, Badiashile is just as injury prone, and Josh is only 18. I know we all want a consistent CB pairing, but I’m starting to feel like Maresca’s hands are tied.

There’s only two players who we can really play 2 matches a week, and they’ve both been poor all season. Especially together. (Tosin & Chalobah).

Every time I have seen Acheampong I have thought he looked very decent. MOTM on at least one occasion. So why no minutes again and yet Hato and Tosin can continue to f**k up so badly?

Maresca clearly has his favourites (Enzo in particular) and will play them regularly regardless. He just doesn't learn - thinks he knows best but it's one step forward two steps back all the time and it won't change all the time Maresca is here.

29 minutes ago, Chelsger said:

Another embarrassing result and ridiculous line up from the fraud. It’s beyond a joke now and if the owners are serious about us being a top club then they simply can’t allow this clown to lead us anymore

Think you may have actually tapped into the real issue here. We are all getting frustrated at this cretin and the lack of progress or ambition of the club. But for the owners this all just farming. As long as we keep qualifying each year, we can continue to add a level of regular income that keeps our solvency intact, especially with our kiddy player trading. Meanwhile the overall asset continues to slowly increase in value whilst a super league or the media and broadcasting right go through the roof and the overall asset value increases dramatically and they can then cash in.

f**king useless.

Today was the first time I've realised I'm resigned to the fact that this season is a write off because we won't sack him mid season. If this happened a month ago I'd have been raging but it's easier to take now that I'm not surprised. We're going nowhere fast and the fact that I don't care we've just suffered an embarrassing draw says it all. He has to go.

Never been so disconnected from the club.

The brand of football is dire.

The manager is the most dislikable c**t we’ve had in a dugout since FSW.

The SD’s just circle jerk over their spreadsheets.

Most of the players are dislikable at best & Fofana at worst.

Josh doesn’t get enough game time and Reece can’t carry the fan connection solo.

f**king depressing this.

I think I got a few negative comments because I said I was disconnected and wouldn’t prioritise Chelsea as I know what’s coming with this f**king clown in charge and it’s proven to be absolutely correct.

I will not go out of my way to watch this d**khead along with Beavis and butthead f**k up my club.

The love for my club will never change but for my peace of mind watching Chelsea is not good for me anymore.

4 minutes ago, El regreso said:

I think I got a few negative comments because I said I was disconnected and wouldn’t prioritise Chelsea as I know what’s coming with this f**king clown in charge and it’s proven to be absolutely correct.

I will not go out of my way to watch this d**khead along with Beavis and butthead f**k up my club.

The love for my club will never change but for my peace of mind watching Chelsea is not good for me anymore.

In many ways I quite miss the old days when if you didn't go to the games, you'd just have the occasional TV coverage on The Big Match or MoTD, the very brief match write-ups in the daily papers, plus the occasional article in Shoot! magazine to digest. Much easier to tune out from a bad season back then !

1 hour ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Devils advocate.

Fofana simply can’t play 2 matches a week, Badiashile is just as injury prone, and Josh is only 18. I know we all want a consistent CB pairing, but I’m starting to feel like Maresca’s hands are tied.

There’s only two players who we can really play 2 matches a week, and they’ve both been poor all season. Especially together. (Tosin & Chalobah).

All due respect I think you can get away just fine with playing Josh twice in a week especially when it’s against a team like Qarabag and the alternative is playing a LB at CB.

32 minutes ago, Remodez said:

All due respect I think you can get away just fine with playing Josh twice in a week especially when it’s against a team like Qarabag and the alternative is playing a LB at CB.

Josh isn't even the issue, it's who his partner is. We've seen him partner Chalobah + Tosin and he's had to bail out both in recent weeks. I understand why Maresca doesn't trust either of them and I understand why he's not putting this much pressure and demand on an 18 year despite him being (to which it's honestly making me laugh just typing this out) our best CB.

I knew going into this season losing Colwill would hurt us tremendously, I just didn't expect neither Chalobah or Tosin to be so far and away from his stead.

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

In many ways I quite miss the old days when if you didn't go to the games, you'd just have the occasional TV coverage on The Big Match or MoTD, the very brief match write-ups in the daily papers, plus the occasional article in Shoot! magazine to digest. Much easier to tune out from a bad season back then !

Absolutely it’s so hard to tune out

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

In many ways I quite miss the old days when if you didn't go to the games, you'd just have the occasional TV coverage on The Big Match or MoTD, the very brief match write-ups in the daily papers, plus the occasional article in Shoot! magazine to digest. Much easier to tune out from a bad season back then !

I miss the old days especially when it comes to summer transfers. I used to disconnect completely in the summer and only find out who we signed when the season started.

Now we're bombarded with updates every time some board member allegedly whispers the name of a player. It's tiresome.

Sack this fraud. It’s not even about the lineup anymore, it’s the mentality the team go on to the games against teams that are inferior on paper. Shocking performance in the first half and shocking game management.