7 minutes ago, Caps_Lock_King said:

Hmm what do you think now?

He keeps making the same mistakes, it's getting hard to excuse at this point

1 minute ago, Caps_Lock_King said:

I did say before the season started he would be sacked by Christmas, we hear tonight the usual “we are behind Maresca”

DONT BET ON IT

Lose to Wolves on Wednesday and a defeat at Tottenham and the pressure will be on big style

It’s possible we could be down to tenth tomorrow

And how low will we go when we hit out annual festive period/winter rut?

Tinkering is stupid. Can’t make 8 changes and get the continuity we need. Could see it from kickoff.

Odd thing is we were in control and concentration loss cost us. Unacceptable.

He quickly needs to address the casm between our good performances and these ridiculous dropped points. I don’t get the impression the team is as professionally prepared as they should be - they always have to feel their way into the match. Perhaps that is the nature of sports, but we need to be more assertive.

If Maresca was a chess player he’d take the maximum amount of time to make every move, and all he’d do is move the widest pawn forward one square. Very predictable, and too often saved by a moment of individual brilliance.

Edited October 25, 2025Oct 25 by PhilH930

I will say it again

Leicester fans told us everything we are seeing now would happen and it’s happening.

from half time today. Possession for possessions sake, we do f**k all with it.

4 minutes ago, GarnachoCheese said:

from half time today. Possession for possessions sake, we do f**k all with it.

There is nothing more emasculating than the opposition giving you time on the ball in the full knowledge you will do f**k all with it

I'm not buying his crying about players not being fit. Joao Pedro injured? Play Buonanotte. Enzo injured? Play Santos. Caicedo injured? Play Lavia. We have a competitive squad that are capable of starting games at home to Sunderland and if Maresca is incapable of using it properly then he's not the right man for the job.

Sarri, Lampard, Tuchel, Potter, Poch and now Maresca.

Genuine question. We’ve had 6 different managers that tried a possession oriented game, and under each one we’ve seen slow and stale football in the attacking third.

What’s the real reason by that? Coaching? The players? Stamford bridge being too compact?

26 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Poch

I felt we were a lot more direct under Pochettino, it's why I wanted him in. Not a manager I would've wanted to keep around for too long, but I thought the team was heading in the right direction.

Maresca we've gone backwards, I struggle watching the games these days because it's f**king boring, or maybe I'm just getting old.

But it's a good question you've asked, I have no idea why we're so hellbent on retaining the ball so much, its not changed since Sarri took over. Cole flourishes in a lot of space and on the counter attack, he doesn't need the ball constantly. I think we would get a much better response from the majority of our players if we played at a quicker tempo and didn't constantly drag the ball around 99% of the time. Defensively we would be a shambles, but it's better than this sh*t.

As i said after the liverpool game - i expected us to revert to type - and that has been the way it's gone. Poor against Forest, and poor against sunderland.

It's not about young players. It's not about consistency.

It's simply about a manger who makes us play slow and sideways, unprogressive and boring football - with the handbrake firmly on.

We are so predictable to play against.

4 hours ago, Drogba1 said:

He keeps making the same mistakes, it's getting hard to excuse at this point

I came back to say he doesn’t learn, does he. You nailed it.

9 league games.

Draws at home to Palace and at Brentford.

Losses at United and at home to Brighton and Sunderland (who united beat both of).

Wins vs West Ham (who were and still are sh*t). Fulham (who are poor), Forest (who were sh*t and may still be but possibility will be stronger with dyche ball) and Liverpool.

You don't get a better 9 games than that in this league. And Maresca and these bloody clown owners and moron directors have fumbled it like they fumbled everything else.

Near 2 billion spent to have Sanchez as our keeper, chalobah and tosin as our defenders, Enzo as our captain, garnacho, Joao pedro and neto as our attackers and guiu as our striker. They would not look out of place with Wolves or West Ham! Or sheffield Wednesday come to think of it!

Just a rich consortium Brighton!

11 hours ago, GarnachoCheese said:

You probably know better than most how good A.Santos can be playing deeper, yet Maresca only ever plays him as a box crashing 10.

I can't think of a single player in the squad that he's profiled correctly.

Reece James isn't a CM.

E.Fernandez isn't a 10.

Palmer is a winger.

Gusto needs to overlap.

its endless.

2 things i need to say,Andrey is being underutilized and João Pedro need to be 9, why in the hell he puts João Pedro as a midfielder? or something like it ?

To me, Maresca seems to want everyone to know he is the "manager"...

Personally, I'd prefer a manager that simply starts our best 11 on a regular basis... and takes a more hands off approach.

Let the players play ffs!

7 hours ago, Victor90 said:

I felt we were a lot more direct under Pochettino, it's why I wanted him in. Not a manager I would've wanted to keep around for too long, but I thought the team was heading in the right direction.

Maresca we've gone backwards, I struggle watching the games these days because it's f**king boring, or maybe I'm just getting old.

But it's a good question you've asked, I have no idea why we're so hellbent on retaining the ball so much, its not changed since Sarri took over. Cole flourishes in a lot of space and on the counter attack, he doesn't need the ball constantly. I think we would get a much better response from the majority of our players if we played at a quicker tempo and didn't constantly drag the ball around 99% of the time. Defensively we would be a shambles, but it's better than this sh*t.

The other issue that I have with this sh*t possession based boring football is that it breeds and encourages laziness in the players minds. A team that has 60% of the ball is doing a fraction of the running than a team with 40%. A counter attacking style keeps players fit with numerous sprints and movement off the ball. Even defensively, in a more transitional style if play, the defenders are on their toes and not their heels and are therefore more alert and willing to run earlier and run more.

3 hours ago, Bebe1980 said:

To me, Maresca seems to want everyone to know he is the "manager"...

Personally, I'd prefer a manager that simply starts our best 11 on a regular basis... and takes a more hands off approach.

Let the players play ffs!

In other words hes trying to be a clever f**ker, but hes not a clever f**ker, so just looks like a f**ker....

This 100% will get worse

27 minutes ago, dkw said:

In other words hes trying to be a clever f**ker, but hes not a clever f**ker, so just looks like a f**ker....

Yep, with each game that I see his bald head protruding from that hooded puffer jacket more and more he just resembles an helmet.

I’ve slept on it, he’s got to go.

Winning the CWC has ruined this entire season by giving the Bald One something to hide behind.

His treatment of Stevie is borderline criminal.

His insistence on ‘inverted fullbacks’ which does nothing but nullify our actual wingers is dire.

The fact our defence, something we built championship winning sides on, has become our weakest point is just laughable.

He’s a flawed limited manager with little experience playing a brand of football that is easy to counter and boring to watch.

I have thought that we have not performed particularly good this season. There isn't a single game I can point out and say we performed great and dominated the other team, maybe apart from West Ham, but that wasn't surprising given how poor they were at the time. Palace we struggled against and lucky to have a free kick goal ruled out. Fulham it was a poor performance and they had a legit goal ruled out which could have changed the game for them. Brentford was an poor performance and we couldn't handle the long balls. Man Utd was a decent performance with 10 men, but a brainless moment early on. Brighton, another game we f**ked ourselves by a red card. Benfica at home was a mediocre performance and we gave up big chances.

We then went into the Liverpool game when they were in bad form, but granted we performed well with the injuries picked up before and during the game, we grinded out the results. Liverpool have since been beaten by Utd and Brentford, so I'm wondering how good we were compared to how poor Liverpool were. They had chances in that game to score more against us, but didn't take those chances. Then you have Notts Forest who were in poor form. Then we face A**x, but they had 10 men for most of the game and I don't think we looked particularly great in that game. Overall I think we've been pretty subpar so far this season.

as @WhiteWall has detailed on another thread,

Maresca generally plays with a slow build up and therefore invalidates our wingers effectiveness yet we have a squad which is heavy in wingers and we are potentially bringing more in. Maresca is working against the Sporting directors and failing to get consistent results. At some point that may come under scrutiny, unless one or both of the above make changes to their style/strategy.

This squad should be performing much better than it is. Consistency is lacking, league position is under expectation. There is enough quality to be doing better even with the injuries. ( we are not the first team to have injuries in the history of football). There's little or no accountability for any shortcomings. Even red cards are fobbed off as nothing.

The sad thing for me is the wasted opportunity to storm the premier league this year, look at the competition, we should be comfortably in the top four or better.

How many times yesterday did Neto and Garnacho get the ball and straight away Sunderland had 2 players on them and when Estevao came on he had 3 players, and thats on Maresca BECAUSE he refuses to allow the FBs to overlap and other coaches have seen it last season, Cucurella was playing as a second striker at times, they know we will eventually give the ball away or have a shot from distance thats why they allow us to have the ball

And im sick of hearing Maresca has credit in the bank because he got us in the CL, won us the Farmers league and won the CWC

WELL WHAT ABOUT DON CARLO?

He won the double and then finished second and was fired

WHAT ABOUT DI MATTEO?

He won the CL and was sacked mid season

Maresca is a lucky manager, got 4th because Forest and Villa threw it away, won the Farmers league because Palmer decided he had had enough of passing it around and decided he would take no more notice of the tactics, won the CWC because of finishing 2nd in the group and all the best teams in it were in the other half, played a knackered PSG and again Palmer carried the team

JUST SACK HIM

Some say we struggle because neto n Pedro struggle.

Neto n Jp are doing the same thing as they did last season.

I wonder if our famous data analysts have noticed that in the 12 PL and CL games to date we have LOST the xG stats in 8 of those 12 games, including 8 of the last 9 ?

So much for our mythical "control" of the games LOL