My issue with Maresca and people saying he's a big game coach. Sure, he can win against the bigger teams sometimes, but what about the teams who are supposed to be inferior to us? Leeds, Brighton at home, Sunderland at home, Brentford, Qarabag away, Crystal Palace at home, the list goes on. I think we've started off this season poorly. We looked shaky against Palace, Brentford, Fulham, etc, and the disciplinary record this season has been poor. Players should not keep getting yellow or red cards on such a consistent basis at important moments too. It's not necessarily a coaching issue as some of these players were getting booked last season too, but discipline also has to come from coaching in that regard.

Edited December 29, 2025Dec 29 by Sunspear_88

3 hours ago, markpitts said:

Maresca confirmed that Fofana was unused against Unai Emery's side solely to ‘manage his fitness condition’. The centre-back has not started back-to-back matches for the Blues this term as his workload continues to be carefully handled following injury.

Why is he being prioritised as a first choice CB then?

Maresca is taking us for idiots again.

Fofana could have played Saturday, skipped Bournemouth and then played against Man City.

That would have been one game per week for 3 matches and picking him for a match against a direct rival in Aston Villa.

So what’s he gonna do now??

A - Pick Fofana against Bournemouth and then again against Man City a few days later, which goes against his carefully handling following injury theory,

B - does he pick him against Bournemouth and then rest him away to a resurgent Man City

C - misses Bournemouth to play against Man City meaning he missed the Aston Villa game for no good reason.

It’s gonna be one of those 3 scenarios and no excuse him for starting Badiashile against a high flying Villa team.

He’s either lying to us or dumb, maybe even both.

We’ll find out in the next few days when he picks or doesn’t pick Fofana.

Edited December 29, 2025Dec 29 by 2211

He’s still in a job then I see

8 minutes ago, El regreso said:

He’s still in a job then I see

Not only that, but with a reasonable chance of a win at home against Bournemouth, he could have the MHL singing his name again tomorrow!!

3 hours ago, Nibs said:

Wouldn't include Poch with the other two useless f**kwits.

So want this dreadful Maresca Era to be over. The end cannot come soon enough.

Poch was scared to connect with fans. He thought that it would affect his future Spurs career when he returns there. At least Enzo appreciates us and shows it towards the supporters.

5 hours ago, Nibs said:

Wouldn't include Poch with the other two useless f**kwits.

Poch might not have been everyone's ideal choice but I would take him back in a heartbeat over the fraud Maresca. No way would we be playing this sh*t brand of dull football and having to watch the likes of Badiashille and Gusto if Poch was in charge and I'm certain Acheampong and Estevao would have been getting a lot more playing time too.

So want this dreadful Maresca Era to be over. The end cannot come soon enough.

I mean is still the wrong tool for the job we want doing.

While Maresca is like using the handle to try and chop down a tree Poch is the mallet side.

1 hour ago, El regreso said:

He’s still in a job then I see

5 hours ago, Sunspear_88 said:

My issue with Maresca and people saying he's a big game coach. Sure, he can win against the bigger teams sometimes, but what about the teams who are supposed to be inferior to us? Leeds, Brighton at home, Sunderland at home, Brentford, Qarabag away, Crystal Palace at home, the list goes on. I think we've started off this season poorly. We looked shaky against Palace, Brentford, Fulham, etc, and the disciplinary record this season has been poor. Players should not keep getting yellow or red cards on such a consistent basis at important moments too. It's not necessarily a coaching issue as some of these players were getting booked last season too, but discipline also has to come from coaching in that regard.

We've had disciplinary issues now for several years. Seemed to start during Poch's time in change and I haven't seen any improvement since Maresca joined. Some of it can be attributed to a lack of leadership and experience in the young squad. But I also think our squad is a soft touch against physical play. We usually get overrun by teams with a more physical approach and then pick up silly yellows/reds from petty retaliation. We need an enforcer or 2 to protect some of our players. Caicedo has a bit of that but picks up way too many stupid yellows.

4 hours ago, 2211 said:

Maresca is taking us for idiots again.

Fofana could have played Saturday, skipped Bournemouth and then played against Man City.

That would have been one game per week for 3 matches and picking him for a match against a direct rival in Aston Villa.

So what’s he gonna do now??

A - Pick Fofana against Bournemouth and then again against Man City a few days later, which goes against his carefully handling following injury theory,

B - does he pick him against Bournemouth and then rest him away to a resurgent Man City

C - misses Bournemouth to play against Man City meaning he missed the Aston Villa game for no good reason.

It’s gonna be one of those 3 scenarios and no excuse him for starting Badiashile against a high flying Villa team.

He’s either lying to us or dumb, maybe even both.

We’ll find out in the next few days when he picks or doesn’t pick Fofana.

May as well pick Fofana tomorrow as it won't make any difference if he plays against City. Since Blueco took over, the only time we gave City a game was under Poch.

2 hours ago, CaitlinCFC said:

At least Enzo appreciates us and shows it towards the supporters.

He helps us get a good nights sleep, we just think about his football & we’re out like a light.

1 minute ago, forbzy said:

We've had disciplinary issues now for several years. Seemed to start during Poch's time in change and I haven't seen any improvement since Maresca joined. Some of it can be attributed to a lack of leadership and experience in the young squad. But I also think our squad is a soft touch against physical play. We usually get overrun by teams with a more physical approach and then pick up silly yellows/reds from petty retaliation. We need an enforcer or 2 to protect some of our players. Caicedo has a bit of that but picks up way too many stupid yellows.

It's a general lack of fitness and a culture that breeds cheating. Nobody other than Caicedo, Santos and Cucurella presses and tackles the ball. They are coached to defend space and not the ball. They are coached to only defend zonally rather than a mix of zonal and one to one.

Due to this culture, drilled into the squad, when the intensity increases we find ourselves late into tackles, treading on feet, high challenges. When teams break on us it takes an age for our players to make recovery runs.

A higher level of general fitness generates a higher level of sharpness and anticipation. Instead we encourage the minimum effort upon a young group that will also have attitude as well. It's no surprise. Not sure what the manager can cite as an excuse though.

On 28/12/2025 at 04:41, bluelightening said:

Its a tactic we've used too many times this season, clearly management identified a way to create chances against Villa, we did it so often it was predictable.

I do miss bombing on fullbacks and swashbuckling players with personality and skills.

They bomb on…….they just don’t come back

3 hours ago, forbzy said:

We've had disciplinary issues now for several years.

We are signing kids after kids and we are trying hard to get rid older player. What do you expect?

Some say we need experience player. Now we don't need experience. We need quality player so everyone can play their proper role.

1 elite winger so you can rotate garmacho/neto on the other side.

1 elite st so joao pedro can be used as rotation option to all 4 attacker positions and Delap become backup st.

Just two signings and we will look so much better. The problem is that we have already signed a st and a winger for next season.

12 hours ago, 2211 said:

Maresca is taking us for idiots again.

Fofana could have played Saturday, skipped Bournemouth and then played against Man City.

That would have been one game per week for 3 matches and picking him for a match against a direct rival in Aston Villa.

So what’s he gonna do now??

A - Pick Fofana against Bournemouth and then again against Man City a few days later, which goes against his carefully handling following injury theory,

B - does he pick him against Bournemouth and then rest him away to a resurgent Man City

C - misses Bournemouth to play against Man City meaning he missed the Aston Villa game for no good reason.

It’s gonna be one of those 3 scenarios and no excuse him for starting Badiashile against a high flying Villa team.

He’s either lying to us or dumb, maybe even both.

We’ll find out in the next few days when he picks or doesn’t pick Fofana.

Why is fitness management treated like a conspiracy? The most injury-prone CB in the league being flagged as high risk based on load/CK data is far more believable than “Maresca doesn’t rate him.”

Clubs don’t publicly say “he’s close to re-injury” — they always protect the player and at the same time keep the opposition guessing.

Here is Cundy, just cant bring himself to blame the owners (because he knows Blueco have hired people to watch social media and anyone who slaggs them off is banned from the Bridge, Pat Nevin anyone?)

He then admits that Maresca is not good enough by saying "villa put 10 behind the ball for 65 minutes and then Emery brought on 3 players and changed the system, Marescas changes only made us worse and he didnt know what to do"

AND THE WORST COMMENT IS NEAR THE END

A caller wants Coco the clown sacked, BUT Cundy tries his hardest to back Maresca (brown envelopes kick in), saying " Maresca has had to fight against injuries and managing minutes for players because of the CWC and no preseason, he wants to have a fully fit squad as we go into the last 2-3 months of the season"

SO LETS GET THIS RIGHT, WE COULD BE OUT OF ALL CUPS AND BE SITTING 12TH IN THE PL, BUT WE WILL HAVE A FIT AND RARING TO GO SQUAD FOR THE END OF SEASON PARTY

7 hours ago, acaeus said:

Why is fitness management treated like a conspiracy? The most injury-prone CB in the league being flagged as high risk based on load/CK data is far more believable than “Maresca doesn’t rate him.”

Clubs don’t publicly say “he’s close to re-injury” — they always protect the player and at the same time keep the opposition guessing.

Nobody is saying there is a conspiracy, what he is saying doesn't make sense and I'm not falling for it.

The line from the club is Fofana can't play more than one match a week.

Saturday 20th December - Newcastle away

Saturday 27th December - Villa home (chose not to pick him against a team one place above us)

Tuesday 30th December - Bournemouth??

Sunday 4th January - Man City away

The matches in bold are the 3 toughest and conveniently spaced out one week apart - that was the obvious thing to do.

We all know when we swap out players we are immediately weaker, the squad is not that strong.

So now he'll lie to us by choosing Fofana against Bournemouth and City (only a few days apart)

Or, he play tonight and miss out against City meaning we play someone like Badiashile and/or Tosin against Aston Villa and Man City.

Or, he sits out tonight and plays against City giving him a 15 day break but the Villa match has already been lost whilst also risking tonight's outcome by choosing Badiashile and/or Tosin.

He's tried to be clever and it's back fired, there's no defending him.

We'll have 2 matches a week for the foreseeable future, unless we start getting knocked out of cups.

He chooses weak teams every other match, and we generally struggle every 2nd match, at the moment we aren't even turning up every other match, we are doing about 1 win every 4 matches.

By April there will be nothing left to play for.

Back to Fofana, the soulution was easy and we end playing our current best pairing in the 3 harder matches but he made it all go out of sync by putting him on the bench against Villa instead.

Even if he was intergrating Josh I would give him more leeway but Josh is far down the pecking order, behind people he shouldn't be behind.

Maresca has messed up and it will impact more than just the Villa game.

He's not smart enough and the squad isn't strong enough to try and play 4D chess.

Edited December 30, 2025Dec 30 by 2211

13 hours ago, CFCCAN said:

They bomb on…….they just don’t come back

Can swashbuckle be used to describe tracking back?

4 hours ago, 2211 said:

Nobody is saying there is a conspiracy, what he is saying doesn't make sense and I'm not falling for it.

The line from the club is Fofana can't play more than one match a week.

Saturday 20th December - Newcastle away

Saturday 27th December - Villa home (chose not to pick him against a team one place above us)

Tuesday 30th December - Bournemouth??

Sunday 4th January - Man City away

The matches in bold are the 3 toughest and conveniently spaced out one week apart - that was the obvious thing to do.

We all know when we swap out players we are immediately weaker, the squad is not that strong.

So now he'll lie to us by choosing Fofana against Bournemouth and City (only a few days apart)

Or, he play tonight and miss out against City meaning we play someone like Badiashile and/or Tosin against Aston Villa and Man City.

Or, he sits out tonight and plays against City giving him a 15 day break but the Villa match has already been lost whilst also risking tonight's outcome by choosing Badiashile and/or Tosin.

He's tried to be clever and it's back fired, there's no defending him.

We'll have 2 matches a week for the foreseeable future, unless we start getting knocked out of cups.

He chooses weak teams every other match, and we generally struggle every 2nd match, at the moment we aren't even turning up every other match, we are doing about 1 win every 4 matches.

By April there will be nothing left to play for.

Back to Fofana, the soulution was easy and we end playing our current best pairing in the 3 harder matches but he made it all go out of sync by putting him on the bench against Villa instead.

Even if he was intergrating Josh I would give him more leeway but Josh is far down the pecking order, behind people he shouldn't be behind.

Maresca has messed up and it will impact more than just the Villa game.

He's not smart enough and the squad isn't strong enough to try and play 4D chess.

The notion that the yes-man Maresca is going solo here is hard for me to believe. I don’t believe there is a “he” here and this is very much a club decision.

Also, perhaps the player simply felt something off that morning and reported to the coaching staff? He wanted to play, but reported the discomfort — happens all the time. Players can feel something at any time it does not take a game for it.

Too much fuzz into nothing. There are fair criticisms to make of Maresca, but I don’t think these decisions are solely on him.

Btw I do consider fofana, when fit, the best cb esp without colwill. I also worry about his fitness — he looks frail for a cb esp leg muscle.

My odd thought for the day, he rested Fofana vs Villa as he thought he needed a rest and thought Villa on form would win, this one he thinks we can win so plays him from the start.

Simply has to go, his position in untenable

Another great performance at home..

1 win in 7, City up next.

Sack the c**t.

People have been fired for a lot less

Just now, PhilH930 said:

People have been fired for a lot less

Another glaring flaw of these owners. If only Roman was still about