Post-season review - Chelsea 2013/14

[Fernando 6,375]

Having the title in our hands in the last 4 games, being 1-0 up to the team at the bottom of the league in the first of those games and losing 2-1 is a massive, massive failure; no matter how you look at it.

It's been a success overall though for Mourinho and some key players like Cahill, Terry, Azpi and Hazard who have all improved. However, when the character of team has been tested in games like yesterday, the team as a collective unit never showed enough balls. So that aspect is a failure. I'm hoping a few new faces in (and out) in the summer will give us more confidence in these situations.

I take the Azpi as the best thing to come out of this season.

Terry not so much, as he ain't for the future. Unless he does a Maldini/Giggs and plays till his late 30's.

But I want another CB to step up to the plate like we have done with Azpi for the LB/RB positions.

Hopefully next season we can start seeing the emergence of that other CB.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Yeah definitely a success despite coming close to EPL & CL double. Liverpool have deserved it, we'd be stupid to deny them, because they have a strike force that's outscored everyone in the league. That's how you win the EPL, you outscore everyone else. Their defending is awful and it's going to let them down next season when they're balancing Europe, FA, Capital Cup and EPL. They might have a rich owner, but they don't yet have the pull.

Season's not over and we can still add a third European cup in as many years, which truly will be remarkable and no-one can take it away from us. But even if we don't, a semi-final/final has shown the resolve of this overworked squad. I firmly believe Mourinho kept denying our title charge because he knew something like this would happen, but let's not kid ourselves.. He always wanted to win this and probably had firm belief we would until yesterday - hence the referee outburst.

It's going to be a cruel summer & following season now because we're expected to challenge a step further. Yet it's going to be so hard to recruit this summer because it's WC year. Which means players, world class players', stock will go up so high pending individual performances at the World Cup.

[lionsden 4,689]

It becomes easier to grade when there are list of target in place then we can assess how well those targets have been reached and if at all they have been achieved.

For me in terms of league and champions league result: a definite success,

League and champions league performance wise: inconclusive, we have improved defensively but regressed offensively.

Youth development and promotion: It's been a monumental failure.

Transfer dealings: while we have added a quality midfielder in Matic and an exciting player in Salah, we have yet again failed to address our most pressing need i,e a striker and it could be argued that Schurrle and to an extent, willian were unnecessary buys. we have also sold our most creative player and shipped, arguably our best striker, out on loan. It's slightly better than last season but still failure for me.

Overall it's a success if you are in the camp that rates result as the only important target and a failure if other things are taken into consideration.

[Ollie 4,400]

It's been a success but losing those 3 games has really been hard to take. The title was ours for the taking. We are building though and as long as we do get top 3 it will be fine. We've challenged for the title and got to a UCL Semi. Not at all a bad campaign and could still end up a great campaign.

[Laylabelle 9,296]

Not so much a failure.Frustrating espically the way we've thrown points away against random sides and not turned up...if we can beat Liverpool..give City the title and win the CL be more of a success

[zolayes 14,489]

on the Rodgers scale // we have failed

on the Moyes scale // we have had a wonderful season

on the Wenger scale // to make 4th is all that ever matters ... btw 4th isnt guaranteed yet ..

[Tomo 21,681]

It becomes easier to grade when there are list of target in place then we can assess how well those targets have been reached and if at all they have been achieved.

For me in terms of league and champions league result: a definite success,

League and champions league performance wise: inconclusive, we have improved defensively but regressed offensively.

Youth development and promotion: It's been a monumental failure.

Transfer dealings: while we have added a quality midfielder in Matic and an exciting player in Salah, we have yet again failed to address our most pressing need i,e a striker and it could be argued that Schurrle and to an extent, willian were unnecessary buys. we have also sold our most creative player and shipped, arguably our best striker, out on loan. It's slightly better than last season but still failure for me.

Overall it's a success if you are in the camp that rates result as the only important target and a failure if other things are taken into consideration.

This season wasn't the right time to bring the likes off Chalobah into the fold, our midfield was far to unstable, Ramires is probably the worst pivot partner to a developing young player. Matic and hopefully a new mid will give the likes off Nat and Bieber a more solid base to get games.

Kalas on the other hand should have got more games, god knows what happened there.

[Shane 2,275]

This season makes for an exciting summer to see the area where Jose will bring in to make us a title winning side again.

[Chelsea? 892]

dissapointing.

[Chelsea? 892]

This season makes for an exciting summer to see the area where Jose will bring in to make us a title winning side again.

whats the transfer season like during a world cup year?

[Shane 2,275]

whats the transfer season like during a world cup year?

Some players can be inflated, but this makes better ones devaluated in a way. Its great to have a manager who buys smart like Jose in transfer markets like these.

[lionsden 4,689]

This season wasn't the right time to bring the likes off Chalobah into the fold, our midfield was far to unstable, Ramires is probably the worst pivot partner to a developing young player. Matic and hopefully a new mid will give the likes off Nat and Bieber a more solid base to get games.

Kalas on the other hand should have got more games, god knows what happened there.

But this season was suppose to be about rebuilding. when is it the right time then. Next season: when the expectations to actually win trophies becomes greater and the rebuilding excuse can no longer hold weight?.

this was the perfect season to blend in youth imo. When next season arrives and the pressure to win and challenge for trophies mounts, jose will inevitably ditch youth for experience like 95% of managers at top clubs do and it just becomes more and more difficult to achieve this objective with each passing season.

[Strike 6,961]

But this season was suppose to be about rebuilding. when is it the right time then. Next season: when the expectations to actually win trophies becomes greater and the rebuilding excuse can no longer hold weight?.

this was the perfect season to blend in youth imo. When next season arrives and the pressure to win and challenge for trophies mounts, jose will inevitably ditch youth for experience like 95% of managers at top clubs do and it just becomes more and more difficult to achieve this objective with each passing season.

there is a big problem with bringing in youth when chelsea have backup players who are international players for England, Germany, Brazil. I think the squad need to be trimmed. By a LOT. The Mohamed Salah and Willian deals for example - there was no real need to go out and get them. Chelsea could easily make do with any of the young AM's as fifth or sixth choice.

I would like to see guys like Moses, Romeu, Marin, Kakuta, THazard sold off, maybe with a buy-back clause if the player has potential. trim the squad down to 20 with maybe 3-4 youngsters with the first team

[iseah100 5,612]

Some players can be inflated, but this makes better ones devaluated in a way. Its great to have a manager who buys smart like Jose in transfer markets like these.

Think Vidals value will drop? Or are those players prices already cemented? I've never really paid attention to the market during a world cup year, I'm only 19 haha

[The only place to be 11,313]

But this season was suppose to be about rebuilding. when is it the right time then. Next season: when the expectations to actually win trophies becomes greater and the rebuilding excuse can no longer hold weight?.

this was the perfect season to blend in youth imo. When next season arrives and the pressure to win and challenge for trophies mounts, jose will inevitably ditch youth for experience like 95% of managers at top clubs do and it just becomes more and more difficult to achieve this objective with each passing season.

There's been no greater proponent of bringing young players through than me, but you have to understand that there are TWO scenarios where throwing youth in is best done.

One is when the chips are down and you can gamble. Last season was a prime example of that because Rafa had no real duty to achieve anything and had no money to spend, so why not throw in Ake against Norwich or Rubin? Rodgers had that last year at Liverpool as well so Stirling got games along with a couple of others - to his credit he's continued that this season, although he wasn't considered a serious title challenger this year.

The other scenario is when you have a stable, settled side with an established core and you can slot young players in alongside experienced heads. We don't have that yet. It would've been hard to play someone like Chalobah alongside a Mikel or Ramires because they simply aren't good enough or mentally strong enough to hold a youngster's hand for 60-70 minutes, but you could imagine something like that working with Matic. Ake and Kalas were unfortunate that our defence became so important to our side, to the point that even established internationals like Ashley Cole or David Luiz couldn't be trusted to get any minutes there. Kalas was also unfortunate to break a bone in his leg as well.

I hope that once we have a settled side with 7-9 players who are playing almost every game that you'll see greater rotation and integration of youth, but it simply wasn't going to happen this year. We aren't a good enough team to look to do that as well and the margins by which we win games are simply to narrow to sacrifice the extra 1% that an older head brings to the equation.

[Tomo 21,681]

Also we have to make sure we promote the right players or were wasting ours and their time.

Take Conor Clifford for example, back in 2010 he was part off our youth cup winning side and some people were not only calling for him to be fast tracked into the team, but to be our next captain when JT goes.

4 years on he is in and out off Southend's team.

Look at the other players in that team Ince, Salah, Tore, Mitrovic, Lalkovic, Papoe, Billy Clifford, if they were so good why has no one close to our standard given them the chance we "cruely" denied them off?

[zolayes 14,489]

Today was sooooooooooooooo good . Made up for a lot of disappointments Roll on Wednesday

[Jambo 231]

Today was sooooooooooooooo good . Made up for a lot of disappointments Roll on Wednesday

Just the reaction from the sliverpool camp today has made the season a success. :blue scalf: