Post-season review - Chelsea 2013/14

[Fernando 6,376]

Is this a transitions season as Mourinho is saying?

We just dont know. We will get this answer next season. We just dont know if we are going to play a better football next season, better results, if we will improve from our 3rd place in PL and semi-finas in UCL, if our problems will get fixed.

Mourinho said that starting next season we will be tittle contenders from the go.

Not this one.

Fair enough.

He will be judge next season.

[different level 1,056]

I think the season has been good - the EPL title is within our reach with two matches left and we got to the semifinals in the CL. However if we don't win a trophy, which is the likely outcome, a success would be a bit too much to describe the season. Positive is the right word here.

[Chelsea? 892]

Its been a good season defensively, but a massive failure offensively.

We have been able to create a system of counter attack that only works against the big teams, but falters so often against smaller sides.

A striker not being WC must be mentioned, and that might change certain dynamics next season.

We have become slower paced throughout the game, this season, which is a massive negative.

Counter attacks rely on alot of things happening simultaneously, which makes this style wrong as a sole approach to a game.

People should be saying we play really good football, and then saying that when we counter attack, we are an unstoppable force.

At the moment, Jose's style is to try and be both, an immovable object, and then transition into an unstoppable force on the counter.

You cant have both, A bus and a ferrari.

OK. Bottomline for me. The questions that will be answered next season are 1. Does Jose even want to play attacking good football 2. Roman wants good football 3. When we come up against a top team, will we always sit back or actually beat them well, not only tactically.

Its not wrong in a few games to take a certain approach, but please god, i dont want to watch any more buses being parked, we are a billion pound team, surely we can play footy, to beat someone without buses being involved. That is my only wish.

Simply because of that, this season is neither. Benefit of Doubt goes to Jose. Next season, no benefit of doubt. If we keep parking buses, then thats a failure for me.

This season has been a result of an average Transfer window after we won the CL! you see we let experienced player go like Drogba, Kalou, Bosingwa, Meireles Malouda, Essien plus Lukaku out on loan and then a bad injury for Romeu which left us very short on numbers in CM! then Sturridge sold the following January. and replaced them with too much mediocrity! Hazard, Oscar and Azpi were of course great signings, but all 3 are young and are still developing! then the mediocre signings of Marin, Moses and recalling Benayoun!

Then the Interim one comes in and was just looking to beef up his Cv! he didnt care about the long term and only focused on the short term success! So this season Jose has been cleaning up Rafa's mess, Jose inherited a team with no balance! and no identity! Jose came in got rid of the dead wood and signed Schurrle, Van Ginkel, Willian and Eto'o! and recalled De Bruyne who had no impact, Van Ginkel got a bad injury and the other 3 all took months to adapt and settle into the team! We then sold Mata in January (who our team was built around under Rafa, so that shows how much Jose had to change the team) then we signed Matic and Salah, both cup tied for the CL and Jose said himself they are signings for next season!

It took Jose 6 months of the season to make this team evolve into a much better defensive unit and counter attacking team! which is remarkable as i really doubt any other manager could have sorted us out that quickly!

You see this whole season has really been a clean up mission from the Rafa era! Jose has transformed this team and has a great base to build off next season! our main problems dont need another year of transition to fix now, a few signings and sales and some players on loan returning and we will have a squad capable of doing great things next season!

A world class Striker - Costa or Cavani

A very good back up - Mandzukic or Doumbia

A top class CM - Vidal, Rakitic, Kroos or Paulinho

A Top Class LB - Rodriguez or Moreno

Maybe another AM if one leaves like Reus, Hamsik or Lavezzi

Then a few out on loan returning

Courtois, Zouma, Lukaku

and maybe one of Bertrand Traore/T.Hazard/Atsu/Piazon coming in to make the step up.

no, Rafa did a great job here.

the style we play is really that that difficult to accomplish. What Jose fails to understand is that; although winning is the ultimate goal, winning by playing too defensive takes the fun out of the game.

[Vybz Kartel 1,613]

Mourinho has been a massive failure since his return, Benitez did more in 8 months under pressure than his managed considering he spent 100 million

[didierforever 7,349]

Mourinho has been a massive failure since his return, Benitez did more in 8 months under pressure than his managed considering he spent 100 million

so tell me HOW exactly has jose been a massive failure. please enlighten me!!!

[MrBlueGuy 1,552]

The only success we got this season is record against top 4 team and that is not exactly something to brag about for years to come.

[iseah100 5,612]

Success.

[MrBlueGuy 1,552]

so tell me HOW exactly has jose been a massive failure. please enlighten me!!!

Trophyless, small fall outs with Torres, Eto'o, Hazard, Cole and Oscar at some point(still small for now but might not be in the summer if one of Hazard/Oscar are sold), sell Mata(OK might not be that bad but still), making Ramires a dirty player, didn't recall Courtois(again not that bad), refusing to sign Cavani/Costa last summer and instead chose Eto'o and Willian when we already had Kevin here then end up signing Salah to replace him anyway.

[TrippingStep 336]

Nothing surprising for me, I've said it in the beginning of the season that we would struggle againt the average teams as they are much less naïve that his first time in Chelsea. The legacy of Mourinho of deep and organized defense, letting the ball to the opponent and the struggle against them for a Mourinho team was just as predicted.

[Barbara 15,149]

Now that the season is over for real, I'll give my final two cents about it.

I'm more disappointed at our players than I am at Mourinho, though Mourinho also had his bad moments.

I'm not a big Mourinho moaner - that's clear in all my posts and my member title. One because whoever is the manager - except Benitez - I give them the benefit of the doubt in their first season. If I'd do that to anyone, let alone to Mourinho. Two because I don't think we could have a better manager at the moment. He's a True Blue, he's passionate about this club and the support gives him the same love.

As I said, the season has been a success imo, but with a few low aspects that should be mentioned. I think results wise we made serious progress. An UCL SF is way more important and relevant than a Europa League title that we barely scrapped btw. I think fighting for the title until the last week (at least mathematically) is much better than being out of the race in January, even if in both instances we finish 3rd. I think those two aspects aren't up to discussion. One has to be very stupid/blind to say otherwise. So results wise, we improved considerably, but there's still room for improvement, of course, as we didn't scrap even one of the cups (not that it would make much difference, it wouldn't).

I don't have big issues with a trophy-less season. It happens, especially in a team that is in transition. Given the lack of stability we had in the last few years and how young our players are, it's not even fair to compare City's stability to ours. All of their starting XI players are at the peak of their careers, they had manager stability up to last season and they had a style that Pelegrini carried on because it fit the team. Mancini is a terrible manager imo, so they upgraded the weak link in their team and continued the philosophy and style from seasons ago, only polishing it with a better manager and tactics. We on the other hand, have been a mess. There's no trademark, because even our defense that is so famous was a mess under di Matteo and just went the extra mile in our UCL title campaign. They were terrible playing the league. I won't comment on AVB or Benitez, but we don't have a philosophy like City (nor the players for said philosophy) that Mourinho just had to continue and polish. We were in deep transition. We had no style, we had few consolidated players and we had a new manager.

Now onto the issues we did have.

Mourinho insisted with some players and was stubborn about a few things that really weren't that much necessary. He should have known we needed Matic in the summer window. He made a mistake there. He didn't seem to have offered solutions to our deficient attack. We look clueless attacking and that shows it seems it lacks drills in the training sessions. I'll cover the players in a bit, but no matter how many other problems our AMs have and how bad our strikers are, we showed no pattern, we showed no understanding between them and the strikers. It seemed like the attacking part of our training sessions doesn't exist. I can't say it for sure as I'm not there, but we're so clueless attacking, we have no unit, no understanding, no conscious movement, no capitalizing of our players flair and we have plenty of flair with Hazard, Willian and Schurrle. Salah, Willian and Schurrle offer us incredible pace and acceleration but we underused it too. That's my biggest complain about Mourinho and his staff. They worked hard to solve our issues in the defense and I think we have a solid defense now, but they seemed to have used the excuse of not having good strikers to justify their lack of work to improve our attack pattern - which is nonexistent. That's all on Mourinho.

Cech - had ups and downs this season, but in the end when he got injured we could see how much our defense actually misses his leadership, guidance and voice.

Iva - one can't deny his passion and commitment and in all honesty I'm not a big critic of him as others around him. I think he doesn't compromise with his awful crosses. I'd rather Azpili in the right if we had a better player to replace him in the left

Terry + Cahill - they had a great season, not only technically, but also showed a lot of commitment and passion

Luiz - as a CB he lacked a lot, as a DM he filled the gap better than our other very limited options. So while he makes the best partnership in the pivot with Matic imo, it's still not what we need

Azpili - my player of the season (although I may have voted for Eden in the poll, don't remember). I do think some here overrate his cross (he isn't much better than Iva at all), but he links up better and he's a beast. He gives everything, he's the kind of player we need, too bad we only have those in defense...

Cole - our best FB attacking because he has decent crosses and he links up better than any other. But early the season he was displaced by Azpili because he was a liability defending. He could be easily overran by opponents, and despite his epic goal clearances, he was the weak link in the defense and I support Mourinho bringing Azpili for him.

Ramires - awful second half of the season that for me completely erased his 2013 run. He had a good run in the beginning just like Oscar, but not to the same extent and imo he was even worse than Oscar in the second half. It seems like Mourinho rates him, but I do hope Mourinho finally realizes what a liability to any successful system Ramires is. He's a squad member player suitable for some kind of matches. That's it.

Matic - too late by our board/manager, but at last here. The best signing we did.

Lampard - squad member at most. Just like Ramires there are some matches that suit him (note I'm not comparing anything else between them). His age is what compromises the most, as he still has the same class he's always had, but he lacks the 'legs' or the 'lungs'.

Mikel - can go now that we have Matic, Ramires, and van Ginkel.

Now here's where I think we really had problems. Yeah, as I said I blame Mourinho and his team for not making our attack improve - regardless of our strikers, but in all honesty those are the players that let me down the most as well with their attitude.

Hazard - had a great spell in the middle of the season. He still takes way too long to get things going. His first months are forgettable and then he peaks and then it's up and down. I think he has attitude/spirit issues that I'll cover in a bit.

Oscar - had great months and then just became flat. Mourinho hinted he hides from big matches, or isn't much trustful, I really didn't understand well what he meant, but it's clear that he's lacking attitude and character

Willian - he's transitioning, it's not fair to judge him technically yet, but tactically/mentally he's been our best AM in the last two months. The commitment he has with the manager and the team as a whole is second to none and he's on his peak, so it helps him. He just needs more confidence but I think that comes from the difficult transition to English football he had undergoing.

Schürrle - my second signing of the season. I just love this man and his attitude. Comparing him to others AMs he's the less talented (even compared to Oscar, although he's more offensive than Oscar), but he's the one who gives the most - maybe tied with Willian. He gives his everything and he also went through a difficult transition. Not only he had to adapt to the style but he had to make some fitness work. Still he shined in many moment and this guy never fails to go the extra mile. He has the right spirit that I think Eden and Oscar lack.

Salah - have been here for too little, and of course had ups and downs, and of course is also transitioning, but he seems to have the right spirit and attitude. He's the youngest of the bunch, but I think it's a very good addition to the team.

Eto'o - is the only striker I'll bother to comment. The other two are below criticism, but Grandpa Eto'o gave everything he could and he was very important for Hazard improvement imo. He added a lot of experience, of instinct and if injuries didn't hit him so often at the second half of the season, I think we would have had better luck in EPL and UCL.

Now about Eden and Oscar. I'm not saying they absolutely lack character and attitude. They're very young, they were supposed to be the most important players in this team and I think it's okay for them to struggle at their little age doing so. Oscar was supposed to be an improvement to Mata, not creatively, of course, they're two different kind of players, but he was supposed to be our #10 that didn't offer liabilities and while he was successful for a while, he failed when it really mattered.

Eden was supposed to be this team biggest star and for a stretch of time he was, but he lacks attitude and spirit imo. He doesn't lack commitment - neither does Oscar - but it seems like calling him (and Oscar) boys isn't far fetched. They have yet to become men - something I think Schürrle doesn't lack being only a few months older than him - and they let down in that imo. But read this as an observation, not a criticism. They are too young, they're just barely older than being literally boys, they have time in their favor, but it doesn't mean that when we needed them the most they both failed. They had physical issues at the end, but I think they also had attitude issues.

So that's my take. We made progress in the results, we made progress in the football defensively, but it was a disappointment (or maybe even failure) to develop an attacking pattern, to improve mentally some of our young players and we made a capital mistake by not bringing Matic earlier.

All in all, I still think it was progress, it was successful as I consider success the ability to reach or not goals and we reached most attainable goals.

I'll now write in the expectations thread and, boy, do I have big expectations and goals next season that I think this team must reach and that goes from players we'll sign to the tactics we'll employ to how we'll develop our young players.

[Amblève. 4,995]

One or two Liverpool and City games and we can officially call this season a failure.

[didierforever 7,349]

Trophyless, small fall outs with Torres, Eto'o, Hazard, Cole and Oscar at some point(still small for now but might not be in the summer if one of Hazard/Oscar are sold), sell Mata(OK might not be that bad but still), making Ramires a dirty player, didn't recall Courtois(again not that bad), refusing to sign Cavani/Costa last summer and instead chose Eto'o and Willian when we already had Kevin here then end up signing Salah to replace him anyway.

this was a TRANSITIONAL season for us.

funfact, we will have lost about 7-10 players that started our current season. mata and kdb were not jose players. we are building for the future and considering how much part the likes of schurrle and willian have taken to mata/kdb, it should not be a suprise. we did try to buy rooney and when he dint come, we were stuck with ba and torres.

buy costa in the summer. yes i am sure you would have been the one who were crying off rooftops to sign a 24 year old striker who has had one good season (good not great) in his entire career and that too on the wings as falcao was their main man.

making rambo a dirty player - so did jose tell rambo to try and break al ahmadi's leg?

so since he had "apparent" fall outs with players, its a MASSIVE failure?

so if we had won the carling cup, would this season have been a success? how big a success?

[Nike 373]

TBH, if Benetiz was 3rd place again this season and lost in the semis and all our cup tournaments, would fans still want him?

I personally dont think Mourinho was a failure, however, I don't think he was a success. I would give him 1 more season with 2 more transfer windows to figure it out.

[MrBlueGuy 1,552]

this was a TRANSITIONAL season for us.

funfact, we will have lost about 7-10 players that started our current season. mata and kdb were not jose players. we are building for the future and considering how much part the likes of schurrle and willian have taken to mata/kdb, it should not be a suprise. we did try to buy rooney and when he dint come, we were stuck with ba and torres.

buy costa in the summer. yes i am sure you would have been the one who were crying off rooftops to sign a 24 year old striker who has had one good season (good not great) in his entire career and that too on the wings as falcao was their main man.

making rambo a dirty player - so did jose tell rambo to try and break al ahmadi's leg?

so since he had "apparent" fall outs with players, its a MASSIVE failure?

so if we had won the carling cup, would this season have been a success? how big a success?

If we have won any trophy the season would be a success no matter how small the trophy is. Transitional which we still managed to defeat 2 potential champion teams home and away+ beating the likes of Spurs and Arsenal 4/6-0? If by transitional it means struggling to find a way to break small teams down then I am lost for words. We should know they would have never let Rooney go especially since Moyes just came in and you think his 1st act is to sell one of his best player?

Yh he probably told him to be more aggressive so Ramires started to get into more of those regularly. No the fallout reason doesn't make it a massive failure, all of these factors together does. Tell me what success we have apart from record against top 4-5 teams?

[didierforever 7,349]

If we have won any trophy the season would be a success no matter how small the trophy is. Transitional which we still managed to defeat 2 potential champion teams home and away+ beating the likes of Spurs and Arsenal 4/6-0? If by transitional it means struggling to find a way to break small teams down then I am lost for words. We should know they would have never let Rooney go especially since Moyes just came in and you think his 1st act is to sell one of his best player?

Yh he probably told him to be more aggressive so Ramires started to get into more of those regularly. No the fallout reason doesn't make it a massive failure, all of these factors together does. Tell me what success we have apart from record against top 4-5 teams?

dude, let me explain it to you properly then that how its a sucess.

first of all, getting a trophy "however small" does not make a season a success. or wait!!! do u think united have had a better season than us since we were trophyless and united won the community shield??? HUH???

if we beat pool and city and arsenal and spurs, it changes the fact that we are in transition? sunderland beat city at stadium of light, beat united twice in the season, beat us twice in the season, so u would call them a "big team", . from the start of the season we have already lost mata, kdb, essien. we will probably let go off etoo, torres, ba, mikel, bertrand, lamps and cole. which would take the tally to 10 players changed between the start of 2 season. but somehow its not tranistional for u? we could not beat palace, villa, sunderland, wba, whu, norwich, stoke cos we have a problem in our squad known as a goal-scoring striker. moreover, any squad takes time to acclimitize itseld to a type of play. how many years were bayern useless before they came to the fore again. it has been one season where we reached the CL semi and 3rd place of PL with no striker that can score more than 10 goals.

so u mean rambo has taken a red card only this year. when he took a red card last year against aston villa with our top 4 spot on the line, jose must have called him up from madrid to play more aggresively, right?

[zolayes 14,489]

I kept saying success ,,, BUT if we lose Hazard , Oscar and Luiz ,, it will have been a monumental fucking DISASTER

[Tomo 21,681]

Leti have similar problems vs teams that sit deep, the difference is they are further on in their development so find a way to win 9 times out of 10.

[MrBlueGuy 1,552]

Btw interestingly enough if someone told us 2 years after that night in Munich we would only win Europa league and Mata would be sold, what do you guys think we would have reacted like? Cannot believe it that is for sure so it is OK to write this season off but since winning the CL this 'transitional' period is a failure.