The Conte Thread

[LAM09 6,547]

Another cup failure for Conte.

I'd be really annoyed had we not won the league in such a fashion, but his selection choices left alot to be desired.

He needs to realise Matic shouldn't be starting any games of note going forward at the very least.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

18 minutes ago, kmk108 said:

A lot of post-match analysis on Conte's ability in cup completions. It was a final in which anything could happen.

He should have started Cesc over Matic and possibly Pedro over Willian. Like seriously, these are obvious things for several reasons. Love him but he deserves the criticism today. 

[Fernando 6,376]

2 minutes ago, Mana said:

Even if we don't win the CL, we need to win something in order for our season to not be a complete failure.

If Conte is bad at cup runs, that rules out LC and FAC and potentially CL. I hope Conte improves his management skills and gets the players he needs otherwise he won't last long in Chelsea...

He will last if he continues to do good in the pl. 

And as long as we give a fight in the cup competitions I will be happy. 

Today you saw fight from Costa, azpi, David luiz. That's what I like to see then go out meekly. 

[Fernando 6,376]

45 minutes ago, Blue Colored Sky said:

Honestly I was so sure that we lose the cup like in Conte's first season with Juventus. I'm going to check when and how he was eliminated from Italian Cup two following seasons.

Well people need to be consistent here. 

If your going to look at his record in cup run and take it as gospel, then you need to look at his record in the league and take it as gospel. 

The record shows that he is consistently good in the league and consistently bad in the cup. 

If we assume that is the case in the next 4 years I'll take that. 

If we win the league every year and win nothing else I'll take it! 

But of course no one believes that and realizes that cup requires a lot of luck. Had Moses not been so stupid in sending of we might have had a chance. But as well we was not prepared after winning the league. We switch of so badly and that's down to everyone. 

[Johnnyeye 7,414]

Today´s loss was on him not starting Cesc and taking too long to sub off Moses, which proved decisive in the end, as soon as William came on it changed the game, but we were already a man down, eventough we managed to score and eaqualize, ou fate was already sealed with the Moses red card and the lack of desire and focus my most of the players was worrying, specially in an FA Cup final, so it showed when Arsenal scored their 2nd goal, yes its frustrating but thats football, there is always the other team, not just us, they had the better day and won, it happens. Conte will need to adress many things in the summer. Cheers

[Jase 43,479]

2 minutes ago, Fernando said:

Well people need to be consistent here. 

If your going to look at his record in cup run and take it as gospel, then you need to look at his record in the league and take it as gospel. 

The record shows that he is consistently good in the league and consistently bad in the cup. 

If we assume that is the case in the next 4 years I'll take that. 

If I win the league every year and win nothing else I'll take it! 

I agree that Conte's cup record isn't the best (excluding the Champions League) but his 4 defeats did come against Napoli, Roma, Lazio and Arsenal. Just find it strange he can get the better of them in the league but not in the cup.

[Jase 43,479]

 

[Eidur the Spider 4,515]

Conte: "To win (the league) in this way with 30 wins, to arrive in the FA Cup final, with not a big squad - I think it was incredible."

Conte: "This season was incredible for us. Every single player put all of himself in the game." Says the improvement was amazing.

[Hybrid Angel 2,130]

1 minute ago, Jason said:

 

 

Good. I understand that everyone's angry including myself but there's a genuine silver lining to take out of this fa cup final. When we last won the title in 2015, we all saw that the performances in the second half of the season weren't good enough. Even though we won the title, the success itself was in some form papered over some of the cracks in the squad. The issues were not handled in the transfer window as we suffered from a huge case of complacency. Sure we should have performed better the following season with the squad we had, but the lack of activity in the transfer window played a huge part as well.

When we lost 3-0 to Arsenal earlier on in the season, we made a huge change in terms of system, starting players and their positions, changes that sparked a 13-game winning streak and eventually lead to this incredible season. League winners and cup runners-up, we must not forget that we were all merely hoping for a top four finish.

I think this season, THE major key to our success has been the consistency against smaller teams. The performances in the big games have not been good enough and this is even more indication of this season being a clear case of a managerial masterclass by Conte. Sure, we've had great individual performances by every player throughout the season, but we can all agree that there are some positions that could clearly take upgrading during the transfer window. A common theme has been against top oppositions who heavily press us, we simply cannot cope with the pressure and that has a lot to do with some of the personnel. We need to remember, top teams in Europe won't respect us and will be pressing us the entire match. The way we perform against those sort of teams right now will lead us to constantly sit back and look for scraps upfront. Alonso might be a fine option against smaller teams, but he simply can't get out of pressure simply because he isn't slow and agile enough. The same applies to Matic. These two players lack a lot of self awareness when it comes to receiving passes and playing with the ball which leads to the loss of possession. Kante is the same, but at least he's agile enough to help himself sometimes.

What we can take out of this defeat is that now maybe the board will try to be the least complacent they can in the transfer window. Just like how the defeat against Arsenal at the Emirates lead to the change in system, maybe this defeat will cause our board to listen to the demands of the manager and spend in the summer, and spend big because our rivals aren't fucking around.

TL;DR: Hopefully this defeat will give a wake up call to the board and reminds them to spend in a transfer window where our rivals, especially the Manchester clubs, will be severely strengthening their squads.

[Jase 43,479]

15 minutes ago, Johnnyeye said:

Today´s loss was on him not starting Cesc and taking too long to sub off Moses, which proved decisive in the end, as soon as William came on it changed the game, but we were already a man down, eventough we managed to score and eaqualize, ou fate was already sealed with the Moses red card and the lack of desire and focus my most of the players was worrying, specially in an FA Cup final, so it showed when Arsenal scored their 2nd goal, yes its frustrating but thats football, there is always the other team, not just us, they had the better day and won, it happens. Conte will need to adress many things in the summer. Cheers

It's easy to say now Conte should have played Player X and Player Y but the big problem was we just didn't turn up today. The desire, commitment and that winning mentality weren't there. Even if Fabregas had started, there's no guarantee we wouldn't have played the way we did and it's not like we haven't played that diabolical before with Fabregas in the XI.

[Dahnald 256]

I really question him sometimes. 

 

Never won a knock out tournament. 

[Johnnyeye 7,414]

13 minutes ago, Hybrid Angel said:

 

Good. I understand that everyone's angry including myself but there's a genuine silver lining to take out of this fa cup final. When we last won the title in 2015, we all saw that the performances in the second half of the season weren't good enough. Even though we won the title, the success itself was in some form papered over some of the cracks in the squad. The issues were not handled in the transfer window as we suffered from a huge case of complacency. Sure we should have performed better the following season with the squad we had, but the lack of activity in the transfer window played a huge part as well.

When we lost 3-0 to Arsenal earlier on in the season, we made a huge change in terms of system, starting players and their positions, changes that sparked a 13-game winning streak and eventually lead to this incredible season. League winners and cup runners-up, we must not forget that we were all merely hoping for a top four finish.

I think this season, THE major key to our success has been the consistency against smaller teams. The performances in the big games have not been good enough and this is even more indication of this season being a clear case of a managerial masterclass by Conte. Sure, we've had great individual performances by every player throughout the season, but we can all agree that there are some positions that could clearly take upgrading during the transfer window. A common theme has been against top oppositions who heavily press us, we simply cannot cope with the pressure and that has a lot to do with some of the personnel. We need to remember, top teams in Europe won't respect us and will be pressing us the entire match. The way we perform against those sort of teams right now will lead us to constantly sit back and look for scraps upfront. Alonso might be a fine option against smaller teams, but he simply can't get out of pressure simply because he isn't slow and agile enough. The same applies to Matic. These two players lack a lot of self awareness when it comes to receiving passes and playing with the ball which leads to the loss of possession. Kante is the same, but at least he's agile enough to help himself sometimes.

What we can take out of this defeat is that now maybe the board will try to be the least complacent they can in the transfer window. Just like how the defeat against Arsenal at the Emirates lead to the change in system, maybe this defeat will cause our board to listen to the demands of the manager and spend in the summer, and spend big because our rivals aren't fucking around.

TL;DR: Hopefully this defeat will give a wake up call to the board and reminds them to spend in a transfer window where our rivals, especially the Manchester clubs, will be severely strengthening their squads.

great post, spot on mate

[Johnnyeye 7,414]

9 minutes ago, Dahnald said:

I really question him sometimes. 

 

Never won a knock out tournament. 

chill mate, these things can happen, im upset too, but be happy we won the league and made it to the FA Cup final, when no one gave us a chance at the start of the season. this summer is going to be interesting in terms of transfers. Cheers

[Johnnyeye 7,414]

17 minutes ago, Jason said:

It's easy to say now Conte should have played Player X and Player Y but the big problem was we just didn't turn up today. The desire, commitment and that winning mentality weren't there. Even if Fabregas had started, there's no guarantee we wouldn't have played the way we did and it's not like we haven't played that diabolical before with Fabregas in the XI.

im not saying it would have worked but we had no control in midfield in the 1st half and no tempo of the game, something Cesc clearly offers and Matic doesnt, these are areas we need to adress in the summer, and also like many have mentioned here we dont cope too well with pressing teams, that needs to change. Cheers

[Jase 43,479]

3 minutes ago, Johnnyeye said:

im not saying it would have worked but we had no control in midfield in the 1st half and no tempo of the game, something Cesc clearly offers and Matic doesnt, these are areas we need to adress in the summer, and also like many have mentioned here we dont cope too well with pressing teams, that needs to change. Cheers

Would rather question Conte's decision not to start with 3-5-2 to begin with rather than why he started Matic ahead of Fabregas. A 3-man midfield would have given us better control of midfield against Arsenal's 2/4-man midfield.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

How the fuck are people still debating if starting Cesc would have been worse or better than starting Matic. This is not even up for debate. Did Matic provide any protection for our centre-backs, no. Did he stop any Arsenal player from playing, no. Did he do anything useful with the ball, no. Did he help with our ball circulation, find the free-man quickly with diagonal passes, make any incisive pass or one-touch/quick decisions with his passing, no. At least we know if Fabregas offers nothing defensively, he can hurt teams with his passing. Also, he opens up spaces for Hazard and Pedro. 

Quit being contrarion for the sake of being that @Jason, it's just silly. Conte knew he made a big mistake and cost us the 1st half and the momentum of the game. That's why the fraud Matic, at the time predictably the worst midfielder on the pitch, was the first one subbed after 60 mins (which is early for Conte). Conte basically admitted after the game that our start cost us the game

[Jase 43,479]

1 minute ago, MrExcalibur100 said:

Quit being contrarion for the sake of being that @Jason, it's just silly. Conte knew he made a big mistake and cost us the 1st half and the momentum of the game. That's why the fraud Matic, at the time predictably the worst midfielder on the pitch, was the first one subbed after 60 mins (which is early for Conte). Conte basically admitted after the game that our start cost us the game

So because I don't share the same view as you, you think I'm playing devil's advocate for the sake of it? Okay, mate...

You should probably read my posts carefully before you go rampaging all over Matic. At no point I said Conte made the right decision to start Matic ahead of Fabregas. Our attitude was shit from the first second. Could have played Fabregas, Willian, Batshuayi or whoever else and it wouldn't have mattered much because we couldn't give a f*** about the game!

[Tautvix 1,321]

Thanks Antonio for winning the league this season but we need to improve next season.

I think it's the 5th game this season when we didn't stand any chance to win the game (Liverpool at home, Arsenal away, Tottenham away, Man Utd away, Arsenal today). Let's be honest, we were blown away by Arsenal today... The game should have been ended after 1st half. They were stronger, faster, better. I agree with some people here that we need to change approach in big games next season. We cannot continue like that. Maybe 3-5-2 is the way, I think Juve is doing that well. Also, hopefully today's game opened eyes for Abramovich because we need to spend big. But even if I want to be positive I am worried that Conte won't get players he wants... It happened before.

Just want to finish on the positive note. CHAMPIONS OF ENGLAND, WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE!