The Conte Thread

[manpe 10,855]

39 minutes ago, petre.ispirescu said:

It's like they never learn and it's like this every single season.

Last season at this exact moment Chelsea was losing 0-3 at the Emirates and was trailing City by eight points IIRC. And by the way City was demolating everything in front of them just like they do now. I'm not saying it is surely going to happen the same thing (Chelsea to come from behind and City to start dropping points all of a sudden), maybe City won't even lose a single game this season. But can anybody predict the future? Especially in the EPL? Everything is possible in this league. 

Spot on. This post should be quoted every time we lose a game and get tons of overreactions. We have looked good this season and played well, then we get one bad result after the conditions are firmly stacked against us and all of a sudden we are piss poor and Conte is clueless. I predict that as we get a chunk of tough games aside in early season, we'll be cruising later and heaping tons of pressure on Manchester who will lose form eventually like they always do. I think we have what it takes to make a genuine push to retain the title.

[Fernando 6,376]

1 hour ago, manpe said:

Spot on. This post should be quoted every time we lose a game and get tons of overreactions. We have looked good this season and played well, then we get one bad result after the conditions are firmly stacked against us and all of a sudden we are piss poor and Conte is clueless. I predict that as we get a chunk of tough games aside in early season, we'll be cruising later and heaping tons of pressure on Manchester who will lose form eventually like they always do. I think we have what it takes to make a genuine push to retain the title.

Agreed too many knee jerk reaction people that just never learn. 

Like the title is going to be won by October.....

[OneMoSalah 8,614]

Conte got it right tactically and personnel wise against Atletico but got it wrong against City. Swapping Azpi for Moses was odd and sent out a message. Also we definitely need another CF, if Conte is willing to sub on Willian instead of Batshuayi at like 30 odd minutes, it says it all, Batshuayi isn't trusted by Conte. I don't think the schedule helps but we turned up against Atletico and played fantastically, I don't think Man City are that much better than Atletico, albeit different styles, so it was disappointing to lose and not to have created many chances.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

1 hour ago, manpe said:

Spot on. This post should be quoted every time we lose a game and get tons of overreactions. We have looked good this season and played well, then we get one bad result after the conditions are firmly stacked against us and all of a sudden we are piss poor and Conte is clueless. I predict that as we get a chunk of tough games aside in early season, we'll be cruising later and heaping tons of pressure on Manchester who will lose form eventually like they always do. I think we have what it takes to make a genuine push to retain the title.

Absolutely agree. 

But it comes down to the point I couldnt care less about result at the moment. Its also about the way we play. This is what bothers me. We might have lost to atletico, I would applaud players for that match. 

On the other hand, city one was big clusterfuck of everything wrong. Even if we won with fluke goal, I simply dont accept being so weak at home. We allowed them to play their way from get go. Hell even shakhtar and liverpool (before Mane's red card) put in more fight and desire to win. 

I would accept this since it was two days after atletico game, but hey we played same against fcking Arsenal at stamford bridge. Its kindoff embarassing to go into game with such low mentality. 

There is no excuse to play fluid football against good teams in PL. Only two matches I would accept going all defensive are city and spurs away. Every other game, we should play our own way and try to control the game. Possesion, I couldnt care less if city had 70%. Its what we do with those 30. On saturday, we had no plan, no attack, no movement, no idea, no desire. And it was at HOME when the mentality should be sky high after atletico win. But instead we reverted back to defend all game style. Let city run riot on our stadium. 

And dont think for second last season was any different, we were outplayed twice by both spurs and city. Yeah we managed to win three times, but as I said, that only pays when you actualy win. If we hadnt, everyone would agree we got completely outplayed.

Its not realy about our players. They are more than capable of controling the games, but its something else. The mentality has changed within the squad and its been a while for most of players to automaticaly play this way and hope for the best. 

Cant remember how many games have been in past three years when (most) players genuinely could give shit in certain games.

Aside from results, I hope we will one day actualy PLAY against top teams. Thats why atletico game was so enjojable. Not the result. We actualy coped against top top team, that didnt happen in years now.

[Jase 43,479]

1 hour ago, BlueLyon said:

On the other hand, city one was big clusterfuck of everything wrong. Even if we won with fluke goal, I simply dont accept being so weak at home. We allowed them to play their way from get go. Hell even shakhtar and liverpool (before Mane's red card) put in more fight and desire to win. 

I would accept this since it was two days after atletico game, but hey we played same against fcking Arsenal at stamford bridge. Its kindoff embarassing to go into game with such low mentality. 

When on earth did we play the same way against Arsenal like we did at the weekend? Yes, we were passive and negative against City but against Arsenal, we certainly tried to take more initiative. But the main issue was, we came up against an inspired Arsenal (can't believe that actually happened) and we just couldn't break them down. We didn't play well enough to win on that day and we were by no means negative against Arsenal like we were against City.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

50 minutes ago, Jason said:

When on earth did we play the same way against Arsenal like we did at the weekend? Yes, we were passive and negative against City but against Arsenal, we certainly tried to take more initiative. But the main issue was, we came up against an inspired Arsenal (can't believe that actually happened) and we just couldn't break them down. We didn't play well enough to win on that day and we were by no means negative against Arsenal like we were against City.

They were pressing us well and we had problems with that. Obviously we didnt play as negative as against city, but neither was there big desire to win that game. We only put real pressure on them in later stages, but then Luiz got that red card and that was it. It was game at SB and we should have them in full control, but they were as close to winning that game as we did. It wasnt as bad as city, but we could have done much more to win the game, it was realistic to take 3 points. Games like these will decide if we will fight for title.

Never mind we had 3 games without win against them. certainly that one wasnt one-off. We struggle more against them than we did before and the whole point is that we should be improving every season. We didnt have problems except for odd game against them for few years now. But now they started to press us more and we seem unable to handle that.

We have players very capable of playing offensive and attractive football. Against Atletico, I was inspired that Conte made subs indicating we want to win that game. Away at one of best teams in europe. Thats the kind of phylosophy you want. And it paid off. Only to see it all blow to city.

Anyway the season is long. Im curious how we play against spurs, liverpool, city and united.

[Strike 6,961]

On 10/1/2017 at 0:15 AM, Jason said:

How has he not managed the squad better? He hasn't played the same XI for every game, has he? The main issue is our squad lacks quality, like proper genuine quality and Conte chopping and changing the XI is not going to hide that. You look at our strikeforce - take Morata off and we're left with Batshuayi. The attacking players of Hazard, Willian, Pedro hardly scream world class as a whole. Then we have average WBs and somewhat dodgy midfielders, especially when going forward.

Between Atleti on Wednesday and City on Saturday, who were pressing high and energetically, wouldn't you think Pedro or Willian who played little or no part in Spain, should start here?  

Also, when Morata was substituted for Willian, it was too tentative, almost negative for me. I know Batshuayi isn't everyone's good idea of a super sub but he is the best we have right now and bringing Willian on was a sign that Chelsea were there to contain City.

At Atleti, the players on the pitch ran their socks off and that showed on Saturday. 

[Reddish-Blue 2,223]

7 hours ago, Jason said:

When on earth did we play the same way against Arsenal like we did at the weekend? Yes, we were passive and negative against City but against Arsenal, we certainly tried to take more initiative. But the main issue was, we came up against an inspired Arsenal (can't believe that actually happened) and we just couldn't break them down. We didn't play well enough to win on that day and we were by no means negative against Arsenal like we were against City.

To be fair to Arsenal, ever since Mourinho left, they seem to fancy their chances against us. 

I just wish we had another creative winger/inside forward type player in the squad.  Someone that is capable of changing the game (i.e. Mahrez or even James would have been a brilliant pickup)

Let's just compare our options to our rivals: Chelsea (Hazard, Willian, Pedro)

City (Sterling, Sane, Bernardo, David Silva, De Bruyne)

United (Miki, Mata, Lingard, Pogba, Martial, Fellaini)

Spurs (Alli, Eriksen, Son)

Basically we have no depth in attack.  

[Antonio8 736]

there is no depht in the whole roaster 

the board is happy so enjoy 

 

[Jase 43,479]

7 hours ago, BlueLyon said:

They were pressing us well and we had problems with that. Obviously we didnt play as negative as against city, but neither was there big desire to win that game. We only put real pressure on them in later stages, but then Luiz got that red card and that was it. It was game at SB and we should have them in full control, but they were as close to winning that game as we did. It wasnt as bad as city, but we could have done much more to win the game, it was realistic to take 3 points. Games like these will decide if we will fight for title.

Really? We tried to make things happen throughout the game and Conte even switched things up at HT but we just didn't have enough to break Arsenal down on that day. It can happen and it will happen again.

7 hours ago, BlueLyon said:

We have players very capable of playing offensive and attractive football. Against Atletico, I was inspired that Conte made subs indicating we want to win that game. Away at one of best teams in europe. Thats the kind of phylosophy you want. And it paid off. Only to see it all blow to city.

We were able to impose ourselves against Atletico because they are not a team capable of passing the opposition off the park. If they were, do you think we would have taken the game to them? You might have read too much into Conte's subs. Replacing Morata, Hazard and Fabregas with Batshuayi, Willian and Christensen respectively hardly screamed ambition. Two of them were like-for-like changes and the other a defensive one. We barely attacked in the last 10 minutes or so and seemed content to sit back and take the point. The winner just happened to have come from a free kick we won late on.

[Jase 43,479]

5 hours ago, Strike said:

Between Atleti on Wednesday and City on Saturday, who were pressing high and energetically, wouldn't you think Pedro or Willian who played little or no part in Spain, should start here?  

Either one could have but that would have meant we play a 2-man midfield and risk getting overrun in midfield. Okay, the 3-5-2 didn't work out in the end for various reasons but Conte had to make a tactical choice, he went for it and it so happened that it didn't work out the way we wanted.

5 hours ago, Strike said:

Also, when Morata was substituted for Willian, it was too tentative, almost negative for me. I know Batshuayi isn't everyone's good idea of a super sub but he is the best we have right now and bringing Willian on was a sign that Chelsea were there to contain City.

Well, that I don't disagree. We had a plan from the start but god knows why Conte decided to change things completely after Morata went off.

[El P. 1,354]

Saying that we can't win the league is not knee jerking. United and City have better players than we do (actually, City has A LOT better players, and this is Mou's second season, no need to say more about that), Spurs are on the same level as us, Arsenal and Liverpool somewhat behind.

It was the case last season - City had no defense, United couldn't score goal to save their lives. But now? City got themselves decent GK, also Walker and Mendy. It's not easy to break them down. United got Lukaku, they are scoring for fun, and got some other good players in their team. So don't tell me "yada yada, we were in same situation last year after this many games". NO, we weren't. Yes - points wise maybe. We had good chance to get ourselves to top last season because others were just not good enough. It's not the case this season, and don't be deluded saying City played great at the start of last season too. They got Walker and Mendy, we got Zappacosta and Drinkwater, they won't back down.

And we? We played one great game this season, against ultra-defensive Atletico, and some good ones. That's it. Couldn't outplay Arsenal, Spurs, City and even some weaker sides.

It's not being pessimistic, neither not supporting your team. It's reality. We have great situation for developing squad and making all the right moves next summer, with no Costa disaster etc.

I personally will enjoy this season despite of maybe not winning trophies,  I'll enjoy in development of the squad, watching the players grow, winning some in UCL and going for domestic cup.

[AlesJuve 264]

4 hours ago, Antonio8 said:

there is no depht in the whole roaster 

the board is happy so enjoy 

 

But despite this, Conte will do everything to win the PL again. Poi che non salga nessuno su quel cazzo di carro(cit.) 

[Tomo 21,681]

6 hours ago, El P. said:

Saying that we can't win the league is not knee jerking. United and City have better players than we do (actually, City has A LOT better players, and this is Mou's second season, no need to say more about that), Spurs are on the same level as us, Arsenal and Liverpool somewhat behind.

It was the case last season - City had no defense, United couldn't score goal to save their lives. But now? City got themselves decent GK, also Walker and Mendy. It's not easy to break them down. United got Lukaku, they are scoring for fun, and got some other good players in their team. So don't tell me "yada yada, we were in same situation last year after this many games". NO, we weren't. Yes - points wise maybe. We had good chance to get ourselves to top last season because others were just not good enough. It's not the case this season, and don't be deluded saying City played great at the start of last season too. They got Walker and Mendy, we got Zappacosta and Drinkwater, they won't back down.

And we? We played one great game this season, against ultra-defensive Atletico, and some good ones. That's it. Couldn't outplay Arsenal, Spurs, City and even some weaker sides.

It's not being pessimistic, neither not supporting your team. It's reality. We have great situation for developing squad and making all the right moves next summer, with no Costa disaster etc.

I personally will enjoy this season despite of maybe not winning trophies,  I'll enjoy in development of the squad, watching the players grow, winning some in UCL and going for domestic cup.

Not saying you don't have a point (atleast about City, im still to be convinced United have the staying power over 38 games Jose's second season or not) but why are you comparing City's two star signing's to two of our squad fillers? I could counter that by comparing Morata and Bakayoko to Danilo and Douglas Luiz.

[petre.ispirescu 4,928]

9 hours ago, El P. said:

Saying that we can't win the league is not knee jerking. United and City have better players than we do (actually, City has A LOT better players, and this is Mou's second season, no need to say more about that), Spurs are on the same level as us, Arsenal and Liverpool somewhat behind.

It was the case last season - City had no defense, United couldn't score goal to save their lives. But now? City got themselves decent GK, also Walker and Mendy. It's not easy to break them down. United got Lukaku, they are scoring for fun, and got some other good players in their team. So don't tell me "yada yada, we were in same situation last year after this many games". NO, we weren't. Yes - points wise maybe. We had good chance to get ourselves to top last season because others were just not good enough. It's not the case this season, and don't be deluded saying City played great at the start of last season too. They got Walker and Mendy, we got Zappacosta and Drinkwater, they won't back down.

And we? We played one great game this season, against ultra-defensive Atletico, and some good ones. That's it. Couldn't outplay Arsenal, Spurs, City and even some weaker sides.

It's not being pessimistic, neither not supporting your team. It's reality. We have great situation for developing squad and making all the right moves next summer, with no Costa disaster etc.

I personally will enjoy this season despite of maybe not winning trophies,  I'll enjoy in development of the squad, watching the players grow, winning some in UCL and going for domestic cup.

 

No, Chelsea went back to the top after a poor start because of Conte and that glorious winning streak, not because others were poor. You don't get to win 13 on the bounce, score 30+ goals and keep 10 clean sheets in the process just because "others were just not good enough".

United had the exact same team last season, bar Lukaku, but Ibrahimovic up top. The difference this season is their easy run of fixtures so far. Swap any of the top sides with United and they would all be on the same points as United is now, if not better, with that fixture list. 

Liverpool, Spurs and Chelsea - three of the next four matches for United. Let's see after the Chelsea game how much they've improved. 

Nobody can predict the future so I find it irrelevant to draw any conclusions like most of you do now. But talking about the past, it has a tendency to repeat itself, so you never know...

Before Chelsea go to the Emirates on New Year's Eve, we get to play only two difficult matches until the end of the year - at home against United and away at Liverpool. 12 others are against lesser sides. And 7 out of these 12 matches are at home  

Think some of you should reconsider your thoughts now days after the City match. You might be in for a surprise before the Arsenal game on NYE when Chelsea will probably be way closer to the top than most of you would imagine.

[Henrique 9,133]

I think some people underestimate the impact of Azpi and Luiz in Conte's 3CB system. Both players are really good with the ball on their feet. When the team is under pressure they can cope well with the situation, and both can even create attacking opportunities out of nowhere. Even playing as CB we saw many times Azpi producing assists, and Luiz can also build attacking situations. In game against Atletico Luiz put Morata in front of the goal in 1st half, and he was the one that found Hazard in the left wing before the Belgian assisted Morata to the equalizer, not to Mention Luiz was the one that received the foul that resulte the last minute goal.

When Conte deployed Azpi to the right wing the team was essentially fucked. Rudiger and Cristensens are good CB, the with Cahill the team was left with a very heavy and non dynamic back 3, and lost the pace and physical power of Moses in the tight side of the pitch.

I think Conte worst decision against City was his 3CB choice.

[Fulham Broadway 16,392]

My view, (these are just our opinions folks) -One thing I think from this week is - if we are going to play 3 in CM, then I quite fancy the idea of a  back 3 of Azpi, Christensen and Rudi with Luiz moving in to midfield alongside Kante and Bakayoko.

[Tomo 21,681]

50 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

My view, (these are just our opinions folks) -One thing I think from this week is - if we are going to play 3 in CM, then I quite fancy the idea of a  back 3 of Azpi, Christensen and Rudi with Luiz moving in to midfield alongside Kante and Bakayoko.

Luiz in midfield is an option if we are playing strictly to contain and counter, but in games we set up to take the initiative (Atletico) or will be forced to due to the negative tactics of the opponent (ala Pulis sides, Leicester, United at home) he shouldn't be anywhere near midfield.