OhForAGreavsie

If he said that then he is obviously wrong but that's not what I heard him say. I heard Jose say that the early goal allowed Chelsea to play on the counter which he claimed is something we like to do.

That's your choice which is quite obviously nothing to do with me. Just don't imagine yourself to be speaking for Chelsea fans in general.

I am a Chelsea fan and I understand no such thing. I also do not understand why the anti Jose brigade is so grotesquely over represented on this forum. Jose is, and will remain, a Chelsea legend. If that irks anyone, then they deserve to be irked.

You may be right about that. The objection was really just about my own opinion on Kennedy's qualities, not your idea as a whole. For me Kennedy is in example of an important improvement we need to make. I understand what the club does with recruiting young players, particularly South Americans as early as the regulations permit. If we wait until they've proved their quality than our chances of recruiting them are dramatically reduced. Neymar is an example of a player we courted for years but who we never really had a chance of getting because he was already attracting the attention of clubs higher up the food chain than ourselves. It's a good plan to try to beat the rush; to try to identify and sign players early. The problem is that we don't seem to be carrying it out very well. We have youngsters around the continent who are struggling to get games with teams who play several levels below the one to which we aspire. This suggests that we are not selecting well enough. It could be that we are signing the best players who are available to us. It could be that we do identify better players but that somewhere between those players ambitions, and their current club's demands, our hopes of recruiting them fall apart. I think we all understand that the club is working in a very competitive market with one hand tied behind its back by UK employment laws. I question though if we should be so committed to pursuing this plan that we are prepared to sign players just because they are the ones we can get. From the first time I watched Kennedy on YouTube I felt that he did not have the required quality and posted here to say so. I love the lad's attitude and his general hassle on the football pitch. If, however, the day ever comes when he's good enough to hold down an attacking role for Chelsea, it will be because we have become a less good side then we want to be. An even less good side than we are now.

I don't see any reason to put that much faith in Kennedy. More to the point, I don't imagine that Antonio would.

I've said this before so forgive me for repeating myself, but I think the crosses he makes should be right at the bottom of the list when assessing a fullback's/wingback's contribution to his team. No matter who you are, most of your deliveries into the box will be ineffective and of those which are effective the majority will still come to nothing. In any case, show me a good cross delivered by a fullback/wingback and, nine times out of ten, I'll show you a good passing move which put him in position to make it. Good possession and crisp passing create situations which might become great crosses. Almost every time a team establishes good possession one, if not both, of their fullbacks will touch the ball. Frequently they will do so more than once. Minute by minute, match by match, fullbacks/wingbacks who are strong in possession, and are capable of good continuity passing, make key contributions to their team. These are exactly Marcos's strengths which is why I was enthusiastic about his signing and hopeful about what he could do for us. To be truly outstanding such players must also be sound defenders, and this is perhaps where Marcos has something still to prove. It must be remembered however that, by improving the quality of their team's possession, good continuity players also help to solidify it defensively. It is way, way too early to judge if our recent improvement, at both ends of the pitch, is lasting, and to be sure whether any of it can be attributed to Marcos's involvement. I feel very encouraged by what we've seen from him so far however.

In terms of competition regulations, the type of player you are talking about is described as "Club Trained".

And of course Tammy doesn't have any "caps" for Bristol City. 😊

Really like this bloke. The breakdown describes him as right-footed but he is very comfortable with either foot and as a result has a much easier time working his way out of tight situations and finding angles for good continuity passes.

I read a post yesterday in which someone called it not the Bundesliga, but the Bayernliga. Made me laugh and 100% right of course.

There is planning for every eventuality and then there's, "If PSG don't qualify for the champions league!!" Good work Paulo. Let no one ever accuse you of failing to dot the Is and cross the Ts.

Andreas talks about a future at Stamford Bridge because, in his position, he more or less has to. To say anything else would be to invite bad PR for no good reason. Saying he prefers Bayern's league, or that he would rather play elsewhere than sit on the bench Chelsea, is probably about as far as he can go. Gladbach would not waste their time pursuing Andreas so vigorously however unless they knew that he was keen to join them.

Yep, that's all fair enough except that you were the one that started to talk about from above. Remember, I replied to comment on your assumption that the club was putting pressure on the managers, i.e. from above. 🙂

I'd be pretty surprised if a man, who reportedly watches every minute of every Chelsea game, needed to be told that the squad isn't good enough. I have no idea of course, but my guess is that the owner knew it well enough even before Antonio arrived and that their conversations have been a lot more nuanced than is being reported.

Four points again. What is it with you on the number four? 😊 Firstly, your point about information. I don't think it has anything to do with the conversation we've been having but you're right of course. I think I've written more posts making this point in the last few months than I have about anything else. It bemuses me when people ask the question, "Why can't the managers see what we can see?". Of course the managers can see everything we do, plus they have the opportunity to see, and to know, a great deal more. No matter how strange a manager's decision may seem, none of us can be certain that, given the same information he has, we would not do exactly the same. The reason I say this has nothing to do with the conversation we have been having is because it's not a pressure from above. It's just the manager using knowledge and information to inform the decisions he makes. His own decisions. On the case of money. Unless we're talking about bribery of the manager, money isn't going to come into it. These financial concerns wouldn't affect the manager. They might of course be a motivation for the club to put pressure on the manager but that just brings us back to where we started. Financial concerns might make the club want to have a player selected but there is no evidence that they have put any manager under pressure to do it. On Roman. Being the owner does give him the authority, if not actually the entitlement, to issue directives to his staff. Once again this gets us nowhere other than back to where we started. Even if he might like to do it, there is no evidence that Roman has told managers to pick a certain player. On availability. I've made that point a number of times myself but in connection with young players. I've argued that perhaps the club is starving the squad of senior players in a bid to force the selection of youngsters. I don't seriously think this is what is going on. I've just put it forward previously as a potential explanation for what we have seen. That is still not direct pressure of the, "pick this player, not that player", type.

Agreed you're always going to be limited by your tools. If there is an urgent job that has to be done then you have to get on with it using whatever tools you have at your disposal. If those tools aren't up to the task however then the best you can do is a bodge job. Antonio's tools are bad so people blaming him for what's happening is ridiculous. Individual results against selected teams has got nothing to do with it by the way. I might as well compare Jose's results against Arsenal with Antonio's. It means nothing in the context of this conversation.

You have written four paragraphs and I agree with every word in three of them. The one I see differently is your suggestion that we can assume there has been club pressure on team selections. What evidence is there to support that assumption? I know only one case in the last 13 and a bit years, Daniel Sturridge, where the club has issued an instruction to the manager. The fact that it was a negative instruction, rather than a positive one to put him in the team, suggests that this was for disciplinary, or other non-football, reasons. Apart from that, none of Roman's managers has ever said that he faced pressure from above and several have said exactly the opposite. Not only have Cloudio, Jose, Avram, Guus and the temp praised the club for non-interference but they were very clear about it. While it is possible to believe that these men were under contractual obligation not to speak about any interference, it is not possible to believe that their contracts would have compelled them to praise the club's behaviour if that praise wasn't deserved. Someone did tell me in a reply recently about a claim in Carlo's book that there had been interference. I'm surprised it wasn't a far bigger story in the media at the time. Unless I completely missed it, and being a Chelsea obsessive I don't miss much, there was no media storm about it. Not even a tiny little puff. Not that I remember anyway.

Show me someone who didn't. 😊 The weaknesses which are apparent now were also clear to see during the title winning campaign. The difference is that we had a genius in charge and the players actually listened to him. I don't mean by this to disparage Antonio. He is absolutely right to try to do things as he wants them done. It infuriates me that posts have already appeared raising doubts about him or saying that he must produce a miracle in a matter of weeks to retain his job. His record shows he is an excellent coach and his public persona suggests that he is an excellent man. I'm delighted that we have him. Antonio has learned, or is learning, what a number of others have seen before. Any collection of eleven footballers can play any system their manager wishes, but our collection can only win if they play in a particular way. When, rightly or wrongly, the players stopped believing in Jose, they stopped believing in his message too and the wheels came off. All of us here would like the same thing. We want the club to put together a squad which will allow the manager to move away from the former method of play. Trying to change the play first and then moving the squad around afterwards is, however, like putting the cart before the horse.

I felt that way about Brana since the Swansea semi finals in 2013 although I wouldn't put it so harshly as to say I want to see him sacked. As I've often said about Oscar, it's not the fact that Brana is poor which is Chelsea's problem. Chelsea's problem is that our managers have no one they consider to be better.

Those two words are not, and will never be, a problem for Chelsea. 😊

I see some of what you have said slightly differently to the way you do. Where I fully agree with you however is that the back four are a part of our attack just as much as our front six are a part of our defence. I didn't say the back four shouldn't get any of the blame; I only said they get too much of it. 😊

I think the defence gets too much of the blame. Clearly there are problems among the defenders but our front six don't take the pressure off their teammates as much as they should. In saying this, I don't mean just in terms of tracking back or pressing, but also in terms of their offensive contributions. The weakness of our team when in possession plays a major part in our lack of defensive organisation.

I don't understand what you're saying. Are you suggesting that I posted comments stating that the squad was fine and that we didn't need upgrades or changes? One of us is very confused and I seriously hope it isn't me. 😊

There is no one here who failed to recognise the weaknesses in the squad. No one who did not see the need for a major overhaul. Indeed many of us, most of us even, have been talking about it for years and that no doubt includes you. The disputes about the transfer window were not about whether we needed players, but about how we should go and get them.

Do any of us really know how much of a leader John is within this current group? It always seemed to be the case that while he was recognised as the top man, the leadership role through the trophy winning years was really a group effort which also involved Didier, Frank and Petr. They supported and reinforced each other. My guess is that, in the current squad, the strong characters are John, Diego, Cesc and David Luiz. Whether they are as tight a group as the previous quartet I somehow doubt. That would mean there is more than one power centre and maybe John's leadership is not unchallenged. Guesswork I know, but from the outside guesswork is pretty much all we've got.