chelseafan26

Brilliant by ATM. Absolutely Fabulous Fight and Gameplan. This is what we used to be, before we bought a bunch of mercenaries and sold some of our most talented players. Hardly surprising that ex-chelsea players everywhere are performing so well. They are performing so well, because they are brilliant talents unseen by our ex-manager.

I think people are angry that he chose the least talented with the least potential which was obvious to everyone, as his no.1 attacking midfielder.

I dont expect hazard to be here next season. CL football is no longer a surety, the title a distant dream. From a roster boasting of a future Ballon dor Hazard, a no.10 with "Potential" Oscar, an actual creative genius Mata, a World class potential player Kdb, a robben-ish Schurrle, (and like you pointed out a very young bunch), next season we might be left with Willian-no-product, a 30 year old hopeless headless chicken, and a player who in his 320 minute audition seemed more suitable for a career as a ball boy than a footballer (i am not going to include oscar in this list because even the thought of him being here next season sened a chill down my spine). Our deep mid is as shambolic if not more as it was 3 years ago when Jose came in. Our defence is literally the same but 3 years older and worser. We would need 200mil euros to simply get players who can make us top4 level competitive. And finally we lost a 20 goal a season PL proven striker for the sake of torres, ba and etoo. So yes, for me he has pushed back 5 years. Financially as well as roster quality wise.

Firstly, I have to disagree with us playing our best football post double with cesc in the team. NOT TRUE. Mate, I am not sure what you have been watching but 4 months of good football is not worth 1 and a half year of shit on a stick football week in and week out. Its actually been 1 and a half year since I saw good attacking football been played from this club. Since that day at swans. No mate, I just cant agree with this. Neither can i agree with "inroads he creates with even a centre m "etre of space is inhuman and that makes a real difference against teams that sit deep.". When was the last time that cesc actually "unlocked" a deep defence. On the contrary, for me, his USP seems to be a defence that plays a high line and he can put his inch perfect long balls behind that defence for costa to run onto. I feel there is a "myth" surrounding cesc actually being good against deep defences. Look at us. If anything we have become worse against deep defences in my opinion. With all due respect to Pirlo, if Juventus were an EPL team, Pirlo would have been eaten alive week in and week out. This Juventus or the one for the last 3 years is heads and shoulders above anyother Serie A team. But try doing that in PL, and they would get murdered. You cant have players who need bodyguards in the center of the pitch. You just cant. Does the baggage that cesc gets with himself worth it? For me, NO. attackers attack, Defenders defend and Midfielders need to do both. This lopsided Jose mourinho approach of playing cesc in the center of the pitch so that he can attack and then playing oscar as a defensive no.10 so that he can provide "balance" (I loathe Pat Nevin for starting this "Oscar provides immense balance Bullshit") and then playing willian so he can provide even more cover. Yes, attacking players have to do their share of defence. I have seen neymar and suarez do that, as has Bale and Robben and Ribery. But first and foremost, they are attackers. While I agree with you about Wenger and as much as I would like to ridicule him, this is not about wenger. Jose tried to provide as much cover as possible for Cesc and what happened? We are sitting 10th in the League and have been outclassed multiple times by PSG in CL. Hell, we have been outclassed by 10 men PSG at the Bridge. Cesc is someone who disrupts the balance of a team. He is someone who takes away more than he gives to the team. In all honesty Jose would play Zouma/Mikel/Ramires and Matic just to give cesc freedom. We tried a lot of that this season too. Result - defensive capitulation. I remember those arsenal teams when even 4-0 leads were not safe enough and how similar it is to us. While I agree that cesc has his advantages, his defensive liabilities make him an expendable. We were a european supergiant with a midfield of lampard-makelele-essien. None of them being creative geniuses.

On the other hand, KDB scored 2 out of city's 3 goals to take his team to the semis of the Champions League against a team that absolutely annihilated us home and away. I seriously dont think that some people understand the magnitude of Jose's "mistakes" and "failures" in his 2nd term. He has single handedly set us back atleast 5 years.

Are not the problems that Arsenal faced in those years same or at the very least "very similar" to what we are facing right now? Porous midfields, Higher turnovers, Mid getting bullied off the park, trying to score that perfect goal etc etc. Cant just be a co-incidence. Lets be honest, while cesc can play his quarter-backish passes brilliantly, his ball retention is tight spaces is a shambles. Moreover, for someone heralded as the king of creativity, cesc really does not create much if you take out his long balls which have a very low conversion rate. Then is the point of his set piece deliveries. And finally we come to his defensive workrate and ability. While a lot of stats show that cesc actually covers a lot of ground (which frankly i have a hard time in believing), I think its due to the fact that he is continously "Jogging". To be fair to cesc, I dont think his jogging and his sprint speeds would be that different. I see a lot of it in RLC too. He keeps on Jogging and then puts in a half hearted tackle, only to be easily passed up by the opposition attacker. Since RLC is currently playing as a no.10, this flaw is not getting highlighted. Another thing is while cesc's long balls create our best chances of the matches, they also result 90% of the times in returning the possession back to the opposition defence/GK. Hence, why I said that one of the main culprits for arsenal/chelsea's defensive frailities and attacking deficiency is cesc.

Oh damn!!! so its 4 out of 6. Great. Well, atleast we did a double over gooners. That must be some consolation.

As sad, trivial and hollow as it may sound, I still dont want any team to do a double over us, but 3 out of 6 remaining teams have an oppurtunity to do just that - city, liverpool and leicester.

While I do agree with the gist of this, I just dont see Manolas as an apt replacement. And considering the fact that Andreas might be on loan and zouma is coming back from a knee injury next season, Manolas might well be a starting CB for us, which is something that does not bode well in my opinion. I think we need to look at a level higher than Manolas specially since currently we are looking to buy first team, starting quality CBs.

Radja would be a great buy. But honestly, I would take andreas over manolas.

2004-11, thats 7 seasons.

layers Brandon Nick Dan Chidge Thibaut Courtois Keep Sell Keep Keep Asmir Begovic Keep Keep Sell Keep Cesar Azpilicueta Keep Keep Keep Keep Gary Cahill Sell Sell Keep Keep Branislav Ivanovic Keep Keep Keep Keep John Terry Keep Keep Keep Keep Kurt Zouma Keep Keep Keep Keep Baba Rahman Keep Keep Keep Keep Matt Miazga Keep Keep Keep Sell Eden Hazard Keep Sell Keep Keep Cesc Fabregas Keep Keep Keep Sell Ruben Loftus-Cheek Keep Keep Keep Keep Nemanja Matic Sell Keep Sell Sell John Obi Mikel Keep Sell Sell Keep Oscar Sell Sell Sell Sell Pedro Keep Sell Sell Sell Willian Keep Keep Keep Keep Kenedy Keep Keep Keep Keep Bertrand Traore Keep Keep Keep Keep Pato Sell Sell Sell Sell Remy Sell Sell Sell Sell Falcao Sell Sell Sell Sell Diego Costa Keep Keep Keep Keep Loved this article and piece from WAGNH. Mine would be something along the lines of Players Replacement Thibaut Courtois Keep X Asmir Begovic Keep X Cesar Azpilicueta Keep X Gary Cahill Sell Christensen Branislav Ivanovic Sell Ake John Terry Sell Hummels/New CB Kurt Zouma Keep X Baba Rahman Keep X Matt Miazga Keep X Eden Hazard Keep X Cesc Fabregas Sell Radja Ruben Loftus-Cheek Keep X Nemanja Matic Keep X John Obi Mikel Sell Vidal/Kante Oscar Sell Pjanic Pedro Sell Musonda Willian Keep X Kenedy Keep X Bertrand Traore Keep X Pato Sell Baker Remy Sell ? Falcao Sell ? Diego Costa Keep X

So can kenedy/Traore/Musonda. In a season with no CL, the only use for a squad player will be playing domestic cups or when the first teamers are injured/sub role. I would rather that it be given to kids than a headless chicken.

So exactly what attribute did Torres/Ba provide us that Lukaku could not. All torres could do back then was fall on the floor and concede possession. Whenever given a start Ba was awful, he was best for that 10 minute cameo. Lukaku provided us with speed and finishing and since we played most of the season on the counter. We failed to score at villa away, palace away and norwich at home in last 5/6 games of our season and thus lost the title. Did not the managers do that or rather still do that while playing us? Congest the middle of the park and expose our pivot. Difference would have been that we would have had 2 brilliant play makers along with a good young striker (i use good to describe lukaku 2 years ago, brilliant for the current one). Sorry mate, by Jose's own admission, this was a squad that needed to "grow". That needed to eat/drink/ whatever hopeless drivel he used back then comparing us to horses/eggs. This would have been the way to go forward. If hazard's development was due to etoo, then we should have signed him as a coach, not a semi retired player. Etoo-Kind DD-falcao these were jose's 1st/2nd choice strikers through out his tenure. Abysmal. I would take a 20 year old Lukaku over a 30odd/40odd year old etoo any day of the week of any millenium. And this is where man-management comes to the fore. In a world year, how could you even expect players like Lukaku and Kdb to be sitting on the bench doing nothing, when even they know for a fact that they were the club's best choice for the no.10 or a striker. I have to ask, how exactly did jose solve ANY of those above mentioned problems? Our pivot is a joke and we have cesc - one of the main culprit for how poor arsenal have been for a decade. We still have no width. And teams Still isolate our pivot over and over again. I may have watched a different season and a half to you if thats not the case. What we should have done is Stuck with Hazard-Kdb-schurrle with mata as our back up no.10. For me, that was always our best attacking trio. Lukaku was a no-brainer. I hope that one season of etoo and hazard's minuscule development and one PL is good enough to cover a decade full of 20 goals a season striker. But for me, we got ripped off in that deal. What we should have done is have the top 4 decided and then build on it. Arsenal main mistake is not that they have a light weight top 4, its the fact that they continue to play with arteta/flamini for years, they have wilshere who cant string 2 matches together. Even now, they have coq-elneny instead of going all out for a proper vidal-like CM. Thats there mistake, atleast in my opinion. I would have settled the attack or even built on it by getting costa and having gotten lukaku's trust by having him as my no.1 striker for a season. In a 60 match season, 2 good strikers are the minimum that are required. And then mainly built on the DM position with the likes of Matic, Ramires, Vidal/Radja. Ps - Youth and Young should not be equated. We would have had a "Young" top4, but these were players who have been playing for the first team for atleast 5 years, and who had played for multiple leagues and were regarded as the best talents in the world.

No one is denying his talent but there is something called FORM which should not be overlooked. Carrasco is a special talent too, as is KDb and both of them are right now at the top of their form. Kdb has comeback from his injury looking like a man-possessed. Mertens is a good bench player and thorgan currently looks like another real talent. Why would a sane minded manager waste such talents on the bench/reserves so that an year long out of form, 2 goals scored "talent" can be handed starts. Hazard starting ahead of such players would be similar to rooney coming back from injury and getting starts ahead of Vardy/Kane. I would not just be pissed, I would probably want Hodgson's resignation at that moment.

Does it matter. Would he be played ahead of carrasco, kdb, origi, mertens or for that matter, thorgan? I dont give it a chance.

Lets start with the most obvious. Costa instead of Lukaku is a brilliant deal. BUT. Do we have enough cover to even say things like "instead". Our backup strikers are Remy, falcao (on loan), Pato (on loan) and Traore. Sorry, but its criminal to not have a PL proven 21 year old world class potential on your roster when you have the chance. Remember Gudjohnsen-DD, DD-anelka. A club of chelsea's stature needs a minimum of 2 great strikers. heights of mis-management by Jose. How many penalties has Lampard missed in his days. Beckham? Messi misses penalties almost every other weekend. If jose's analyses of lukaku was made because of his penalty miss, I am so happy he is gone. As for etoo, Etoo came in and Lukaku went. Not the other way round. Before the start of the season, Jose kept saying about "young eggs" and "we wont win the trophy" and yet thought it good enough to bring in Etoo and start torres ahead of Lukaku. Like I said before, Lukaku's departure was only because of Jose's mistake. You are blaming LVG for Maria's mis-man-management and yet Jose cost us Lukaku, Mata, Kdb, Bertrand because of his mega-mis-man-management. As for Mata, LVG's mis-man-management can be applied to Mata too. Maria played like a "Galactico" for a month. He was downright atrocious for the rest of the season. He was sold for 44 million pounds, a loss of 15 million pounds in a year. That itself should be indicative of his season at united. Players like bertrand are a MUST keep. United had a squad of wes browns, John o sheas. Perfect squad players. Bertrand could have been one too. Unfortunately, Jose man-management and rotation in this tenure was abysmal. We had a 33 year old cole, who was definitely on his way out, yet cole was somehow kept at the club while Bertrand was loaned out to Villa. Bertrand played a total of 244 minutes under Mourinho. I dont think his problem was being a starter but lack of trust and play time. 244 minutes in 5 months despite his only competition being a 33 year old cole, who was poor (to say the least) whenever he took field. How you can judge Ryan's offensive play when he barely got any oppurtunity is beyond me. Any team in the world needs 7 or 8 defenders over the course of a season. We currently have 6 which includes a 36 year old JT and a 21 year old Baba who Jose did not trust to tie his own shoes. Who is to blame for it? Why was Luis sold? People say "Luis wanted to leave". Who cares? De gea wanted to leave too. But sometimes you have to do whats best for the clubs. Put a price tag on luis that would be unbelievable. If Jose's solution to enhance a PL winning squad is to buy a 50million rated player then sorry, he can be replaced with RAFA BENITEZ and it wont matter. Christensen did not become a good footballer overnight, did he? Where was Jose and his 10 minute technique to judge a youngster? Why did not Christensen get his chances at chelsea? All massive cases of mis-management. Do you really believe Musonda is not ready? Christensen, Ake are not ready? Do you really think if RLC had played instead of Oscar since the start of the season, we would have been any wprse. I honestly think we would have been in a much better position. And finally we come to Oscar. I dont know who and what Gilvorak is, but its the second reference to him on this thread in the past one page. Jose played Oscar and Guss is playing Oscar, and we are 10th in the league. Guss is playing Oscar because he thinks he does not have any "options". Infact, Gutless Gus needed injuries to hazard, matic, JT, zouma, willian and a suspension to Costa to give chance to youth like traore and kenedy despite us not having to play for anything. If hazard was fit right now, he would still be "playing" or rather standing on the pitch doing jack shit. So yes, Jose made mistakes and Gus is simply repeating them. Thats not a co-incidence, just Stupidity.

Mata is a flop in your eyes, and yet Maria was good enough? Thats interesting. Mata has 24 goals and 18 assists in 2.5 years compared to Maria's 4 goals and 12 assists in 1 season. If you extrapolate Maria's 1 season to 2.5 he would have 10 goals and 30 assists. Which are still less than Mata. Mata was a 37million pound buy, Maria was 60 odd if I am not wrong. Please use the same method to judge both players for future references. Would you take Bertrand over Baba right now? Or over Iva, thus shifting azpi to the right? Bertrand has been quite decent this season too. He has played 27 matches, and helped his team keep 11 clean sheets in them and half of them without their main GK. So while it would make sense to you for selling a club trained, Home grown, good young player for a 29 year old player who was then benched for the season and then sold, and then later have no options for the left back position except for a right back or a 20 year old Baba who was not played inspite IVA being the worst player in PL. Well, you can see why I would have a problem with this. Before Costa or Lukaku, there was a case of Torres or Lukaku, Ba or Lukaku, even schurrle or Lukaku since schurrle was started ahead of lukaku at OT. And then was the master piece of actually bringing in a 33 year old semi retired striker rather than trust his "young eggs". Sorry, mate. But Lukaku's departure is ONLY on jose. No one else. So because 2 coaches make the same mistake it makes it right? There are hundreds of fans here and thousands over at SB who think Oscar has stunk the place up. "Whoscored". So now we have to believe everything "Whoscored" says. Well i went to the "Whoscored" page and they had predicted a draw. Guess they get everything wrong on that site. Well, maybe I and others who have been watching football for 30 odd years know ABSOLUTELY nothing. Or maybe just maybe, the managers are gutless who would rather keep playing the "popular" player than give a chance to someone deserving.Jose bet on Oscar. He let 2 technically superior footballers leave for the sake of Oscar. Maybe he did not want to lose face. As for Guss, lesser said the better. Also, there is the question of going into the season with only 4 options in Hazard, Oscar, willian and Pedro. The other 2 were Kenedy and Traore who still, even at this moment cant get starts when we literally have nothing in the world to play for. Sue the club? Oh dear!!! First of all you need to sort out whom do you support? Chelsea or Jose Mourinho. Jose' failure this season does not just mean a poor PL and trophyless season but it actually means MILLIONS and MILLIONS of losses. If I cost my company one-hundreth of the money that Jose has cost the club, the company wont just fire me but we have given him the respect of a quadruple winning manager. Even at our worst moment, the club and the fans were nothing but completely and totally in support of him. But lets speak the truth now since Jose is gone. He has screwed us not just for the present but for the foreseeable future. We have a defence of a 36 year old, 2 31 year olds. We have sold a no.10 who has the potential to be one of the best players on the planet rather we have a player who somehow achieves to get the highest rating on some arbitary website. We have sold a 22 year old striker, who almost anyone at all associated to football could have said to have the potential to be a brilliant striker. As for "I told you so", I have no way to prove that I never rated Oscar highly or that I never thought the competition between Oscar and Kdb to be even close. Lastly, lets discuss what a "leader" is. A good leader/good manager is someone who leads his team loyally. Who does not have a one set off rules for a certain set of players while having another set of rules for his "favourties". A good leader does not keep playing his favourites even though we are 17th in the table while giving asenine excuses like "I need 5 tall players". A leader does not go about abusing the team's doctor for doing her Job and losing some respect from the fans as well as players. NO. Jose was a poor leader this season and infact his whole tenure this time. His lies and negativity only hampered us this time.

To boo or not to boo. Look at what some booing did to costa right after Jose was sacked. If I was in the crowd, I would definitely boo the likes of oscar and pedro to show them they are not welcome here next season. As for the team, Begovic Azpi Cahill Ivanovic Baba Mikel Cesc Traore RLC Willian Costa Hopefully we can atleast be competitive and not play like we played at Swansea.

United is a team that itself is going through an identity crisis. They have lingard and rashford playing as forwards. Their defense changes every week. Even Bastian has shown at United and even Angel di Maria was poor at united. Does not make them poor players. It just makes a team of short team brought players, with no chemistry and identity. "One mistake". Bertrand, Lukaku, Mata, KDB, Luis. The list goes on and on. And as for this one mistake, it was so bafflingly clear about the sheer difference in class on mata/kdb compared to oscar. When did Jose put in auditions for these players? Oscar was selected as his no.1 no.10 and the Mata/Kdb benched or shifted out wide. 4 good to average months of oscar was good enough for jose to decide to sell them too. Sorry mate, but that "one mistake" is one of the major reasons why we are 10th in the table and why we were 17th in December.

Jose is the best manager in the world. But for some reason, he thought oscar was better than KDB and mata.

Thats harsh. He is not a norwich level player, he is a chelsea level player - midtable, 10th position PL team. His 2 good performances were against newcastle and villa, without a shred of doubt the 2 worst teams in the league. He is exactly the type of player that defines the club currently: no quality, no identity, no fight, no love, and most of the time, no idea of what he/the club is doing. IF we want to progress as a club, players like pedro, oscar, mikel, cahill should NOT be here under any circumstances. In all honesty, pedro and oscar actually make me miss malouda and kalou.

Pathetic display. Just shows our "quality". Pato - clearly not good enough. Traore was a 100 times better. Oscar - WOW. where do i begin? He is possibly the worst player on the roster. Pedro - played 90 mins. He actually played 90 mins. Can not remember a single productive thing. NOT ONE. MOTM - RLC for me. Went in and out of the game but in parts showed that he has the technique and the class required to be a regular for us.

I just dont get the pedro love on here. In my opinion, the first 2 players out of the squad SHOULD be oscar and pedro. Atrocious Players. Definition of mediocrity.

Joke of a footballer