The Skipper

Ith mad cos I think I have the best Emenalo avatar of all time. #FindMaradonaInHisPocket

Drogba is a natural leader and very well respected by the playing squad. Comparing him to Zenden is quite insulting. He's proper Chels.

Playing a 4-4-2 formation and possession football aren't mutually exclusive though. Leicester are not walking the league either. The type of football Leicester play isn't exclusive to the fact that they play 4-4-2. Irregardless of that, you can't use half a season to prove that 4-4-2 is now the best formation around. What sort of football do the best teams (Bayern, Barcelona, or even us last year when we were on fire for half a season) play? Weren't they possession based systems? Even before that, when City won the title... Again, possession based system. Your findings don't prove much at all. Leicester and Watford are just two good in-form teams, with good managers who know how to get the best of their players.

What proves this exactly? Possession based doesn't automatically mean tiki taka either.

I believe this too. We're only 11 points away I think? If we go on a good run we can do it.

So I see that you're back to slating Jose again now the Fabregas story doesn't add up? Great.

Looks like he's made that LB spot his own. Good stuff Nathan, keep progressing.

Just going on the fact that Steve is staying behind and not going with Jose, so I think that means he's obviously still reprising the same role he's already in.

Love that he's bringing in DD. Eddie Newton has moved up to AM as well now. So that'd be DD, Eddie and Steve as AMs. Excellent.

Again, I'm not talking about that post specifically. I'm saying in general. You were one the biggest Mourinho out critic on the board for ages, and a lot of the stuff you've been saying recently is just funny considering that.

I think if the players told you otherwise in your face you still wouldn't believe it either.

It's not news that Mourinho didn't really give his offensive players as much freedom as they really should've had. I'm not too surprised tbh.

I'm not talking about that post in particular, it's more general.

Sunderland are awful. This doesn't prove much at all. Any team naturally want to prove themselves when anything like this happens.

You used to be one of the biggest Mourinho out critics on the forum, most of the things you're saying right now are just very hypocritical.

Are people actually going to be fickle enough to believe this?

Disagree. The only two similar players who are good enough to start for us are Willian and Hazard. Oscar should be gone because he doesn't provide a set up for goals in the final third too often. Pedro is very different to all of these guys though - he's all about the movement in his game, and is actually a very decent finisher - but we haven't seen the best of him yet because we don't utilise Pedro in the right way.

Fabregas, who provided 23 assists last season which was a massive contribution to our league win, is now a worse signing than Torres? Blimey.

Fair comments. I have to say, it's different when it comes to hiring a new manager than what went on with Jose in the last few months. The psychological aspect of the game is very underrated, and it seemed to me that the players didn't lose belief in Mourinho per se, more so in his footballing ideas. As a manager, it's important to stop individuals from becoming complacent, but Jose did not manage that and we now find ourselves in this situation. Just to clarify on what I meant about the board - what they did in the 14/15 season was very good, but the ground work coming up to that; specifically after 2012, where they invested smartly in players such as KDB, Lukaku, Courtois, Eden, Oscar, Azpi etc... I commend them for their work there - that is the direction I saw the club going into. It's been a pleasure debating with you, but a man has to go to bed and get ready for work. I must say again that you do come across very well in your posts, so keep it up. Hope that you stick around and become an active member here, it's nice to have different views that are put across eloquently.

Couldn't have said it better tbh.

You know, I agree that Mourinho would've definitely steered us to mid table but that isn't much of an achievement as you would know. I think we both want the same thing for the club, we both want the club to move in the right direction - key difference here is that you believe that Jose is the embodiment of how we should achieve that, whereas I have lost faith in him. That's fair from you - if there was any person in Chelsea history you'd want to place your faith in, it'd probably be Jose - but to me he isn't the same anymore, and I initially liked this - it was evident that he wasn't the same Jose when he came back - but I've grown to not be as in awe of him as I was before. I think the game has surpassed him in certain ways, which means he'd be detrimental to the long term future of the club - but of course that is just my opinion. Your opinion is fair as well, I think you've come across very well and respectful in your posts, so for that I must thank you. However, I just can't agree with you. I'm honestly not too fussed by players going to rivals - Jose similarly (even though he was against the Cech sale) has shown in the past that he isn't too fussed by it either - him getting Mata to United for example. Of course Jose was one of the main reasons we won the title last year as well, I'd never say he was not. That doesn't mean that my view of him being our long term manager can't change though. The difference between Eden and Jose is that Jose is an abrasive, arrogant character, so he will get tagged like that. Eden however is very light hearted. It's very difficult to compare a player and a manager though, so I'll stop here. I disagree. We'll have to wait and see whether they've learnt from this or not, but the way the board built the squad before Jose arrived and the way we clinically made our summer signings last year - I can't say that I fully trust them to steer us in the right direction yet but I'm willing to see what happens - it's all we can do now.

But he isn't the sole person responsible, that's my point. It goes further than Emenalo. It goes all the way up to Roman, Marina, Eugene, Bruce Buck etc. They're all responsible.

I don't think it's all his fault, I voiced my displeasure at the board for not getting in the right players, but he's certainly one of the main reasons why we're a point above relegation.

OTK, I actually don't disagree with you that the summer was absolutely abysmal and that we definitely didn't do enough to move forward, but my issue is that whilst players have become complacent - I can't see how a team of this quality are in the position they are in now. Moyes at United - you could call his season there very similar to ours right now - United were not good enough that season but they never slid down as hard as we did. I have to blame Jose for not managing the situation well enough. Yes, okay, our squad wasn't rejuvenated and I would accept that for a reason if we weren't challenging for the title well enough or even struggling to make the top four BUT we're nearly in the relegation zone. It's an entirely different prospect and unprecedented, and Jose has to take the heat for steering us to where we are right now. On your rent-a-manager comment, I believe that Roman and the board have learnt enough now to understand that they need to be more patient in appointing or removing managers. They don't seem to be anywhere near as trigger happy - and this is proven by the fact that they gave Jose the time to try and turn it around. Jose didn't manage to do such though.

Jose has himself to blame more than anyone else. He wouldn't have been sacked if he didn't manage to steer the quality in this team to 1 point above the relegation zone.