Peace.

We have been very, very, very lucky to suffer our decline while the whole English football was declining as well. It has allowed us to keep the head out of the water and to win two PL, otherwise we would be right now at the same level as Liverpool. Seeing our inability — or rather, our non-desire — to manage the squad and to renew it properly, in a few seasons we will be in a dangerously dire situation. I mean, ten years ago we had world-class (outfield) players in every position in the field : Terry, Lampard, Cole, Drogba, etc... Now, we have only one and it's Hazard.
Abramovich needs to understand that doing these cheap business will cost us greatly in the mid to long term. Not only it is crucially weakening our squad, but it does also hurt our ability to attract big names and/or futur stars. Young kids want to play with Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar, Mbappe, Robben, Pogba, etc...  The only one of our players that has this power of attraction is Hazard — and he is not eternal. That is also why, back in the days, we were able to sign good players for the bench : because they had great players before them and thus could deal with it. Now, we cannot even convince the likes of Chalobah to stay on the bench while years ago players queued for that. And if you throw in the mix that every two years we are in a shambles, then you have a club that is not very attractive at all. I fear the future is not very bright for this club...

It is not a poor narrative, it is a stupid and deluded narrative. This is even more a stupid narrative than it could be because the same people seems to associate this narrative (i.e. 'player power') with the narrative of 'players being no leaders, being spineless, being pussies'.
This association of narratives is extremely incoherent and stinks 'desilusion' and 'bad faith'. How can a pussy on the pitch suddenly turns out to be a grade-A lobbyist as soon as they enter the dressing room ? They simply don't. Drogba, Lampard, Essien, Cole, Terry — they were the definition of 'player power' (ask Scolari and AVB). Though they were also 'leaders' and had 'passion'. That's just like with Ramos and Casillas : they were the 'player power' at Madrid, but they were also 'leaders' and were 'Madrid'.
So once again I ask the question, how can our spineless bunch of players can have any sort of power ? And we are not talking about having a 'little' power, we are talking about having a 'lot' of power. Because it concerns Mourinho for Christ's sake. Even an icon such as Casillas has had his career ruined in the process of getting Mourinho out. And if we analyze our previous 'player power', we can realize that it took Lampard, Cole and Essien to fire a mere nobody such as André Villas-Boas. The problem here is that, none of our player have the status that Lampard/Essien/Cole had (and I am not sure that any of them, except maybe Hazard will reach this status) ; and in term of status, Villas-Boas is a nobody compared to Mourinho.
I really find it difficult to believe that our squad has enough power to get Mourinho sacked. Not only that, I also believe that a lot of them are simply not clever enough to do that... I mean, could you picture Ramires scheming a plan to get Mourinho axed ? Really ? And he's not the only one in this case. Moreover, a lot of players own too much to Mourinho to act against him. With Benitez, Terry was out of the picture and that's Mourinho who reinstated him as the undroppable leader. Ivanovic has been made vice-captain and has a free-pass — with most managers he would have been associated with Terry on the bench. Mikel, he collects checks because of Mourinho. Ramires can still miss passes in a Chelsea shirt because of Mourinho. Zouma, that is Mourinho who introduced him in the team. Oscar, he can go on to hide himself on football pitches because Mourinho saw him as his n°10. I could go on and on.
As you and many others have already described, when you see our players play, you can see no difference in 'passion' between last year when we were Champions and this year when we are 'zero'. They run just as much, they tackle just as much, they give effort just as much. No, on the contrary, what one could witness, it is a good-willed bunch of players that are lost. They want to success, but nobody tells them how to do and unfortunately 'pass the ball to Hazard' is not working any longer. They are also lost because that is a situation extremely difficult to handle for newly crowned champions — and throwing them under the bus is definitely not the solution.
And finally, when we talk about 'Mourinho having lost the dressing-room', this is not about a bunch of rebels that strike 'Mourinho out'. It only means that the dressing-room not longer responded to him because his methods and 'pedagogy' no longer worked on them. Simply enough. So yeah, if you want to create a football version of 'Game of thrones', the 'player power' is the narrative you should use — but unfortunately for us, most often than not, reality is really un-exciting.

I remember last summer someone on this site saying that we at Chelsea always make it harder for ourselves by having transfer targets clearly worse than other players in the same positions. Bakayoko really is the prime example.

Is he? That's news to me. He is incompetent at everything by the looks of things.

Get this fucking joke out of my club man.

One of the worst players of the Roman era. Genuinely awful with virtually zero redeeming qualities.

Conte biggest test will be his game against Barcelona.

Anyway, I've heard somewhere that Conte is not really that different from Mourinho, even though we don't like to admit it. This season I'm pretty convinced about that. Conte is what Mourinho is today. Good but predictable manager in terms of tactics, and creating unnecessary controversies off the pitch.

Someone else is needed next season.

That doesn't really explain the complete lack of any technical ability whatsoever. He looks completely and utterly out of his depth against even average Premier League opponents. He may get better but his ceiling isn't that high because of his lack of skill. I seriously doubt there will be a massive improvement on what he is currently. It will be marginal at best.
Drinkwater is comfortably better and he isn't good enough either.
We're rubbish because we sign players like this whilst the top teams continue to prioritise skill and technique.
 

I think people are getting way too much carried away with him and his potential and all the Pogba comparisons do not help either. RLC is a decent player, good on the ball, carrying it and stuff but he has literally 0 output and that is not because we never gave him a chance here, he also had 0 output in our youth teams and at the same time he offers no defensive protection. So tell me which player a team should sacrifice for a midfielder or second striker with that very profile?
 
I get it,people like him, even I like him, he is from our academy, he is big, he is English, looks super cool and the way he moves looks just so elegant and effortless. I bet he is a great guy too. But having him in the team he and giving him playing time, he needs to offer something over some other player in roughly his position. Which is what I do not see. Not even over Fabregas, Drinkwater or Willian. Hence that loan was not only necessary it was overdue. 

mikel is actually a quality passer - just got moulded into a really unamibitious player. Bakoyoko is just a tall ramires with no top end speed. So pretty poor for this level

LOL only Chelsea would see the Monaco team from last season and decide the one player they wanted was Bakayoko.
Only us.

You can't watch a player be consistently average, and then lap on the praise because they were 'good' against West Brom. That's the logic.
Imagine watching Oscar put in the level of performances Bakayoko has, which we did, and then praising him for showing up vs. Hull City. That we did not do.
Similar with Cahill. We know what he is, so we're not going to take 1-off games of his as a measure of his ability.
I'm still seeing a player who releases the ball too late, holds onto the ball too long, and who walks more than runs. When you add barely any assists/goals to that, I'm left debating with people on here how on earth this is someone worthy of our XI (because he's strong apparently. such a rare type of player!)
A lot of players can 'create space' and 'charge forward' like he does - while doing a lot more on top of that too. So i'll continue to criticise this transfer, and the lack of critical thinking (IMO, maybe i'm dead wrong) surrounding this. I don't see this heavy investment paying off years down the line. I see time wasted, where we could have had an influential player with leadership, or a youngster of our own bled in. I see no logic in praising him for doing the minimum of what's expected (for some of you guys anyway) vs. a Tony Pulis side.
Where was he vs. Roma? Tied up in Fabregas's dungeon of shackles again? What about City? You measure a player that cost 40m in those games, not these games. He's not Chelsea starter material, and that's the fault of whoever recruited him, no fault of his own. 

....nobody's really saying he had a great game; our stance is unchanged..I think. He's ultra limited, clumsy, lacking technique, etc etc etc. It was all displayed again today. We aren't talking about that, though. And 1 competent game does not paint a player.
 

Exceptions to a rule don't define the rule, don't be so bizarre. 
Funnily I added a piece about him to my post before you replied; just took a while hitting save since more text was being added.

Do you think the board were into Bakayoko before Monaco's last season? I doubt it. I think they just threw money at a flavour of the month.

Hazard has been at CFC for how long now? What has been built around him from CM and left back to the attackers up top?  He's had two or three other players close to his level while playing for us if you exclude Drogba's return, Lampard's final years, and the recent addition of Morata: Diego, Cesc and maybe the cast-off KDB. What else have Chelsea done to add quality to the squad around Eden in 5-6 years? Nothing.

Skipper's comment was about more then just the Crystal Palace game. There's a lack of ambition from the club to really add quality and improve the squad.
The last couple of years we've been content with just replacing the players we lost and not really pushing for more and better players.
There are simply too many average players in the squad who need to perform at, or close to, a 100% of their capacity to not look out of place in this team.
There's an over reliance on our key players. Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar, all three can play like shit and 9 out of 10 times their team will still dominate whoever they play.
When Hazard plays poor the drop in our attack is worrying. 
 
I don't really get a "built around him" vibe more like a "let's see how far he can take us" vibe
 
Yes and no. When it comes to rating a single performance then yes ofcourse there should be just 1 standard and there is. It's been acknowledged that Hazard Azpi and Luiz had poor games just as most of the team did.
However past performances do matter. If a player plays like shit for 4 out of 4 games and the fifth game he plays like shit again people will be a lot less forgiving then a player that plays well for 4 out of 4 games and then the fifth has a shit one.
People evaluate players based on a number of games and not just one. 
 
I didn't see a lack of effort from him. Things just didn't come off for him. He was simply poor. It happens.

PSG are better than us. 
 

He’d be a fool to sign a new contract. 

He has the composure of an overused gym sock, and that's been the case for his entire Monaco career it seems. It's like he plays each game on 5 shots of coffee.
The main reason I wanted Fabinho over here instead of this transfer was because of the mental game; because I'd had enough braindead Chelsea players who can't see the game 2, 3 plays from now, nevermind lacking the ability to execute the right move anyway. 

Ludicrous to even once consider comparing him to Yaya Toure, who funnily enough was far more in the ilk of Fabinho. On their best days, they both shoot very well, pass very well, run for the full 90 minutes, and top all that off with composed, leadership-like examples. But Bakayoko? I don't see what he has which Fellaini doesn't; the only differences being Fellaini has a gangly run, and he'll score every 7 or so games.
He is a good player though. Good. Good. If we just want to be good, we've done great.

Tbh, what manager right now does? Pochettino seldom shows tactical flexibility, if anything Conte showed he's more agile there when we played Spurs and he went with diamond formation. Granted his hand was forced by needing to draft Luiz in a DM. But he still managed to out-whit MP. 
Mourinho we know has no plan B. He has only one plan game-to-game as he showed vs Liverpool (Lmao the irony United fans are now defending 'park the bus'). So unless you're going to name me a manager outside the PL, I struggle to see anyone who every implements a plan B or C. 

This is what real squad quality gives you - CB one of the few areas in our squad that's truly complete. Christensen calmly steps in for Luiz. 
Would love to see a back three of Azpi Christensen Rudiger against City but of course we won't ever drop captain fantastic. 

We really have a manager who has been found out tactically by Wenger of all people. That is so damning lol.

Nah mate, I think you're overestimating Rüdiger and underestimating Azpi in that regard. Rüdi hit a few nice cross-field passes, okay that's great, but I remember Azpi doing the same many times, not to mention his pinpoint crosses coming from deep right.

Very average transfer window despite the fact we spend near to 200m on new recruits. Post winning the title everyone knew that we need to strengthen in few places by either getting upgrades in terms of world class players and have backups so that we don’t run out thin by Jan/Feb, injuries, bad form.
So what do we do? Got potentials to replace our star players, a midfielder who would be like 4th/5th choice, a wing back who no one has a clue about … in return we sold 2 potentials players, a so called average player who was instrumental in the 2 titles win is now strengthening our direct rivals, a star striker who is sitting in Brazil and refuses to come over while multiple potentials out on loan. Plus the bonus is that we kept getting rejected by average players!!! Damn even Lukaku!!!
I understand transfers are difficult tasks to execute that’s the reason the people assigned for the job get top money. Imagine we have a bad/average season the manager’s head is chopped off, would the owner do the same for the one in power because this is surely an average window. And then we blame that the manager is not good enough to win titles at the club (in most of the cases)
The problem now for us is that the entire onus is on Conte to perform and take the team to winning ways again basically clean up the shit that the board has given him. This season it wouldn’t be ease for him … both Manchester clubs have strengthen very much in the right places, Liverpool is an unknown just like Spurs. All the managers are the same (the ones in the title race) and have matured after one more season under their belt so it will be a difficult task for Conte to win the title this season.  Wouldnt be surprise if he walks away or is sacked which would be the most unfortunate thing for us.