Tomo

There's a fine line between stability and stability for the sake of it, look at Arsenal and to an extent United (Moyes and LVG should have gone months before they did).

And as he has proven spectacularly at Liverpool, he never deserved a chance.

Often players just find their level. Take Bamford for example, we had no problem finding him successful loans in the Championship but when it came to the PL nothing stuck. The harsh reality is 90% of the youth and loanee army will never be the required quality for Chelsea which means they will at some point go on loan to a level that's too high for them (Ugbo in the Championship for a recent example).

An unprecedented all time collapse.

I think the mentality with managers has always been there. Carlo lasted the season despite a catastrophic title defense and they clung onto AVB and Jose longer than nessesery. I would rather the manager's get fired once it's clear somethings not working as opposed to the United model of giving managers even more extended time for some romantic idea of stability. As for Conte, he may not have been dealt the best hand, but whatever the board did or didn't do can't excuse 3 wins in nearly 4 months alongside some horrific tactical blunders.

That was hardly true. Our back four was Ivan-JT-Cahill-Azpi (two past it and one only effective with protection) with Baba Rahman as backup. This defense is miles better. In midfield back then we had no one that was good enough, now we have Kante and players that aren't good enough so it's not ideal but it's still better to have one quality midfielder than none. Squad depth we are light years ahead of that season as well (our bench players in defense are far better than the 2016 versions of JT and Ivan). The only position where we had better options in that year compared to this is striker, every other position is equal or better. We were in much bigger trouble that summer and while we would have eventually recovered, the only reason we did so quickly is because Conte found a way to hide all the players weaknesses while utilizing their strengths.

Is there any reason he has barely played for Italy?

What do you think about Mount?

It may be the Eredivisie but Courtois and KDB were only playing in the Belgium league before they smashed La Liga and the Bundesliga respectively, inin fact we got Robben from the Dutch league at the same age, sometimes talent is just too obvious. That said i wouldn't be too adverse for him getting a Bundesliga loan but if he came back (and our next manager picked on merit) i honestly believe he would be a starter or at worst borderline by Christmas, he's that good!! I'd love to be wrong but i just can't see it with Ruben, he just doesn't have the fitness or tactical intelligence required for our level. Both Conte and Roy have tried to hide utilize him in other positions and i just can't help but shake off the feeling that there's a very, very good reason for that.

Out of the youngsters loanee's he should be top of the que for a place in our squad,how RLC is rated higher beats me.

Few key differences between the two though. 1. Despite a so so season we could probably recoup most if not all the money we spent on him, Torres we had no chance so we had to keep persisting in the blind hope he somewhat repaid the fee but never did. 2. £50m in Nando's era was huge money, now not so much. 3. Morata could quite feesably really want to go, Torres was perfectly happy to stick around and steal a living.

Counteracts the Anfield game then, which we should have sown up by half time.

I agree in general but you are using a very bad example to bring the subject up with because Solanke is bang average and will be in the lower leagues before long. We have let a few talented players go lately but Dom certainly isn't one of them.

Sign Beckford and give him unconditional 90 minutes for six months with Hazard and Mata in behind him and he would likely hit a respectable tally aswell.

Forget Saints, i can't believe WBA are in the position they are in. They should be midtable.

That's the point. We could have easily lost 3-1 in the dying seconds had he not been alert, as we were penned in for most of the game. That's just a maybe. However if Ramires didn't score or Bossy didn't make that interception we would almost have certainly have been toast.

As did a last ditch interception that prevented a 2 on 1 vs Cech.

No player got the sheer amount of chances Torres got, he even got unconditional 90 minutes for 6 months and that was after 18 months of being crap. There's giving players a chance then there's what we did for Torres. I see Bosingwa as the hero of that moment, as he was the one who made the tie saving contribution (funnily enough through a Nando mistake).

If those two got the unconditional chances Torres got by the law of averages they would have had a couple of great games/moments. Factoring in price tag, performances and the sheer negative impact on the club, Torres is unlikely to be trumped for a very very long time.

How did we fail him? We gave him chance after chance after chance, fans kept making excuse after excuse after excuse, he had players more suitable to his game signed for him yet was still crap. Factoring everything in he's the worst player in our history.

I can't even make sense of the situation with him. If he was pants from day dot like Torres then you could be like yeah, but he was actually quite good upto and including Leti away and was giving us everything we were missing with Matic, his fall from grace since has been truly bizarre.

Courtois is for me, areially there's none better atleast not in the PL (remember that wobble Cech had around the Scolari/Hiddink time when a ball in the box caused untold panic? It can't be underestimated just how handy Tibo being so assured on that score is) and many cite his lack of 'wow' saves but in my opinion he positiones himself so well he doesn't have to make them. Although as @!Hazard! has touched up on his distribution is pretty so so which could be an issue under Sarri. Agree about the youth, as i mentioned in his thread Mount should be our first port of call and work from there. In the past i have been sceptical because i felt despite winning the youth cups the likes of Boga, Musonda and the "class" of 2010 weren't good enough for the step up and so it proved, but some of these guys have a much different vibe about them, with the right coaching and attitude from their side we potentially have our own class of 92.

The one big thing we have over Liverpool and Spurs at the time Klopp and Poch took over is the quality of squad. Out of the players both inherited who was top class or even the level below? Coutinho, Eriksen at a push but that was it for both squad's. Vertonghen, Firminho, Walker, Rose for example developed further but they were bang average at the point their respective manager took over. As for Pep, City were actually outstanding for most of last season, it was only Bravo and the fullbacks that prevented them taking us to the very end or close. We have a world class core of Courtois, Azpi, Kante, Hazard and despite poor form of late id personally add Andreas to that, our support players servicable aswell, take for example Liverpool blowing City away with a Henderson, Milner and Ox midfield, is (if it came down to it) a Drinkwater, Kante and Barkley midfield worse? I don't think so. We have players that while flawed can be very effective with good coaching and systems in place, something Antonio himself proved last season before changing his modus operandi to blank cheque or bust. I also don't think it will require THAT big a transition, maybe if we went down that route after Jose it would have but Conte is almost like a middle ground manager between Jose and the purists and in a lot of ways has made steps to us transitioning to this type of football. We have a much better attacking system and often play a high line with everyone bar the middle CB regularly going forward so it won't be too extreme a transition compared to if we went straight for a Sarri esque manager after Jose.

The logical thing to do once they are starting to show decline is replace them before the rot sets, especially if you have a ready made replacement on the books already. We ignored the warning signs with old guard (that were visible as early as 2008) and they all turned shit all together at once and it took years to fully recover, you could argue we still haven't.

If Willy goes into next season as number 1 were be up shit creek anyway.