Tomo

I wanna add something to the "Roman has no respect for the fans". Does he have to listen to everything we say to respect us? At the end of the day if he listened to us in 2009 Carlo would never have turned up. Or if he listened to us in 2004 Ranieri would have stayed, meaning Mourinho would have worked his magic elsewhere.

The on key element Rafa will bring is rotation, we have Fulham midweek after City, expect 6,7 or possibly 8 changes to the City side for that one.

Moyes is like Allardyce or Roy, give him a team that has a limited budget he will get them punching well above their weight, give him a huge job with unlimited money and they will falter. I bet you if Everton get their own version of Roman, Moyes will be gone within a year then he will get a similar job with a limited budget and do the same again just like Allardyce and Roy did after their failed attempts at a big job.

Most probably the best post i have ever read on this forum.

Do i agree with the sacking? no, have i learned from previous occasions (especially the AVB sacking) to learn to trust the owner? yes, were you one of the many stripping Lampard of his legend status when AVB left? You saying those clubs have done crap compared to us? Ajax and Spurs maybe but Inter sacked Mancini after back to back titles. Schuster, Capelo and Del Bosque were sacked shortly after league successes, CL too in Del Bosque's case. He may do things we don't agree on but so would i if i was owner and so would you. For example i wanted Sven when Ranieri got the chop, although given i was only 12 at the time i hope i can be forgiven for that piece of naivety. The fact is Roman is a dedicated owner and not many clubs are that lucky, if you want an owner to moan about, get to Stamford Bridge on Sunday and make a banner asking for Hicks and Gillett.

The thing with Rafa's past comments about us, is we have all said some pretty nasty things about him, something that we will have no hesitation in backtracking and trying to cover up ever saying if he delivers success. Works both ways, reckon Ashley Cole or Ryan Bertrand never slagged us off as a youngsters supporting Arsenal? and can any one say they were big fans of Ash in his Gunners days too?

The first but is untrue, we have an owner and captain that has stayed the same for nearly a decade. So we might change manager's but other clubs who have stable manager's have problems with their owners and change captain every season, what's the difference?

Because he's the only one that's gone on a PL loan and proved himself, if McEachran did a Wilshere at Swansea he would have got a shot this term.

@TorontoChelsea, The United players you have mentioned. Welbeck, not trusted by Fergie until he proved himself at Sunderland, likewise with Evans. Cleverly the same but at Wigan. Smalling played a good 2/3rds of a season at Fulham before going to United, do you think Fergie would hve brought him straight from Maidenhead? When all those United players were unproven in the PL, they were getting as many starts as ours. Danny proved himself at Bolton and therefore AVB threw him in the limelight, if McEachran proved himself at Swansea he would be playing for us now, if he helps take Boro up then performs in the Prem next season, he will be straight in with us the same way Welbeck and Cleverly were at United. If Van Aanholt took his chance at Wigan, he would be here now, same with Mancienne at Wolves. You also say we don't buy young players and help them develop, well didn't we sign Mikel as a teenager and keep faith in him and now he is one of the first names on the team sheet? Im pretty sure he started the 2007 FA Cup final as a 19 year old. Although we sold him, Diarra was given opportunities by Mourinho which set him in good sted for the career he has gone on to have. Infact he got more opportunities for us than he did under saint youth developer Arsene.

Far too big a deal was made out of that, i saw Keane do similar on more than one occasion.

Which homegrown players did United have? Welbeck? Rooney? Ferdinand? all of them were either brought or not trusted until they had a full premier league season on loan. You say Fergie is good with academy players, then why didn't he give two academy defenders a chance instead of splashing £30m combined on Smalling and Jones. Why didn't he give an academy forward a chance instead of splashing out £30 on Rooney? At top clubs challenging for trophies there is too much pressure to randomenly promote academy players, even for some one who's job security is as high as Fergie's who is still living off that freak golden generation he's produced nothing but the odd squad player since then, Fletcher aside, yes Welbeck and Cleverly, but he didn't promote them randomenly, he didn't trust them properly until they proved themself's on loan in the Premier League and if our academy players want to stand a chance here, they need to do the same. We could become a model where we do play every half decent academy player in the first team, but not only will we be a mid table club, we would lose them by the time their 22.

Any one who's upset with Roman, lets get Hicks and Gillet in, then you will truly have cause to be upset.

Another kneejerk thread, reading these you would think we are the only club that sacks managers. Inter, Porto, Ajax, Bayern and Real have gone through manager's at the same rate we have since 2003 are you saying Moratti for example has no respect for the Inter fans? The days of managerial stability is dying out, when Ferguson has retired they will be gone completely (atleast at top clubs winning things). If were lucky were find a long term manager, long term being 3-5 years, but ive learned to accept that any longer will never happen.

Then you will see why ive seen the light then. I learnt a lot from that spell, one of the things being to trust the owner.

Im going to go on a bit of an out of character rant here because tbh i am sickened by some of the stuff i have read about Roman these past 48 hours. Now do i agree with his decision to sack Roberto Di Matteo? no, but some of the knee jerk reaction's dearie me, didn't we learn from the AVB sacking when we hastily stripped Lampard of his legend's tag, only to back track a couple of months later and realize he wasn't as guilty as we thought. Roman is a Chelsea fan like we are, if i was the owner i would probably do things that would have some of you tearing your hair out, we would do what we think is best for the club as a whole and Roman is doing that. We seem to want managerial stability, this is not the ancient times any more it just doesn't happen in football these days, Ferguson is a complete one off as soon as he is gone United will join the growing club or chopping and changing managers, it's the way football works these days (rightly or wrongly) and by in large it get's result's. Roman is not this evil owner who changes manager's for the sake of it, it's just the way modern football works just we for some reason seem to be scapegoated for it. Roman's method's get's result's, period. Our stability is Roman, and believe me id rather change managers and have a dedicated owner than vice versa. Below are the stats of most top European clubs (and Tottenham) and how many times they have changed manager since Roman's takeover at Chelsea. Chelsea: 8 Bayern Munich: 7 Real Madrid: 10 Inter Milan: 9 Ajax: 7 FC Porto: 8 Tottenham: 6 Now if you ask the two English clubs who are in a better position now compared to 10 years ago most will say (after City) Chelsea and Spurs, surprise, surprise the two serial manager changing clubs off the last decade, but what both clubs have is stability upstairs, which is much more important. So can someone explain why are we the 'joke' and the 'poison chalice for managers' when their is more than 1 other club around just as bad when it comes to chopping and changing ill never know. Constant managerial changes are the norm in most football clubs on this planet these days, not just Chelsea, Ferguson is a one off, we need to get the idea of us finding our version out of our head right now. We might if were lucky find a manger who will stick around for 3-5 years but another Fergie? as much chance as a lottery win so best never get too comfortable with a manager, because the days of managerial changes here and abroad are not going away, so best get use to it.

The last manager that brought a mixed response (although not to this extent) was Ancelotti and we know what happened less than a year on. Although lets hope if history repeats itself the second part is different.

If the rumours of Eddie staying is true, what role is Zenden actually playing?

There's been no news saying he is going and is still on the list on the club website, maybe he is sticking around after all.

There hasn't even been any conformation of this on BBC or Chelsea website, the latter still says Eddie and Ste are the assistants. EDIT: yes their has my mistake.

He will have every reason to motivate himself. After the Inter debacle his stock is low, if he comes here and shows the world that he is still around, say atleast gets us 3rd and a couple of cups, then his stock is back on the rise, he will suddenly be a viable option for big clubs with managerial vacancy's. Rafa knows he is very unlikely to be here beyond the summer, but he needs to make a success of this job to save his career at the top end of football.

Mourinho's words in April 2004, a mere 2 months before taking the Chelsea job. link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/2377496/Mourinho-would-prefer-Liverpool.html Mourinho clearly stating he preferred the Liverpool job (in 2004). Bare that in mind when using Rafa's past words against him.

Rafa didn't call us scum tho did he? I imagine most of our squad have slagged the club off at some point. Cole, Terry and Lampard grew up as Arsenal, United and West Ham fans respectively, do you honestly believe they never at any point in their childhood said some vile things about us?

I would rather that than some one with verbal diarrhea, imagine Redknapp's first press conference had we appointed him, i can imagine it now. "Yes, well it was a good opportunity and you can't turn Chelsea down, Gourlay was on the phone to me Saturday night to tell me Robbie was on thin ice and about to get the sack and asked me if i would be interested if the opportunity comes, triffic".

I couldn't get my steam working, did he say what is happening to Eddie and Steve?

Rafa when asked about the fans protest's against him "the fans want the same as the manager, to win games".