Tomo

Number 8 is Havertz best position. If my word isn't enough, how about the lad himself? https://www.football.london/chelsea-fc/transfer-news/kai-havertz-chelsea-transfer-position-18392673

I'm sorry but last night's actions put me off him, it's so small time to act like that over a mere 3 points even against the Champions.

I don't really get this, we can still be unhappy with the current situation and would still "be here" in such a hypothetical situation (which wouldn't happen, we're too big and generate too much money to dive to those depths now even if Roman did leave). For me it's all about context, if we have the worst squad in the league then i'd demand a statue of a manager if he gets us 17th, someone finishes 17th with this squad then they're the worst manager in our history.

Yeah but at the same time as Milan said a shithouse win would just kick the can down the road and probably ultimately see to our top 4 hopes. On current form who are we beating out of Leicester, Wolves and Spurs? Maybe 1 at a push.

Out of these two options what would you prefer at Fulham? Another drab performance but we win 1-0 through an Oli header or we draw 2-2 but play excellently going forward, create a lot and lose two points due to wastefulness in front of goal and/or a heroic performance by Areola? I genuinely think i'd prefer the latter, we need a performance to give us hope going forward even if dropped points accompany it.

Even with the worst form of Sarri I wasn't THAT downbeat as we were clearly trying to build something and we could look at little things (like how comfortable playing out under pressure we were) and see building blocks to potentially something great, there's none of that now, feels like a black hole to nowhere. Hope is a big thing in this game.

I remember at Palace's first season back in the PL Ian Holloway held his hands up and said the job was too much for him, maybe Frank should consider doing the same? I could take the average results if the football was still good or vice versa but can never accept not both. For the first time since Conte's last few months watching games has felt like a chore and this has come at the worst possible time with lockdown imminent.

That is true but with Nagelsmann we would atleast get some enjoyable and structured football and the potential reward is huge if it can come together. I was actually keen on Ten Hag intially because of 1) how he got Ajax playing in Europe and 2) whenever I saw them in the Dutch League they seemed to create an utterly obscene amount of quality chances (that couldn't just be explained away by saying weak league) but @Azul posted that he's not that highly rated by people who watch him week in week out. Tuchel tactically suits these players and has a good record with youth at Dortmund but is apparently a loose cannon with boardroom relations. Definitely agree we shouldn't be going for Rafa on an interim though, if we have to go down this route then we should give it to someone who will offer the continuity with the more progressive tactics.

I find the narrative that we would give blanket sackings to managers if they don't win the league a bit strange tbh. Mou and Lampard got second season's despite not winning the league and Sarri would have but chose to walk so that's 3 in 7 years. Ancelotti's sacking was more down to his CL record if I had to guess, when you're appointed for your European pedigree and don't even match the efforts of previous manager's in the competition you will be in trouble regardless of what you do domestically. No manager in the Roman era (bar maybe Ranieri) has been sacked with the direction we were heading in looking promising, in my opinion.

Why can't we do both? Many successful teams (including the current Champions of England) have combined top prospects with big spending. Even the one's who don't quite become good enough to start for us can still provide the squad depth which frees up funds for star signings as opposed to squad filler. The two ain't mutually exclusive.

DP

I don't really get this notion as it being some kind of bad thing, it's similar at a lot of big clubs, even the one's that win league's every year. Partly because the modern player gets bored of the same voice after a while (Pep cited that as one of the reason's he left Barcelona) and partly because managers themselves want to try out different things. Also for all this talk about us being a poisoned chalice I feel quite the opposite, if you really want to build a great team and era there's few if any better resourced clubs than us to provide for a manager. They get strong backing in the market and have the best academy in the world to dip into, yes strong results are expected but why shouldn't they be with those resources available? If you were Nagelsmann and saw the opportunity to take over an already highly talented side, spend £200m to bring your own players to compliment that and alongside both of those have youngsters of the quality of Livramento, Gallagher, Bate and Soonsup-Bell knocking on the door you really think that wouldn't appeal?

That's one vital thing we need to make clear to any manager that youth development is now deemed a critical goal. We have far too much talent at this point.

He's been better than Pulisic this season. There you go I've said it!

One thing that shouldn't get lost in all of this is appointing Frank when we did was the correct decision, with the unique circumstances we faced of losing our game changer with no chance of replacement meant we needed a man who would look at the bigger picture and wouldn't just try and shithouse a top four spot, and as it turned out Lampard achieved that while setting us up long term. Unfortunately it doesn't look like he's going to be the one to take us back to the top himself but make no mistake if/when we get there he'd have played his part. Last season was a fantastic achievement no matter what way it's spun, people can spill this guff of "we're Chelsea we shouldn't be happy with just top four" and this season I'd agree, but last season that was the ceiling of what our squad was capable of and expecting a squad not capable of doing any better to do better because "we're Chelsea" is the exact same type of delusions of grandeur we use to scold Liverpool fans for having. If our squad do the best that they are capable of then they (and the manager) should be praised for that. This season however the job looks too big for him, he's almost looking like one of those managers who overachieve when the pressure isn't too high but then cranks when the pressure is raised (the expectations of last season compared to this is a rough equivalent of moving to a medium sized club to huge club). At the start I wasn't convinced by the performance but gave the benefit of the doubt it was the Covid situation causing the strange performances (even Bayern were looking erratic at that point) and the run we went on of wins and clean sheets looked like he finally may have cracked it but let's not get things twisted, since the Krasnador game at home things have been awful. Yes it's easy to say it's only a month but there was worrying signs before then but difference then there was also good signs that gave us hope he'd straighten out and the greenness will disappear and the promising aspects of his management would become more dominant, however unfortunately the total opposite has happened. It's not the fact we ain't getting results at the minute (results wise we had a bad start last season but I was delighted with the performances and knew the results were going to come) it's the fact there's nothing there in performances. We have talent all over the pitch and we're resorting to throwing in crosses in the box, when was the last time we played genuine combinations through the middle creating serious chances? And without change it will get worse as more and more managers realize that's our only source of scoring and create tactical counters to cut it off. If we had a shit squad I'd potentially be inclined to wait and see if Lampard could improve with better players (ala OGS after he signed Bruno Fernandes) but the reality is, we have a first Xl that should at the absolute minimum be comfortably top four. Can any one say hand on heart they're confident we will win at Fulham? Or any league fixture on the horizon? When that happens with the talent we have then there's only one place to look and that's the coaching team. We still have a chance of top four, heck given how crazy this season is I wouldn't even bet against us creeping into the title race if we picked up some momentum but I just can't see how it will happen under Frank, structurally we look absolutely desolate in ways I've only seen worse under the Mou meltdown and Scolari and that's just not acceptable with the quality we have. I hope this ages terribly and Frank turns this round and gives us a long term run as manager (nothing will make me happier) and as I've said he's more than played his part in what will hopefully be a journey back to the top, but my priority is always what's best for the club and as much as it hurts to say, I don't think that's Frank in charge.

Football doesn't really work like that, we won CL the same season Alex McLeish came to our ground and took the piss out of us. As for the game, this could in some ways be a perfect game for us if we concuct a plan to use our pace on the break properly with quick direct balls in transition before City regroup, although I don't hold much hope of things panning out that way.

Yep, but with Cech there were some he got close too and the odd save was there and therefore the hope that if we go to a shootout he'd get to one, Mendy genuinely isn't giving any hope he'll dive the right way for one let alone actually save it. He also let in 22/23 before us, don't know if the other was saved or missed.

Don't get me wrong i have very little complaints about him outside of his technique with pens but it's something we must consider going forward in cup competiton's, it could cost us big time at some point (could argue it already has given Tottenham's draws since they played us). You're right in the league it shouldn't matter too much, but as above in cups it could cost us.

Upto and including Leeds he wasn't that bad comical misses aside.

Thiago had a great season last season which included keeping probably the best player in Europe of last season quiet in the biggest game of all. Cavani had a quiet season last season due to injuries but was top class as recently as the season before last. Diego hasn't been on anything that could be passed off as form for coming on four years, to suddenly return to his prime self after four years playing like shit at the age of 32 would be unprecedented.

Are people not taking notes with what's happening with Bale at Tottenham? Let him go to Arsenal.

I've said this before but it's not the fact the penalties are going in but it's the way he's being easily duped. Look at the penalties he's faced for us and how he's been easily sat down while the taker rolled (or in Kane's case smashed) it the other side, it happens every single time. He also let in 22 out of 23 before coming to us so it's clearly a huge issue. I don't actually think he's been as bad as made out this month but I literally have no hope of him saving a penalty.

Would prefer him to Pochettino 100/100.

The most damming thing of all is things look broken structurally. The reason I defended him last season is because it was obvious to anyone with eyes and (even basic) knowledge of underlying metrics that the defense would improve once we got better players in and it has. However the current problem's with our attacking play are so alarming I genuinely don't think a prime Pele would sort us out. This month has been a huge fall from grace, not quite unprecedented but we've gone from Lampard finally looking like he was cracking the consistency issues to looking totally lost, and whenever that type of "snap" happens it usually only ends one way unfortunately.

I said exactly this in the Sarri days when people were swearing blind they would have been more patient with Sarri if he was playing Odoi and Ampadu more, I said they'd be patient until the time comes to put it into practice, and I was right. Just over three months ago James was being branded as overrated and any decent thing Lamptey was doing was being used as evidence we sold the wrong fullback, you would have thought lessons would be learned by now.