Blue Armour

I had the same thinking too. But after seeing what happened with Mourinho and Conte at Spurs, I think he what he did there was even more impressive. You can question his PSG stint, but you can see what happened with Tuchel there, too. Not my first choice, but I don't think Poch is as bad as one might think. The main problem with Poch is the Spurs connection. We know how Benitez was treated. At least Poch didn't make any negative comments about Chelsea, so he's better off that way.

I really hope that latter part is true. Even if we write off this disaster of a first season, they better change things to make us fight back strong next season.

Players like him are being wasted away by crap managers.

True. And to be fair, when he first returned to the Bridge he tried to make peace with the fans. He got bombarded with insults. This is why I hate throwing shade at former players. Especially the ones who contributed to our trophy haul. Exceptions are those that actively throw shade at the club. The fault at the time was with how Maria & co. handled his situation in an amateurish way. Even if Courtois tried to force a move., it wasn't entirely on him Unfortunately football fans (and fandoms in general) are more toxic than ever. Even Salah gets booed a little, and that guy rarely celebrates goals he scores against us (and that's something, considering that he's barely played for us)/

Re-hiring Lampard was the tipping point for me (and before SFL fans jump on my back, I accept that its not Frank's fault in any way). It showed that these people don't take the consequences seriously enough. Replacing Tuchel with the relatively green Potter was risky enough. But replacing Potter just to placate the fans, and then hire a novice in Lampard as a scapegoat? Very short term thinking. If they wanted to wait till summer to get their permanent manager (who I hope is actually good enough), then why not wait till the summer before removing Potter? Its all short-term thinking. Just like the decision to keep D. Fofana away from a loan and to rot on the bench.

They probably settled on Lampard because he was the only one willing to be an interim manager. Enrique would have only taken a full time role, and since they have leanings to Naggelsman, they decided not to make a decision on a permanent coach. I really hope Naggelsman works (as the signs are all pointing at him). But I'm not sure if he's the right personality for this type of club. Not enjoying the comparisons with Potter.

The key thing is whether they learn from this experience. I feel that they overall underestimated the impact that a manager has on a football team, and how the wrong appointment can throw a team into chaos. Hopefully they get their next appointment 100% right and don't go down another experimental route.

Short term thinking from the club. It was at a time that we were riddled with injuries, and Potter was in that phase of 'throw crap at the wall, see what sticks'. A good coach would know who's ready and who's not, and stick with their decision, right or wrong. Instead the serial experimenter decided to give Fofana a few minutes., didn't think it was working, and tossed him to the U21s. Should have either gone on loan, or given him a fair share of minutes. I'm sure Drogba would have helped him secure a loan to Galatasaray

It's absolute garbage that players like Gallagher are getting so many minutes to prove themselves, instead of this guy. If he's doesn't get enough game time he will remain raw. And if that's the case next season, he should go out on loan.

Agreed. I think James is one of those players that needs an authoritarian type figure for a manager. His defensive game was at it's best when we had Tuchel screaming from the sidelines. Under Potter and now back to Lampard, it seems to have regressed a bit to his 2019-2020 days.

That is pretty much the reason they likely held off on Enrique, for. They want to wait until Naggelsman comes in and he's very likely taking a break until the summer. Hence the wait. Fucking hell. If Naggelsman is the next appointment and he also ends up being a dud, that'll be it for this club.

Well the games are worthless now, but before that first leg against Madrid, there were at least a couple of games worth fighting for. When you say toxic, do you mean the stadium atmosphere? I agree with that, but I don't think it affected the team. Because I don't think the players were really up in arms about Potter remaining till the end of the season. We can speculate whether Enrique would have really been worse, but we are at 3 losses out of 3, and we're not just losing. We're being battered. I will never blame Lampard for coming back., but I will take issue with the people who decided to appoint him as a scapegoat. Anyway it's done. As long as this appointment doesn't pull us into a relegation battle, it doesn't matter anymore.

Well in this case we can't even question that logic because Lampard isn't a better manager. Yes, replacements maybe worse. It's a game of probabilities. I can also tell you that replacements could be better for the team. We've seen that with Aston Villa. If Enrique came here and sucked, you are well within your rights to gloat. But please don't do that when we have a novice in charge.

I can't speak for Bayern or Naggelsman., nor compare Tuchel & Naggelsman. I don't think Bayern under Naggelsman were as poor as Chelsea under Potter., even if their CL records were comparable. So it's not an apples to apples comparison there.

Exactly. Replacing one below par manager with a worse one doesn't justify anything. The idiocy was in removing the manager without a real replacement in place. Even a child would tell you that.

All due respect to Lampard. Fantastic player and servant to the club. But remember he literally said that the team was years away from challenging for a title, few months before they went ahead to win the CL. How TF did the board think that he would be the one to get 'the best possible outcome' in the remaining matches.? Cowards did this only because they thought he wouldn't be booed.

Fucking morons, lol. I've hated our social media account for more than a couple of years now. Always posting childish crap before big games, taking a dig at the opposition. And now this. A new low.

Only if someone gets conned into thinking that fluke deflection was actually a good goal.

I don't belive the Corden story, but I absolutely agree that Enrique very likely was ready to begin. The clowns up top, were just indecisive about who they wanted, and decided to wait. And here we are.

Don't care how we do it. We need to fluke a win here somehow. Even a draw. I don't like how close we're getting to that relegation zone, and with the current management, any kind of shite can happen. I'd take anything to add to our cushion.

I hate how overrated Sterling is. He's no Hazard to play as a false 9. Even if he sucks at scoring, Havertz is still a better choice for that role. Or just choose Aubemayang.

His body language did not look good in the last match. Especially against opponents who he has done well against in the past. I'm just glad he already has a CL trophy under his belt (even if his medal was unfortunately stolen)., else he would easily be looking to jump ship given the clubs current predicament. And even if 99% of the fans want Mount to gtfo from here, I doubt he's happy with his old pal being given the boot like that. When Arsenal began sliding to mediocrity, the first thing that happened was that they started losing all their top talent (old and young). And this is when they were still a top 4 team. That's why I find all these posts saying that we need to sacrifice 3-4 years to get back to the top, absolutely fucking stupid,. with all due respect. If band-aids are what we need, then that's what we should use. There are 6 other clubs to compete with now, and you can't risk staying in mediocrity for too long., else the club will just end up staying where it is forever. Mediocre.

Play Datro Fofana or similar., and give development time to players who haven't had a good chance this season. Shame that we can't use this time for the new manager to bed in.

'We have an important game against Wolves on Saturday and then we will turn our attention to our Champions League quarter-final in Madrid next week. We are all going to give Frank our full backing as we aim to get the best possible outcome from all our remaining games.' Just your regular reminder about what these morons said. Probably sat down with Dr. Strange to see all the possible outcomes to make this shit decision. Fuck off you twats.