Jase

Sarri is leaving and CHO is going to sign a new contract.

Should I change the thread title to 'Lampard YES or Lampard NO'?

Since some folks have mentioned Ten Hag...

Jovic to Real Madrid confirmed... https://www.realmadrid.com/noticias/2019/06/comunicado-oficial-jović

Correct me if I'm wrong but think that's only Luiz, Azpi and Willian. Don't think they're gonna kick up a fuss, but if they do, boot them!

He just signed a new contract extension last November. He might be on the consideration list but is likely to be low on the list.

So maybe, Sarri does want to go back to Italy due to family reasons (as reported in The Guardian and Telegraph)...?

That last notion there is a bit silly when in terms of results, Conte came in and straight away won the league and Sarri took us to the third and won the Europa League. That's just our last two managers.

They might have crappy defenders but if there's proper tactical organization, it can help mask the deficiency. But I don't think we have seen that and even if they have finished above the likes of West Ham, look at their points return. Just above the 40s, doing just enough to stay in the league and that's it. I don't get the sense that they're going anywhere. Reminds me of Tony Pulis at Stoke, where he did just enough to keep them up, played the same dull football year in year out and eventually got booted out.

I find Eddie Howe to be overrated, TBH. His Bournemouth side play good football but as you said, they can't defend (you can't just brush it off like it's nothing if we want to succeed at the highest level) and Howe doesn't seem to offer much in terms of tactical variety. Furthermore, since he got Bournemouth to the Premier League in 2015, he has spent £136.5 million - which is quite a lot when you consider some of the smaller sides don't even get to spend that much - and finished 16th, 9th, 12th and 14th, with a return of 42, 46, 44, 45 points respectively.

So our pre-season now looks like this... July 19 - Kawasaki Frontale July 23 - Barcelona July 28 - Reading July 31 - Red Bull Salzburg

Sure, let's hire a manager who lost 11 of the 12 games against the Top 6 last season...

In the second half of the season (from Jan 1 till the end), we picked up only 29 points, which is less than Man City (51), Liverpool (43), Arsenal (32), Man United (31) and wait for it...Crystal Palace (30) and that's including the late season collapse suffered by Arsenal AND United. If anything, it's our first season of the campaign that saved us!

Didn't buy into his footballing philosophy? What were the signings of Jorginho, Kovacic, Higuain and, to an extent, Kepa about then? The fans' discontent was more than justified when it first happened in the United game. Sarri was fielding predictable XI, making like for like subs, offering no tactical variations or solutions, making us play tedious football etc. The fact that he started changing up the XI and subs in the latter stage of the season proved that he realized his mistakes. The abuse he got was arguably too far but the criticism is more than justified. If he can't take a bit of heat from the fans, then maybe he's not cut out to manage at the deep end of a big job.

No, Sarri didn't come weeks into the season and this notion that he didn't have the whole pre-season is completely BS, by the way. Our pre-season started on July 9 last summer and he came in on July 14 and there was barely much coaching done in that week anyway with the returning players doing fitness work. The only thing that counted against him is that there was the World Cup and players were returning at different times and maybe that he didn't have time before that to plan things properly. Otherwise, he pretty much had the entire pre-season to work with whatever players he had then. Didn't speak the language? He already knew English from his days as a banker. And as Iggy mentioned, taking over a team that finished 5th is hardly starting at the deep end. Remember Conte taking over a side that finished 10th? Also, not sure if many realized but we finished this season with just 72 points (only 2 more than last season) - that tally wouldn't have seen us finish in the Top 4 last season, which says something about the standards of other teams dropping - and we ended up with 63 goals scored and 39 conceded, which is 1 more than we scored and conceded in Conte's final season. And people have been acting like this season has been WOW or something...

🤔

We also lost easily to Everton, Arsenal, Bournemouth (4-0!!!) and only beat some terrible teams. Results and performances looked encouraging due to facing some hopeless oppositions in the Europa League. Only because Loftus-Cheek and CHO played late in the season that they were able to instill some excitement, quality and freshness into an otherwise stale and tedious side.