Jase

Do these journalists even know what’s going on? I swear Alfredo has just been reporting about meetings, meetings and meetings and nothing concrete about where the deal is heading towards to.

There’s only “so much pressure” if you start believing every nonsense rumor. Not confident Hazard will stay but it’s kinda annoying that people choose to believe rumors that conform to their fears over reliable sources. Contrary to what’s reported by that le10 sport, the most reliable source on Belgian players has said nothing has been agreed between us and Real Madrid...

Don't forget that debacle, defining 3-0 loss at Arsenal.

To be fair, they had plenty of time but decided to f**k things up over his release fee and Conte's compensation. I doubt signing 3 Sarri players is gonna quicken the learning process.

His agent is apparently Mino Raiola and doubt the board would bother with this TBH.

He may have won the league with Valencia but that was like in the early 2000s, when times were a lot different back then. Since achieving those titles, he has gotten close to it only once. Never mind not winning it, his teams have always finished miles behind the champions. Is that what we really want? To be like Wenger's Arsenal in the league? Also, look at the difference he and Sarri had with Napoli. Was like day and night. Yeah...look at what happened with Di Matteo before him. He did what he needed to do and the mistake wasn't letting Benitez go, it was bringing Mourinho back. With the kind of players we bought back then, we clearly wanted to adopt a more progressive, exciting, attacking brand of football going forward but because we couldn't get Guardiola back then or a manager of his kind with proven success, we took the easy option by going after Mourinho.

Even if you take the fans reaction out of the equation, hiring Benitez would still be a wrong decision. He's not a manager that's going to win you leagues or challenge consistently for the major trophies. He's only gonna win you a cup trophy here and there and nothing more. On top of that, Benitez doesn't play progressive football, is extremely rigid with his formation as he hardly uses anything other than 4-2-3-1. Let's not also forget that we played some turgid stuff under him (remember the 0-0 home game against Fulham?), threw away 2-0 leads a number of times and he made lots of like for like substitutions! The fact that he's barely linked with any of the top jobs these days says a lot about him when looking at hiring manager at the highest level.

Yes but not saying we should buy like a whole new team from other leagues. There are definitely talents elsewhere and talents that might not even cost as much as the fees that's being put on Serie A players. Guardiola and Klopp, for instance, managed to buy some really good players from the Bundesliga in last 1-2 years.

Mourinho 1.0? Possibly. It's only when we went to Madrid that he started to lose his mojo. And even if he hadn't left in 2007, he would still have done so at some point considering he had the desire to coach elsewhere back then.

Sarri may have coached them before but it still doesn't change the fact that we are/have been targeting players from Serie A and Rugani and Higuain hard look like inspired signings either. When Conte was still around, we were linked with a whole bunch of players from Italy and many of them were duds. Hell, we even signed one of them! You are right by pointing out the 3 examples there but you could argue that the board didn't do its due diligence in scouting the right players. We sit here and are able to pinpoint the talents from Bundesliga or Ligue 1 and yet, the club only seem to be interested in Serie A.

Not saying Serie A do not have good players but wish we would be more "imaginative" with our transfer purchases. We have been targeting and buying players (one too many) from Italy in the last 3-4 years. It's as if Bundesliga, La Liga or even Ligue 1 do not exist!

This notion of Roman being a trigger happy owner has always been overblown. You could make a case for Ancelotti but all the other managers were sacked with good reasons. Mourinho was successful but carried too much baggage in both spells and not to mention, he dragged us towards relegation in 2015/16. Grant was never going to stay and he, Scolari, AVB, Di Matteo were out of their depth. Conte could have stayed but he gave up last season and like Mourinho, carried too much baggage. Plus, people always say Roman doesn't give time to managers and yet, he gave plenty of time to AVB and Mourinho (second time around) to turn things around but ultimately had no choice when they couldn't do it and things became too dire. No one seems to acknowledge that because it doesn't fit into the whole Roman agenda, especially in the case with journalists and pundits. Sarri might not win any trophy this coming season but he should be fine as long as he doesn't do a 2015/16 Mourinho or AVB, have a clear direction in getting the team to play good, progressive football and managing the players going forward and doesn't start picking fights with the board every week!

Imagine taking a thread title so seriously in a forum. It's just a THREAD TITLE for goodness sake!

Zola confirmed as assistant manager...

The 25-man squad heading to Australia... https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2018/7/18/25-man-squad-heads-to-perth Marcin Bulka Jared Thompson Bradley Collins David Luiz Ethan Ampadu Fikayo Tomori Michael Hector Tomas Kalas Marcos Alonso Emerson Davide Zappacosta Ola Aina Cesc Fabregas Danny Drinkwater Tiemoue Bakayoko Ross Barkley Mario Pasalic Jorginho Kasey Palmer Pedro Lucas Piazon Charly Musonda Callum Hudson-Odoi Alvaro Morata Tammy Abraham

This was spotted today apparently...

True but he still seems like one of those keepers who one of the lesser clubs would sign but zilch, nothing so far.

Sarri's buzzword - FUN.

Speaking of Butland, what has happened to him? Has his stock dropped so badly? Have not seen him linked with any club!