TorontoChelsea

Mata!!!

Everyone always does. He brought Lampard, Cech, Robben, Makalele, and Gallas to Chelsea. He played Terry and made him Captain. He contributed much more to the club than Hiddink who was simply a good manager for a handful of games. Mourinho's team was actually mostly Ranieri's (and even Vialli's) team. In fact, I'd have him second behind Mourinho. (I guess some of it depends on what you mean "contributed". Lasting legacy? How well we did under them? I'd have it: 1) Mourinho- we became a dominant team when he was manager and helped forge our identity. He also bought players like Drogba and Carvalho who were key for us well after he left. 2) Ranieri,-Reasons above 3) Ancelotti-Had our best year under him. Transfer legacy is poisonous though. Other than that, I don't think our recent managers "contributed" all that much. Largely because no other managers has managed even a season worth of games.Grant has the best success, managed the longest, and had very good transfers but still not much of a legacy really, If you're going back even a little further both Gullit and Vialli contributed a lot. We had or first success under them. We started playing some beautiful football. We were an exciting team. We even within 5 points of winning the Premier League one year. We had a ton of top transfers in this era as well. (Zola, RDM, Leboeuf , Desailly, Poyet, Cudicini, Hasselbaink, Gudjohnson, Flo, Chris Sutton (how did that get in there?) etc.... In fact, our 96/97 and 97/98 transfers were probably our best if you consider value. We bought Babayaro, Le Saux, De Goey, and Poyet, Zola, Lebeouf, and Vialli. The whole thing cost us well under 30M pounds.

I'm speaking generally of the 4-2-3-1. In that system, the central midfielders will, on average be around the centre of the pitch. De Bruyne is almost always the second or third most forward player on the pitch for Bremen.They need to have a fairly high passing percentage and do a lot of defensive work. De Bruyne has been very good this year, but he has been very good doing the things that attacking midfielders do. (creating chances, scoring, crossing, etc...) It's a very different job description. . I'm not saying that he won't be able to play the pivot, just that assuming that he will be good in the pivot as because he is having a good year with Bremen is premature. De Bruyne is a terrible tackler at this point in his career and while that's not as important in a advanced role, it is important in the pivot. Ideally, I'd like to see KDB back at Chelsea next season and his versatility and quality will ensure that he gets plenty of run.

Boy has he improved this season. He can still get better, but I think he's certainly good enough to get regular looks for Chelsea next season.

Not the first time this season. People call him a central midfielder because he technically is, but he is not remotely similar the central midfielders in our system. He often plays right behind the striker. He's been great, but he's been great at what for us would be the #10 position.

Then why are Man United struggling to replace Van Der Sar? Why did they struggle after Schmeichel? I think you're completely understating the job of finding a top-class keeper, which is why we did so well not just to get Courtois but also secure a great loan for him. Neuer cost €22 million because he only had one year left on his contract from what I recall. I hate the idea of changing keepers between games. It messes with the rhythm and it's unfair to drop someone after a good game. I think the idea of benching either one, or ever paying both of them is the wrong route to take. I wouldn't say United are struggling to find a replacement for Van Der Sar. De Gea is a good goalie. He has some problems with crosses and balls in the air but, he is one of the best shot-stoppers in the Premier League. (best save percentage Premier League last year). He's only 21, so I expect him to be at United for a long time. They did suffer to replace Schmeichel but even that was exaggerated. They had one year where a few keepers struggled (Taibi especially) but they still won the league so it was hardly a disaster. I think this also one area of the game where SAF makes a mistake. He rotates too much with keepers and when they make a mistake, he takes them out. All keepers let in bad goals and you have to keep their confidence high. I think Cech is a top-class keeper, but there are a lot of keepers around that I think Chelsea can win with. I also think you can win without a top keeper. I've never thought Valdes was much of a keeper, but Barcelona has won everything with him. As I pointed out earlier, ManU has won the league with mediocre keepers. I think the difference between top keepers is very slim. I agree with you that I don't like rotating keepers.

10M is not enough but it's not as ridiculous as people are saying. Keepers are just cheaper to buy. Lloris who has been the top keeper in France for years and was still only 25 at time of purchase was 10-15M Euros (depending on performance). Our initial signing of Courtois for 7.8M was one of the highest transfers ever for a keeper. Neuer was already a world-class keeper and went for 19M pounds two years ago. This is why I don't particularly worry about keepers. There are more top keepers than there are top clubs (Julio Cesar is at QPR!!) so they are easier and cheaper to get than any other position. However, I wouldn't be inclined to sell Courtois unless the bid got up to around 20M.

I assume you mean L.A. Galaxy and not Chelsea

http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/3389/Stages/6531/TeamStatistics/England-Premier-League-2012-2013 Great resource! Very close to Swansea on the possession and pass pcts rankings.

In the Premier League, Swansea have the 6th highest possession percentage, the 5th highest passing percentage, have the second most goals from open play, and play the fifth most short passes. It's been a little more cautious this season, but they still play high possession, passing football.

Crazy news. What did their board think? That Southampton would be challenging for a CL spot? He's doing a good job, the team is progressing, and their young players are developing well.

That's not how they usually play. They usually play very nice attacking football but they are a considerably less talented team than we are so smartly decided to play defensively.

We've actually been very good defending set pieces this year. Also, wouldn't call Giroud a shit player at all. He's a capable striker who has actually been pretty good when he starts. Gervinho is a shit striker and he scored against us last time we met.

Hiddink is definitely preferable to Benitez but so is basically everyone. We still have a strong team, but it's not nearly as good as it was. Hiddink would probably be fine (like I think most managers would) but he wouldn't be anywhere near my consideration list even if he weren't retiring. International managing is still management, but it;s much much different. In a big club, you're playing 50 meaningful games a year. You have strict training schedules, you have to rotate players, you have to worry about the long-term. For a national team, you're playing a handful of meaningful games every two seasons. You spend most of your time scouting.

Even if Hiddink were available and wanted to manage, I wouldn't want him. We were great under him, but it was 21 games and we had a very strong team. We were great under Grant for 54 games the year before. Hiddink has basically been managing national teams for most of the past decade. He was very good managing PSV and Netherlands, but apart from that, his managerial record is pretty mediocre. And those gigs were 15 years ago. He wouldn't make sense on any level. Also, the more I think of it, the more I don't want Mourinho back ( and I think going over the nostalgia around Hiddink brought that out.). He's completely the wrong fit for the club in preferred style and in personality and in what Roman is looking for in a a manger. I think the fan desire to see him back is part a desire to return to winning football and partly a (misguided) belief that bringing in Mourinho will mean automatic success. That just wouldn't happen no matter the manager. We're not spending 150M a year to buy elite talent. I think Roman was right with AVB in the sense that that is the sort of manager we need for the future. He just picked the wrong guy at the wrong time. (And in typical Roman fashion decided there was someone he wanted and overpaid to get his man)

He was at Brondby for 5 years. In the managerial world, that's an eternity. I actually think he'd be a good fit in some ways. His love of a free flowing style, his willingness to go with youth, his ability to personally coach young players (Alan Tate says he's the best player in training. You don't think players like Oscar, Mata, and Hazard could benefit from having one of the best midfielders ever give them tips?). A lot depends on how Swansea finish the year. But this goes to show. Laudrup is someone I didn't even really think about but he'd be a fine choice. There are plenty of fine choices for manager available. I think Roman and some supporters are too spoiled sometimes, always wanting the big name. The Demba Ba transfer to me shows a willingness to realise that there is value to be found outside just the big names and I hope that's a sign of things to come. And quite frankly, I remember being laughed at, along with some other posters when we suggested Ba as a good signing because "we are Chelsea. we need Falcao/Cavani/etc,,. You find the same thing with some people willing only to accept maybe a couple of managers when there are many good ones who could be available.

Then, after Zola gets fired, we could hire and fire Poyet. Then, we could have songs (roughly) every 8 minutes for our former managers.

Laudrup wouldn't be my first choice, but I think (if Swansea do well the rest of the year) I'd be fine with him. He's been managing for a decade and has a tremendous amount of experience as a player, playing at so many massive clubs. He's also probably one of the best players ever which automatically gives him credence with the players.

Zola would be a poor choice IMO. He's one of the very best Chelsea players ever, but he's only been managing for a few years and has had limited success. A lot of the keys of management is managing players. Rotating squads through 60 games, keeping people happy, and maybe most importantly, managing the large egos of the players. I'd like to see him manage for a few more years so he can get more experience before getting a shot at Chelsea. AVB was managing at Porto and he still failed because he couldn't handle the locker room. I think having previously managed a fairly big club takes away some risk and having managed for a while takes away more risk. Also just realised that Deschamps is included in the younger/riskier options. He shouldn't be. He's been managing for over a decade now. He managed Monaco to the CL final. Managed Juventus and Marseilles and was pretty successful everywhere he went. I doubt it will happen because he just took on the France job in the summer and I expect him to keep it until after the World Cup at least.

How did Jose's leaving halt our dominance? Mourinho was our manager in 2006-2007 when we had IMO our most talented team ever and we didn't win. We blew it in the last weeks of the season. The next year, still with an extremely talented team, we got off to a terrible start and Mourinho was fired. We played much better under Grant. Next year, we had elite talent but some very serious injuries and bad form. Still, we finished third and made it to the semi-finals of the CL. The next year, we still had an elite team but had not spent much money and the money we were spending was wasted, so we had a distinct lack of depth. We lack dominance because we never replaced our core. That's all. Nothing to do with managers.

The actual interview is much less sensational. He says that they have the talent to play against Chelsea which is true... I am getting sick of tabloid coverage (like this!): RAFA SAYS HE WANTS TO KILL LAMPARD AND SUCK THE MARROW FROM HIS BONES!!! Chelsea manager Rafa Benitez caused a stir yesterday when he expressed his desire to kill a Chelsea legend "Lampard is a good player and I am going to use him as I see fit" said Benitez, shocking the press with his blood-lust That sort of thing...

I think Arsenal made a mistake playing us last time. Our big weakness is on the wings. Because we generally don't (and didn't) play real wingers, we are vulnerable to teams who can attack the flanks. Arsenal have that ability but they strangely decided to go with Ramsey and Podolski on the wings who are also more centrally inclined players. The bulk of their attack came through their fullbacks and when Diaby was forced off, Oxlade-Chamberlain. Gervinho started and scored, but the more I watch him, the less impressed I am. He has no football IQ. Doesn't seem to be able to see the game develop at all. If I were Wenger, I'd go with Walcott on the right and Giroud in the middle. For us, I'd like to see Marin, not because I think he's some saviour or anything, but because he's an actual winger who can play out wide and cross the ball into the box (for Ba).

Exactly. The narrative of the home support causing all these problems just doesn't hold up. It's not like supporters are booing throughout the game. They give support for 90 minutes and because of awful results, they boo at the end and quite frankly, it's deserved. This is not the one-off bad game, this is three games at the Bridge against QPR, Swansea, and Southampton and being outscored 5-2. Three teams who were promoted within the last two years.

That's not why he chose Bayern, that's just the hook the Telegraph wants to sell us on. The funniest thing is that the quote in their own article undermines their own narrative and says that he had other reasons. "Guardiola wanted a number of things from his next club: challenging for titles straight away, a quality squad he can mould to his image, enough money to buy few top players, good infrastructure, a club philosophy. He believes Bayern offers him all of that. Chelsea do not – not all of it." Nowhere does it mention his romanticism. That's exactly what I think all of us knew anyway. Bayern just makes more sense.

In a case like this (where a player is worth more to his club than he would be to anyone else) the only way the player moves is if he wants to go. It would be reasonable at his age to want a crack at winning the Premier League or the Champions League, but for some players, being in a good, comfortable situation is more to their liking. To each their own.