TorontoChelsea

Mourinho set the bar high because we had ridiculously talented teams then. Out talent level is nowhere near that right now. If you gave this Chelsea a CB combo of peak-level Carvalho and Terry (Never mind Makalele, peak-Lampard and Drogba, Ballack, etc...) do you think we'd have near the same defensive problems? Mourinho was the right manager for the team, but I think too many fans give him way too much credit. We won because Roman spent a ton of money buying a lot of world-class players. We had as much talent as any team in the world and a lot of managers would have had success with those squads. We simply have not replaced those players. Ancelotti's second season was a disappointment, but a lot of that was due to not replacing the Ranieri-era Chelsea that still made up our core and it wasn't that bad a season. We did finish second in the league. The inability to replace the core of the team is down to the board and they've now fired a bunch of managers for their own mistakes.

I don't care at all about Rafa. I'll support him and hope he does well. What makes me sick is the management carousel, the absurd expectations on managers where a few bad games gets you sacked, and the inability of the board to learn its lessons. We need a long-term manager. It should have been Ancelotti but we fired him. It needs to be someone though. This can't continue.

On the face of it, it seems like cynical attempt to win Chelsea fans over to him . using a former Chelsea player. Zenden has no managerial experience. However, since Benitze will only be at Chelsea for a few months, it doesn't really matter. The new manager will bring in new assistants as well.

One the worst aspects of managers being under too much pressure is that it effects the way they manage. If you know you have to win every game, you don't rotate your team properly, you can't possibly bring along young talent, you take minor tournaments too too seriously, you are late in substitutions, and you never risk trying anything very different, and so on. For those people who were angry at RDM's unwillingness to rotate, can you blame him? Draws against Swansea, Liverpool, and and a loss to WBA did RDM in. That's all it took. Three poor results and he's gone. (Losses to Shakhtar and Juventus away are no embarrassment and the loss to ManU was ref-assisted), Fans have the right to voice their displeasure. Everyone should back Chelsea no matter what, but you can be pissed off at the club and still support them.

We play West Brom March 2nd after a tough five games where we play Arsenal, Newcastle, and City. Wonder who the next manager is going to be. It's been over a year since we've payed Porto millions for their manager. Maybe we should try that again.

I personally don't see a system that we could possibly play that would suite Falcao period. Not with the players we currently have. He needs a team built around getting him the ball in dangerous areas. Trying to turn Hazard, Mata, and Oscar into guys who mostly just try to feed Falcao doesn't make sense in any way. Solid, world-class defenders like JT and Cole will succeed in any system and if we bought some solid central defender, they would do (whereas someone like Luiz I think would be brilliant at a team like Barca but not in the Premier League). Lampard was a world-class box to box midfielder so it was very easy to fit him into any system. Mata is different. He is a fantastic offensive playmaker but he has real limitations. We have played a few styles with him and he was basically useless when we tried to play the defensive counter-attack in the CL last season. He was probably our worst player in the CL after the group stage whereas Ramires played the best football of his career in that system. Most players are not as well rounded as players like Terry or Cole or Lampard were and do fit into specific systems better than others. It works much better when a manager has a vision and can acquire players that fit into his vision.

Of course, compared to the the Dalgliesh trifecta of Downing, Henderson, and Carroll, Benitze looks like a genius in the transfer market. Maybe it's just a Liverpool thing. ( and yes, I know, they are much better than us because they won the first division a lot in the 70's and 80's and that's clearly much more important than current success.)

Add to that-buying players in January is more expensive and more difficult anyway.

We can because we don't know if they'll fit the system that the next manager will want to play. We already have too many players who are ideal in different systems.

Looks like we'll be buying players with no long-term vision once again because we don't have a long-term manager.

This is a move that made absolutely no sense. If Roman really wanted Guardiola or someone and he had become available, I still wouldn't have agreed, but it would have made sense. But firing a manager who was doing OK really to bring in another temporary manager is ridiculous. It's obvious that Roman never liked Di Mattero and was looking for any excuse to see him gone. We're in third place in the league and still alive in every other competition. Even had RDM not won the CL and the FA Cup a few months ago, he didn't deserve to be fired.One of the most undeserved sackings I can ever remember. We'll do better with Benitez for the first couple of months because the schedule is really easy.

We'll almost certainly get off to a good start with the new manager. After the tough City game, we have our easiest stretch of the season with 8 straight very winnable games. (Fulham, Nordjsalaend, Southampton, and Villa at home and West Ham, Sunderland, Leeds, and Norwich away.)

Even more than that, who would listen to him? If you're a player and you know you'll be there next year, and your manager is upset at you, who cares?

Exactly...and people need to stop pining after some other managers immediately too. If Guardiola doesn't get hired, it's because he doesn't want to be here. That's fine. We've won without him and will win without him again. Just, for the love of science, let the manager breathe before jumping all over him.

Managerial consistency doesn't make you win, it just gets you better results than you can be expected to have. Arsenal are constantly better than they should be. That's where managerial stability gets them. They don't win titles because they don't spend money. In the last 3 seasons, we've spent over 200M pounds more than we've made from buying and selling players. In that same time period, Arsenal have made millions on their transfers. We should be miles better than Arsenal, but we're not. We're pretty much on the same plateau-we'll likely be fighting for third at the end of the season.

Yeah, there's almost always a "new manager bounce" where everyone says "see how much better he is, I told you we should have fired the last guy". Then, after 2 months, you're back at exactly the same level.

I agree somewhat with this. I think most managers can win with good teams. Nobody thinks Grant was a particularly good manager, but Chelsea were fantastic under him and we were unlucky not to win the CL. RDM was not regarded particularly highly as a manager, but we won the CL with him. Where managers can make a big difference is negatively. If a manager can't communicate with players either personally or with his tactics, the team will suffer. Overall though, if you get a manager who can communicate properly and knows his football, I don't think it matters all that much which manager you choose. Any manager would do well at Barca and every manager will do poorly with Reading.

In a way, yes because I think expectations for Guardiola would be insane. No new manager would be able to come in and suddenly turn Chelsea into the Premier League champions or something.I don't think who the manager is matters much, Chelsea just need to find someone, let that person have a greater say in transfer policy, and actually stick with him for at least a few years even if that means accepting disappointing results.

Agree broadly with this. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100190878/it-makes-almost-literally-no-difference-who-replaces-roberto-di-matteo-as-chelseas-manager/ Managers don't make that much of a difference. Talent makes a massive difference. It's for this reason that firing and hiring managers all the time makes no sense. It doesn't actually change the results long-term. One thing managers can do is bring a sense of command to the club. No Chelsea manager can have that right now because their positions are far too tenuous. Mancini could banish Tevez. Ferguson and Wenger can sit anyone they want. Players now that every manager we bring in is just 4 or 5 bad games away from getting fired. Why listen to what he says?

I'd actually prefer Grant to Benitez for a short-term manager. Benitez would have designs on trying to make the job his own. I don't see that with Grant. If it's a temporary manager, I don't see why they didn't just give RDM more time though.

No one can and that's not the manager's fault. If you have a manager for 10 years, even the best manager in the world, they are going to have 2 or 3 down years. This isn't Spain where there basically two teams who win everything. In lEngland, the best teams have years where they win nothing. ManU have been the best team in the Premier League era. They won nothing last year. They only won the league cup in 09-10 and 05-06. They won nothing in 04-05, etc...Should they have fired Ferguson after every down year? If it were Roman running ManU, SAF would have been fired in 03-04. As I wrote earlier, Roman has fired four managers a year after they came in second in the Premier League. That's crazy. The expectations on Chelsea managers are absurd and the only way any manager will take the job is with the mindset "I'll make a ton of money out of this no matter what and hopefully stay a year or two" because no sane human being would take a job with a boss whose expectations are that insane..

Based on what? The rebuilding job is the task of the board. They generally decide who to buy and who not to at Chelsea. Ancelotti didn't waste 75M pounds or so on Torres and Luiz. Managers at Chelsea have much less input in decision making that they do on other clubs and THAT is one of the big problems. As for letting teams stagnate? What the hell does that even mean? It means his teams had success and then didn't have success? His teams didn't get better? That's the same with every manager. You could say that Guardiola let his team stagnate. Barcelona got worse last year. They didn't develop. Ancelotti won the CL with Milan in 03 and 07. He won Seria A in 04. That's a pretty nice period of sustained success. And the 25-26 ages? That's nonsense and it's baffling... and I don't know where it comes from. Ancelotti worked wonders with Rui Costa, Maldini, Inzaghi with Rivaldo and all sorts of other older players. He helped develop Kaka into one of the best players in the world. Pato played brilliantly under him when he was very young. He's a very good manager. I'm amazed at some of the criticisms mangers get leveled at them.

How did sacking Carlo work out to be the correct decision? He's an excellent manager who did very well with us and I'd be happy if he were still at Chelsea. He never deserved to be sacked. We'd be in a better position if he were still with us. And how can you give him credit for firing AVB and not blame him for spending millions to get him a few months earlier? I don't trust Roman not because I think he's trying to screw the club, but because he acts like a spoiled fan on a message board and not like a serious football executive. We're going to have our fourth manager since May 2011. That's insane. I don't know how anyone could trust Roman with managers. He's been great for supplying Chelsea with money and horrible in dealing with managers.

I hope not. We need a long-term manager for the future not of the past. Going back with Mourinho would be like getting back with your ex from 5 years ago. It seems like a good idea at the time because you haven't been in a good relationships for a while and you remember all the good times (and you've had one drink too many), but once you get back together, you realise things have changed and it just isn't the same anymore. And besides, Chelsea are building the anti-Mourinho team. Jose likes defensive solidity, physicality and a strong counter-attack. Players like Carvalho, Terry, Lampard, Essien, Ballack, Makalele, and Drogba...Strength, positioning, work-rate...You really think that players like Mata, Oscar, and Hazard, the players we're building around would fit into that system? I think Mourinho would murder David Luiz.

I think a lot of people will be. There's a lot of justified outrage over this sacking. Here's a list of what some of our managers have done for us the year before being sacked by Roman (Not inlcuding Scolari and AVB who were the two managers fired due to truly awful results) Ranieri-2nd in the league, CL semi-final Mourinho-Winners in the FA Cup and League Cup, 2nd in the league, CL semi-final Grant-2nd in the league, CL finalists, League Cup finalists, 6th round FA Cup Ancelotti-2nd in the league, quarter finals in the CL RDM-CL and FA Cup winner, 6th in the league. Roman has fired 4 mangers less than a season after they finished 2nd in the league. He fired three managers who managed to finish both second in the league and reach, at least, the CL semi-finals. And now, he's fired a manager who won the CL with a team that had no business being there. This carousel is insane and it has to stop.