The only place to be

I don't think it's 'perfectly reasonable' in the slightest considering the lack of information you, I and the media at large has on the issue. The fact you actually admit you don't know the details should possibly lead you to not passing comment or judgment on it. I do not believe he's beyond criticism, hence me criticising him. You're commenting on his personal life and his relationships which is an area he tends to keep secret and you're confusing the issues here. I have no problem with commenting and criticising his ownership of Chelsea, but his relationships and the way he views women (a new model/maiden at home? Come on, really?) are things you aren't qualified to comment on (remember that time you said you don't know the details of his personal life?) and don't really have a place outside a women's gossip mag. I agree with some of that, but obviously I think that we're moving in a positive direction at the moment in regards our recruitment and development of playing staff. And again, I think it's too early to judge him. AVB and RDM were popular choices brought in under different circumstances and my personal view is that they both failed in part due to mistakes made 3 years before they joined the club. We simply made too many mistakes in the first 7 years of Roman's ownership. In short, both managers weren't given the best eggs. I could not agree more with your final point. We do have to wait and see because we're in the middle of a transition from one way of doing business to another. I don't think it's all down to him though. Arnesen deserves credit for what he put in motion as do people like De Visser. My view is that these things don't happen overnight. They take time and they're very rarely smooth, faultless operations but arduous, painful processes - but nothing worth doing in life is easy. To put it in terms of another of Roman's loves, football clubs aren't speedboats. You don't just flick a wrist and do a 180 - they're great big barges which take time, planning and occasionally a little luck to make a course change but to me we're making that change. I've even said that I'll join you in calling for his head if I don't see more young players in the squad at the start of next season because that is going to be the key indicator of the job he's doing in my opinion. If he ain't delivering those eggs then he can fuck off.

Can't disagree with any of that really. I've actually thought myself that we could have to stronger players in that double pivot who would provide a stable platform for the front four. Chalobah and Ramires might be perfect for that. I'm not against having Rami in the team but it has to be under the right circumstances. If we go for a ball-player like Modric then I think he's the wrong player. If we go with a more physical middle two, then he does have a place. He seems to do well in a similar system for Brazil where he's one of the workers in their 4222 so it could work for us in all of our matches.

As well as being somewhat misogynistic, that's a little disrespectful to a man who has done a lot for this club when neither you nor I know the full circumstances of the situation. Divorces happen and I'm not one of these people who likes the tabloid intrusion into people's lives and the way complete strangers feel like they can pass judgment with few facts. I don't think it reflects on his judgment in the slightest and is a bit of a cheap shot. Again, I think this is a very slanted view. You can judge these guys on their results but passing judgment on their motives as if they're nothing more than caricatures is a bit out of bounds and really adds nothing to the real debate. I don't buy into the view that they're strippers taking advantage of a wealthy benefactor - I think Roman has made mistakes, and I also think the people who were involved in the early days of his reign (Buck and Kenyon who you seem loathe to assail in even the merest of ways) made mistakes which have had far reaching consequences. In this thread it would be nice to stick to criticising the results and I'll agree they are a mixed bag but in terms of assessing what is actually under Emenalo's remit, I think things are moving in the right direction.

Firstly, Lamps is on his way out. I wouldn't say he's good enough anymore either. I've also explained why I think he does well in those games before. Do you want me to repeat that? I disagree. I actually think Mikel and Romeu (and maybe Chalobah) would be better in that circumstance. I like Rami, but if we're going to try and dominate possession against all the teams then I don't think he'll get many minutes. Against teams that we plan to try and hit on the break then I think he'll be great but I don't know how many games that would actually represent and if it represents a large majority of our matches then I don't fancy our title chances.

Not at all. I'll stick by my critique of his skills because I believe it to be true. He may well have a place in the squad for games against teams like Steaua but he's not in my first team if we get the transfers right and stick with the current formation. I still think we need a playmaker like Modric and someone more solid like Mikel or possibly Chalobah. If you buy a DLP, where does Ramires fit in then? Let's not go overboard either - he had a good game (was MOTM for me partly because I got bored of voting for Hazard or Mata and partly because he worked hard especially considering Mikel's performance) but Steaua were very average and didn't put too much pressure on us.

It happens at a lot of grounds. We go to the Emirates and sing 'Your Support is Fucking Shit' and six months later they come to the Bridge and do the same. It also applies to White Hart Lane, Old Trafford and numerous other stadiums. You can attribute that to pricing certain people out of games, people being spoilt or things like Benitez being charge but it's just one of the facts about modern football. Bear in mind we are situated in a certain part of London that does have a unique demographic and our crowd will have it's own idiosyncrasies resulting from that.

Our fans can sometimes be quiet in the small games. Apparently the were only 28,000 fans in attendance which is understandable in some ways considering our current circumstances and the level of opposition.

In what way is Chalobah not ready to be part of our first-team? What is he lacking in his game? In the last two years we've actually changed our transfer policy to going after young players on cheaper fees with lower wages. Who bent us over a barrel? We just need a Modric or someone similar. He's the ideal choice because he knows the league, does what we'd need him to do and might be available. Then we could look at alternating him with De Bruyne and maybe Oscar whilst Mikel, Romeu and Chalobah fight for the other spot.

Put in a great performance against a weak team. Can't ask more than that.

MOTM for me was Rami. Put in a great shift. Seen a few people having a pop at the fans in this thread. Thursday night, shitty opposition, shitty tournament and unpopular manager. Things aren't ideal at the moment but having a go at the people who actually turn up and support the team is a little out of order in my opinion. BTW, tickets are available on the website. If you think the atmosphere is shit then turn up and do something about it, or just come along and tell us what shit supporters we are.

Do you think our transfer dealings have been better or worse since he took over? Oscar wasn't a no-brainer by any means either. What about Courtois, Lukaku, De Bruyne, Cahill and Ba? All signed for moderate fees and on sensible wages. Do you think youth player development has been better or worse since he took over, in terms of loans?

That's because he's not ready at the moment. If you want a player to promote then Chalobah is the obvious choice and I'd be disappointed if he isn't in the squad. I don't know if he would be best used alongside Mikel or groomed as his replacement, but he has the talent to do either. I voted for Modric though. He knows the league, he might be available and he's exactly what we need. The idea of dealing with Porto doesn't exactly fill me with joy and I'm not sure if Benat is the right guy for us.

That type of behaviour was actually not uncommon before Emenalo's appointment. The departments were too disparate which meant people were occasionally working at crossed purposes. To me, that is the value in having a Technical Director, especially when you don't have a long-standing manager in place. The problem with that appointment was that the club (Roman in particular) was focused on getting Guardiola. That pursuit is another thing that caused a lot of problems at the club. The problem the club faced was finding someone who was available, prepared to accept that they wouldn't be able to make their own signings in January and was happy to leave after six months to be replaced by Pep. That was a very, very short list of candidates and Benitez was viewed by some as having the best resume for the job. I think everyone underestimated the depth of feeling amongst certain supporters. And matches at the top level come down to 1-2% in certain areas. We lost a Champions League final by the width of a goal post. I like Buck. I think his (and Gourlay's) support of JT during the trial and in the aftermath was exemplary behaviour from a chairman but you can't ignore what went on at the club for those 7 years after Roman bought it. The same goes for Kenyon. I'm not entirely sure why some people are immune from blame yet others aren't if we're going to simply judge them on the results. We're having to change course now precisely because we didn't do the right things in those years and surely these people have to shoulder some of the blame because they were there. So you accept that we had years of mismanagement? Would that've been under Kenyon and Buck perchance? so Emenalo gets the blame for that after two years in the job? I'm going to take a wild guess that he doesn't get any credit for what happened in Munich. That's good, because he doesn't deserve any. You can't pick and choose what you want to acknowledge. That success came on the backs of key men like Drogba and Lamps carrying the team, but we didn't have a plan for what came after that and that's a plan that should've been started in 2008. If you want to talk about his baby, then look at what's going on at the club as a whole. Look at the prospects we have and the team we might be fielding next August. I know football fans can be prisoners of the moment, but any Chelsea fan who isn't excited by the prospect of a team featuring Hazard, Oscar, Mata, Lukaku, De Bruyne, Chalobah, Azpi, Courtois, Piazon, Ake and maybe even kids like Feruz and Swifty might as well hand in their season tickets now. That to me is as much Chelsea as the struggles we're having now (although we did finish sixth last year so yay for us). Emenalo has been in charge for less than two seasons and the simple fact is that the development paths for players before he took over was FUCKING SHIT. I think you're being massively unfair on him now. As I've said, if Lukaku, Chalobah, De Bruyne and one other (possibly Ake or one of the young defenders) doesn't make it into the squad next season I'll be calling for his head but I think you're being massively premature on this one. We've got 24 players out on loan now, and they're good loans in my opinion. We weren't doing this under Arnesen but I give him a pass too because youth team development doesn't happen overnight. Now we're got a great system and it's starting to bear fruits. Again, I don't recognise any of what you're saying as being close to reality. Lukaku wasn't ready for PL football in his first season. He was overweight and in the summer plenty of people wrote him off. In the same thread on this forum people are now saying he should be PL young player of the year. Piazon's development was textbook - youth team success, first team experience, first team loan with CL experience. That came as a direct result of our dealings with Malaga for Isco apparently, something I'm sure you're aware Emenalo was involved in. And the idea that Roman is naive is absurd. Do you know many naive billionaires? I think he has. I think the change in direction that the club has taken shows that but it's not a change that will happen overnight. It can't do. This is our penance for doing things the wrong way for so long (of course the people in charge then weren't to blame) but now we're doing them properly and I'm encouraged by that.

Again, it's hard to say how much of that is down to Forde. He's by no means the final say on transfers and I'm not sure who you'd get in to replace him if we went down that route.

To look at new ways of analysing data in order to enhance future performance.

I'm not sure if there's any other choice besides the one we currently have.

What day would you have played the game on?

Not much of that is on Mike Forde in my opinion. I got it from speaking to people within the game...sorry, but that wasn't on the record. He was one of the first people in this country who looked at a way of implementing analytics into the game of football which is why he's invited to conferences on the issue (analytics is essentially what the book/film Moneyball focused on and what the Red Sox used in order to help win the 04 World Series, and is what Henry has tried to bring to Liverpool). He's also become something of a go to guy for teams in other sports.

It sounds like you're suggesting The FA is handicapping us by placing the fixture as they have done, in order to help United. If I've got the wrong end of the stick I apologise.

I think the main thing held against him has been the 'imbalanced' squad with too many attacking players, not enough for the double pivot. The problem I think we faced was the season ending injury for Romeu who was expected to play a bigger role in the second-half of the season and Lamps simply not being quite as suited for the position as everyone expected. Meireles was seen as very much an AVB guy so it was felt his presence might not be good for squad cohesion, and the cash on offer was pretty good whilst Essien was simply seen as costing too much for too little productivity. The fact he's stayed injury-free this long has amazed everyone. It's not like we didn't go after a player for that position either, but Levy simply wouldn't sell to us.

What are you on about?

That's just factually incorrect. Sorry. Maybe we just have different sources and one of them is wrong, but I'm fairly sure that the Technical Director would have the final say on such things. I wouldn't just guess something in the hopes of it sounding right. At this point in time he still has Roman's ear which (if the story is true) might be the source of Jose's objections. I'm not sure why you'd think Mike Forde would be in trouble. The guy's massively respected within the game and one of the best sports minds in this country in my opinion. If you're looking for a scapegoat who isn't a Russian billionaire then I'd personally look at Bruce Buck - the guy you put on your 'dream team', despite him being here for the entirety of Roman's reign even when we were acting in a kamikaze, short-term manner which is the root of many of our current problems in my opinion. In fact, you put Peter Kenyon alongside him as well who I think also bears the responsibility of many of our actions then. Yet you'd have both of them back in a 'dream team'? I see our current predicament as the culmination of years of mismanagement. We simply didn't plan for the future which is why we're suffering now and we're actually building something sustainable. If you actually had expectations that it would be a faultless transition then I can see why you'd be disappointed in Emenalo. But there is a consistent system which is fairly amazing considering the change in managers we've had to endure. Each one comes in and wants to treat the youth differently yet Neil Bath and his coaches have done a remarkable job in engendering an ethos that goes from age-group to age-group. You say he's had two years, I say he's only had two years and that it's fair too early in his tenure to judge him based on the massive task he had after years of mistakes. We neglected players in the age group 18-24 for almost two seasons and now we're surprised that we're lacking key players in that age-group? That to me is the biggest mistake this club made, it's the key to every problem our first team is facing now and that simply wasn't his fault in my opinion. I don't know at this stage. I'd personally like to see what the squad make-up would be at the start of next season before making a judgment because I don't think I can make a fair one at this stage. If we have Chalobah, Lukaku, De Bruyne and one other (possibly Piazon, maybe one of the younger defenders current in Holland) in the first-team squad, and we sign the right players (a midfielder is essential, other positions are up for debate) then I don't think he'd deserve to go. If he doesn't do that then I'll be calling for his head too.

That's just how many contracts work nowadays - this is fairly typical.

I'm afraid it isn't (to the best of my knowledge). All loans are ultimately Emenalo's decision which is why when there was a discussion about Chalobah's recall and a possible loan for Ake in January it was his call. That's one of his main roles at the club. I'm not saying Eddie wasn't involved in handling it and I'm sure you're aware of his role in monitoring players on-loan, but the person he reports to is Emenalo.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree because we're just going round in circles. Personally I think it's too early to judge him but I like what I'm seeing since he took over. You haven't convinced me otherwise and I doubt I'll convince you. Giving Eddie all the credit for the loan of Lukaku and Chalobah is a little unfair and I suspect it's based on the managers at those clubs. Eddie reports to Emenalo and so it would've been his say so, although it does hint at how many things are in play at the club and how important it is to have someone who co-ordinates it all. If Jose can help build a system that manages that efficiently then it might make sense to get rid of Emenalo (who isn't 'increasingly isolated' as you've suggested - in fact he's probably more powerful than he has been at any other time purely because of Benitez being a short-term appointment) but that has to be a system that can survive without Jose, which is what we have now. But like I said, we both want what's best for the club we just have different opinions of how that's best achieved.