oldportblue

I sort of agree with this but I also feel that we can get rid of some deadwood and replace it with some quality targets that have character and maybe leadership qualities. This could go a long way in terms of rectifying the attitude problem that we seem to have.. Getting a manager that won't whine *every* press conference about the team not being good enough to compete will also help. The players heard it so often that I truly believe it had an averse effect on them and the chase for top 4 (we were clearly good enough to get top 4 and a more positive manager, in terms of tactics and overall demeanor, probably would've gotten it fairly easily this season). Now that I think of it, we've had a lot of emo management these past few years (jose second season and conte's second season). I'm not saying the players didn't have their share of the blame throughout those debacles, of course they did, but that still probably wasn't the best for the club's overall morale... some will say the players' shite performances made these managers emo but they both sulked a lot regardless of the reason. Getting a manager who fits with the board's plan of using the academy, playing attacking football (as has been rumored, don't know if its true) will go a long way in terms of making sure he won't just sulk for months on end. I'd be OK with Sarri and Jardim and there are rumors circulating our board met with Pochettino recently as well (doubt it would happen but stealing spurs' all time best manager, or one of, in a season were they finished above us would be epic lol)

I have the feeling, based mostly on rumors and reports I must admit, that roman will not cheap out this summer but rather will try to add some real quality names (rather than the likes of zaha, drinkwater, carroll etc we've been hearing ... and buying)... According to the telegraph, we are looking at spend big this summer and that the club will sell a bunch of deadwood to do this: Telegraph

Their ratings aren't perfect, I disagree with a lot of them often times but to me, the fact that Dybala is an amazing talent who would be worth even more than Morata is undeniable... He scored 22 goals 5 Assists in Serie A in 24 starts this year, that's pretty good. I think most football fans in the world given a straight choice between the two would go for Dybala

Nabil Fekir is not unknown by any stretch of the imagination lol, he's one of the most talented young players in the world

same scenario with morata at chelsea, maybe a switch will do both players good lol

yeah if we get dybala coming the other way, then no problem

Don't know how reliable any of it is but there is still talk on twitter regarding us doing business with juventus possibly for morata... This football lawyer guy claims this is the case: https://twitter.com/LawTop20/status/993821691364159488

would we really cut ties with a 60-70M pounds player (depending on how add-ons are calculated) after only one season? I doubt it, personally... unless morata has explicitly stated he wants to leave that is Not saying the same thing will happen again but drogba had an average first season with us and ended up being one of our top 3 players of all time so I would give morata more time for sure...

According to the very respected l’Équipe, we are the front runners at the moment, and not liverpool as has been reported by others... [emoji1319][emoji1319][emoji1319] source: https://m.lequipe.fr/Football/Actualites/Transferts-nabil-fekir-courtise-par-plusieurs-clubs-anglais-dont-chelsea-et-liverpool/899041 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

we do, but you need to consider the fact that we've sold players for huge amounts (like costa and others too)... i think our net spend for the past year and a half/two years is comparable to clubs like crystal palace if i'm not mistaken (i think isaw that somewhere)... But yeah, we have still bought some nice players like kante more or less recently so there is still hope. I think by the end of this summer we will have a great idea of whether the club is in arsenal-esque economy mode or not

regarding conte, i love his passion, love the way his teams are usually defensively solid, love his character... but let's not act like he doesn't have his flaws. He never, ever won a single cup as manager, not even a coppa italia when he had by far the best team in italy for 3 years, not even a league cup or fa cup when we were better than all the other top english teams. We lost to an embarrassing arse side in the final ffs... Also, he seems to expect to get *exactly* what he wants from the board in terms of signings or else he sulks, and keeps bringing it up literally every single press conference. I understand he expected to be backed more after his first year success, and arguably should have been, but when that hasn't happened, you should just get on with rather than sulking for months on end. It rubs off badly on the players, the fans, everyone and isn't conducive to success.. the atmosphere among the players for the city game was rock bottom in regards to delivering the most uninspired performance i'd ever seen (or one of) and tbh, i put the blame for that on conte and his constant sulking/emo attitude. Having said all that, the board has undoubtedly also been at fault as there are rumors conte wanted lukaku and the board twiddled its thumbs towards the end of last season and beginning of summer rather than aggressively going in for him (MU were already talking to him and eventually got him). However the fact that the board didn't want to spend 80M on alex sandro is fully understandably imo.... and conte reportedly wanted players like carroll, crouch, llorente, barnes so he's not exactly the ultimate undisputed transfer market talent identifier either. All in all, happy we had him, happy for the great joy he gave us last season but will also be happy when we move on from this saga as it seems conte's relationship with the board, the club, the fans, the players will never be the same as last year after all his sulking, emo attitude and uber negative football (v. city especially)

when it's not stuff like this, it's clickbait BS like "find out which chelsea star wants conte out" and when you click on it it's a don balon article about morata with no quotes... TC social media posts are an utter embarrassment to be honest

remains to be seen whether our recent sub-par signings were because the board didn't trust conte (or they knew they'd get rid of him at the end of this season) and thus did not want to invest hundreds of millions into players conte prefers for his system... or it it's because we're building a new stadium and we are planning on reducing costs for the next 5 or so years. I still have hope that if/when we get a new manager this summer, the board will back him and let him bring him some top quality signings. I may be wrong but I don't necessarily think roman wants to go on a 10 year period like arsenal where they almost didn't spend any money. I think and hope roman is too ambitious for that and will want to back the club with decent transfer kits regardless of the stadium being built (news came in yesterday saying that the building project can go ahead)

i think it's more of a psychological thing... although we put up a great fight over two legs, our 2018 has been pretty shite, conte is always in emo mode, we've had abject performances, shite tactics and the overall atmosphere of the club isn't what it was last year. I think all these factors play into his less electric play this season and especially recently. The mental aspect plays a huge role at this top level

I love Hazard and still think he can be great for us in the future if we surround him with more players that want to link-up and play intricate passes together as well as more quality overall all over the pitch. For me, his recent slight dip of form comes at a good time in terms of us keeping him. He loses a bit of leverage in terms of real madrid being less motivated to come in for him this summer based on these performances... He wasn't great yesterday, but to be honest, I don't see him as a player that will carry the team single handedly. Sure he can do on occasions but he can't do it game-in, game-out as his time at chelsea has shown. He needs a well oiled team of great players working well alongside him and then he is at his best, not when's he's asked to do everything... He was good in 2015, but then so was costa, matic, courtois, JT etc, same in 16-17, costa, kante, luiz were all amazing too. He will never be a Messi and that's fine, we just need to get the best of him by doing what is in the best interest of the team anyways, surround him with top talent. I would love for him to stay his whole career with chelsea, pick up a few more PL titles, and other cups and for him to be considered a chelsea legend. He probably won't surpass drogs, lamps, jt in the chelsea legend echelon even if he does remain his whole career at chelsea but he will be in the conversation. and we will have had a very unique, class, talented, entertaining player who played almost all of his career with us to call our own.. tldr: he isn't and will never be messi but he's ours and i still love him and want him to stay

I'm honestly wondering whether madrid would even want him at this point... de gea has been amazing and MU have been horrendous so maybe they will try to get him instead and, given MU's horrible performances, he might be tempted to go. atletico already have a world class gk too so not sure who else would want him. he's really annoying me with his really sub-par play and with his constant talking up of a move to spain but i have a feeling chelsea and courtois will be stuck with each other for the time being...

so much for everyone wanking over spurs and pochettino [emoji23][emoji23][emoji1303] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That's the key thing for me. Everything else aside, if you lose the players, you're basically done as a manager at a top club and based on the city performance, I feel he has lost the dressing room...

as sad as it is to say, conte out! He's lost the dressing room, tries to show everyone what a thin squad he has seemingly at all times (we get it conte, it's not ideal) rather than focusing on getting the best results out of his players, he gives off an air of "what can I do? we're fucked anyways because of the board", he's isolated luiz for seemingly no reason (pretty sure luiz' injury isn't the only reason we haven't seen him a while), he handled the Costa situation very poorly, now he's mishandling eden hazad by playing him out of position all the time and subbing him off bizarrely, at the most crucial juncture of our club's relationship with eden.... he needs to go ASAP

I don't actually want to ban anyone, wasn't really being serious. Having said that, users who like to draw attention to themselves by posting ridiculous statements and trolling are pretty annoying

ban

Thank God we don't have to make a choice between AVB's disastrous 5-3 losses and Conte's embarrassing but in a different way 1-0 losses because both of those scenarios are pretty horrible. Of all the managers we've had in the past 15 or so years, I would say Carlo had the most entertaining football whilst also winning trophies. He would have probably been a better example to use than the utter disaster that was AVB lol

I have been 100% behind Conte from his first day until ...yesterday. That was the last straw, he seems more interested in trying to prove a point that he doesn't have the adequate pieces to make a real challenge to win trophies (I probably agree that he doesn't). He looks like a defeated man, not capable of inspiring the squad or getting any tactics right. His in-game tactics as well as some of the line-ups he's picked over the past few weeks have been absolutely horrible... I think we need to sack him before we risk losing hazard because of him. Sad for me to say this but I think we should cut ties ASAP, don't see us getting top 4 with him unfortunately. Would take an interim manager for until the end of the season at this point...

oh ok, in that case, most players from the teams above us (city, MU, tottenham, liverpool) would walk into our team in all positions except for kante in DMF, and maybe christiansen at CB could keep his spot as well. Still wouldn't want can in our midfield though lol

well yeah if we isolate this period of 10 games where Morata has been utter shite, sure. But if I were to take a long term view of both players, I'd still like to think Morata can return to the form he was playing at towards the beginning of the season and would still have him over firmino. If we base it solely on current form for like the past couple of months then you could argue these liverpool players are better but I don't think it's the best way to go about it