Respect the fans

[True_Blue 469]

I've been following CFC home and away since the ''glory'' days of 1976. Loved it, despite some awful teams, crap stadiums and rubbish treatment from police and stewards. We I board the train in Sussex with my mates to head to the game, it's as exciting as when I was a teenager.

That said, after the dreadful way that Di Matteo was treated and then to hire Benetiz I'm ashamed and angry at our club. I shall go to the Nordsjaelland game to protest and that will be my last game this season. The owner and his board of muppet yes-men clearly have no regard or respect for the fans. We are the heart and soul that Roman can't buy!

I'm behind you mate 100% hope to see more of the same from our fans.

[zolayes 14,489]

@zolayes, I am having a really hard time trying to understand why this Abramovich hate has grown so strong in you lately. Care to explain?

PS: It is not a joke of any kind, you know the club way better than I do, I just want you to open my eyes on some issues I might be missing. Thank you!

He shows no respect or compassion for others . He has bought the club the way he buys his yachts and properties . He plays FM with transfers

and managers ,,, As a person I feel he is a complete shit ... Rich as Croesus but devoid in decent human traits

[Rmpr 8,977]

He shows no respect or compassion for others . He has bought the club the way he buys his yachts and properties . He plays FM with transfers

and managers ,,, As a person I feel he is a complete shit ... Rich as Croesus but devoid in decent human traits

Alright, he does treat Chelsea like his toy. However, you can treat carefully your toy and have passion to it (just like a kid does). His son has clearly shown it...

Besides the atrocious way he sacked Wilkins (Carlo has even mentioned it in his biography), I dont think he has done anything really wrong. All the manager firing has proved to be right, except Mourinho and Carlo. With RDM there were a lot of emotions and you saw how I was reacting but after reading some very interesting articles, he was training the team pretty poorly. Maybe Roman saw what happen last year and there is CWC ahead so he decided to change before it gets worse (I personally think it would get better though). We also dont know what the agreement between them was like.

I personally dont think he disrespect us. He just does things his way without asking our opinion in any matter, just like a manager does not attend the fans wishes (remember Di Matteo`s defensive wingers?). Sometimes they get it right and make us happy and sometimes they dont. He is a shit person as far as I am concern, but that is private of him. We are not his friends or anything...

He helped Chelsea in many ways, not just by winning trophies. His legacy is way beyond that: stadium renovation, museum, store, marketing, fans (real or plastic), etc. I think some people get mad at him because he control things very personally, but when you invest that kind of money it is understandable. Someother owner can easily come, not invest in the club and still be authoritarian. Sometimes I think our fans are asking participation in aspects that no one in the world has, in any kind of institution.

What do you think he should do to gain your trust? Do you feel the Board needs to do meetings with the fans, etc?

EDIT: I really cant see people hating him so much. It is pissing me off, it really is bothering me (not the hate, my unability to understand).

[Henrique 9,133]

Can understand your feelings but the fact of the matter is, there will always be someone who'll jump to take your seat at a game. The way the club is now we have fans who'll pay just to go see the team play without any real feelings towards what's happening with our manager & owner. So this really doesnt affect roman in anyway. I sat next to a woman at the Norwich game who didn't even know who we were playing & just thought, why you even here?

It happens everywhere. In Brazil, in England in USA and in other sports league like NBA. There are people that go to stadium to watch the game, just to enjoy the experience.

Many people that travel to USA go to a NBA game as tourists. In Brazil there are people that go to stadium, they support the club, but they really dont care if the manager is John or Paul, and about this woman, come on Kez, its a very good thing to see ladies enjoying football, but asking for them to know Norwich is a little too much.

[OneMoSalah 8,614]

I dont see the massive fuss now after the last day or two, whats done is done. Anyway where was the 50 threads for AVB or Carlo or Scolari etc. Move on. Roman does things his ways, it has brought us success, simple as. If you'd rather have a manager in for 10 years than win trophies your nuts. I was pissed with AVB's sacking but we won two trophies so in the end I wasn't as pissed. I feel we will do something similar with Rafa.

[TheCount 146]

Roman wants the best, hence hes not easily satisfied. Boycott and complain all you want, some of us are happy we're moving forward.

If he wanted the best he would of swallowed his pride in 07 and kept mourinho, Roman dosent want the best, because he dosent even know what he wants or what "the best" even is. He's a fucking tool and i love him for what he done to help the club, but that dosent change the fact that he's rich man, who is a fucking idiot when it comes to football.

[RamiCFC9 258]

As RyanDavidson said :" I'd rather the club won trophies and was recognized as a successful club than kept managers for 10 years. If anyone else would rather a manager in charge for 10 years and not as many trophies then they are fucking retarded. Also being honest, Robbie isn't as a great a manager as you think, he won us the CL which we are all grateful for but his tactical knowledge was useless, every team we've played, we've gave time and space on the ball this season. If some of the finishing was better, we'd be 7th or 8th not 3rd."

If you want Robbie to stay and we play shit almost every game and at the end win 0 trophies, while we can sack him and with Benitez win trophies, then you are not Chelsea fan but Robbie fan and can fuck off.

[Strike 6,961]

As RyanDavidson said :" I'd rather the club won trophies and was recognized as a successful club than kept managers for 10 years. If anyone else would rather a manager in charge for 10 years and not as many trophies then they are fucking retarded. Also being honest, Robbie isn't as a great a manager as you think, he won us the CL which we are all grateful for but his tactical knowledge was useless, every team we've played, we've gave time and space on the ball this season. If some of the finishing was better, we'd be 7th or 8th not 3rd."

If you want Robbie to stay and we play shit almost every game and at the end win 0 trophies, while we can sack him and with Benitez win trophies, then you are not Chelsea fan but Robbie fan and can fuck off.

I agree that Rafael Benitez is tactically better and that Robbie was going to go anyway. The point is - Why bother giving Robbie the job in the summer if they will pull the trigger at the slightest twich?

[Jase 43,479]

No Plan B

What Plan B could he possibly have when the board only gave RDM 2 strikers with 1 seemingly getting injured so often all of a sudden AND taking away 2 CMs from him in the last day of the transfer window leaving him short in options in that CM department?! Give it to another manager and I doubt they can do much about it when the squad lacks depth in certain department and is unbalanced.

I agree that Rafael Benitez is tactically better and that Robbie was going to go anyway. The point is - Why bother giving Robbie the job in the summer if they will pull the trigger at the slightest twich?

That's because Roman couldn't get Guardiola or anyone decent.

[RamiCFC9 258]

I agree that Rafael Benitez is tactically better and that Robbie was going to go anyway. The point is - Why bother giving Robbie the job in the summer if they will pull the trigger at the slightest twich?

How am I supposed to answer you really.It's like when I was saying we are playing shit under RDM and someone asked me how would I change that.Sorry but iam no football manager and no Roman Abramovic.

[Strike 6,961]

How am I supposed to answer you really.It's like when I was saying we are playing shit under RDM and someone asked me how would I change that.Sorry but iam no football manager and no Roman Abramovic.

i'll put it in a different way. all this hate on roman is not because he's sacked di matteo. it's because he hasn't given di matteo enough time. if he was always looking to sack him, why bother appointing him in the first place?

[The only place to be 11,313]

why bother appointing him in the first place?

Because he had to.

Guardiola wasn't available so guess what Roman did.

HE LISTENED TO THE FANS. He appointed Robbie because he's a Chelsea legend who galvanised the squad and won the Champions League.

But coming in and uniting a squad is completely different from building something long-term. He never trusted Robbie to do that and in his first season, Robbie failed to qualify from the group stages of the Champions League. In purely financial terms that is a big deal, but for a club of our stature and as holders, it simply wasn't up to Roman's standards.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

Because he had to.

Guardiola wasn't available so guess what Roman did.

HE LISTENED TO THE FANS. He appointed Robbie because he's a Chelsea legend who galvanised the squad and won the Champions League.

But coming in and uniting a squad is completely different from building something long-term. He never trusted Robbie to do that and in his first season, Robbie failed to qualify from the group stages of the Champions League. In purely financial terms that is a big deal, but for a club of our stature and as holders, it simply wasn't up to Roman's standards.

He didn't fail to qualify. Chelsea still have a decent shot of going through in a very tough group. Why didn't Roman wait until after the Nordsjelland game to see if we went through or not? Our performance this season has been better than anyone should have expected given the holes in this team. This sacking was clearly not about results, but just about not wanting RDM in there. Anyway, Benitez was actually offered the job 8 days before he took it, so the last two games weren't even a factor. Roman decided to sack RDM because we drew Liverpool and Swansea. That's all it took and that's just F^$%ing ridiculous.

[The only place to be 11,313]

He didn't fail to qualify. Chelsea still have a decent shot of going through in a very tough group. Why didn't Roman wait until after the Nordsjelland game to see if we went through or not? Our performance this season has been better than anyone should have expected given the holes in this team. This sacking was clearly not about results, but just about not wanting RDM in there. Anyway, Benitez was actually offered the job 8 days before he took it, so the last two games weren't even a factor. Roman decided to sack RDM because we drew Liverpool and Swansea. That's all it took and that's just F^$%ing ridiculous.

But Robbie knew this coming in. He knew he had to be almost flawless to win over a guy who never really wanted him there long-term. Fair play to Robbie for still going for it because he loved the club, but trust me this didn't come out of the blue for him.

With regards the Champions League, it's going to take a miracle for us to go through. But even then, I don't think fluking through having been comprehensively outplayed away to both Shakhtar and Juventus is good enough for Roman. The guy needed evidence that long-term we were moving in the right direction.

The league situation is slightly different. We've been better than most people expected, but the away games to both Swansea and West Brom were rather foreboding. We can point to individuals underperforming but Robbie knew he would never be able to use those excuses.

It simply comes down to Roman never seeing Robbie as the long-term solution, and thinking that in the short-term Benitez was the better option and may also be able to get a £50 million investment firing again.

Out of interest, did you feel better about this Sunday's game with Robbie in charge, or with Benitez in charge? Because I'm going to be honest - I was worried about this game immediately after the Juve game. I felt the same way as I did before the West Brom game in fact.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

Out of interest, did you feel better about this Sunday's game with Robbie in charge, or with Benitez in charge? Because I'm going to be honest - I was worried about this game immediately after the Juve game. I felt the same way as I did before the West Brom game in fact.

It makes no difference. Maybe we'll get a new manager bounce because players become rededicated to tactics (and because our schedule after City is really really easy) but anyone who thinks that managers come in and make an immediate massive difference is just wrong.

Also, it won't take a miracle to qualify. We should win our game easily and all it would take is a Shakhtar win. Playing for a draw is not as easy as you'd think. Juventus can't sit back and hope that Shakhtar don't try to score too hard and Shakhtar don't want to lose and finish second either. They both have to actually play this one.

[Ollie 4,400]

We drew against QPR where we should've gad 2 penalties 100% - Match Officials to blame

We lost against Man Utd where we had 2 sent off, 1 was harsh and they scored a late offside winner - Match Officials to blame.

We drew against Liverpool because the officials failed to see a blatant push by Luis Suarez on Ramires. - Match officials to blame.

We lost to Juve because Hazards shot was saved very fortunately by the inside of Buffons leg and they scored some extremely lucky goals. - Bad fortune to blame.

We've been brilliant this season, just hit a dodgy spell that happens, especially teams with very young players who are new and changing the philosophy of how we play. We were handed an extremely tough Champions League group, no team has a god given right to beat Juve and Shakhtar. Last season, Man Utd and Man City failed to get out their respective groups and Man City have failed this season too. We can still qualify and if we beat Man City on Sunday, would go just 1 point behind top in the league and i really think we would've beat them too. We've dropped through no fault of our own.

Is Roman trying to convince himself that Rafa did well at Liverpool? Because i don't believe he did. He fluked a UCL and FA Cup and his best finish in the prem was 2nd before he got sacked the next season when they were like 6th or 7th or something. We were top 2 in 2011 yet Carlo was sacked for that, yet that bad season equalled Rafa's best season in England. Did rafa not have an 8 game spell where they lost a few and won hardly any? I'm pretty sure they must've done or Liverpool woulda been Champions a couple of times.

I thought Roman wanted to 'play like Barca' yet now he's brought in a fat negative Chelsea hating prick to go back to basics and be boring again i guess. I'll get behind him because he want's to do his best for us but we all know that Either Pep or Jose will be here in the Summer and Maybe Rafa will go to Real Madrid if he does well here. This is all about Benitez putting himself back in the shop window so it probably will be good for us but there would've been absolutely no harm in letting Robbie stay til the end of the season, at least he got a pay off though.

Roman doesn't care about us, he'll do whatever it takes to do what's best for Chelsea which is a good thing really but just the fact of being at Chelsea and sacking a true Chelsea fans favourite and legend for someone like Rafael Benitez for only 6 months is something that will only ever get us against him. You don't treat proper Chelsea people like that. I still feel we would've challenged under Robbie, look at how we beat Arsenal and Tottenham and how our youngsters are already making a mark. This Chelsea team would've been awesome in 2 years time, especially under RDM who the players clearly liked and enjoyed working with.

I love Chelsea with all my heart but a part of me wouldn't be gutted if we came 10th and had our worst season for 2 decades. It would show Roman a thing or 2. The only thing that would make me like Benitez would be if he said some shit about Liverpool prior to our away game and masterminded a 3-0 win there to win the league at Anfield, then i'd hail him. i see though that the Fergie - Rafa games have started again, i will look forward to them with us. FACT.

[Rmpr 8,977]

He didn't fail to qualify. Chelsea still have a decent shot of going through in a very tough group. Why didn't Roman wait until after the Nordsjelland game to see if we went through or not? Our performance this season has been better than anyone should have expected given the holes in this team. This sacking was clearly not about results, but just about not wanting RDM in there. Anyway, Benitez was actually offered the job 8 days before he took it, so the last two games weren't even a factor. Roman decided to sack RDM because we drew Liverpool and Swansea. That's all it took and that's just F^$%ing ridiculous.

I disagree that the results didnt even count...

Abramovich always dreamt of being Champions of Europe but it was kind of holow for him. He wanted to see similar headlines to Barcelona (09-11), instead, he got things like: "Against the Odds", "Chelsea Bought Glory", etc. Which is more than fine for me, not for Roman. His goal is rather ambitious, he wants everyone to aknowledge he made a fantastic team that plays good football. He wants to be remmebered as the man who turned Chelsea into legends like that 1970 Brazil.

Atfer everyone saying we did not deserved to win it, he wanted to transform us for this season (which we know is impossbile, but he is a billionare). He wanted other managers but stuck with RDM because executives inside the club asked for it. He had the task of attacking football and to win trophies. We lost to ManCity, to Atletico and EPL lead. He couldnt contain himself anymore and called to see if Benitez was available. The Board plead for him to wait at least until Juve game and after what happened, Di Matteo had no more way to justify himself (for Roman, of course). He desperately dont want to lose CWC, that is pretty clear for me. He did not want to risk another trophy and more points being lost in the league.

I know it was fucking ridiculous to give Roberto the job in the first place, but he was doing what we asked him to. Once he had chosen RDM he had to back him up. We all know this wasnt going to happen, he couldnt even back the managers he chose, let alone the one he didnt. It was WRONG, not disrespectful.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

I disagree that the results didnt even count...

Abramovich always dreamt of being Champions of Europe but it was kind of holow for him. He wanted to see similar headlines to Barcelona (09-11), instead, he got things like: "Against the Odds", "Chelsea Bought Glory", etc. Which is more than fine for me, not for Roman. His goal is rather ambitious, he wants everyone to aknowledge he made a fantastic team that plays good football. He wants to be remmebered as the man who turned Chelsea into legends like that 1970 Brazil.

That's not going to happen. The headlines will always be "Roman bought XYZ" because that's what he does.