Who to blame for the worst season in the Roman era ?

[Bosnian Blue 2,471]

Then again: Who appointed the 'advisors' ?

[Henrique 9,133]

For me the first mistake was start the season with RDM as the "permanent" manager.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Anyone who says Roman, for my money, is an idiot. He doesn't personally swing the axe. Its those "advisers" of his. Roman has invested a lot of money in this club and continues to do so. How anyone can therefore label him as the main problem is beyond me. Yes, he does make the ultimate decisions and some small degree of the trouble has been caused by his own ruthlessness, but the real issue here lies with those aforesaid "advisers" and the board in general. We entered a season fighting for seven trophies with the smallest squad we've had since 2006/07. Imagine how bad this season would have been with a long-term injury to Luiz, Cech or Mata, for instance. We've been underprepared for this season from the word go thanks to the inability of the board to keep a consistent, competitive core to the team. Look at all the loans we've had - you're telling me Essien, Lukaku, de Bruyne, Courtois et al. couldn't have been of any help this season? And by the same token, whose idea was it to sell Meireles, loan out KDB, Benayoun and Essien and then, with Romeu out for the season, decide not to bring in a replacement in January?

Nevermind #RafaOut - #BOARDOUTNOW.

Those two bolded statements aren't contradictory?

It's so easy to blame his advisors, but the other accusation laid at their feet is that they're nothing but 'yes men'. People criticising them can't have it both ways.

Roman wanted Guardiola. Roman wagered this club's immediate future on getting Guardiola. Funnily enough, that has consequences.

Now if you want to look at the players we let go then fine, but be honest about it. You say Lukaku could have helped, but do you mean the Lukaku before his loan or the Lukaku we have now? People were writing him off in the summer, now people are saying we shouldn't have let him go.

The same goes for Essien. Are you saying we should have kept a player on the wage bill who has had TWO major knee injuries and played less than 21 games in THREE of the last FOUR seasons? Or do you want the Essien that we have now, apparently fit and available?

Calling for the board to be sacked is easy. No board is popular because they spend most of their time saying 'no' to things, and most fans haven't got a clue what they do. You'll never run short of likes calling for the board to be sacked, especially if it gives people someone to blame who isn't a billionaire that happens to bankroll your club.

[Changingman_2000 876]

Easy to blame Roman, and no doubt rightly so. The board just sat on their hands it would seem.

TFSW has been a disaster. No goals and one point against QPR. One point against Southampton, losing to, of all teams, fucking West Ham. Literally stumbling through game after game. The marginalising of Terry and Lampard has achieved what? To show them that they aint top dogs anymore?, blinding idea......if we have better players to step into their shoes, but we don't. Limp wristed performances like Swansea away in the League Cup has been typical.

We have some very, very iffy games left. If Roman brought that cunt in to get top 4 then he is going to end up with egg on his face. Unless the Yids and the Arse collapse, not to forget Everton, we have no chance.

Anyone optimistic about Fulham away?

Snivelpool next weekend is going to be a mare. They will treat him as some returning hero, he will milk it, big time, we will be left to look like cunts and when, not if, they beat us, we will have bin dipper after bin dipper broadcasting that TFSW "fixed" it, so to speak.

Bastard of a season. Last season, League wise was of course pony. But sterling performances against Napoli, Bara, Yids, kept it ticking over and to beat the Bin Dippers in the final and, of course Munich was sweet.

Should have given Steve Holland a go, when RDM went. In my opinion, in hindsight.

[Spike 12,049]

Hopefully this season is a wake up call for the the mad twatters in charge. Maybe they've learnt from their idiotic mistakes.

[Tomo 21,733]

This season is not the worst in the Roman era, not even close compared to 10/11.

[OneMoSalah 8,778]

For me the first mistake was start the season with RDM as the "permanent" manager.

Exactly.

Di Matteo didn't have the experience to rebuild a team such as Chelsea. I was surprised he was given the job because of one, Roman's so called admiration for Pep and two, his managerial inexperience but I suppose if your the owner of a club and the interim coach has won the CL and FA cup with an aging squad of average players and a few players putting in exceptional performances in vital games (Cech, Mata, Cole, Ramires, Drogba) you'd consider that you should maybe give the bloke a chance at least.

He brought in a few players but we needed much more. We needed another center forward and central midfielder.

The likes of Hazard, Oscar, Moses, Azpilicueta and Marin were along the right idea. Young, technically better than the players we had before, potential resale value etc.

We still needed another midfielder as Lampard isn't good enough and disciplined to play in the double pivot, Ramires neither. Mikel and Romeu can play the holding role out of the two but aren't helped with poor and inconsistent performances and a partner who suits the role. Meireles and Mikel in the game against Newcastle impressed me, why did we sell Meireles?

Torres has huffed and puffed all year long, hes not that same player he was before. Signing Ba has helped slightly with rotation but we could have done with Lukaku playing for us this year, another mistake by the board/Di Matteo/whoever.

Di Matteo managed the egos last year and got them on his side and playing for him but this year with the younger players he didn't exactly figure out how to incorporate them into the squad and that ultimately cost us due to the small squad we have. De Bruyne and Lukaku could have made a hell of a difference for us. Look at where WBA are thanks to Lukaku's goals, the mans proved all his doubters wrong after a frustrating season last year where he was branded a flop by many on here. De Bruyne didn't play well in pre-season for us but he could of still been useful for us when Moses was at the ACON or when Moses and Hazard were fatigued/injured.

Even looking at pre-season this year. We only won ONE pre-season game against Seattle Sounders. That is shocking, I don't care if the games were to gain fitness or not but the likes of Lampard in MF was found out and Ivanovic at RB too. The fact we got crushed by a championship side too made me question was Di Matteo out of his depth, he played a £200 million side and we got beat and were poor. The start of the season we played well but after that United game it all fell apart.

This isn't the worst season in the Roman era for sure as last year is despite the CL triumph, but its certainly not the best.

[remains of the day 564]

Calling for the board to be sacked is easy. No board is popular because they spend most of their time saying 'no' to things, and most fans haven't got a clue what they do. You'll never run short of likes calling for the board to be sacked, especially if it gives people someone to blame who isn't a billionaire that happens to bankroll your club.

To a certain extent, yes that might be true. But at the end of the day, Roman isn't receiving monetary compensation to do a job. I can see why *some* of the blame needs to be attributed to him for decisions regarding managerial appointments/firings and the whole Torres situation.

But to argue that he is fully to blame for this mess of a season and not the board, is absurd and removes accountability from people who are getting paid a shit load of money to ensure that x, y, z is being done. We know that Roman is involved with club affairs, but it's not like he's micro-managing everything relating to transfer dealings. Is it his fault that we don't have good enough players for the pivot? Or that 25 million was squandered on another attacking player when there are holes in other areas? Isn't that why he has a technical director getting a nice salary to ensure that the squad is in good shape to mount title challenges?

[communicate 2,703]

In term of result, probably but this team is far from the worst.

You can see the potential unlike last season. I remember looking at our bench and we only had bosingwa and malouda as our options. Now we have mazacar,moses and azpi.

[Tomo 21,733]

In term of result, probably but this team is far from the worst.

You can see the potential unlike last season. I remember looking at our bench and we only had bosingwa and malouda as our options. Now we have mazacar,moses and azpi.

Exactly, we have been treated to some superb performances this season where the potential of this team is there for all to see, but we can't let experience go replace them with under 23's and expect any more than what we have got this season it's pure fantasy.

I challenge someone to say (honestly) they felt better about the future of this club in 2010/2011 say when we lost to Wolves than what they do now.

[Bosnian Blue 2,471]

Exactly, we have been treated to some superb performances this season where the potential of this team is there for all to see, but we can't let experience go replace them with under 23's and expect any more than what we have got this season it's pure fantasy.

I challenge someone to say (honestly) they felt better about the future of this club in 2010/2011 say when we lost to Wolves than what they do now.

We're talking present, not future. 6 trophies lost out of 7, the 2010/11 season was way better than this one. But thats not the point, the point is this is a bad season and somebody is culpable for it.

[Tomo 21,733]

We're talking present, not future. 6 trophies lost out of 7, the 2010/11 season was way better than this one. But thats not the point, the point is this is a bad season and somebody is culpable for it.

Im responding to the fact you said this was our worst season under Roman, and imo 10/11 was much worse, our future looked dire that term, now we have some of the upcoming stars of world football.

I fail to see how this season has been that bad (so far), unless someone was expecting a title win, were in a state of transition, these things take time. The best we could have hoped for this season was 3rd with a couple of cups on the side, we are in a good position to finish 3rd and claim a trophy, i would have accepted that in August given how much experience we let go.

While parts of this season have been frustrating, i am more than encouraged by the direction we are heading in on the pitch, the potential of this team is unreal, all we need is a bit more defensive balance (Khedira would be perfect) and we are laughing.

[Korea 734]

The funny thing is that the board is doing their job exactly like how I play PES master league...

Get all the top young talent of the world, go through 1-2 transitional years and becoming the best team in the world!

The thing I am worried about though, similar to PES, what are we going to do with the young talent that don't make it..... I remember I use to have a team of 26-30 top flight players mostly under 25......

It's going to be a problem in the future, since a lot of the guys Chelsea sign on were and are big names.

[Santiago. 1,500]

The Board, Making the biggest mistake in the world by sacking RDM and selling Sturridge as well as missing crucial aspects of our weakness that even I fucking pointed out in 2010 when we sold Ballack and Deco.

Torres and the amount of reliance we put on him as well as his consistent bottling.

Rafa Benitez

Lack of a complementary defender with Luiz.

Squad is a mess, focusing sooo much on the future we completely fucking ignored about our current problems and our crucial weakness in the midfield that we've been suffering from since 2010.

[underdrog 18]

our inability to stick with managers even when some of them were worldclass.

But good.This should have happened.I think CFC will be a better . Even if we finish our o. Don't know what but there should be some changes at the top.

[Badboy 1,526]

Maybe it's because Drogba/Lampard patched up our weaknesses so much since 05-06 that now we don't really have those type of incredibly driven players to constantly save our bacon anymore. Those flair players we have now are really good..... the likes of Hazard and Mata are superb but they can't do anything if they're not playing well but Lampard and Drogba even if they were not playing well they were still a danger because they had incredible drive to just dig out a win away from home when it mattered. In short we've basically tried to change our system too fast and we've paid the price with a shitty season. We've had a shit team since 2005-2006 and we only won the league in 2009-2010 because Drogba and Lampard powered us to it through their goals. We have to be honest with ourselves and say we've woeful since that season and that is a fact ! Since then we've relied on individual brilliance and now those players that constantly saved us are gone and in Lampards case basically retired.

[butchercoat 60]

Look on the bright side.....Fernando is finding his shooting boots again, if only he could lace them up in time for next season......

[Beirut_Blues 306]

_{Yaa it's definitely a shit season.... I'm just looking forward to a top 4 finish, Jose coming in and turning the tide.}

_{Whether Jose comes in I don't know, but the odds are pretty firm on that rumour and I'm sort of convinced he will be here.}

_{Regarding Roman, he fukkd up big time by sacking Robbie and bringing in Benitez.}

_{What's done is done so lets take the thorns out of our asses and look forward to a top 4 finish.}