Post-season review - Chelsea 2013/14

[Vybz Kartel 1,613]

Why was Lukaku allowed to leave on loan?

[thekid9 418]

Massive Failure! MASSIVE.

[Henrique 9,133]

It's all about looking at the context off thing's. If we were a squad in it's prime then 2nd/3rd and trophyless would be considered a failure. However the last 3 season's we have been riddled with an ageing, unbalanced squad, weak midfield even shite team's walked over and no real plan going forward.

Jose has come in and done superbly in his first year, the problems off last few years won't go away overnight and there has been a few shocking on pitch displays, but we look a much more balanced and stable unit these days, on and off the pitch (Rui Faria or Zenden?).

Missing out on a trophy won't be nice, but at the same time we have made great strides in terms off consistency and performance this term and a choice between that and Europey? no contest.

Good points, but we still have an unbalanced squad, with too many young guys that just cant handle the pressure yet (Oscar, Hazard, Schule).

We have some great talents like Hazard and some mediocre players, like Cahill.

Our defense is liability. Mourinho is a genius, because he managed to turno our defense in the best in the league, but that happened because our attacking players now are spending more time in their defensive duties than in past season, when Hazard, Oscar and Mata barely helped the defense.

Some people our defense os okay, but I think Mourinho just discovered a way to make those players work in a defensive system, but for me thats more a quick fix than anything.

Azi is a RB, not a LB, and Ivanovic is not good enough when he have the ball on his feet. Terry is having a solid season, but at the end of the day he scored an own goal in crucial game in PL, and was poor in the most important game of the season. Cahill is not a great defender, he just a hardworking man.

I think Mourinho fixed some problems, but those were quick and temporary fixes. We will discovery if he will handle the situation well in next season.

[Henrique 9,133]

After such a game, there are people around there who still believe this season is a success.

I understand it was Mourinho first season and the squad had many problems. Some can even call this season a transition. It might be a transition, but it still a failure.

Its failure for Chelsea standards (its gonna be only the 4th trophyless season in 11 years of Abramovich era), and its gonna be a failure for Mourinho standards (its his 2nd trophyless season since 2002, the second in a row).

Only failure specialists would say this season is a success.

[TrippingStep 336]

Progress has been made in terms of bringing back a quality DM in Matic and winning key games against the big boys....but our struggles against the lower-half of the EPL continues..

Overall...without any trophies*, the season is a failure.

You can't call another manager a specialist in failure and then in the same season, fail to win anything with your own club.

*The season isn't over...but I don't see us winning the PL or UCL this season.

Against the lower half or average teams, it's worse than last year as we don't have the excuse of playing every three four days and our squad is deeper.

But it's not a great surprise to me as Mourinho's team have always look average when his teams had to break defences.

If Real wins the champion's league this year, it would be an horrible season for him.

[petre.ispirescu 4,928]

Success for me is Jose coming back home. He'll take it from here.

I just wonder if those guys blaming Jose in his first season (with a pretty average squad) will have the guts to open this topic in four of five years from now on.

[iseah100 5,612]

Success for me is Jose coming back home. He'll take it from here.

I just wonder if those guys blaming Jose in his first season (with a pretty average squad) will have the guts to open this topic in four of five years from now on.

In 5 years? When we have 3 BPL titles and 2 UCL titles? Doubt it.

[kellzfresh 7,229]

Its not a failure because we are challenging strongly for the big trophies finally (after years of being massive underdogs in everything, mourinhos presence alone made people see us as contenders once again), and have made our home a fortress once again.

But sometimes success is measured by trophies, this season can slide because it is a good progress in terms of transition.

Now mourinho has an idea on the full weakness of the squad, now he has a transfer window to fix it, now he has seen first hand how we have suffered with torres, no fucking way things will be the same again next season.

We will come stronger next season.

[The Skipper 20,609]

But we showed ''progress'' remember?

What is different from this and the Palace game compared to Napoli+ West Brom 2 years ago?

A 14 match unbeaten run before the Palace game maybe?

[Fernando 6,585]

Success for me is Jose coming back home. He'll take it from here.

I just wonder if those guys blaming Jose in his first season (with a pretty average squad) will have the guts to open this topic in four of five years from now on.

No need to wait for that.

If next season we are still horrible, mourinho would just walk away.

But I have full confidence that next season we will be much better.

[Mr_President 404]

It's neither to me. Real success would have been winning the league/CL, failure would have been no progression as a team and struggling to keep our place in the top 4. Jose has done what I expected him to do in bringing us up a level as a team and has built solid foundations for the future. He will make additions in the summer (his recent striker comments confirm it really, can't help but feel strarting Schurrle instead of Torres sends a powerful message to the board that a true CF is needed).

I suppose we all have different definitions of failure, some might argue that any season where we don't win silverware is automatically deemed a failure. Whilst I agree witht the sentiment that we should be striving to win titles every season, it doesn't - at least in my view - automatically mean that we must categorise a barren season as a failure.

The squad needs work, it isn't complete. People on this forum know this, match going Chelsea fans know this but, most importantly, Jose and the board surely know this. The necessary addditions and amendments to the squad will be made in the summer and that, combined with our current players gaining more experience/age, will mean that next season will see even bigger improvements.

I am just grateful that I can enjoy watching Chelsea again. People seem to have short memories but it was only last season when Benitez was here and the atmosphere at SB and even away games was...toxic, to say the least. No one likes losing and the mood on these boards (not just this forum, but football forums in general) is very fickle, a couple of poor results and the season is a failure, before that we were gunning for the title but now all hope is lost etc.?

We are in a good place.

[didierforever 7,349]

A 14 match unbeaten run before the Palace game maybe?

Not worth it dude. These are the same guys who will be saying that the season is a success if we win against stoke and city and pool drop points to soton and whu (all 3 results very likely).

The mob is fickle. 3 losses in last 5 games in all competitions has sent most of them over the edge.

[didierforever 7,349]

Irrespective of what happens in the next 7 (atleast) and hopefully more matches is irrelevant.

If u had asked me what the expectations werr before the start of the season, I would have said,

QF in CL (maybe Semis) but a lot depends on luck there.

in title race for PL.

One of the domestic cups.

The only disappoinment was the domestic cups. The sunderland match was a debacle while in the city game we were outplayed. So far we have acheived what we should have done.

[Henrique 9,133]

Success for me is Jose coming back home. He'll take it from here.

I just wonder if those guys blaming Jose in his first season (with a pretty average squad) will have the guts to open this topic in four of five years from now on.

Avarage squad that end up in 3th last season in PL...okay.

[lionsden 4,689]

The problem is that as seen many times it just becomes a way of trying to push back the issue of trying to give them chances into the squad for as long as possible. Taking the view that I think that the whole issue of expeirence is just a bollocks excuse that isused to try and justify why they can't get a run in the first team, the problem iswhen do we reach a point where they have the required 'experience' to be given a chance in the team. First its they have no experience at all, so they are shipped out to some lower division team, then its they have no top flight experience, so the club tries to ship them out to one, then its'but they don't have any experience playing for us' or no Champions league experience, so their chances are stalled again, then by that time we buy someone like Zouma (who lates faces was getting massive amounts of hype andalready has over 40 appearances in Ligue 1) who becuase we spent a hefty sum of money (both Zouma and Salah cost usover £20 million pounds) get priority andso we are back to square one.

In all honesty the same arguments are going back and forth and there is no point repeating them, the phase 'agree to disagree' comes to mind now.

Post of the century. The whole youth development policy is shambles. you can stockpile and loan out all the talented youngsters in europe but without conviction aka balls to introduce and embed them into the 1st team, it all counts for nothing. if our policy is to purely make profit off these youngsters then fine but I don't want to hear any bollocks from the club hierachy about the bullshit youth development that they have been spouting for near a decade.