The Conte Thread

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

3 minutes ago, nono said:

I don't think we have the technical quality to compete with top sides. We always lose the midfield battle against the good teams. This team is still short of 2-3 players and maybe a manager before it gets to competing against the best. I don't think Bakayoko was the right choice for us. Too similar to Kante and keeps giving the ball away in midfield. City pressed us high up and we struggled to complete two passes.

I'm starting to fear that Conte can't implement the style of Man City even if he was given the players to do so. It's not just about having technical quality. You have to be able to implement it and Conte has shown no signs he could ever coach possession based football to the level of Pochettino let alone Guardiola. There's a reason why Bakayoko was our midfield marquee signing. 

[Jase 43,479]

9 minutes ago, MrExcalibur100 said:

I'm starting to fear that Conte can't implement the style of Man City even if he was given the players to do so. It's not just about having technical quality. You have to be able to implement it and Conte has shown no signs he could ever coach possession based football to the level of Pochettino let alone Guardiola. There's a reason why Bakayoko was our midfield marquee signing. 

Are you really expecting Conte to suddenly turn into a possession based coach? Was never one and will never be one. We will dominate matches where possible but he's a pragmatic manager first and foremost.

[Panic 57]

I want to get this post in before the thread turns into a shitshow. Today's performance was bad and there's no doubt about that, but I feel as if people were losing perspective in the match thread. Yes we were outplayed, it's happened before and it will happen again, but this performance wasn't even the worst Chelsea performance under Conte, let alone the past decade. Last years defeat to Arsenal was much much much worse, and not just because it was Arsenal. With that being said, Conte's decisions today do deserve some criticism. But decision making is not as black and white as people make it out to be. Take for instance the decision to not sub on Batshuyai. The team needed an outlet, especially with the way we set up, but does Batshuyai bring that? We've seen enough of him to know that his hold up play is the weakest part of his game. Had Batshuyai been brought on for Morata the game very easily could have played out the same way it did when Willian came on. Of course, Willian has his own weaknesses, and Conte could have subbed Pedro on instead of Willian, but these all have pros and cons. The thing that stood out most today was how city had more attacking talent on the field than we do in our whole squad, plus they were missing Aguero, and they have players like B. Silva on the bench. But we all knew this. We knew coming into this game that City were more talented and in top form. It doesn't excuse the performance, but it sure as hell adds the much needed perspective. Chelsea aren't the most talented team in the Prem and we can't act as if every bad result is the end of our season.

[The Skipper 20,609]

43 minutes ago, MrExcalibur100 said:

Skipper, I honesltly couldn't believe what I just watched. I've already voiced my concerns for this season ^^^. I'm going to do other activities that make me happy. Gutted right now. 

Same. Truly appalled. It’s a recurring theme - in the PL we seem to give the big teams way too much respect this season. Same against Arsenal a few games back. 

[Jase 43,479]

2 minutes ago, The Skipper said:

Same. Truly appalled. It’s a recurring theme - in the PL we seem to give the big teams way too much respect this season. Same against Arsenal a few games back. 

We didn't play well against Arsenal but why can't people just take those arrogant glasses off and accept that they played well on that day to stop us? We were a lot more offensive on that day than today but just couldn't create anything to break them down.

[The Skipper 20,609]

14 minutes ago, Panic said:

Take for instance the decision to not sub on Batshuyai. The team needed an outlet, especially with the way we set up, but does Batshuyai bring that?

Batshuayi is much more of an outlet than Willian. It was just a massive mistake from Conte who doesn’t really like Batshuayi to begin with. He read the game in completely the wrong manner. Willian is dead in the final third. 

[Jase 43,479]

[The Skipper 20,609]

Just now, Jason said:

We didn't play well against Arsenal but why can't people just take those arrogant glasses off and accept that they played well on that day to stop us? We were a lot more offensive on that day than today but just couldn't create anything to break them down.

They played well but we didn’t. We were more offensive in that game but that’s not exactly hard is it? We played with 9 men behind the ball today, at home. I don’t care if it’s City or Barcelona or PSG or Madrid, we have enough quality in the team to not play like that at home. Conte gave Arsenal too much respect, and he gave City even more. 

[Jase 43,479]

3 minutes ago, The Skipper said:

They played well but we didn’t. We were more offensive in that game but that’s not exactly hard is it?

Then you expected to play an open attacking game against City? Only a fool would do that especially with the players and playing style we got.

7 minutes ago, The Skipper said:

We played with 9 men behind the ball today, at home. I don’t care if it’s City or Barcelona or PSG or Madrid, we have enough quality in the team to not play like that at home.

We set up to play on the break, something we have done countless of times over the years, but we were certainly forced to sit back a lot more than we like because we couldn't keep possession to save our lives, even after Morata went off. City just ended up passing the ball and tiring us out knowing we just played days ago in Madrid. Were you complaining when we pretty much played the same way last season against City?

9 minutes ago, The Skipper said:

Conte gave Arsenal too much respect, and he gave City even more. 

How did he give Arsenal too much respect when we tried to go for the win but just happened to come against a useful Arsenal for once?

[xPetrCechx 13,598]

Strange Changes, again.

[The Skipper 20,609]

23 minutes ago, Jason said:

Then you expected to play an open attacking game against City? Only a fool would do that especially with the players and playing style we got.

We set up to play on the break, something we have done countless of times over the years, but we were certainly forced to sit back a lot more than we like because we couldn't keep possession to save our lives, even after Morata went off. City just ended up passing the ball and tiring us out knowing we just played days ago in Madrid. Were you complaining when we pretty much played the same way last season against City?

How did he give Arsenal too much respect when we tried to go for the win but just happened to come against a useful Arsenal for once?

No, don’t expect to play an open attacking game against City but we could’ve approached the game in a much more positive manner. Instead of trying to get the best out of the best talent in our team (Hazard) we were only too worried about the threats City offered. We didn’t cause them any sort of problems, why? 

We set up to play on the break but we’re the home team. After Morata went off we went from playing on the break to playing for a draw. That’s when the performance went downhill - Conte didn’t want to risk playing with a CF that could’ve stretched the City back line a bit more, even though we already had 9/10 men behind the ball. That was the biggest problem of this performance alongside the rest of Conte’s in game management that @MrExcalibur100 outlined pretty well. 

As soon as he chose Willian instead of Michy I knew we were finished. That was the difference between our performance last season and the one we’ve just witnessed. Completely lost the ambition and mentality to win the game. Look at Conte’s post match comments, he’s actually ok with the performance.

[xPetrCechx 13,598]

Chelsea kept to just 4 shots v @ManCity, the fewest in any @premierleague game under Antonio Conte. Had just 2 since the 26th minute.

[Jase 43,479]

2 minutes ago, The Skipper said:

No, don’t expect to play an open attacking game against City but we could’ve approached the game in a much more positive manner. Instead of trying to get the best of the best talent in our team (Hazard) we were only worried about the threats City offered. We didn’t cause them any sort of problems, why? 

We set up to play on the break but we’re the home team. After Morata went off we went from playing on the break to playing for a draw. That’s when the performance went downhill - Conte didn’t want to risk playing with a CF that could’ve stretched the City back line a bit more, even though we already had 9/10 men behind the ball. That was the biggest problem of this performance alongside the rest of Conte’s in game management that @MrExcalibur100 outlined pretty well. 

As soon as he chose Willian instead of Michy I knew we were finished. 

 

Are we debating about the game plan or the execution here because we seem to be going on about 2 different things?

Conte certainly made a few wrong player selections today - that I don't disagree. Thought the game plan was right but the execution was wrong. Not putting Batshuayi (or even Pedro) on for Morata was certainly a baffling one when we looked a tad better after he came on.

[The Skipper 20,609]

16 minutes ago, Jason said:

Are we debating about the game plan or the execution here because we seem to be going on about 2 different things?

Conte certainly made a few wrong player selections today - that I don't disagree. Thought the game plan was right but the execution was wrong. Not putting Batshuayi (or even Pedro) on for Morata was certainly a baffling one when we looked a tad better after he came on.

Well, mostly execution but also game plan. The game plan changed after Morata went off - around the 30th minute. Only had 2 more shots all game since then. 

[Fernando 6,743]

I think the game was over once morata got injured. 

Sadly we don't have anything after him and that's the board fault. 

 

[Reddish-Blue 2,702]

2 hours ago, Fernando said:

I think the game was over once morata got injured. 

Sadly we don't have anything after him and that's the board fault. 

 

It's a shame about Llorente, would have been perfect backup for Morata.

Now we're stuck with Michy, who is a decent player but he seems to care more about Twitter than actually improving himself. 

[Panic 57]

7 hours ago, The Skipper said:

Batshuayi is much more of an outlet than Willian. It was just a massive mistake from Conte who doesn’t really like Batshuayi to begin with. He read the game in completely the wrong manner. Willian is dead in the final third. 

I agree. I was both disappointed and confused by the switch, but my post was more about addressing the fact that decision making isn't as clear cut as people make it out. Batshuayi may be more of an outlet than Willian, but for a CF his hold up play is atrocious. You can play Bats and hope for the best, or you can try a different plan.  The manager takes most of the responsibility for today's result, but this isn't the end and I hope people don't express some of the nasty sentiments as they have done in previous losses under Conte. Today was a poor result, but this club can turn it around.

[Styles 9,790]

Outplayed and embarrassed at home in front of the world. So many players looked completely out of their depth and the same goes for Conte too. He was utterly clueless and worst of all, he didn't even try to stop the bleeding.

Honestly, I'm glad the club were reminded of the reality of this team and how far off we are from the elite European clubs. Change only comes when things like this happen. If we won 1-0 we'd hear bullshit about another classic smash and grab which only sets us up for failure in the long run.

[Leif 6,006]

I think it's as simple as bench options.

If you have a solid 2nd-striker to bring off the bench, you feel no worry in putting him on early in the game as Morata comes off. But Bats has shown he isn't full-game in the Premier League material. He's an out of depth option for this. So we reshuffled into a lineup that i'm unsure if we've used before, because there's no other striker in our whole damn squad that the coach likes, and that new lineup was with another out of depth player coming into the conversation, Willian. 

I think only 1 of the bench options was good enough to be in our squad, if we want to be better than we've been, and that's Zappacosta. 

Le board.

[Blusan Alamb 295]