The Conte Thread

[Fulham Broadway 16,838]

54 minutes ago, Chelsea Legend 11 said:

 

So not the amount of games but how they train? I’m pretty sure it has to do with the amount of games for such a thin squad.

 

Some are in games some are in training. I am not convinced he is handling the pressure all that well.
Constant moaning about the squad full of internationals he has been given. Eight players have had hamstring injuries so far this season.
I suggest he hasn’t worked out how to handle the extra games/travelling/squad rotation that his success last season has given him this season.

[Fernando 6,455]

37 minutes ago, Supermonkey92 said:

Let' hope he sees out his third year and leaves the squad in a healthy condition. 

This, I said it many times. To do 3 years is a really good thing. 

I feel like the perfect time frame for today's game is between 3 to 5 years. Most managers start to stagnate after that. 

Take a look at Simeone. 

I would like him to do more then 3 years. 5 years would be fine for me, but let's see what happens. 

[11Drogba 2,000]

3 minutes ago, Jason said:

Don't have to because it's the same crap every week, from the journalists and manager. It's bloody obvious and the point here isn't even about understanding what he says! If he's getting asked the same thing every week, why not just say 'I've answered this last week. I will not say any thing more' or something along those lines? Yet, he keeps feeding the journalists with his unhappiness about things and sometimes, adds more to what he's said in previous weeks.

Conte could constantly say that he is perfectly happy and media would write exact same stories. The only thing that matters is the results. It has always been.

I really dont understand why fans pay so much attention to what managers and players say. Future is uncertain, but they are happy in their club. They need to work harder, they were unlucky etc.Thats what you hear most of the time.

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

Some are in games some are in training. I am not convinced he is handling the pressure all that well.
Constant moaning about the squad full of internationals he has been given. Eight players have had hamstring injuries so far this season.
I suggest he hasn’t worked out how to handle the extra games/travelling/squad rotation that his success last season has given him this season.

I don’t think it matters whether it’s in games or in training sessions. The fact of the matter is these 13 players are being asked to play more than their bodies can handle because the coach is trying to manage expectations. Expectations that seem lofty when you consider what we have been given to work with in comparison to the competition.

A squad full of internationals... Gary Cahill is an international... he’s not very good but he is an international. I think you get what I mean. Courtois, Hazard, Kante and maybe Azpi are the only players we have that would rival what other teams have. It’s not enough. Especially after winning the title and being given a head start on the competition.

As far as handling the pressure goes, it’s great at the top! Especially when you’ve said since day one the squad needs to be bigger. Imagine how frustrating it would be to know what is required for the squad to reach their goals and not get what was asked for then have to reach goals regardless of what you’ve been given... pressure would be getting to everyone in this situation

[ChelseaFanUK 1,014]

59 minutes ago, Jason said:

Dan Levene is an obnoxious, arrogant, tosser. I cant stand the bloke, and the shite he writes is even worse.

The way he used to give foreign fans a hard time for not going to games was disgusting tbh

[xPetrCechx 13,563]

1 minute ago, ChelseaFanUK said:

Dan Levene is an obnoxious, arrogant, tosser. I cant stand the bloke, and the shite he writes is even worse.

The way he used to give foreign fans a hard time for not going to games was disgusting tbh

Where?

[ChelseaFanUK 1,014]

5 minutes ago, xPetrCechx said:

Where?

It was on twitter, he blocked me because i told him he was a arrogant knob. A few fans from overseas said he was wrong to claim a certain player was poor or whatever and he replied stuff like "When you go to games and stop watching them from your bedroom in India, we will talk. Until then your opinion does not count"   

 

So he got pelters off a lot of fans, and just replied with things like "I have been to X amount of games this year my opinion should count more than someone who has bothered to go once or twice and especially over 'fans' sat in their overseas bedrooms"  He isnt very liked.

 

And the thing was the fans who disagreed with him, were right and a lot of UK based fans agreed with them, but he just gave the foreign ones a hard time.  Was really uncalled for

[xPetrCechx 13,563]

2 minutes ago, ChelseaFanUK said:

It was on twitter, he blocked me because i told him he was a arrogant knob. A few fans from overseas said he was wrong to claim a certain player was poor or whatever and he replied stuff like "When you go to games and stop watching them from your bedroom in India, we will talk. Until then your opinion does not count"   

 

So he got pelters off a lot of fans, and just replied with things like "I have been to X amount of games this year my opinion should count more than someone who has bothered to go once or twice and especially over 'fans' sat in their overseas bedrooms"  He isnt very liked.

 

And the thing was the fans who disagreed with him, were right and a lot of UK based fans agreed with them, but he just gave the foreign ones a hard time.  Was really uncalled for

met him in israel when chelsea played here, though he's a nice bloke.

[Fulham Broadway 16,838]

30 minutes ago, Chelsea Legend 11 said:

 

I don’t think it matters whether it’s in games or in training sessions. The fact of the matter is these 13 players are being asked to play more than their bodies can handle because the coach is trying to manage expectations. Expectations that seem lofty when you consider what we have been given to work with in comparison to the competition.

A squad full of internationals... Gary Cahill is an international... he’s not very good but he is an international. I think you get what I mean. Courtois, Hazard, Kante and maybe Azpi are the only players we have that would rival what other teams have. It’s not enough. Especially after winning the title and being given a head start on the competition.

As far as handling the pressure goes, it’s great at the top! Especially when you’ve said since day one the squad needs to be bigger. Imagine how frustrating it would be to know what is required for the squad to reach their goals and not get what was asked for then have to reach goals regardless of what you’ve been given... pressure would be getting to everyone in this situation

 

There’s good and bad in that, obviously we know the positive and the proof’s there that his methods work, but it doesn’t help for games like tonight where we need to win and we’ve got no striker!

[LAM09 6,744]

And I’m sorry but to be a supporter means to support the club. The club is the staff, players and manager. If you can’t show support in time of need don’t call yourself a supporter, you’re probably closer to a fan or fanboy.

 

The board have left him out to dry. That's who's support or lack of, you should be questioning.

 

[OneMoSalah 8,776]

2 hours ago, Jason said:

 

Dan Levene is a fucking tosser. Never seen so much shit on social media in all my life until I seen his. Fucking does my head in, him and several other idiots, who post absolute pish, ie. Conte out because hes not winning the league this year bla bla bla or whatever crap people come out with.

 

That article alone is full of absolute shit too:

-Last world class player we signed Eden Hazard, he wasn't world class when we got him was he? He is world class because hes developed here, not because we signed him as a world class player. He had huge potential.

-Saying Mourinho overachieved when he won the league here? Really? He had one of the best squads in the country, arguably the best or 2nd best behind City, hardly call that overachieving. When we signed Luis, Costa, Cesc and recalled Courtois, 4 excellent players, it was so obvious we would win the league. You don't sign those sort of players then win the league underachieving.

-"The lack of a Plan B, and a rarity of game-changing tactical moves, have grown clearer in recent weeks." Plan B? With what? No disrespect but if your plan B is Michy Batshuayi, you'd may as well stick with Plan A. No disrespect to Michy, hes obviously got a talent to a certain level but hes not up to the standard for me, hes not going to come off and change a game like a Gabriel Jesus or Zlatan Ibrahimovic is going to in that regard. Plan A was 3-4-3 last season and at the start of this one but 3-5-2 was plan B, its difficult to totally change a team when you've not actually got a specialist LB (Alonso is a LWB, put at LB and hes fucked) and have like 6 CBs. Lack of investment seriously hurt any chances of changing the team, also did you see how average we looked playing 4-1-4-1 last year? This squad, if the manager leaves, is completely fucked unless we get serious investment into it to change back to a back 4 and then revamp MF and possibly outwide depending on Eden or whatever. 

-"On average, the people that run the club are pretty good at finding the next best thing: a new man, every couple of years or so, able to reinvent and deliver short-term success" Hes joking right? Who next? You cant go through a manager every 2 years or every year and continue to do so, there is no plan, no vision, we might have won the league twice in 3 or 4 years now but honestly, we need to get some sort of plan, theres no point looking into the short term if your long term idea clearly isn't there. I'd take a year or two more of us building towards something and actually managing to get sustainable success with a clear idea (or a failure if it doesn't work out) than new managers every year or year and a half, I thought when Jose came back that was what the club wanted, theres only so many managers out there that are of a certain standard, you can't expect to work your way round them and sustain this ideology to build any sort of image or culture at the club, no way. 

 

 

Anyway all that shit aside.

Conte, for me, is bold asking for a public backing, AVB never got it when he asked (fair enough he was a novice coach, whatever else had happened too with senior pros etc) but honestly I don't think this club is the sort of place you come and then ask for public backing when things start going pear shaped, that is just making me slightly panicky, that is almost like "okay I'm worried in case your going to sack me as its in the media, tell me you wont or do it" and I think that could rub off on the players and also Conte, which could affect his judgement. Sure its not an ideal situation but its hardly the end of the world, if we beat Bournemouth we would of went second yeah? Small margins. 

[Henrique 9,133]

2 hours ago, Jason said:

For the record, I never said I disagreed with him. I'm just tired of Conte repeating the same old thing every week till the point it sounds like he's complaining and he couldn't give a shit anymore. It's even worse when he does it after a bad result because it only adds further negative vibes around the team. Also, funny you mentioned about other destabilizing the club when Conte constantly gives ammunition to the media to do so on weekly basis.

This. Chelsea managed to be the first club to win the Premier League and then start the following season in a crisis, and it was all down to Conte: 

 

1- He created the Diego Costa situation.

2- He never made any effort to stop those news saying he was unhappy with the lack of transfer activity and wanted to go back to Italy. 

3- When Matic was sold he made it clear that he was unhappy to see the Serbian leave.

In the beginning of the season I said he was probably the most stupid Chelsea manager ever in terms of his relation with the press, because he is feeding them with sources to create negative headlines week after week.

One example was Luiz not even making the bench in the game against United. After the match he came with the bullshit of "it was tactical decision", It was pretty obvious it wasn't, specially he said in the same interview that he didn't know if Luiz had a future in the club and when even a kid like Apadu made it to the bench.  It was clear something was wrong. So in the same day the press discovered there was a major burst-up between Conte and Luiz. So Conte had to answer questions about Luiz for weeks. In one of those press conferences was annoyed cause he was asking the same questions week after week. 

I just thought: well, thats what happen when you gives ammunition to the media. Even if some burst up happened between Luiz and Conte, leaving Luiz on the bench would send the message that he was being dropped due to poor performance. Nobody would see a big deal in that, and nobody would be writing negative stuff about Chelsea right after a big win against United, and he would not be receiving questions about his relationship with Luiz. But instead he wanted to play the big badass guy in the town, and didn't think about the consequences. 

Now week after week we read about Conte complaining, complaining and complaining. Seriously, not even Mourinho created so many bad vibes around the team as Conte. Mourinho never had full control on the transfer market, sometimes he gave us hints here and there, but he never came up with things like "I have few influence on the transfer market". Now he is even asking the club to release an official vote of confidence. Geez.

[Supermonkey92 1,428]

18 minutes ago, Henrique said:

This. Chelsea managed to be the first club to win the Premier League and then start the following season in a crisis, and it was all down to Conte: 

 

1- He created the Diego Costa situation.

2- He never made any effort to stop those news saying he was unhappy with the lack of transfer activity and wanted to go back to Italy. 

3- When Matic was sold he made it clear that he was unhappy to see the Serbian leave.

In the beginning of the season I said he was probably the most stupid Chelsea manager ever in terms of his relation with the press, because he is feeding them with sources to create negative headlines week after week.

One example was Luiz not even making the bench in the game against United. After the match he came with the bullshit of "it was tactical decision", It was pretty obvious it wasn't, specially he said in the same interview that he didn't know if Luiz had a future in the club and when even a kid like Apadu made it to the bench.  It was clear something was wrong. So in the same day the press discovered there was a major burst-up between Conte and Luiz. So Conte had to answer questions about Luiz for weeks. In one of those press conferences was annoyed cause he was asking the same questions week after week. 

I just thought: well, thats what happen when you gives ammunition to the media. Even if some burst up happened between Luiz and Conte, leaving Luiz on the bench would send the message that he was being dropped due to poor performance. Nobody would see a big deal in that, and nobody would be writing negative stuff about Chelsea right after a big win against United, and he would not be receiving questions about his relationship with Luiz. But instead he wanted to play the big badass guy in the town, and didn't think about the consequences. 

Now week after week we read about Conte complaining, complaining and complaining. Seriously, not even Mourinho created so many bad vibes around the team as Conte. Mourinho never had full control on the transfer market, sometimes he gave us hints here and there, but he never came up with things like "I have few influence on the transfer market". Now he is even asking the club to release an official vote of confidence. Geez.

I think mourinho was the first manager to win the league and then have a crisis season. 

But Conte cannot have the blame *all* on him. You said yourself he didn't want to lose Matic. That decision was huge. We wasted many on Drinkwater and (due to Danny's Injury) had no choice but to stick with a young Bakayoko regardless of whether his confidence is shot to pieces from a string of bad games. Our toothless attack is largely influenced by only having 2 up top. Losing Matic without a good enough replacement had a huge affect and that is almost entirely on the board. 

Conte has made some effort to silence critics regarding his time here. He said multiple times this season he would love to stay in charge when the new stadium is built or to atleast honour the length of his contract. 

It's always a dangerous thing to lump so much blame on one man. When you consider the fact that straight after a title win/negative season situation, almost exactly the same thing happens again (except Conte hasn't done that bad) it might be time to look to the people who have overseen both situations. 

 

[Henrique 9,133]

17 minutes ago, OneMoSalah said:

 

Dan Levene is a fucking tosser. Never seen so much shit on social media in all my life until I seen his. Fucking does my head in, him and several other idiots, who post absolute pish, ie. Conte out because hes not winning the league this year bla bla bla or whatever crap people come out with.

 

That article alone is full of absolute shit too:

-Last world class player we signed Eden Hazard, he wasn't world class when we got him was he? He is world class because hes developed here, not because we signed him as a world class player. He had huge potential.

-Saying Mourinho overachieved when he won the league here? Really? He had one of the best squads in the country, arguably the best or 2nd best behind City, hardly call that overachieving. When we signed Luis, Costa, Cesc and recalled Courtois, 4 excellent players, it was so obvious we would win the league. You don't sign those sort of players then win the league underachieving.

-"The lack of a Plan B, and a rarity of game-changing tactical moves, have grown clearer in recent weeks." Plan B? With what? No disrespect but if your plan B is Michy Batshuayi, you'd may as well stick with Plan A. No disrespect to Michy, hes obviously got a talent to a certain level but hes not up to the standard for me, hes not going to come off and change a game like a Gabriel Jesus or Zlatan Ibrahimovic is going to in that regard. Plan A was 3-4-3 last season and at the start of this one but 3-5-2 was plan B, its difficult to totally change a team when you've not actually got a specialist LB (Alonso is a LWB, put at LB and hes fucked) and have like 6 CBs. Lack of investment seriously hurt any chances of changing the team, also did you see how average we looked playing 4-1-4-1 last year? This squad, if the manager leaves, is completely fucked unless we get serious investment into it to change back to a back 4 and then revamp MF and possibly outwide depending on Eden or whatever. 

-"On average, the people that run the club are pretty good at finding the next best thing: a new man, every couple of years or so, able to reinvent and deliver short-term success" Hes joking right? Who next? You cant go through a manager every 2 years or every year and continue to do so, there is no plan, no vision, we might have won the league twice in 3 or 4 years now but honestly, we need to get some sort of plan, theres no point looking into the short term if your long term idea clearly isn't there. I'd take a year or two more of us building towards something and actually managing to get sustainable success with a clear idea (or a failure if it doesn't work out) than new managers every year or year and a half, I thought when Jose came back that was what the club wanted, theres only so many managers out there that are of a certain standard, you can't expect to work your way round them and sustain this ideology to build any sort of image or culture at the club, no way. 

 

 

Anyway all that shit aside.

Conte, for me, is bold asking for a public backing, AVB never got it when he asked (fair enough he was a novice coach, whatever else had happened too with senior pros etc) but honestly I don't think this club is the sort of place you come and then ask for public backing when things start going pear shaped, that is just making me slightly panicky, that is almost like "okay I'm worried in case your going to sack me as its in the media, tell me you wont or do it" and I think that could rub off on the players and also Conte, which could affect his judgement. Sure its not an ideal situation but its hardly the end of the world, if we beat Bournemouth we would of went second yeah? Small margins. 

I don't agree with some parts.

-Conte is pretty one dimensional. He does not have a plan B, and no one can say otherwise, and at this point its clear that even if the squad had more depth he would be playing with 3 CB. Playing with 3 CB is something really bold, that I don't think you can even say going from 3-4-3 to 3-5-2 is moving from Plan A to Plan B. He just rely on the idea of playing with 3CB. If the team is playing against the worst team of the league, and one of the CB receive a red card, he would drop any player of the team to introduce another CB, because his idea of football is built around a team with 3CB. Thats obvious a this point. 

-He isn't joking. In this forum people say Chelsea don't have the same ambition as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern or PSG. Those teams are doing exactly what you said can't be done: going after a manager every 2 years. Long term vision is not hiring a manager and then letting this manager stay for 10 years. Long term vision is basically building a core squad that will last for years, despite the managers that are in charge. This is how those "ambitious" clubs work. Managers are seen as "coachs". They are in charge now, and might have a say in some transfers if they are on pair with the club transfer policy, but if the coach leaves next month, the squad will be there for another one do the job. 

Alex Ferguson aside, you won't find any club of biggest european leagues in past 20 years that were successful for many years with a long term manager. Usually the successful managers stays for 2 or 3 years, then leave for another job or get fired as soon as the bad results appear, despite the past success. Its not something usual in Premier League, because for many years United pretty much represented the idea of a successful team in England. So there is this myth that a team must let the manager do the job in order to achieve success during many years. The same United already fired 2 managers after SAF retired. Arsenal to his side have been mediocre for years, and they will continue to be as long as Wenger is on charge. Arsenal is the perfect example that having the same manager for years is not a magical formula for success. What Chelsea is doing since Abramovich bought the club is not different from what other big clubs are doing in other big european clubs. Those clubs have always been ruthless with managers.

Conte will leave soon, and another one will follow. Then this new manager will stay for 2 or 3 years if he is successful (or will get axed after months if things go wrong), then another one will follow, but some people will still be waiting for the Chelsea's Alex Ferguson. People should make peace with the idea that managers come and go and the river roll.

[Henrique 9,133]

7 minutes ago, Supermonkey92 said:

I think mourinho was the first manager to win the league and then have a crisis season. 

But Conte cannot have the blame *all* on him. You said yourself he didn't want to lose Matic. That decision was huge. We wasted many on Drinkwater and (due to Danny's Injury) had no choice but to stick with a young Bakayoko regardless of whether his confidence is shot to pieces from a string of bad games. Our toothless attack is largely influenced by only having 2 up top. Losing Matic without a good enough replacement had a huge affect and that is almost entirely on the board. 

Conte has made some effort to silence critics regarding his time here. He said multiple times this season he would love to stay in charge when the new stadium is built or to atleast honour the length of his contract. 

It's always a dangerous thing to lump so much blame on one man. When you consider the fact that straight after a title win/negative season situation, almost exactly the same thing happens again (except Conte hasn't done that bad) it might be time to look to the people who have overseen both situations. 

 

My point is: what benefit would come from Conte openly expressing his feelings in the press? I don't agree he made effort to silence his critics, its more like he is sending dubious messages than anything.  Off course the transfer window was pretty poor, and Conte is not the one to blame, but I'm talking about feeding the press with vibes. When someone ask him about the lack of transfers, instead of sending a positive message for the fans, he did exactly the opposite, making the squad look worst than it really is.

For example, instead of saying: "Well, we just won the league, we are thinking about long term in this transfer window. Our goal is to be strong in every competition, but if we can't win everything, the fans must stay positive because I'm sure we are building something really big for the future." Instead he come with stuff like this: "We have to buy more players, because we will play in Europe this season, we will have a busy schedule, to fight in all competitions we have to buy players, the squad is small, and we can't challenge with clubs like City if we don't buy more player. We need more players....one last thing: we definitely need more players".  As you can see here, as soon as he arrived he was complaining about lack of new players:

https://www.balls.ie/football/antonio-conte-laments-chelseas-lack-of-activity-in-the-transfer-market-344202

 

[Sideshow Luiz 2,310]

This is a very tough month for us, coming up.  No matter who the manager is.

After that, it will be back to 1 match per week like it was last season. 

[Milan 17,853]

I never, never wanted Conte gone and have always prayed he would be given time.

But last weeks made me want him fired asap. His dead man spirit, constant selection of frauds and the boring system without a striker - he is asking for it and he is getting it. Bye

[Special Juan 27,424]

He has lost the players completely, the fight has gone.