The Conte Thread

[BlueLyon 9,359]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

The way some of you here are moaning about Conte and even asking for him to be sacked is farcical. Would make you people great candidates to replace Emenalo, Maria etc in the boardroom. Sure, Conte has made some mistakes in his reign but tell me, which managers do not make mistake? Even the best do. Conte deserves time to prove he can learn from mistakes and improve himself and he certainly deserves time considering how much he's being let down by the incompetent board and players. Conte isn't a manager we got from the lower leagues and has no experience at the highest level. He's a manager who has had big success in his two previous jobs and has pedigree and credibility to go with him.

And here's the big question, if we sack Conte now, who the hell are we going to appoint? Call Hiddink again for his third stint? There's no top manager out there right now that's suitable for the job. If we continue to call for managers to be sacked the minute something goes wrong and actually sack him without proper backing, then we would forever be stuck in this cycle and would never get back to the elite level we were once in.

True. Change of coach would be worst decision atm. Conte is getting to see how shit some players are and will make changes sooner or later. Change the coach and it will again take half year for them to see who is good and who is bad, but by then they will get the sack and rollercoaster will continue, while shit players will keep playing.

I do agree we should keep him till end of season no matter what (unless some realy poor results), but if he doesnt bench Iva and Cahill, its beyond me to understand him. Perhaps is true that we dont have better replcements, but it was no doubt Conte who brought Alonso for 25m here and now he doesnt consider him better than Iva? Why would you then pay 25m for someone who will be on bench when you could keep Kenedy and spend that money on better choice. Thats bollocks and its going to be terrible to have a manager like that if this theory is true.

Also, I dont think Conte is good with youth. If he was he would groom young players to the team (considering we have many shit players needed to be replaced), but he didnt yet because either 1.) He doesnt know how to develop young players or 2.) He doesnt consider certain players being shit.

Either way its very bad for future of chelsea.

During the span of next few months we will see. I wont mind if we lose games with young players who will be developing or if players give 100%. However if the players show no desire and if young ones arent integrated, meaning same shit players will keep playing, then its obvious Conte is not the solution.

Right now its way too early to judge, it worked in begginig, now not anymore and Conte must fix this. We will see how he does from now on when he, we and everyone else knows that changes have to be made.

[blueblood22 50]

2 hours ago, MefiX19 said:

3 fullbacks and a kid that haven't played as CB for ages as back 4? Oscar that plays 4 good games in a season and a overrated kid in midfield? Sorry no. Back four should consist of Alonzo and Azpi as fullbacks And Luiz and Terry as Cb (If not Terry then give Tomori a chance). I vould like to try the midfield of Chalobah as CDM Fabregas and Kante. Kante should roam freely and try to intercept their attacks and try to move the team forward. And i agree on Moses, he should start instead of Wilian without a doubt

if we give our youth players the name kids they will never get there chances because they will be treated like kids. yes i think he is a better CB then Luiz and i don't know what happend to chaill since terry not playing, i think we are lacking two importent think at the back: the first one is pace and the second one is concentration and i think Chalobah have them both, i don't know if he is the best tackler but i think a player that played all is youth career as a CB, all the coaches at chelsea youth chose him to play in that role for a reason. and in waltford,n.forest he played a lot of time as a CB and in middlesbrough some time as well so yes if we didn't had problems at the back i will play him as a DM but at the situation we are at i will put him to the back 4 immediately. conte bought alonse from the start with the thinking to put him at the back 3. i have no problem to give tomori a chance as well but i think the odds is against him because if conte thought he deserve a chance he was at the bench already in previous games. i have great faith in oscar although what people say here about him, and i think he is playing really well since the start of the season, i don't think fabergas played one good game, against Leicester all 90 min he was shit and only his goals in extra time gave him the opportunity to start the last game and it was a big mistake, he is not conte type of player. i agree with you RLC should prove himself a lot but why not give him a real chance before drooping another HG player to the chelsea horrifying statistic? you all say play with the youth but when they don't show immediate results you start saying drop him out he is not good enough for us. we must be patience specially with our youth players.

[Miki-Liki 405]

26 minutes ago, BlueLyon said:

Also, I dont think Conte is good with youth.

 

He played a major part in Pogba's development, which is why it is assumed that he's good with youth... But as far as I know, Pogba is the only one.

[cosmicway 1,333]

16 hours ago, OhForAGreavsie said:

Show me someone who didn't. 😊

The weaknesses which are apparent now were also clear to see during the title winning campaign. The difference is that we had a genius in charge and the players actually listened to him.

I don't mean by this to disparage Antonio. He is absolutely right to try to do things as he wants them done. It infuriates me that posts have already appeared raising doubts about him or saying that he must produce a miracle in a matter of weeks to retain his job. His record shows he is an excellent coach and his public persona suggests that he is an excellent man. I'm delighted that we have him.

Antonio has learned, or is learning, what a number of others have seen before. Any collection of eleven footballers can play any system their manager wishes, but our collection can only win if they play in a particular way. When, rightly or wrongly, the players stopped believing in Jose, they stopped believing in his message too and the wheels came off.

All of us here would like the same thing. We want the club to put together a squad which will allow the manager to move away from the former method of play. Trying to change the play first and then moving the squad around afterwards is, however, like putting the cart before the horse.

Mourinho lost 3 to 1 to Liverpool. Conte lost by 2 to 1.
Look I never wanted to join the anti-Iva campaign. The man was our no 2 player in the Didier days. Maybe Lamps was our no 2 and Iva the no 3 but as Lamps faded, Iva became the no 2. Now is time for America, to teach the kids. Let's face it, a time comes.
Cahill now never really made it, to gain any sort of recognition and Luiz as a defender always carried a question mark with him.
I just think you need the tool to finish the job.
 

 

[robsblubot 3,595]

8 hours ago, Jason said:

The way some of you here are moaning about Conte and even asking for him to be sacked is farcical. Would make you people great candidates to replace Emenalo, Maria etc in the boardroom. Sure, Conte has made some mistakes in his reign but tell me, which managers do not make mistake? Even the best do. Conte deserves time to prove he can learn from mistakes and improve himself and he certainly deserves time considering how much he's being let down by the incompetent board and players. Conte isn't a manager we got from the lower leagues and has no experience at the highest level. He's a manager who has had big success in his two previous jobs and has pedigree and credibility to go with him.

And here's the big question, if we sack Conte now, who the hell are we going to appoint? Call Hiddink again for his third stint? There's no top manager out there right now that's suitable for the job. If we continue to call for managers to be sacked the minute something goes wrong and actually sack him without proper backing, then we would forever be stuck in this cycle and would never get back to the elite level we were once in.

not only that, but whether they were really mistakes or not isn't really certain.

He has made a few questionable decisions, some of them we can assume have been forced by the club.

Others are the wishful thinking of pundits and fans who say player Y would have done so much better than player X. Even though when such changes actually take place, the outcome isn't much different.

So, even if Y would've been a bit better, would it have been enough for a different outcome? Our performance against Arsenal was so bad, that it's difficult to pin to specific players... as bad as cahill and iva were, Arsenal would have prob scored in different ways, by sheer pressure.

[Despiadado.Maleante 1,046]

http://gianlucadimarzio.com/en/eng/chelsea-abramovich-standing-by-conte/

[OhForAGreavsie 6,067]

20 hours ago, Robguima said:

not only that, but whether they were really mistakes or not isn't really certain.

He has made a few questionable decisions, some of them we can assume have been forced by the club.

Others are the wishful thinking of pundits and fans who say player Y would have done so much better than player X. Even though when such changes actually take place, the outcome isn't much different.

So, even if Y would've been a bit better, would it have been enough for a different outcome? Our performance against Arsenal was so bad, that it's difficult to pin to specific players... as bad as cahill and iva were, Arsenal would have prob scored in different ways, by sheer pressure.

You have written four paragraphs and I agree with every word in three of them. The one I see differently is your suggestion that we can assume there has been club pressure on team selections. What evidence is there to support that assumption?

I know only one case in the last 13 and a bit years, Daniel Sturridge, where the club has issued an instruction to the manager. The fact that it was a negative instruction, rather than a positive one to put him in the team, suggests that this was for disciplinary, or other non-football, reasons.

Apart from that, none of Roman's managers has ever said that he faced pressure from above and several have said exactly the opposite. Not only have   Cloudio, Jose, Avram, Guus and the temp praised the club for non-interference but they were very clear about it.

While it is possible to believe that these men were under contractual obligation not to speak about any interference, it is not possible to believe that their contracts would have compelled them to praise the club's behaviour if that praise wasn't deserved.

Someone did tell me in a reply recently about a claim in Carlo's book that there had been interference. I'm surprised it wasn't a far bigger story in the media at the time. Unless I completely missed it, and being a Chelsea obsessive I don't miss much, there was no media storm about it. Not even a tiny little puff. Not that I remember anyway.

[OhForAGreavsie 6,067]

22 hours ago, cosmicway said:

Mourinho lost 3 to 1 to Liverpool. Conte lost by 2 to 1.
Look I never wanted to join the anti-Iva campaign. The man was our no 2 player in the Didier days. Maybe Lamps was our no 2 and Iva the no 3 but as Lamps faded, Iva became the no 2. Now is time for America, to teach the kids. Let's face it, a time comes.
Cahill now never really made it, to gain any sort of recognition and Luiz as a defender always carried a question mark with him.
I just think you need the tool to finish the job.
 

 

Agreed you're always going to be limited by your tools. If there is an urgent job that has to be done then you have to get on with it using whatever tools you have at your disposal. If those tools aren't up to the task however then the best you can do is a bodge job. Antonio's tools are bad so people blaming him for what's happening is ridiculous.

Individual results against selected teams has got nothing to do with it by the way. I might as well compare Jose's results against Arsenal with Antonio's. It means nothing in the context of this conversation.

[xPetrCechx 13,570]

[cosmicway 1,333]

Roman has to jump into action and it's not something like bailing out the club, it's his job.
If it is a lossy investment then it means we are headed towards the ... Isthmian league and everyone resigns.
If Chelsea football club is a lossy investment then I wonder how many teams are left in the world.

 

[robsblubot 3,595]

4 hours ago, OhForAGreavsie said:

You have written four paragraphs and I agree with every word in three of them. The one I see differently is your suggestion that we can assume there has been club pressure on team selections. What evidence is there to support that assumption?

I know only one case in the last 13 and a bit years, Daniel Sturridge, where the club has issued an instruction to the manager. The fact that it was a negative instruction, rather than a positive one to put him in the team, suggests that this was for disciplinary, or other non-football, reasons.

Apart from that, none of Roman's managers has ever said that he faced pressure from above and several have said exactly the opposite. Not only have   Cloudio, Jose, Avram, Guus and the temp praised the club for non-interference but they were very clear about it.

While it is possible to believe that these men were under contractual obligation not to speak about any interference, it is not possible to believe that their contracts would have compelled them to praise the club's behaviour if that praise wasn't deserved.

Someone did tell me in a reply recently about a claim in Carlo's book that there had been interference. I'm surprised it wasn't a far bigger story in the media at the time. Unless I completely missed it, and being a Chelsea obsessive I don't miss much, there was no media storm about it. Not even a tiny little puff. Not that I remember anyway.

Ok that's a difficult one to answer because it's down to perception.

I believe there are very different kinds of pressure. Here's just some of them:

The simplest one is availability: a manager, especially one arriving at the club, can only play whoever is available. Perhaps the club wanted to get rid of some of the deadwood, but there were no buyers (esp at their wages). Some of these same deadwood got more minutes last season than they've seen in quite some time, perhaps to attract a buyer. All speculation, but it is very difficult to sell players when the scouts don't see them perform (good or bad just talk about me).

* I've heard a former Serie A club president in brazil, saying that no other than our beloved Scolari (way before Chelsea) was in love with this very grotesque (skilless) holding mid. Who would start in every fucking game. The president tried approaching Scolari directly and indirectly, until one day he (the former president) went to Scolari and told him that the player was gone, because he had received an offer the club could not refuse (the player went on a free transfer).

Second, money! I don't pretend to know how these deals work behind the scenes, but I do acknowledge that money exerts influence in all areas, including sports. Does Cahill get a pass for being England international at times? Is it nationalism or simply just a subtle influence of money when a pundit spares him of criticism, so that he's a more valuable "asset" (to his employer, the media) when England plays?

Information. This is a very unpopular thing to say and yet the most obvious (to me)... we simply don't have access to the same information they (club/coaches/managers/directors/scouts/agents) do. Perhaps the coaches knew that Sturridge was a time bomb, concerning fitness, and perhaps Liverpool knew that too - hence the lowish fee. Sometimes we ask for the manager to start a player who had a terrible week, for one reason or another, and would never get a start. Obviously the manager cannot let the opponent know what players are available, trained well, slept well, and therefore are more likely to start before every match - opponents would love to know that though.  

Take Iva for example. He's been a starter for so long, it's unfair to compare him to other players who had much lesser roles at the club. However, at this time he should, at most, be playing a much smaller rotation/backup role than he is now. And yet, there he is with every fucking manager that comes in. 

The last one is that Chelsea is not a democracy. It's really down to the owner and he is indeed entitled to his personal preferences. It's difficult to know for sure how much that happens, but like you said, there is evidence that it has happened before. At the very least it does happen when he sacks and hires managers.

[OhForAGreavsie 6,067]

2 hours ago, Robguima said:

Ok that's a difficult one to answer because it's down to perception.

I believe there are very different kinds of pressure. Here's just some of them:

The simplest one is availability: a manager, especially one arriving at the club, can only play whoever is available. Perhaps the club wanted to get rid of some of the deadwood, but there were no buyers (esp at their wages). Some of these same deadwood got more minutes last season than they've seen in quite some time, perhaps to attract a buyer. All speculation, but it is very difficult to sell players when the scouts don't see them perform (good or bad just talk about me).

* I've heard a former Serie A club president in brazil, saying that no other than our beloved Scolari (way before Chelsea) was in love with this very grotesque (skilless) holding mid. Who would start in every fucking game. The president tried approaching Scolari directly and indirectly, until one day he (the former president) went to Scolari and told him that the player was gone, because he had received an offer the club could not refuse (the player went on a free transfer).

Second, money! I don't pretend to know how these deals work behind the scenes, but I do acknowledge that money exerts influence in all areas, including sports. Does Cahill get a pass for being England international at times? Is it nationalism or simply just a subtle influence of money when a pundit spares him of criticism, so that he's a more valuable "asset" (to his employer, the media) when England plays?

Information. This is a very unpopular thing to say and yet the most obvious (to me)... we simply don't have access to the same information they (club/coaches/managers/directors/scouts/agents) do. Perhaps the coaches knew that Sturridge was a time bomb, concerning fitness, and perhaps Liverpool knew that too - hence the lowish fee. Sometimes we ask for the manager to start a player who had a terrible week, for one reason or another, and would never get a start. Obviously the manager cannot let the opponent know what players are available, trained well, slept well, and therefore are more likely to start before every match - opponents would love to know that though.  

Take Iva for example. He's been a starter for so long, it's unfair to compare him to other players who had much lesser roles at the club. However, at this time he should, at most, be playing a much smaller rotation/backup role than he is now. And yet, there he is with every fucking manager that comes in. 

The last one is that Chelsea is not a democracy. It's really down to the owner and he is indeed entitled to his personal preferences. It's difficult to know for sure how much that happens, but like you said, there is evidence that it has happened before. At the very least it does happen when he sacks and hires managers.

Four points again. What is it with you on the number four? 😊

Firstly, your point about information. I don't think it has anything to do with the conversation we've been having but you're right of course. I think I've written more posts making this point in the last few months than I have about anything else. It bemuses me when people ask the question, "Why can't the managers see what we can see?". Of course the managers can see everything we do, plus they have the opportunity to see, and to know, a great deal more. No matter how strange a manager's decision may seem, none of us can be certain that, given the same information he has, we would not do exactly the same.

The reason I say this has nothing to do with the conversation we have been having is because it's not a pressure from above. It's just the manager using knowledge and information to inform the decisions he makes. His own decisions.

On the case of money. Unless we're talking about bribery of the manager, money isn't going to come into it. These financial concerns wouldn't affect the manager. They might of course be a motivation for the club to put pressure on the manager but that just brings us back to where we started. Financial concerns might make the club want to have a player selected but there is no evidence that they have put any manager under pressure to do it.

On Roman. Being the owner does give him the authority, if not actually the entitlement, to issue directives to his staff. Once again this gets us nowhere other than back to where we started.  Even if he might like to do it, there is no evidence that Roman has told managers to pick a certain player.

On availability. I've made that point a number of times myself but in connection with young players. I've argued that perhaps the club is starving the squad of senior players in a bid to force the selection of youngsters. I don't seriously think this is what is going on. I've just put it forward previously as a potential explanation for what we have seen. That is still not direct pressure of the, "pick this player, not that player", type.

[killer1257 3,282]

On 28.9.2016 at 1:28 AM, Miki-Liki said:

He played a major part in Pogba's development, which is why it is assumed that he's good with youth... But as far as I know, Pogba is the only one.

Pogba is from United´s youth system,not from the Juventus youth system.Conte never integrated a youth team player from his own youth system. One could argue that the Juvenus youth system is not on our level

[Eidur the Spider 4,515]

I really hope this is true, the team has needed gutting and refreshing for a while, Conte did a great rebuilding job at Juventus! Hopefully he's given the time to do the same here.

 

[OhForAGreavsie 6,067]

4 hours ago, xPetrCechx said:

I'd be pretty surprised if a man, who reportedly watches every minute of every Chelsea game, needed to be told that the squad isn't good enough. I have no idea of course, but my guess is that the owner knew it well enough even before Antonio arrived and that their conversations have been a lot more nuanced than is being reported.