closed Man City 1-0 Chelsea

[Azpinator 2,325]

2 minutes ago, Jason said:

At this point, it's not even about handling a bad season anymore. It's about whether we should persist with a manager who clearly doesn't want to be here anymore. 

Me taking away credit?  Lots of fans, me included, have already lost patience with him despite winning the title last season. Yesterday's coward approach was the final straw for many. Have no issues with him pointing out the issues with the team but he keeps moaning about them, downplaying the squad quality (it's not great but it's not bad either), making bad decision after bad decision, persisting with things that don't work etc. Can you really blame fans who have had enough of him?

Blame them? Not really because imo those are the impatient ones or at least the ones who got used to Papa Roman gifting them a new toy every 2 years or so once they get bored of the old one.

The fundemental flaw in Conte was generated by higher powers not internally. He has done many questionable decisions this season but it would be ungrateful (for me at least) to turn on him because we all make mistakes, so it's a matter of hoping he could eventually turn things around as he's done in the past. 

The Chelsea board brings out the worst of the managers, even the worst out of us fans as I've seen lately.

[Superblue 6,331]

13 minutes ago, Special Juan said:

Just a dress rehearsal for the Barcelona game this

That is the biggest worry of all.

Yes the signings in the summer have been proven to be overall pretty poor and yes Conte worked miracles last season putting square pegs in round holes at times, but his constant moaning cannot be good for the morale of the team and for those players feeling like they aren't rated or wanted by the manager. Last season he instilled belief into players such as Moses and Alonso whilst also bringing out the best in Cahill, Matic, Pedro, Costa who had all been written off the year prior. I unfortunately see none of that this year except for perhaps the faith he's put in Christensen.

[Trueblue9877 7]

Conte is way too defensive, even Stoke who are in a relegation battle put up more of a fight than we did at the Etihad.

[cosmicway 1,258]

Finding flaws in Conte is easy now he is in poor shape.
The man has already show his caliber but if he goes, so be it.
The reason I feel unhappy is because he gets the blame when those truly responsible cannot be touched.
If you are an architect and build a house and it collapses you have some heavy legal responsibilities. But if it is the foreman who gets all the blame, then what ? It's no justice and the new house will collapse too.

[cfcs most wanted 657]

6 hours ago, Azpinator said:

Call me foolish then. Hell, stick delusional in there too. I can handle a whole bad season after picking us up from the obsecurity of 10th place.

I didn't know you had the authority to take away credit by the way. Very impressive.

It's not about the league position, it's about the tactics, the performances, the ardent lack of desire that he has instilled in the team, his stubbornness of sticking to an unviable system, and his constant moaning these are the things that are getting on people's nerves, it has absolutely nothing to do with the results.

[cfcs most wanted 657]

On 05/03/2018 at 0:20 AM, Jason said:

Sums up the spineless performance today...

I think with Conte ,the mentality of the players should also be questioned, and deserved some heavy criticism. The players may not like the defensive mentality of the manager, but nothing can be used as an excuse for standing around like dummies, hardly trying to play. Even while Conte's defensive tactics were bad and misplaced, I'm sure the players too understand the difference between being defensive and standing on the ground, just watching the other team play.

[The Chels 2,502]

On 01/03/2018 at 11:09 PM, DDA said:

I only knew because my birthday is on the 5th and I was worried it could potentially put a downer on my day.

Happy birthday

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

40 minutes ago, cfcs most wanted said:

I think with Conte ,the mentality of the players should also be questioned, and deserved some heavy criticism. The players may not like the defensive mentality of the manager, but nothing can be used as an excuse for standing around like dummies, hardly trying to play. Even while Conte's defensive tactics were bad and misplaced, I'm sure the players too understand the difference between being defensive and standing on the ground, just watching the other team play.

The players followed Conte's instructions. Watch his press conference after the game. He gets specifically asked if the players followed his instructions and he confirmed it. He also then talks about not conceding space between the lines.

Us sitting deep and standing off City was a clear instruction from Conte. Coward tactics.

[Jase 43,479]

20 minutes ago, Belgiannutt said:

The players followed Conte's instructions. Watch his press conference after the game. He gets specifically asked if the players followed his instructions and he confirmed it. He also then talks about not conceding space between the lines.

Us sitting deep and standing off City was a clear instruction from Conte. Coward tactics.

He has a point though. The players may have followed Conte's tactics but there was absolutely no intensity, no energy whatsoever about the performance. The coward tactical approach has been the main talking point and rightly so but the lack of desire of players to even take responsibility and make things happen shouldn't be dismissed. I mean, just look at Fabregas' (who last week on Twitter said "it's time to stand up and be counted") attempt to close down the ball...he just walked to the person on the ball. Is that what we really want to see from our players?! Also, another thing on Conte, he moaned several times about having little time to prepare to face City in the reverse fixture. For this game, he had a week to prepare while City don't and the damage limitation, coward approach was the best he could come up with?! 

[Jase 43,479]

 

[The Chels 2,502]

LOL at Conte being all loudmouthed and rude when faced with valid criticism. Gwarn Neville, lad.

[DDA 9,570]

Neville is spot on as usual. 

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

10 minutes ago, Jason said:

He has a point though. The players may have followed Conte's tactics but there was absolutely no intensity, no energy whatsoever about the performance. The coward tactical approach has been the main talking point and rightly so but the lack of desire of players to even take responsibility and make things happen shouldn't be dismissed. I mean, just look at Fabregas' (who last week on Twitter said "it's time to stand up and be counted") attempt to close down the ball...he just walked to the person on the ball. Is that what we really want to see from our players?! Also, another thing on Conte, he moaned several times about having little time to prepare to face City in the reverse fixture. For this game, he had a week to prepare while City don't and the damage limitation, coward approach was the best he could come up with?! 

Tbf i think it must be demoralizing to play the way we did. I think it's difficult to put a lot of intensity in a performance when you're pretty much asked to sit deep and don't concede space. 

The example you gave of Fabregas walking towards the ball. Even if Fabregas had full on sprinted towards the ball would it have made a difference ? Silva would have just had to pass it back a little quicker but then what ? 

We weren't gonna push up and press them. City weren't gonna lose the ball because of that. What's the point of pressing a player if there's no follow up ?

[Jase 43,479]

24 minutes ago, Belgiannutt said:

Tbf i think it must be demoralizing to play the way we did. I think it's difficult to put a lot of intensity in a performance when you're pretty much asked to sit deep and don't concede space. 

Lots of lesser sides sit deep and defend against Man City and normally, you don't see them play at a lethargic pace, do you? We ourselves have done it in the past and we rarely played with such a sloth-esque manner.

26 minutes ago, Belgiannutt said:

The example you gave of Fabregas walking towards the ball. Even if Fabregas had full on sprinted towards the ball would it have made a difference ? Silva would have just had to pass it back a little quicker but then what ? 

I used that as an example to merely highlight the lazy manner the players were going about things, not what might or might not have happened from the pressing. 

[Jase 43,479]

1 hour ago, The Chels said:

LOL at Conte being all loudmouthed and rude when faced with valid criticism. Gwarn Neville, lad.

Pretty sure if Conte was fluent in English, he would be "fighting" with people every week, like what he used to do at Juventus.

[bluephoenix 1,125]

16 hours ago, cosmicway said:

And what can he do with a 2nd division squad ?

So you are saying that just because we don't have quality players that you would just resign to fate and not give your best?

Come on I know we don't have the quality of City but we still have almost the same team that won the PL last season.

The back 3 is still the same, the midfield has gotten worse but still as much as I once backed Conte at the start it feels as though he has just given up which is a really bad sign in a manager. You can't give up this easy!

 

[Jase 43,479]

Mourinho defended us in his post-match presser last night. We have hit a new low...

[cosmicway 1,258]

7 hours ago, bluephoenix said:

So you are saying that just because we don't have quality players that you would just resign to fate and not give your best?

Come on I know we don't have the quality of City but we still have almost the same team that won the PL last season.

The back 3 is still the same, the midfield has gotten worse but still as much as I once backed Conte at the start it feels as though he has just given up which is a really bad sign in a manager. You can't give up this easy!

 

He gave up, or the players did ?
The team is below the standard of last year and City have a runaway season and that more or less explains how things stand now.
We knew it, several months now, but now the Europe position is gone too (unless we manage to win this year's CL !).
I don't know what a new manager could do and there may be better managers around -Simeone perhaps- but there is almost nothing one can do now for this season.