Bringing optimism back to TalkChelsea

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Right, as we know, this season has been shit. In a nutshell. As a result we've had a lot of comments made from depression and anger. Justified, it must be added, but it seems we've all lost faith in Chelsea. It's safe to say this season is over, in terms of title race, for the first time in 5 years we're in a battle for 4th. While some say, even this is in doubt, I have no worries we'll fail to accomplish this target. So how do we find optimism in this bleak time?

The answer lies in lessons learnt. I'm not going to dwell on why we're in this position, because there are many posts in this thread that answer this riddle. My focus will be on what we have to look forward to.

1. Squad personnel

It's evident the board and/or management have realised there was a serious error in judgement for not replacing the players we released. Not that I'm saying, we should have kept them. The signings of David Luiz and Fernando Torres clearly show that we needed more players. As the youth system didn't prevail. It could be a safe bet to say, our dealings in the transfer market 2011, are nowhere near finished.

2. Youth

A touchy subject our youth. As we came into this season believing they'd be given a chance we've seen Kakuta, Sturridge, Bruma & Van Aanholt go out on loan. Sturridge & Van Aanholt have already made impressions with Sturridge grabbing 3 in 3 for Bolton and Van Aanholt becoming 1st choice left-back for Sven's men at Leicester. While it's clear they won't be involved this season, seeing them take their chances will bring huge smiles to our faces and will only help them in getting the management's notice for the coming season. McEachran is one we all want to see get his first competitive début and I'm sure next season we'll see him being included a lot more (based on the evidence of this one). If Sturridge carries on scoring, I have no doubts the club will seek to intergrate him into our squad next season. Kakuta's yet to get a full chance at Fulham yet, so it remains to be seen if he'll take his chances, as he follows in the steps of Messi (by winning Player of the Tournament at the u19 European Championships)

3. Management

Personally, I'm glad Carlo has not received the boot yet. The worst mistake Chelsea could have made is, firing Carlo in January after seeing Ray Wilkins go and the effect that had on the club. We've learnt a great deal from the days we fired Scolari so quickly and had to fork out that massive compensation fee. While many of us will criticise, fairly, Carlo's management abilities, we can all agree that he's not an idiot and firing him now would be awful for the rest of the season. I don't care to speculate where Carlo's future lies beyond the summer, but one thing is for sure, Abramovich has given his full support to Carlo for the rest of the season. The signing of Torres & Luiz could've waited until the summer, for a new manager, but Abramovich decided the time was now and trusts Carlo to use them to get us the highest position we can attain now.

4. Finances

While we still have a bit of a way to go before we break even, or even steer in the profit zone, we have been trying to be more cost-effective. Lucrative sponsorship deals were signed on the back of last season, the main ones being Singha Beer & Samsung/Adidas. This, with the realising of players like Ballack, Deco et al, has shaved quite a lot from our wage-bill. The revamp of the scouting department would also help with the costs and us not replacing Wilkins as opposed to simply giving a title upgrade to another member of management has also kept keep costs down. It'll be argued that the £73million we've spent have hindered that, but I firmly believe, the club has worked out their costs to match with these transfers. Bruce Buck has been a very strong supporter of a wage-cap and this is shown evident by details emerging of Ivanovic's contract which sees him on simply £65k/week (I say simply, even though I'd kill for that lol).

Rumours are also surfacing that we're set to have another clear out this summer of the "old guard". The likes of Drogba, Anelka, Malouda & Ferriera are all on the precipice of being released, while Bosingwa and Alex are rumoured to be transfer targets of several clubs. Most notably AC Milan. I'm sure we won't make the same mistake twice, of going into the 2011-12 season with a weak squad, but a freshened up one would come. If we can get good money for, said, players and use this to fund their replacement transfers it'll really be a new age for our finances.

5. In conclusion..

So there's my take on trying to put a positive spin on the failures of this season. While 2009/10 was a great season for us, 2010/11 was not. So all we can do now is cheer our players on for the remainder, despite knowing we're not going to win much. FA Cup & Champions League are attainable targets (though the latter is less so). 4th is a must for this season too. 2011/12 leaves me with nothing but optimism. I firmly believe the club has learnt valuable lessons from this horror show. Perhaps a "transitional season" will take place next, where we see the youth integrated WITH the superstars.

[steve5221 91]

IF and it is a big if Carlo can get the right tactics and formula right we could have a really strong finish to the season. We have Man Ure and City coming up, win both of those and we are right back on track. If we have a bit of luck in the later stages of the champs league and get some key decisions in our favour(we are due some) we can win it. It can all change round very quickly plus what's to say Man City and Spurs dont tail off after a bad run??.

Come on Chels it is still in our hands, we can do it!!!

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Absolutely agreed. Your point on this being a transitional season is something I have been saying for some time - with the ageing squad we have it was going to be inevitable that sooner rather than later, we'd have to go through a season that is sub-par in comparison with recent campaigns. We postponed that by sacking Scolari, but it has caught up with us. The next two-three years will see the rebuilding of this great club, with or without Ancelotti (though hopefully the former).

[Henrique 9,133]

The only positive thing I see in this season is its showing Carlos is not one the right mand for the job. If he get the axe in the summer I will see many positive things in this season:

- Young players finally getting ready: Kakuta, Josh, Sturridge.

- A defender set to be the best in the world soon: Luiz.

The worst thing in this season for me was Torres. I mean, he is a superb signing, but not for that price. It was insane. I still can´t believe we paid 50m for him. I do expect him to score as many goals as possible, otherwise it will be the biggest disaster in football history.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

If Andy Carroll is worth £35 million, we've got value for money as far as I'm concerned.

[Fulham Broadway 16,852]

All good positive points -and I'm glad someone, LDN Blue, can see sense.

However if the football continues to be shit, I am quite prepared to make the streets round Stamford Bridge a no go area for away fans again.

it would be a joy to hear the old classics sung ''You;ll Never make the Station'' and ''Its a Long Way to Fulham Broadway'' and the Golden oldie ''You're Going to get You're Fucking head kicked In''

Guess i'm on my own.....

[Krypt 241]

Some good point LDN Blue

we need some to get behind the team and see how the season plays out. i think the main downer is the chance we will miss out on the Champions league next year , which will severly hinder our re-building process.

So come on Chelsea and prove us wrong with wins over utd and city and the yids

[steve5221 91]

The other point is if we miss out on champs league this year, what will our accounts look like??. Due to the new rules coming in will we be able to get back in as our debt will be to high??

[crazy1 24]

Right, as we know, this season has been shit. In a nutshell. As a result we've had a lot of comments made from depression and anger. Justified, it must be added, but it seems we've all lost faith in Chelsea. It's safe to say this season is over, in terms of title race, for the first time in 5 years we're in a battle for 4th. While some say, even this is in doubt, I have no worries we'll fail to accomplish this target. So how do we find optimism in this bleak time?

The answer lies in lessons learnt. I'm not going to dwell on why we're in this position, because there are many posts in this thread that answer this riddle. My focus will be on what we have to look forward to.

1. Squad personnel

It's evident the board and/or management have realised there was a serious error in judgement for not replacing the players we released. Not that I'm saying, we should have kept them. The signings of David Luiz and Fernando Torres clearly show that we needed more players. As the youth system didn't prevail. It could be a safe bet to say, our dealings in the transfer market 2011, are nowhere near finished.

2. Youth

A touchy subject our youth. As we came into this season believing they'd be given a chance we've seen Kakuta, Sturridge, Bruma & Van Aanholt go out on loan. Sturridge & Van Aanholt have already made impressions with Sturridge grabbing 3 in 3 for Bolton and Van Aanholt becoming 1st choice left-back for Sven's men at Leicester. While it's clear they won't be involved this season, seeing them take their chances will bring huge smiles to our faces and will only help them in getting the management's notice for the coming season. McEachran is one we all want to see get his first competitive début and I'm sure next season we'll see him being included a lot more (based on the evidence of this one). If Sturridge carries on scoring, I have no doubts the club will seek to intergrate him into our squad next season. Kakuta's yet to get a full chance at Fulham yet, so it remains to be seen if he'll take his chances, as he follows in the steps of Messi (by winning Player of the Tournament at the u19 European Championships)

3. Management

Personally, I'm glad Carlo has not received the boot yet. The worst mistake Chelsea could have made is, firing Carlo in January after seeing Ray Wilkins go and the effect that had on the club. We've learnt a great deal from the days we fired Scolari so quickly and had to fork out that massive compensation fee. While many of us will criticise, fairly, Carlo's management abilities, we can all agree that he's not an idiot and firing him now would be awful for the rest of the season. I don't care to speculate where Carlo's future lies beyond the summer, but one thing is for sure, Abramovich has given his full support to Carlo for the rest of the season. The signing of Torres & Luiz could've waited until the summer, for a new manager, but Abramovich decided the time was now and trusts Carlo to use them to get us the highest position we can attain now.

4. Finances

While we still have a bit of a way to go before we break even, or even steer in the profit zone, we have been trying to be more cost-effective. Lucrative sponsorship deals were signed on the back of last season, the main ones being Singha Beer & Samsung/Adidas. This, with the realising of players like Ballack, Deco et al, has shaved quite a lot from our wage-bill. The revamp of the scouting department would also help with the costs and us not replacing Wilkins as opposed to simply giving a title upgrade to another member of management has also kept keep costs down. It'll be argued that the £73million we've spent have hindered that, but I firmly believe, the club has worked out their costs to match with these transfers. Bruce Buck has been a very strong supporter of a wage-cap and this is shown evident by details emerging of Ivanovic's contract which sees him on simply £65k/week (I say simply, even though I'd kill for that lol).

Rumours are also surfacing that we're set to have another clear out this summer of the "old guard". The likes of Drogba, Anelka, Malouda & Ferriera are all on the precipice of being released, while Bosingwa and Alex are rumoured to be transfer targets of several clubs. Most notably AC Milan. I'm sure we won't make the same mistake twice, of going into the 2011-12 season with a weak squad, but a freshened up one would come. If we can get good money for, said, players and use this to fund their replacement transfers it'll really be a new age for our finances.

5. In conclusion..

So there's my take on trying to put a positive spin on the failures of this season. While 2009/10 was a great season for us, 2010/11 was not. So all we can do now is cheer our players on for the remainder, despite knowing we're not going to win much. FA Cup & Champions League are attainable targets (though the latter is less so). 4th is a must for this season too. 2011/12 leaves me with nothing but optimism. I firmly believe the club has learnt valuable lessons from this horror show. Perhaps a "transitional season" will take place next, where we see the youth integrated WITH the superstars.

:goodpost: totally agree.....every1 shud support d team in bad times..........

[LDN Blue 7,903]

:goodpost: totally agree.....every1 shud support d team in bad times..........

Cheers mate.

Agreed, you'll find the true fans in bad times, they're the ones who'll stick with the club. Criticising them is fine, as long as the support is there with that

[BlueLion. 21,491]

As far as I'm concerned it is absolutely fine for people to criticise. Its human nature, after all. The criticism should always be backed up with evidence - the amount of times you read something like 'Drogba is shit' as an isolated statement with no back-up drives me insane. Criticism - to a point - is acceptable. We only criticise since we care.

[Kostas 1,468]

While I agree with all your points 100% (I know, you're shocked ) I'm struggling to see anything positive about this season. The only thing that I personally have gained from this season is some knowledge of how Ancelotti thinks.

McEachran's progress has certainly surprised me but it's still not his break-through season, we're a couple of years away from that,

[GodZola 630]

lDN I concur with just about everything you posted.

Imho, its whats gone wrong on the pitch & the things directly associated to it that has got my goat up this season. Letting Carvalho go without a replacement was a blunder especially with Alex & JT both having injuries, we them sign Luiz - 6 months to late. Letting Ballack go was a catastrophic own goal, he is sorely missed in our midfield & boy doesn't it show with our lack of invention, he could play in the hole, he could of helped Ramires & nurture Josh, he wanted to stay & was prepared to take a pay cut!

Next came ' Butch' Wilkins sacking that still today had absolutely no logic to it - baffling?!

I've been posting on other forums about playing out talented youth before I joined this one, until Ancelotti starts dropping the out of sorts senior players then he won't get a reaction from them, all 5 youngsters should of been used at some point & I'm talking games not poxy 20 minutes hear & there. I could accept them not getting a chance if the team was playing well & still in the race for the title but let's face it we've been abysmal & the team is crying out for change. Danny Sturridge is proving our point at Bolton.

Ancelotti's tactical knowledge, formation & the fact he doesn't know how to motivate players in a way Jose could is also very worrying, I like the guy but he has to start getting things right very quickly

or I think he will be gone in the summer.

lastly I read an in-depth independent financial report about whether we will meet the European financial regulations & without going into it, we are nicely placed & the views of the writer was very encouraging.

[Rambo 1,729]

legendary thread

[handy15 9]

1. Squad personnel

It's evident the board and/or management have realised there was a serious error in judgement for not replacing the players we released. Not that I'm saying, we should have kept them. The signings of David Luiz and Fernando Torres clearly show that we needed more players. As the youth system didn't prevail. It could be a safe bet to say, our dealings in the transfer market 2011, are nowhere near finished.

Note sure about this. Abramovich seems to be making the transfer decisions rather than Ancellotti - and this is alarming. In all the press statements Carlo stated Luiz was the only player in his sights, no mention of Torres, no talk of needing players- instead he mentioned after the Bolton game that if there was no deals in January he was happy with the squad he had on hand Let's not forget there are a lot of players on the books injuries aside, that will be ready to come back into the squad players such as Alex, Yossi, Yuri etc. The worrying sign here is that Abramovich shouldn't intefere with the coach, decisions about the squad should be left with the coaching staff - Jose had beef over it, but Carlo, being used this type of caper at Milan is being philosophical about it - which pushes him into making decisions about how to play all the "New Recruits" into the squad without adequate build up.

2. Youth

A touchy subject our youth. As we came into this season believing they'd be given a chance we've seen Kakuta, Sturridge, Bruma & Van Aanholt go out on loan. Sturridge & Van Aanholt have already made impressions with Sturridge grabbing 3 in 3 for Bolton and Van Aanholt becoming 1st choice left-back for Sven's men at Leicester. While it's clear they won't be involved this season, seeing them take their chances will bring huge smiles to our faces and will only help them in getting the management's notice for the coming season. McEachran is one we all want to see get his first competitive début and I'm sure next season we'll see him being included a lot more (based on the evidence of this one). If Sturridge carries on scoring, I have no doubts the club will seek to intergrate him into our squad next season. Kakuta's yet to get a full chance at Fulham yet, so it remains to be seen if he'll take his chances, as he follows in the steps of Messi (by winning Player of the Tournament at the u19 European Championships)

Where are the signs that we are going to be integrating more Youth players when we have released most of them, and loaned out the other half? Ancellotti is not really a "youth"minded coach, he may allow one or two but not on the scale that I think Chelsea requires.

3. Management

Personally, I'm glad Carlo has not received the boot yet. The worst mistake Chelsea could have made is, firing Carlo in January after seeing Ray Wilkins go and the effect that had on the club. We've learnt a great deal from the days we fired Scolari so quickly and had to fork out that massive compensation fee. While many of us will criticise, fairly, Carlo's management abilities, we can all agree that he's not an idiot and firing him now would be awful for the rest of the season. I don't care to speculate where Carlo's future lies beyond the summer, but one thing is for sure, Abramovich has given his full support to Carlo for the rest of the season. The signing of Torres & Luiz could've waited until the summer, for a new manager, but Abramovich decided the time was now and trusts Carlo to use them to get us the highest position we can attain now.

Agreed. I don't think firing Carlo is the answer, he's not a bad Coach, but if CHelsea needs to rebuild (which it does) I'm not sure Carlo is the man - but the way things are going, Chelsea's rebuilding will probably be buying brand players in the mid to late 30s in a Madrid like fashio, in which case Carlo would porbably be right at home.

4. Finances

While we still have a bit of a way to go before we break even, or even steer in the profit zone, we have been trying to be more cost-effective. Lucrative sponsorship deals were signed on the back of last season, the main ones being Singha Beer & Samsung/Adidas. This, with the realising of players like Ballack, Deco et al, has shaved quite a lot from our wage-bill. The revamp of the scouting department would also help with the costs and us not replacing Wilkins as opposed to simply giving a title upgrade to another member of management has also kept keep costs down. It'll be argued that the £73million we've spent have hindered that, but I firmly believe, the club has worked out their costs to match with these transfers. Bruce Buck has been a very strong supporter of a wage-cap and this is shown evident by details emerging of Ivanovic's contract which sees him on simply £65k/week (I say simply, even though I'd kill for that lol).

Rumours are also surfacing that we're set to have another clear out this summer of the "old guard". The likes of Drogba, Anelka, Malouda & Ferriera are all on the precipice of being released, while Bosingwa and Alex are rumoured to be transfer targets of several clubs. Most notably AC Milan. I'm sure we won't make the same mistake twice, of going into the 2011-12 season with a weak squad, but a freshened up one would come. If we can get good money for, said, players and use this to fund their replacement transfers it'll really be a new age for our finances.

We owe Abramovich 790M pounds, we have a bit to go before the club is self sufficient.

5. In conclusion.. The 2004 revolution propelled the club to dizzy heights, along the way lots of money was spent, many players were purchased some players fared well others flopped.Such is life. What is evident is that the core player group of that revolution has most likley peaked and is now starting to wane - 2 premierships and FA cups wre good, but still no Champions leauge, this generation of player as we know them have probably won their last title. Maybe one more, but then it's closed curtains. Our youth system is supposed to deliver one player per season from 2010 onwards according to departing footbal director and youth academy architect Frank Arnesen, who recently defended the 50m pound siging of Torres stating "

'If you want to be top you need to hire the best players from outside,' he said. 'If you go with the youth you will probably not win a lot of trophies. If [you] don't want to win trophies and want to be involved in the Champions League, then OK, you go with youth.' 'The most important people are the people at the top of the club, who own it. They have the philosophy. Arsenal have their philosophy and we have ours and we stick to it. [Abramovich] believes in [youth]. But he demands that you will win so you have to sign players from outside.'

<br><br>In a nutshell whilst Abramovich has had an immensly positive impact on the club I think at the same time his monopolistic attempt to buy Premiership has warped not only our club (as per Arnesen's quote) but the EPL. I much prefer what Arsenal are doing, and it certainly creating better more entertaining football as squads are finely balanced and built to play a footballing philosophy rather than on buying big name players. <br><br>

[NattyBlue 44]

^ Someones always got to piss on the happy fire...you know...Arsenal need supporters, you can go join them if you want

Anyway...good post and in all fairness it's realistic...I don't think the club can make the same mistake twice with their errors in this season and hopefully by next they'll be better equipped...

One thing I would like is to have a strong finish to the season though, we would keep top 4 place and be confident going into next season...which I think helped us win the double last season.

[handy15 9]

^ Someones always got to piss on the happy fire...you know...Arsenal need supporters, you can go join them if you want

I like what they are doing but I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire (to borrow your expression ).

Yea I was a bit negative - Tottenham have fucked my day, how dare they steal our 4th spot?!

The good times will be back - and I should applaude LDN Blue for trying to bring the optimism back, my bad.

Common Chelsea!

[Madmax 9,219]

Optimism needed? You're obviously missing me