BBC interview:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34435619

I'm guessing this came after the Sky one? Either way I thought it was a very insightful interview and he seems rather calm considering some of the reporting surrounding the Sky interview.

Seems to simply be saying they're having a run of bad form.. heads are down.. some players aren't coping with the pressure that's bringing.. and he's frustrated about this theory he has that the ref's aren't giving Chelsea decisions. I think as an outsider those were all fair points to make and I can understand what he's saying. I think it's something every club struggles with at times. They just need a couple of good wins.

I couldn't disagree with the last paragraph more, that is little more than papering over the cracks. They were battered tonight and the players seem completely shot to pieces. They have serious, evident problems front to back and its hard to see where exactly they go from here.

Not really, it was mainly replacing like for like. Falcao for Drogba, Begovic for Cech and Rahman for Luis. Pedro was a bonus, but after the failures of Marin, Salah and Caudrado on the RW we needed somebody. There was Kenedy of course, but I'm not sure if we really expected him to be a possible starter, so that was a pleasant surprise.

It's not clear who was responsible for our failings in the summer transfer window. Mourinho continually said he didn't need new signings, or only needed players to replace those who were on their way out. We do know that our attempts to sign Stones failed, there were weekly reports that we were after other big names (including Pogba of course) but how many were true nobody knows.

I wonder if we are getting into AVB, Scholari, RDM territory.
The players have totally lost confidence in themselves and maybe Jose.
I don't know how long the board will hold their nerve.

Falcao aside, I'm not convinced we added anyone Mourinho had previously thought about signing. Rahman isn't playing despite Ivanovic being terrible, and Pedro was signed after the season started even though he was available for the same price all summer. Stones appeared to be the only player we really pursued because we considered him an upgrade, and even that was after the season started as well.

The worry now is that we will do our usual in January and piss money away on more dross. Matic is the only January signing in recent memory who has delivered, but he's one of our worst players right now......

Throwing individual players under the bus never ends well, no matter how much they deserve it.

Can I have some attention please, ANNOUNCEMENT! Where are the so called fans who were attacking my comments when I said several weeks ago that Mourhino wouldn't last?!

I'm a fan of the club, not the manager. Surprised some 'fans' on here didn't move to Italy when he left last time.

I don't hate the guy, but he has some serious character flaws. It's always someone else's fault and he can't change, he can't adapt. The team were fantastic under Ancelotti when we won the double and set a PL goal scoring record. I'm not saying that we could play like that every season. You have to change, adapt, and not become predicable. That's something Mourhino can't do, and I said it a long, long time ago. Two seasons, three maximum if you've got legends like Drogba, Terry, Lamps, Makalele etc, in your side.

After that, he runs out of ideas, and has to sell the same formula in another country. Those are the facts, and I rest my case.

R'mond, you seem a sensible guy who can watch a match of football in a pub with opposing fans quite peacefully. Don't say I didn't tell you about Mourhino a long time ago.

A Chelsea "fan" happy to see his team failing is a strange one for me but there are always oddballs around wherever you go.
Jose clearly won't quit and we are still a long way from the fans wanting him out so its down to whether the board hold their nerve.
I don't see any change soon but I would like to see Jose give himself a chance and ring the changes. RLC should start, Ivan rested and at least Costa will be back.

If you were attacked over your comments about Mourinho I'm in little doubt it was probably warranted and something you can hardly complain about given the way you are goading others with the Italy comment.

You sound like the exact sort of fan who puts a lot of people off Chelsea. There are a lot of people who are no doubt fed up with Chelsea's league position at present but they don't act like petulant children over it.

Well said. Hard to believe Tip top is 47 as his profile states, isn't it?

If that's his IQ, he's lying.

47 ? He acts more like 7.....

Sacking managers at this level is rarely a good a smart move.

Just like we currently have a shortage of players available who are good enough to play at our level we have a even bigger shortage of managers available good enough and who are sensible and logical long term replacements. Our turnover would more then likely put off the most logical names (and who could blame them). Yes of course we could go down the route of offering them silly wages and/or a silly transfer budget to tempt them but that's not a good business route to go down its more a route from the old fashioned "football" route and one we cannot afford to go down again

There are lot's of managers who can "do the job" at clubs like West Ham,Spur's and Liverpool etc etc but there are very very few managers who can do the job at Chelsea's,Man City and Utd level.

Are things rosy in the garden at the moment? No but anyone watching us this season has to be able to see that it's not going to change just like that. It's a problem that is going to take more then a one win or one good performance or dropping even a handful of players.

All this "losing the dressing room" and to a even bigger extent is the nonsense about "players getting bored of doing the same thing" are just the same standard excuse's that football fans trot out as a very simplistic excuse that we have been hearing for years and years when clubs go though a bad patch. Very easy to shout from the rooftops but offers as often with fans little or no offering of a solution apart from chucking money at the problem and sacking someone.

Brana is playing badly at the moment but many of the problems will not be solved by dropping him as while his mistake are costly the reason's he is in a place where his mistakes are so costly because of just as bad mistake made further up the pitch. Bringing in another player thinking he can cover for those mistakes is covering up the cracks.

Hazzard is the biggest problem IMO we need to solve. Has he started to believe the hype around him? Some really awful mistakes (and I think calling them mistakes when you a international footballer who has been playing at his level is being very kind). The type of mistakes are not ones that a manager can solve by moving him around the pitch or by letting him do his thing etc, They can only be fixed by him taking his head out of his own A**e. He is far from the only player who this applies to and nor would it solve the entire issue but it would be a step in the right direction. Eden has the basic tools to be amongst the very best around and when you have one of those around in any industry it will force the other people who work with him to raise their game.

Our problems are only going to be tackled if we take each one at a time and starting in the middle of the park as its's the place where our attack as well as our defence starts is as good a point as anywhere more so as that is where some of our "most" talented players are.


Our problems is not going to be solved by ripping everything up and starting again, We have done that countless times under Roman and it's never worked. Its not going to start working just because we keep doing it.

From your many posts on this subject. You seem to share some of the character flaws you accuse Jose have. You have become more predicable then Jose ever has

Yes, you did. But Mourinho achieved what he had set out to do last season..winning the EPL. Despite a few posters saying that was comparatively easy, I would say it remains quite an achievement. It appears to be a task that is beyond Arsenal and Liverpool in recent years anyway,
Where I would agree with you is in our failure to strengthen in the summer. There were signs that things were going wrong from January onwards. Mourinho's attitude during the summer appeared strange to me. His version is that he gave a list of player requirements to the club hierarchy back in April and then just sat back and let them get on with it.
He was certainly very laid back over the summer, but I thought that was just "Jose being Jose". He appeared to be the one who instigated the Falcao loan. It almost seems as if the club just went along with it to humour him. I think most fans doubted the wisdom of the move, but again it was a case of let Jose have what he wants. The Stones transfer saga appeared to drag on forever, but would it have made a great difference if we had been successful ? We got Pedro, replaced Cech, signed a LB who Jose doesn't seem to rate, that's about it really. There were a couple of signings right at the end, but I've forgotten their names already.
Anyway, to cut this post short. I think Mourinho underestimated our problems and should have pushed for some quality new recruits in the summer. All right, that's easy for me to say with hindsight but I think many fans saw the writing on the wall before Mourinho ! That sounds crazy, with Jose being one of the best managers in the world, but sometimes it happens. Even away from football, it's sometimes outsiders who can see the problems with an organisation before those close to the company.

As usual, there are large parts of your post that I agree with wholeheartedly, but others where I'm less enthusiastic. I don't quite understand your reluctance to "throw money around". It's become the name of the game these days, let's face it, that's how we got where we are (or were).

If we have pretensions of becoming one of the biggest clubs in the world, there's no alternative but to chase the world's best players. I appreciate there were few players available, but as PL champions with one of the most highly regarded managers in the world at the helm, it was surely the ideal time to buy ?

It's not going to get any easier in the market, particularly if we're struggling to make the top four this season. We may need another miracle in Europe to regain the kudos we had last summer. Of course, none of us know what is going on behind the scenes. Maybe Abramovich has decided to tread water for a while until the stadium is sorted out. But that doesn't sound like Roman to me, he's always seemed like a guy who just wants the club to kick-on and build on success.

I don't think Mourinho has "lost" the dressing room, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few players are scratching their heads and wondering about Mourinho's behaviour behaviour this season.
The Eva Carneiro business was bizarre even by Jose's standards, it showed a nasty side to his character. Some of his team selections have been strange as well, you can imagine players shaking their heads and whispering behind his back.
Yesterday's seven minute ramble won't have helped, far from clearing the air it just makes you wonder if Jose is actually cracking under pressure. I mean, if it was a friend of yours, wouldn't you be genuinely a bit worried ?

While you speak a lot of sense there are others on this thread who just want to goad, and fall into the same category as Mourhino's bizarre, petulant behaviour. Just idiots.

I honestly think he has lost the dressing room, and playing Ivanovic every game is probably central to that. Favourites never work.

Of course big clubs have got to spend big money at times, it's a no brainer, and considering the huge amounts of sponsorship money in the game, it makes perfect business sense.

I would not mind chucking the money around if there is some form of intelligence and thought behind it. What I don't want to see is buys like Sterling and KDB. Those are the type of buys and spending we need to avoid. They remind me of the Little Briton character that goes "I want that one"

Mainly because we can only afford to do that by using Roman's wallet and after all these years we have to smarter then that. Its the easy route and its the route that its the most easy to fail going down. There are a couple of clubs who have owners with open wallets and so we need to find a different tactic, Find another way to use our other strengths.


We have excellent resources and its about time we started to use them. Its a updated version of the SAF and Utd model as that is really the only successful one in the entire history of the premiership, We need to find a hybrid of the spending money when needed but only a sensible amount of money and developing players. We have shown we can buy very good players within sensible budgets.

The new TV deal's and the number of clubs just below the big boys getting new grounds will mean Roman's money unless he starts chucking around money that made our spending when he first come look tiny it wont make that much of a big difference.

Its only a ideal time to buy if they offer value for money, Both on transfer fee and wages as well.

We need to throw our big punches when we know they are going to connect big. We got Costa for a amazing price but I would have bought him even if we had to pay £40m+ as he fitted everything we was looking for at the time.

Name one single Chelsea fan who is happy to see us performing like this???????

Do think i want to come on here with a smug smile on my face and say i told you so?

If you just looked beyond results from Jan 15 onwards, you would have been able to see this coming a mile away. Apart from the first few months of last season, under Jose this time round, we have been lucky, very, very average and now the luck has run out we are looking like relegation candidates. Even i didn't expect us to be anywhere near this bad though!

This is all Jose's fault!
He has never been one to build teams and this is now showing up his limitations with this piss-poor, weak squad that he's built.
For short term gain, he came in and destroyed what was being built!
Got rid of the player who was scoring and creating goals for fun, just because he can't do the 100 metres in 11 seconds., ruined Oscar and run Hazard into the ground,
We now have a midfield that can't score or create and even tackle.
His transfers dealings have been nothing short of shambolic.
Blames refs for everything.
Picks fights with a highly qualified, popular team doctor.
Openly slags off certain players but gives the armband to the worst player this season.

This is a manager who has completely lost the plot.

Your points might be valid if you did not continue with this utter nonsense about Mata and the even more nonsense about "running around", Not only are you dumbing down your "facts" to a under 9 months level but as far from being right as you can possibly get

Name one bit of my post which is wrong!

Everyone knew his negative opinions about Mata before came back. He was going to sideline him and start fixing the very parts of the team that didn't need fixing.
Every part of the team and squad is now much worse than when Jose arrived, That is a disastrous state of affairs to be in 3 seasons in and anyother manager would have already gone by now!

Lets see if Jose is not just a flat track bully who can only preform when things are in his favour.

Your obsession with this utter nonsense of players being picked or dropped on "running" as shown by your childish habit of changing their names to names like "mo" and etc. Your views on why players are picked and sold is where your post falls down like a cheap deck of cards

Not every part of the team and squad is worse, they have a little medal around their necks which if they followed your plans they would never have.

Every single part of the team needed to be fixed when he came because of the style over substance rubbish. The team he found when he came back would have had as much chance of wining the league as I have of winning the US Lottery.

And of course those months before when we played great football and more or less secured the league you were unfortunately nowhere to be seen.

Instead of going on about 3 season ago, what's your answer to the problems ?
The past is gone, what should the club do now in your opinion ?

We had been struggling to get something out of Torres before Mourinho arrived. We were also trying different combinations in DM without success. Jose did "fix" a couple of things, bringing in Costa and Matic.
I'm less sure about getting rid of Mata, but that's a matter of personal opinion and Mourinho has probably forgotten more about football than I'll ever know. You know I like Willian as a player, so we'll never agree on that one. I would have liked to have kept Mata as well, but understandably the guy wasn't getting games and jumped at the chance of going to United..the £37m was also a very good price.
Mourinho also brought in Fabregas who was an enormous success in the first half of last season. I do think he's been played too often this season and defensively he looks almost a liability at times, but hell, what do I know ?
But the bottom line remains the same, we won the Premiership title last season. Jose must have been doing something right. Every manager will make mistakes and Mourinho is no different. I didn't like the business with Eva, I thought we had a poor summer transfer window, and some of Mourinho's ratings of players have baffled me. But given the chance, I think he can pull us out of this slump. The worry is, are the players still 100% behind him ?