Sounds like Loftus-Cheek will be getting a start after the break. It's a shame it's not under better circumstances, but after the start we've had it's more than right to bring him in. Even if it was against lesser opposition he is the only CM who has impressed this year.

The debate now is who will be dropped out of Matic and Fabregas. Personally, I'd stick him between the 2 of them, but 4-3-3 looks here to stay, despite the absolute failure of Oscar.......

TipTop seemed pretty happy.
No, but it's still weird how you go away when we play well.

I agree that that our slump started last season. Not quite relegation candidates, but if this goes on for even a few matches longer I doubt we'll even make top 4. (especially with November approaching. That's when we usually turn to shit.)

Not all his fault, but he is bringing a lot of this on himself. Signing Falcao was beyond dumb, and that's all on him. Continuing to play Ivanovic as well.
I agree about selling Mata. I understand he doesn't fit Mourinho's style, but Mata was, and still is, far superior to Oscar and Willian. I don't doubt a manager as talented as Mourinho could have tweaked things to keep him around if he wanted to, but he wanted rid of Mata before he even came back. Was clearly done to prove a point and not for footballing reasons.
The failure to buy cover for Matic (tackling) and Fabregas (passing) is something he will have to take responsibility for, but I genuinely believe he wants to bring RLC through this season, and signing another player without being able to shift Mikel and/or Ramires would have hurt his chances. A mistake, sure. But I'm not sure anyone expected those 2 to be quite as bad as they have been so far.
Shambolic transfers....it's not good, I agree. We keep signing players he doesn't seem to be interested in, which isn't really his fault. Only Falcao.
Agreed.
Agreed.
Agreed.
Possibly. hope not.

I think that's a bit harsh on Oscar, was he any worse than most of the team ?
In my opinion, we have to play Fabregas as the playmaker, but further foward. He actually averaged better than a goal every 4 games for Barcelona, so it doesn't make sense for him to play in a semi-defensive role. He's probably capable of getting into double figures for us playing further foward.
That makes it a toss-up between Oscar and Fabregas for the so called No 10 role. For some reason, a lot of Chelsea fans don't seem to think Fabregas is a No 10, I don't know why it's frequently the position he takes up anyway ?
Assuming Matic recovers his old form, we just need someone to play alongside him. That could be RLC as you say, but he's still only 19. Ramires is very erratic, Mikel is a bit too passive and doesn't offer much over 90 minutes. I think we should have signed someone in the summer, but it's no good looking back now.

Dixon will be wanting Brendan as the new manager

Naaa, I disagree with most of what his says but I think he that bad.

Now the other one???????

I would not be so sure

The Ladies won The Woman's Super League title today. A fantastic achievement.

That's the double right ?

Yep it is

Oh that's great. I've been watching the regular feature they now have on tv about women's football. All right, it's massively different to the men's game, but you still see some bits of play of real quality. On the level they play, we are seriously good.

Taking them in the context of the woman's league they have done a great job.

I think last season they missed out on goal difference and many teams would have let that affect them in a negative way but they did not

What a ridiculous post!

As always, Jose inherited a team that needed very little work doing.
Rafa had done the hard part in turning around a team that finished outside the top four the previous season and was heading that way again.
Under the most extreme circumstances, he gradually got us going again and did exactly what he was brought in to do!
Not only that, he got Hazard, Mata and Oscar clicking brilliantly together when everyone was saying we could only play two of them and he was also using Lamps to perfectoion!
The players were also working their backsides off for him battling through a fixture pile up to go on and claim 3rd place and very fine win in the Europa League.

Given money to buy a centre forward and some defensive steel behind Mata and co, we would have been very hot contenders for the title the following season!

Anyway, enough of that!
At times like this we should all pur our personal footballing differences aside and get fully behind Jose and the team!

It needed a massive amount of work to turn that team to a team that could win titles. They lacked what most Rafa teams lack that extra 20% to win titles. As for giving him money well we could if we wanted to carry on flushing money down the drain

Rafa would have done what Rafa has done time and time and time again when it comes to winning titles FAILED. He would have come close he would have done a few things right but at the last huddle he would have failed and we would have remained "hot contenders" but never winners

The minimum for Moro is a top 4 finish, & the bookies still make us favourites after the other 3, even if its never been done from this position. We could also fluke the CL again !
Any less & hes gone even if it costs £30M, pocket money for RA.

Dixon, I agree with most of your points. Trying to have a discussion on this thread though is very hard. Most fans are not stupid. They won't just blindly follow a 'manager' who has lost it imo, and most fans got behind Rafa by the end. A vocal minority will attack you having said that for expressing a reasonable opinion, and at the end of it all is it worth the hassle? Imo, Mourhino will be sacked soon, and rightly so. If he ever manages another pl club, so what? We all know for sure now that he might have some success for two seasons, two and a half max. After that he will be clueless, and will either leave, blaming everything apart from himself, or be sacked. That's reality.

1. He can't bring youth through. Kennedy / RLC etc play brilliantly in cup games, then are automatically dropped for the PL. That must be like a kick in the teeth re' motivation. Other teams (e.g. West Ham) are playing 'kids' and winning. Why can't Chelsea?

2. He can't utilise a squad / rotate;

3. Everything that goes wrong is someone else's fault.

That's a recipe for disaster. Sad but true. It's an opinion, and that's what a forum is supposed to be about isn't it?

Not alone:

http://www.espnfc.us/club/chelsea/36...s-been-exposed
http://www.skysports.com/football/ne...t-for-mourinho
http://www.express.co.uk/sport/footb...r-League-start
http://www.football365.com/news/chel...n-a-crisis-now
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...ing-stars.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...rd-Bridge.html

A real fan would never say something like that. You should try the neutrals board

The big problem if Jose is sacked is, who on earth would we replace him with?
Take a huge gamble and give it straight to JT?
Carlo thinks the club is a madhouse so he won't return.
I like the look of Klopp. He's a bit nuts and wants fast, exciting, attacking football, but he's now taken.

JT needs to retire before he can even be considered for the job and needs at least a year as assistant manager before he can even be considered a massive massive gamble.

Even then not sure JT has the personality to be a top top manager. If they was pre-Roman then he gets the job because he is JT but I don't think you can do that at a club like Chelsea unless he has spent time learning the job,

Being manager of a premiership team is impossible enough but being manager of club the size and ambition of Chelsea well you cannot even compare the two .

Ideal world (well realistic ideal world as would rather he learnt his trade at another club but those days IMO are gone) is that he retires after this season, Spends two or three seasons learning under Jose and we take it from there.

Agreed, things have moved on from the days where you had player-managers. Even if he retires first and even if he has a couple of years as assistant to Mourinho, I'm still not keen on the idea of then appointing Terry. I'd much rather have somebody who's already worked as a manager, and attained some level of success at that.

JT - seriously what ??
Brendan was your choice not that long ago. What's changed or do you just go with the flavour of the month ?
Claudio is doing well. Get him back eh

Oh I would prefer that but as we grow as a club the list of managers who have a good enough of a CV and have the ability to "step up" will get smaller. It would also be difficult to find a manager willing to come in a work with Jose to learn the ropes, one route could be getting someone who has a good relationship with him and someone who knows what it is to work in the pressure cooker of a business like Chelsea, again it's a very short list

Here's one for the Chuckle Brothers. Its in the papers so must be true right -

http://www.theguardian.com/football/...ed-david-moyes

And your hero Rafa

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/footba...madrid-6587263

The board at Chelsea are shrewd, and they will have some backups in mind. Caretaker managers in the past have been successful. Grant almost won the treble including the CL, although 'almost' says a lot about him. Rafa and Hiddink were both very good, as was Wilkins.

The most successful club in Europe Real, have never had a long term manager to my knowledge. It would be great if Chelsea could manage it, but it's probably never going to happen. Guardiola? Who knows. I agree though that JT might be appointed as a coach the same way as Giggs has at Man Utd, with a view to a manger role in the future.

I agree that Rafa would have been a brilliant manager for a few seasons. Luiz, Mata, rotation, fast, attacking football. Not many on this thread will agree, although most fans were behind him at the end. Everything I have said recently about Jose, I said when Rafa was still at the club and there was a possibility of Mourhino returning.

No fan will begrudge the boring football near the end of the last season as we won a double, but they and the players won't tolerate that sort of football week in week out. It has to change. Hazard is a very shrewd player, and I honestly believe he will come alive again under a manager he trusts.

And just like these "signings" we should have made you have no idea who we should give the job to.

Genius

Im sorry, but thats absolute rubbish.

Imo, you place far too much importance on experience! Moyes, had plenty and look where it got him at UTD.

JT would have the respect of the players straight away.That is vital!
He's got a very good football brain, which is a vital talent to have. He's played under numerous top managers and if he's interested in being a manager? he would have been looking and learning from them over the years.
The fans would be 100% behind him.

We've been through so many managers, and with the best around already in other jobs, our next one might have to be a bit of a punt, so if it is, i reckon JT would be as good a punt as any.