I'd be rooting for Leicester too if they need a result against us to clinch the league, or even a top 4 place at a rival's expense.

We also play Bournemouth near the end of the season, and as they're my local club I want them to stay up, so I'd rather they beat us too if they haven't guaranteed safety by then.

I haven't been on for a while, just didn't want to spread any more gloom.
I have to go back a long way to remember a time whwn I was so despondent about Chelsea's future. I know it's not the way Roman Abramovich operates, but I think after all these years he could make a statement to put the fans in the picture.
We appear directionless at present. What is the plan ? I think the majority of fans would understand if the idea is to "tread water" for a few years until the stadium has been refurbished. But why not give us a hint about what's going on ?
It certainly seems as if we have lowered our ambitions for the time being. As others have said, I can see Hazard leaving in the summer, along with Costa and any others who might command a big fee. We're unlikely to replace them like for like, so we'll probably end up downgrading and hoping some of our youngsters come through.
I can live with that if it's part of some long term plan, although it sounds dangerous to me. Trying to coast along as a top 6 club for a few years won't be easy, and you can't just press a button and become a top club in Europe again in a few years time as Liverpool found out.
Then there's the structure of the club. Does anyone (apart from RA of course) have any faith in Michael Emenalo ? He appears to have risen to a position far beyond his capabilities, and seems directly responsible for some of our more bizarre recent transfer dealings. Whoever comes in as manager, Emenalo will sill be there, which doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

Following Chelsea is always fun, interesting, unpredictable and even bizarre at times, no matter what position we're in!
Those who have a right to be really pissed off and totally fed up are the likes of Newcastle, who haven' t won an Egg Cup in decades.

What about Liverpool ? No title for 26 years. They can't be happy can they ??

I claim my right to be fed up. I've followed our ups and downs since moving to London in 1968, and yes, it's been fun. But we appeared to have a real chance of joining football's elite, do we still have that ambition ? I believe there should be a London club among that elite, so why not Chelsea ? it's a great pity that we didn't get the Battersea Power Station site, can you imagine how fantastic it would have been to be associated with such an iconic landmark ?
We just appear to have lost our way, and I'd like to know our plans for the future. If the past decade turn out to be the best I'll ever see, I can live with that as well.

That's the thing, Clubs like Newcastle have never really in recent times had the opportunity or resources to win things or do anything major in today's game.

We on the other hand have had everything needed to do so and really failed to do so. Yes we have had some great times like Munich (and even Moscow was something special) and things like Drogba at Wembley etc etc but nothing like what we could have had if we had used our resources anywhere near as much as we should have done.

Battersea would have been fantastic but I do think the new ground will be even better, I love the look of it and having it in the same place keeps us in tune with our history (Ossie's ashes under the pen spot in front of The Shed for example) something even Liverpool will not be able to say in a few years when they move. Yes The Shed I remember has long since gone but the fact it is still just about in the same place (and always will be) is fantastic.

We have had many false dawns with Roman but I really hope that once the new ground opens we will finally start to get things right.

I don't think Roman will settle for us to be treading water until then that goes against the way he has done things since he came, Yes there have been mistakes and many of them but I think every single one has been done with the best of intentions.

I have had issues with many of Roman's and the boards decision's and pretty sure I will have even more during the building and how the new ground is set up for example I hope we really become the team that stands up for "safe standing" in one part of the ground, That could be something we do for every club in the premiership and have a real effect on the game but I do think Roman is trying his best.

Of course they won't be happy about that but they have at least won a lot of trophy's during that period. Many Newcastle supporters will never have seen them win a thing in their entire life.

The fact that Roman is prepared to shed out a ton of money to build us a new stadium to last the next 100 years, shows us the club does indeed have the ambition. We can't expect him to shed out tons of money on and off the pitch at the same time.
We might just have to put up with us treading water for the next few years or so before we go again when the stadium is up and running.

The way the money is pouring into the Premiership, i think we'll be extremely lucky to see us win as much again in the space of a decade. 4 Premiership titles and a CL [should have been two] plus many other Cups was some achievement!
City will now have a good chance to do something special during the next few years or so, but from then i can see it being a bit of a dog fight for the Premiership.

I don't understand why you think we under achieved so much
We were incredibly consistent in all competitions.
4 Prem titles and a freak slip on wet grass away from having two CL trophies to our name. I think we only let one Prem title slip that we should have won and that was In Carlo's second season. The way we were going, i am sure we would have won it had it not been for the sacking of Wilkins.
Apart from that, we should all be very satisfied with what we won!

The PL is going to be a real dogfight, i dont think city will dominate over many years.

You can buy fancy players but you have to make them into a team.

And once again, once neymar gets reduced by shawcross, that 140million is not going to be spent wisely.

And once again it's not only what you win that you measure success by its when you don't win. Anytime Chelsea don't win the title its one we let slip, That's what Roman's money should have meant to us. I really don't mind not winning the league season after season its very hard to do that but we should always be there or thereabouts and too often we have not been. I will never accept the losing mentality of Wenger and keep going on about "top four" that should be a given since Roman bought us with the resources available to us and those available to the other teams at the time.

A winning mentality means we should never be happy with what we have won, We should have always been able to do more. Won the league by 5 points? Very good but why did we not win it by 10? Ok scored 100 goals in a season lets score 110 next.

Two seasons finishing outside the top 4 (unless we do the impossible this season) is not great.

Do I hold us to the highest standards? To right I do because we have had more then enough opportunities to achieve those. The only way you get to the highest levels in any sport is by always demanding more and never being satisfied with what you have done.

Cloughy said when asked why he accepted the Leeds job said he wanted to win it better then Don Reive and that's the mentality we need.

Have we done well? Yes very well but could we have done better? Of course

The second you are satisfied with what you have done is when you get like Arsenal and happy with being top 4 and that is something we should never be happy with or we might as well stayed a cup side like before Roman

Well, you've cheered me up Don, I like your enthusiasm and confidence. We've had some great seasons since RA arrived, and we weren't too shabby for a couple of years before that.
But as you say, I really thought we had cracked it back in 2004/2006 and that we were on our way to building a dynasty that would last for generations. But we just seemed to stall for some reason. There have still been some fantastic successes but I don't think anyone could deny that we're probably further away from joining that tiny group of the footballing elite than we were 10 years ago.
But that's football I guess. After all the years I've been watching, I shouldn't really be surprised or disappointed. As others have said, in many ways we've been incredibly lucky. But it still doesn't stop you wondering "what if ?". What if we hadn't signed Torres, what if we'd given Mourinho or Ancelotti longer. Couldn't we have built on that super side, year on year, and remained one of Europe's top sides ? Etc, etc.

Most of the mistakes we have made has been avoidable and that's the worst part of it.

We make a couple of decent decisions look to be getting somewhere and then seem to think "ohhh thinks are going well lets do something really dumb". Like with the recent news fans was happy with the result in the FA cup so what happens? The news about JT breaks, Was on the train coming back from the game, On the way to the train lots of singing and people being happy etc and then it goes to anger and disappointment. Its just very typical of the last 10 years or so.

Its the glaring mistakes that are the hardest to take, The stuff that everyone of us could see was a mistake and going to end badly that is the most annoying thing. Everyone makes mistakes SAF "first retirement announcement" for example but what did they do? They learned from it, Yes there was mistakes made (I don't think for example the Chief Executive should have gone at the same time) but it was handled in a different way. We continue to make the same mistakes and of course if you do that you are not going to move forward as if you make new mistakes even those can be helpful as again you learn something new, By making the same ones again and again you learn nothing and stand still something really we have done

Same with Liverpool fans though. Anyone aged 30 would have no idea what its like to win the league. Thats not good either right ?

He has done a great job since he came in and turned things round significantly. The last game against Watford however brought back memories of the CL semi final against Barca' when we went 1 - 0 up, only to be pegged back to 1 - 1 in the dying minutes which meant we were out of the final.

In that game there was a wee bit too much caution, and in the away leg it was just defend to get a 0 - 0, and I recall Drogba coming across as very frustrated at the lack of attack, even on the counter.

Is that a fatal flaw in Hiddink's managerial skill? When the pressure is on, he loses his bottle and takes the cautious route?

I know the Dons are a struggling Championship side, and with Oscar close to Costa, we created chance after chance. With Costa on his own again up front against Watford, it was starting to look like same old, same old.

We need a manager, who will act decisively when there is a need to attack and win a game. Claiming that Gomes was the main reason for the draw was a bit weak. If we had attacked more, maybe played Oscar closer to Costa again, there could have been more chances and at least 1 or 2 goals.

I'm not having a go at the manager, but to win games you have to take calculated risks, and we have the players to do that. Too much caution will just be a repeat of the past, and that's not good enough.

Come on the Chels'!

2 league wins out of 7 suggests otherwise. We're unbeaten since he took over but that doesn't really count for much when we're drawing so many games.

Got to say I am staggered that Dixon thinks that no Chelsea defender is better than any of the City back 5. But it's all about opinions I guess.

Ahhhh that's because they have not reached some imaginary potential (prob based on what some "expert" said on Monday night football) and Chelsea defenders have overachieved.

Very true. A lot of criticism has come our way because we've had a lot of managers. But we have consistently won trophies. The gooners haven't with just the one manager. We could have won more, and would probably have won the PL again with Wilkins and CA for a second season. Agree there.

There have been occasions when development of the squad just stopped, and both in Mourhino's tenures. That's a recipe for disaster. You can't just stop improving the squad, and it doesn't have to be investment of £ tens of millions all the time. Look at Leicester. Bargains galore.

Critics also go on about the money spent, but the facts are that Man City have now spent more than RA in a much shorter time frame, and both Man Utd and Liverpool have spent a lot more than us in the last few years.

I'm just hoping that the next manager is right for the club, and I'd go for Ranieri if that's possible.

Also, a quick mention that the Chelsea fans at the Duck are meeting up on Tuesday, and all are welcome to attend. The Duck has a very good range of lagers, and for any muffins who want to come along, they also have a decent selection of soft drinks ().

To me, this comment shows you have [and one or two others on here] have no real love for the game of football. You might love Chelsea FC but not the game itself.
Your lack of emotion and feel for the game is non existent and you come across as so self centred.
Here we have a club in with a chance of one of the alltime great achievements in team sports, nevermind just football, and you could care less about that apart from them stopping one of our so called rivals.
And no feeling for Claudiio either

Carlo should have been given more time but not Jose, because he's not a builder of teams.
Yet again, he's proven he's a short term manager who comes in, does a job at getting a team to a certain level, wins something big then everything stagnates and starts to go tits up. He moves on then does the same thing again at yet another club.
Jose is an ultra conservative, non progressive manager who looks no further than grinding out a result in the next game. You can never build for the longterm with that kind of thinking!

Interesting recent quote by Mourinho.

The Portuguese believes Chelsea's failure in the transfer market was a key factor, with Everton defender John Stones among the targets they missed out on during the close-season.

And the former Porto, Inter and Real Madrid coach feels that a lack of investment contributed to Chelsea's stars under performing.

"If you are in a club that wins, if you want to win again, you have to create instability in the winners," he told Sky Sports.

"To do this, you have to make them doubt, you have to buy new players, you have to take them outside their comfort zone because if you win, there is a normal tendency to go to a comfort zone."

(source: https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/mou...101500882.html)

That's exactly what a few genuine fans were saying close season. Competition for places and strengthen to keep winning.

Having aid that, check out what Mourinho was also quoted as saying last July:

Jose Mourinho says he is happy with the make-up of the Chelsea squad. Jose Mourinho is confident Chelsea can defend their Premier League title without significant additions in the transfer market.

The Blues have been relatively quiet in the market so far this summer with Radamel Falcao joining on loan to replace free agent Didier Drogba and Asmir Begovic signed following the departure of Petr Cech.

(source: skysports.com)

Complete contradiction.

I support Chelsea, am only interested in them winning. Why should I care what other teams do.
I was very happy when Gerrard slipped yet you said you were not. That suggests to me you are not a true Chelsea fan, more just have a passing interest in them winning.
Your lack of criticism towards Liverpool is also rather interesting when we have played them so many times there should be some dislike. Strange you don't, very strange.
I hope Leicester win especially if it means stopping Arsenal or Spurs. I will be happy for Claudio of course.
You like football and then Chelsea second. That's fine but not for me.

Same here. With Chelsea having no chance, I'd also like to see Leicester win the title. It would be a fantastic achievement, not just in the Premiership era, but going back through the old First Division winners as well. The fact that they have Ranieri as manager is also bonus, like most Chelsea fans I always liked Claudio..not sure I'd want him back as manager though. And what about Robert Huth ? Must confess I always considered him a bit of a joke, totally out of his depth with us. Now he's turning into a hero, and good luck to him !