As the title states we find ourselves in a year of questions. Will Lampard be a good enough coach for this level? Does this team have enough depth? Can someone or the team replace Hazards production? Will the youth develop and/or produce? Will Pulisic need a year to adjust to the EPL? Will Lampard actually be given a long leash or will he be held to the same standard all of our past coaches have been? Do we finish top 4? Do we win a trophy? Do we make it out of the group in UCL? How will Cho and RLC respond from bad injures? Does Cech handle his role well? The list of questions goes on. Feel free to speculate on any of these questions or ask your own. I’m interested to know what everyone thinks.
With so many questions going into the year what is everyone’s expectations for this year? Chelsea standard is winning... Top 4? Trophy? Get out of the group UCL?
Top 4, ManU and Arse even with spending, have worse D's than us, losing Trip going to hurt tots and they have the most over-rated, never wins any thing, coach around, he could not even put or keep us down or even beat us down the stretch with a big lead last year when we were in shambles and free-falling ourselves. truly believe Sarri cost us 10-15 points last year thru stubbornness, bad system and bad decisions so I think, barring key injuries we will be at least in low to mid 80's in pts I expect far better all around effort, in each and every match next season, less dull wan to commit hari-kari viewing, a better road record and better results against the lower half. I think we will take domestic cups more seriously, make a good run in at least one then it is a matter of match-ups. City and Pool are both deeper and more talented at the moment. CL, a matter of match-ups quarter finals my guess but not an expectation We will be happy to have Supah back for another year with some summer buying
Hopefully we shall get our first trophy early in the season with that game in Istanbul. That would be Super. City and Liverpool are still the teams to beat, but I feel the rest of the pack will close in on them. United and Arse and Spurs and Us and maybe Everton will make this season a more contested affair. We have some good players. A great keeper. A stable and reliable bunch of defenders. Exciting and creative midfield players and the best DM in the world. The striker question is still our biggest question. With some luck and confidence if Tammy and/or Giroud can just start scoring on a regular basis then we can make the top 4. The Champions League. It is going to be great to be in the CL again. We have the right type of technical players to do well in Europe. It would be great to make the QF or the SF.
I hope we have less back-heels this season. We can play it out Sarri style but we can also be more direct at times. I hope the team doesn't forget everything Sarri taught them. But also understand the passion and the urgency that the Sarri rigidity lacked.
I don't think this will be the case. While we are going to struggle with replacing Hazard's production our squad is still vastly deeper than anyone outside of the top 6 sides. Other teams may have better players here and there but again, they have serious issues with squad depth. Just my 2 cents here, we aren't in a terrible place.
TLDR warning here: I love the concept of Sarriball, I really do. I was thrilled with the idea that we were going to do something different. What Sarri lacked and really our last three managers lacked (Jose, Conte, and Sarri) was tactical flexibility. All of them were set in their ways, and as soon as the going got tough, they backed into their figurative hole and never backed out. Sure, sometimes it flowed beautifully regardless of manager, but in the end they were stubborn ********ers. I have no idea if it'll work out with Frank. What I've seen so far though is a willingness to operate under the idea that our tactics may need to be flexible and I'm thrilled with that. Play it out of the back, it makes for interesting matches (nervous ones too) but don't be afraid to just lump it forward sometimes. Also, not everything has to go through Jorginho even when we know he'll lose the ball (thank you Rob Green). Sometimes our wingers pace can lead to those passes over the top on those diagonal runs because the option is there. Fabergas used to do and it was pretty damn effective.