Case in point: Manchester United lost to Sheffield today Do not underestimate the inconsistency of our rivals.
Chelsea Left With No Choice but to Fire Frank Lampard Perhaps Lampard will go on to have a successful managerial career. Perhaps this experience will offer vital lessons. But he never looked ready for a job of this magnitude, and the defeat at Leicester only confirmed an end that had been long anticipated. https://www.si.com/soccer/2021/01/25/frank-lampard-fired-chelsea-manager-tuchel
Do we have a dedicated thread for players who are out on loan? Was looking for somewhere to post that Fik apparently looked good in his debut for Milan.
Yeah, I feel like that thread isn't right though. Tomori isn't a former player exactly, and isn't really a youth player either. Probably splitting too many hairs, but I like a clean board!
He was an Academy player. . . Tomori joined Chelsea at under-8 level and progressed through the club's academy system. Start a new thread? I would be happy with a Tomori and other Centre backs thread.
Tuchel had the team train with mini-balls today https://koliasa.com/thomas-tuchel-introduces-mini-footballs-to-chelsea-training/ Amazing! Just to make Billy Gilmour feel at home I'm thinking. . .
In school as a kid we were not allowed to play with proper footballs in the playground so we had to play football with tennis balls. Likewise in Brazil they all grew up playing the great game with oranges apparently. On a beach. Tuchel just did this for shits and giggles.
Same here at least in the autumn/winter and winter/spring terms. In the final term they let us use the school field and a proper ball. 3 and in. Headers and volleys. World cup. And shedloads of stinging nettles on the edge of the field that the ball always ended up in. Dock leaves ftw. It was quite the trick to carve out a workable pitch on concrete with a couple of hundred kids milling around. Used to have little 3v3 matches. Good times.
There's posh, we had to make do with a ball of paper wrapped in tape. The school playground was on the roof of the school, no fields to be seen
We had to make the ball FROM the tape, and from discarded scraps of tape at that. Took months to create one playable ball, and then the teachers would confiscate it and cane you for the pleasure. Our pitch was in the assembly hall, as the roof was radioactive like in Chernobyl.
https://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation...elsea-job-an-unmissable-exceptional-challenge Crazy what it's like to take the job mid season in the current climate. Despite the challenges, sounds like they're (Tuchel and team) highly motivated to take us where we want to be. “We thought we’d rest for at least half a year and spend time with our families [...] but life had different ideas. We had an awful short time to decide, 2-3-4 days, and tons of things to think through and evaluate.” “If it weren’t Chelsea who called, I think we would’ve probably decided to take the time off instead. But the Chelsea job is an exceptional professional challenge, a sensational club with a fantastic squad in the world’s best league. We might not have gotten such an opportunity in the summer, so despite all the difficulties, we took on this assignment.” “We’re all family men, but given the sudden opportunity, we couldn’t bring them along. So we had to take on the additional burden of leaving our families, our children behind in Paris, and jump over to London. We arrived, we held one training, and the next day we were already playing.” “Those first few days were terribly exhausting, mentally, physically, spiritually. We’ve taken on a great challenge. We’re working morning to night, living in a hotel, which we can’t even leave, and due to COVID-19 regulations, we don’t even know when we can see our children next.” “After a few days, it’s turned out that we made a good decision, especially with regards to the squad’s potential. [And as far as the challenge] all the teams are tough to beat, and we have to prepare not just against other sensational players, but the crème de la crème of football coaches who are working in the Premier League as well. “We didn’t arrive with the goal of winning the league in these few months left. It will be a tremendous feat just to finish in the top four, with which the club would be satisfied as well.” -Zsolt Lőw
- A game always lasts 90 minutes - After the game is before the game - The club you're currently at is always the best
Let me preface the following by saying I always try to be fair minded and balanced. Don't always succeed of course, but that is always my aim. I'm pretty sure that has seen me both aligned and opposed to your various points of view (and that goes I reckon for everyone posting here for a reasonable length of time). So let's tackle this Lampard topic as it is really raw right now. There is a school of thought that he has been unfairly treated, that it was a terrible decision and unduly harsh. Whilst in isolation that may well be true but in the context of Chelsea managers, it isn't the case. When Roman came in, we had a gaffer who we loved in Ranieri. He took us to our best league finish in decades, our best run in the biggest European tournament ever to that point and had established a core of players that would be our most successful ever. He was sacked at the end of the first Roman season, we brought in Mourinho and never looked back. That was the first example of how Roman was going to be with managers and this was with a guy who's trajectory was nearly vertical and was taking us to new heights. We had never seen that level of ruthlessness before, not even under Ken Bates. We would see it time and time again. Jose was sacked after an unmatched series of seasons in the first couple of months of a season after we won the league. We brought in Scolari who was a world cup winner and didn't last a season. The formal club statement at that time (more than a decade ago) when we were sitting in 4th: "the results and performances of the team appeared to be deteriorating at a key time in the season". Sound familiar? At one time we tried to catch lightning in a bottle by going back to the Porto well and brining in AVB who lasted less than a season and was ultimately undone by player power questioning his tactics (which were poor) and increasingly tense relationship with board and media. One of the key players who led to his exit? Frank. When Carlo won the double and the next season only took us to second the following year he was sacked within minutes of the final whistle. At the time he had the 3rd highest EPL win rate ever behind Fergie and Jose. Conte was sacked after a league title and an FA Cup win the following year. Sarri was gone (self elected but certainly eased out of the door) after a year despite winning the Europa League and finishing 3rd. Most posters here criticised him for his rigid tactics that were increasingly ineffective. When we brought Frank in at a very difficult time, some were negative from the start pointing to his status as a club legend being the most powerful factor and his lack of experience in management. The argument against was to give him time, he has a great footballing brain, he cannot buy in the market. But mostly give him some patience and let the man work. Give him a small chance, the same we gave other managers a small chance to prove themselves. And it worked. He took us to top 4 despite losing Hazard. He blooded an impressive number of academy players and his first season was a success on any fair basis. But this is Chelsea. This is a 'what have you done for me lately' environment for managers. Frank knew this to be the case when he took the job (and if he didn't then he isn't as smart as I credit him to be). As example after example in the last near two decades shows, it's not about what you have achieved it's about what the club believe you are going to achieve in the future. Look at the quote again about Scolari, a storied manager, sacked in in February 2009 sitting in the top 4. This is consistent behaviour. I'm not saying Frank wasn't treated harshly, I'm saying he was treated no differently than many other Chelsea managers under Roman, which is what we were saying we wanted from the outset! At the end Frank had a deteriorating relationship with the board, the players and the media, all of which matters to Roman. He was judged on results. He was judged on his tactics. He was judged on his form. He was not judged because he was a Chelsea legend as a player. And now people are killing Tuchel after 5 matches and saying it was never this bad under Frank. A run of 5 matches of which we have won 4 and looking more solid than we have in ages? That's pure hypocrisy. Let's give Tuchel the same chance you all wanted to give Frank. Let's be fair to the new guy but please let's not pretend Frank was singled out for harsh treatment over all other managers for rough treatment. It simply isn't the case. Hell, Roman himself made a statement about Lampard's exit which shows how much he hated doing it, but that he had to do it because that is what he has done since day one. He cares only for success. We have had only success for the best part of 20 years by any metric. A major contributing factor to his success is the way we turnover managers. None of what happened in the last month will ever change how I feel about Frank the player. And if this has soured his legacy for you, then it is a you problem. We can never take away what he means to this club. TL; DR I love Frank. He did a very good job for a majority of his tenure. His legacy will live on in the young players he brought through. He may well be back for a second spell (and I hope he is). He was treated harshly. Chelsea managers under Roman are treated harshly. He was treated no worse than other managers. His legacy as a player should not have resulted in different treatment. He is still a club legend and always will be.
This board is killing Tuchel? That’s not how I’m reading comments, but YMMV. I’ve definitely taken shots at the patience narrative. I don’t love all the experimenting and would rather see our best players on the pitch. Right now games are pretty boring, but we’re getting good results. He’s our guy now, so rooting against him doesn’t really make any sense. Of course, treating Frank like every other Chelsea manager is exactly the problem I had with the whole situation. If you hire Frank, as a club legend and a relatively novice manager, I would have liked for us to give him *more* leeway, not the same. We could win faster with another manager, but it would have meant more to win with Frank. Equal doesn’t always mean right or just. I’m fine that people see it the other way. Still disappointed in the club for it, tho, and I’m absolutely still salty about...but it’ll pass.
Tuchel is taking flak from a few quarters (not just people here but in my wider circle) by virtue of the fact he is not lampard. The fact you wanted special treatment for frank flies in the face of the last two decades. That's on you, not the club. Fact is you wanted it more for frank so his sacking hurts more. But that's not how we got where we are. The entire reason he even got the job was because of his playing career. That is where the special treatment should have ended and that is indeed the case.
Appointing legendary players as coaches rarely works out, sadly. We should have learned this after appointing Di Matteo full time.
Counting Newcastle, Lamp was 11 wins -2 draws 2 losses 35 goals - 14 against in the PL against the teams Tuc has faced so quite disingenuous to compare those matches to Lamps last 5 when he faced Man City the destroyer edition, Leicester and this years Villa along with the Arse derby, not to mention if Timo could have it the broadside of a barn, if he was inside one, Lamp might still be employed. Neither here nor there now and I hope Tuc comes good, though so far not impressed, and baffled by his team-sheets. Yes Lamp deserved some special treatment for what he did and means to the Club and The er paying Supporters, a rather important part of a Club, and it was early days with new players , a new way and an alleged long term plan for once. That is what saddens me the most cause likely our last chance for a longer term vision and plan and a chance to see Chelsea grown players form the base and spine, and when it clicked it was the kind of Football Roman has supposedly always craved. Yes the argument is we have been very successful, with the churn and burn Real Madrid approach, but that is not so say we would not have been just as or more successful otherwise. Especially under Jose 1 given more support, i.e. not having to play Ess across the backline or more patience, still think we left some possible titles and Cups unclaimed. Same with not supporting Conte in his 2nd season and the suits spending big on all sorts of dross, nor giving RDM a bit more time. I think the biggest issues are the suits think they are football, scouting and personnel genius despite an iffy track-record and always win the day over the managers, and that the League has dramatically changed. No longer are we the biggest boy on the block financially with Man U, now there is City, Liverpool, Leicester spends enough wisely, and with the last deal and some ownership changes more teams are competing for CL spots and the League is even deeper and more competitive in the bottom half and every match is a real match has never been truer. No longer can we churn and burn, and constantly change systems and players and expect to be a top 4 lock, which means 50-100 million less made and spendable each year we miss out on CL, and as Arse has discovered, as did ManU for a good while, when you miss out it becomes harder and harder to climb back in to the Top 4. Well maybe Allegri, or next new gaffer de jour without CL can get us into the Top 4 next season. I hope as always, but will be shocked if we make the Top 4 with what I have seen thus far.
He did win the first and only CL, The FA Cup, and was in 3rd, only 4 points off pace when he was axed, think we would all settle for that this season.