Chelsea 2016/17 - Very Content

As soon as I pointed out that you would be vulnerable to aerial attacks, you concede two headed goals and lose to Spurs. They dominated you physically because of the sheer size and strength of their players. Azpilicueta and Moses could not cope - just as I predicted.

If I was more arrogant I would claim to be prescient. I'm not. But I did call it - the deficiencies were glaringly obvious and it was only a matter of time before someone figured it out and used it to their advantage.

That's pretty funny. We'd played the same system in the previous 13 games against teams bigger and stronger than Spurs, and yet suddenly you're the tactical genius. Ok then..
 
As soon as I pointed out that you would be vulnerable to aerial attacks, you concede two headed goals and lose to Spurs. They dominated you physically because of the sheer size and strength of their players. Azpilicueta and Moses could not cope - just as I predicted.

If I was more arrogant I would claim to be prescient. I'm not. But I did call it - the deficiencies were glaringly obvious and it was only a matter of time before someone figured it out and used it to their advantage.
It's some miracle that a team with "glaringly obvious" deficiencies managed to win 13 premier league games in a row. And how you managed to spot these deficiencies ahead of everyone else, including premier league managers. You're either a tactical genius or you're someone who happened to make a correct prediction on a football forum and now thinks he's a tactical genius. And we've got plenty of the latter in here.
 
It's some miracle that a team with "glaringly obvious" deficiencies managed to win 13 premier league games in a row. And how you managed to spot these deficiencies ahead of everyone else, including premier league managers. You're either a tactical genius or you're someone who happened to make a correct prediction on a football forum and now thinks he's a tactical genius. And we've got plenty of the latter in here.

I think you will find that they will now struggle against Leicester, Hull, Liverpool and Arsenal. You can be sure that their managers were all watching the Spurs game and taking notes.

In fact, out of those four games, the easiest one for them will be Arsenal. I think they will thrash Arsenal convincingly at the Bridge as they always do every season. In the meantime UTD and Spurs will gain ground on them.

It will be an uphill task now for Chelsea and Conte.
 
I think you will find that they will now struggle against Leicester, Hull, Liverpool and Arsenal. You can be sure that their managers were all watching the Spurs game and taking notes.
Only liverpool will give them problems. They will roll over the other 3
 
The fact that there are a bunch of Utd fans defending Conte and Chelsea on a Man Utd forum says all you need to know about the legitimacy of your opinion.

On a side note, they've sold Mikel now.

So that leaves a CM of Matic Fabregas and Kante....Loftus Cheek?
 
The fact that there are a bunch of Utd fans defending Conte and Chelsea on a Man Utd forum says all you need to know about the legitimacy of your opinion.

On a side note, they've sold Mikel now.

So that leaves a CM of Matic Fabregas and Kante....Loftus Cheek?
Luiz can play there.
 
The fact that there are a bunch of Utd fans defending Conte and Chelsea on a Man Utd forum says all you need to know about the legitimacy of your opinion.

On a side note, they've sold Mikel now.

So that leaves a CM of Matic Fabregas and Kante....Loftus Cheek?

Well, I think the whole point of a forum is to allow for debate. Which involves different points of view.

I have already admitted that I am biased, but so is everyone, and I would actually wonder why a few people seem to have a bias towards defeatism and pessimism. Writing off UTD in January seems too premature, especially when the gap is just 10 points.

I also don't understand why people seem to have a disproportionately favourable opinion of Conte (and Klopp) while not being entirely convinced about Mourinho, largely on the back of urban myths and misunderstandings. The history shows that Mourinho is a far more experienced, adaptable, and tactically flexible coach, and he has also proven himself repeatedly. Why would people doubt that Mourinho can and will take us to the very top, when he has done that at every single club he's been at since Porto?

Call me "deluded" but I believe that as a fan I should be loyal. My loyalties are to the Manchester United team and the man who currently manages it. I would rather stand by my club, my players and my manager than sing the praises of other clubs, other players and other managers.

We DO have the best squad and the best manager in the league, even if we aren't top of the league. Player for player we have the most quality and the most depth, and while our form was terrible, we are CURRENTLY the team with the best form in the league following Chelsea's defeat.

There is no way that Conte can say that he wasn't culpable for that defeat. It wasn't individual errors or refereeing errors. No player was to blame. It was the manager who lost that game with his tactical inflexibility and failure to adapt to the opponent.
 
Well, I think the whole point of a forum is to allow for debate. Which involves different points of view.

I have already admitted that I am biased, but so is everyone, and I would actually wonder why a few people seem to have a bias towards defeatism and pessimism. Writing off UTD in January seems too premature, especially when the gap is just 10 points.

I also don't understand why people seem to have a disproportionately favourable opinion of Conte (and Klopp) while not being entirely convinced about Mourinho, largely on the back of urban myths and misunderstandings. The history shows that Mourinho is a far more experienced, adaptable, and tactically flexible coach, and he has also proven himself repeatedly. Why would people doubt that Mourinho can and will take us to the very top, when he has done that at every single club he's been at since Porto?

Call me "deluded" but I believe that as a fan I should be loyal. My loyalties are to the Manchester United team and the man who currently manages it. I would rather stand by my club, my players and my manager than sing the praises of other clubs, other players and other managers.

We DO have the best squad and the best manager in the league, even if we aren't top of the league. Player for player we have the most quality and the most depth, and while our form was terrible, we are CURRENTLY the team with the best form in the league following Chelsea's defeat.

There is no way that Conte can say that he wasn't culpable for that defeat. It wasn't individual errors or refereeing errors. No player was to blame. It was the manager who lost that game with his tactical inflexibility and failure to adapt to the opponent.

There's being loyal and then there's being delusional.

I can be loyal to my club without having to praise it to seven shades of heaven and thinking we're the greatest thing to have ever been conceived.

This tribalism bollocks is just that. Bollocks. So if my mate has a better car than me I'm not allowed to praise his car because otherwise I'm not being loyal to myself?
 
Take a five year break from the caf, grow facial hair, lose your virginity and only then cautiously try making another post here.
:lol::lol::lol:

The fact that there are a bunch of Utd fans defending Conte and Chelsea on a Man Utd forum says all you need to know about the legitimacy of your opinion.

On a side note, they've sold Mikel now.

So that leaves a CM of Matic Fabregas and Kante....Loftus Cheek?
I think Chalobah is well ahead of Loftus-Cheek. Either way, Mikel did not bring anything to the team these days since both Chalobah and RLC were better than him already.
 
Well, I think the whole point of a forum is to allow for debate. Which involves different points of view.

I have already admitted that I am biased, but so is everyone, and I would actually wonder why a few people seem to have a bias towards defeatism and pessimism. Writing off UTD in January seems too premature, especially when the gap is just 10 points.

I also don't understand why people seem to have a disproportionately favourable opinion of Conte (and Klopp) while not being entirely convinced about Mourinho, largely on the back of urban myths and misunderstandings. The history shows that Mourinho is a far more experienced, adaptable, and tactically flexible coach, and he has also proven himself repeatedly. Why would people doubt that Mourinho can and will take us to the very top, when he has done that at every single club he's been at since Porto?

Call me "deluded" but I believe that as a fan I should be loyal. My loyalties are to the Manchester United team and the man who currently manages it. I would rather stand by my club, my players and my manager than sing the praises of other clubs, other players and other managers.

We DO have the best squad and the best manager in the league, even if we aren't top of the league. Player for player we have the most quality and the most depth, and while our form was terrible, we are CURRENTLY the team with the best form in the league following Chelsea's defeat.

There is no way that Conte can say that he wasn't culpable for that defeat. It wasn't individual errors or refereeing errors. No player was to blame. It was the manager who lost that game with his tactical inflexibility and failure to adapt to the opponent.

I disagree. We actually do deserve the position in the table we are in right now. The performance wise we aren't any better than the other teams in the top 6, and the results showed that.

We are in a nice winning run now, but I'm still far from convinced that the team has finally "clicked" per se. Too many false dawns over the past few Seasons has probably left many United fans quite jaded.

We do have some exceptional players, but also quite a few players who were purchased for the wrong system (Mata) or are not even top 4 quality (Fellaini, schneiderlin, darmien, Depay). Some of the promising players we do have in Shaw, Martial and Rashford are still not good enough to be started for our first 11 (I mean that by being in a team good enough to challenge for the title).

Then we have players like Ibra, mikhitaryan, Bailly and Pogba who should be performing better or have had more of an impact on the squad. (Bailly getting injured and Mikhi frozen out for 3 months did not help). And it says a lot about the balance of our team when we still rely so heavily on a 35 year Carrick.

So no. On paper we do have a nice squad, but the results clearly show that the team is still lacking something. Whether it's a mental thing, a lack of quality, or just the fact that the team is still not yet greater than the sum of its parts, it's up to Mourinho to figure out.
 
:lol::lol::lol:

I think Chalobah is well ahead of Loftus-Cheek. Either way, Mikel did not bring anything to the team these days since both Chalobah and RLC were better than him already.

A youth academy player? Breaking through the ranks at Chelsea? That's laughable. Out of all the clubs in England, Chelsea have shown the least commitment to youth, regardless of who the manager is. Don't even try to pin this on Mourinho because he was the one who brought Terry through and made him captain. He is giving game time to Rashford at UTD.

Perhaps you would like to take Schweinsteiger off us for £25 million? He is a World Cup winner and CL winner and would arguably be an upgrade on Mikel :)
 
Conte is inexperienced and tactically naive


Yep, coming from another league, playing a risky formation and dominating the Premier League means you are very naive tactically.
 
Rumours of Batshuayi heading to Swansea on loan and Llorente coming in the opposite direction.

Conte obviously knows Llorente so maybe not a bad move.

Shame that Bats has flopped. Seems a nice guy.
 
A youth academy player? Breaking through the ranks at Chelsea? That's laughable. Out of all the clubs in England, Chelsea have shown the least commitment to youth, regardless of who the manager is. Don't even try to pin this on Mourinho because he was the one who brought Terry through and made him captain. He is giving game time to Rashford at UTD.

Perhaps you would like to take Schweinsteiger off us for £25 million? He is a World Cup winner and CL winner and would arguably be an upgrade on Mikel :)
What are you on about???? Mourinho definitely did not bring Terry through the youth into the Chelsea team. That was Ranieri who helped push Terry into who he became in his career. I understand your delusional and blind optimism, but dont spew out fiction to prove your opinion.
 
What are you on about???? Mourinho definitely did not bring Terry through the youth into the Chelsea team. That was Ranieri who helped push Terry into who he became in his career. I understand your delusional and blind optimism, but dont spew out fiction to prove your opinion.

It was Mourinho who named Terry as his captain despite his young age, and also made him a guaranteed starter. Under Ranieri their captain was Desailly, and their starting CB pairing was Desailly/Gallas. Terry was used as a rotation option. He has repeatedly credited Desailly for being his mentor and for helping him improve his game.

Since then, the following youth players, who were said to be promising, have either had their careers stalled or been sold -

Jody Morris
Jon Harley
Sam Dalla Bona
Josh McEachran
Carlton Cole
Daniel Sturridge
Nathaniel Chalobah
Ruben Loftus-Cheek
Andreas Christensen
Romelu Lukaku
Nemanja Matic (re-signed for 10x the cost)
Lucas Piazon
Ryan Bertrand
Kenedy
Patrick Bamford
Marco van Ginkel
Nathan Ake

Chelsea is literally a graveyard for youth players. In that same time frame, UTD gave significant opportunities to Ronaldo, Fletcher, Cleverley, Macheda, Evans, O'Shea, Blackett, Nani, Anderson, Rooney and Rashford. Ok, some of them flopped, but they were all given significant game time and a lot of them had decent careers at the club even if they faded afterwards. Obviously Ronaldo and Rooney ended up being world class stars and I believe Rashford will follow suit. By the way this is not even including the Class of 92.

We also made a mistake selling Pogba but that was the one anomaly in a long history of showing commitment to youth.
 
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Which is why Nathaniel already has 10 apearances for us this season I take it?

I would be willing to bet that the majority of those were extremely short cameos after being brought on after the 83rd or 85th minute just to give him game time.
 
Can't believe that Mikel's gone. I was actually at Stamford Bridge when he and Kalou had their debuts (think you beat Charlton or Boro), that was an absolute lifetime ago.
 
Can't believe that Mikel's gone. I was actually at Stamford Bridge when he and Kalou had their debuts (think you beat Charlton or Boro), that was an absolute lifetime ago.

I would be happy for us to sell them Schweinsteiger for £27 million as a replacement. He would be an upgrade on Mikel.
 
I would be willing to bet that the majority of those were extremely short cameos after being brought on after the 83rd or 85th minute just to give him game time.

You mean the way young players are traditionally introduced to the squad? Once again your broader point is pretty fair, we have a terrible record of bringing through youth players from our academy, which is an issue because we have one of the best academies in the world. Once again however you've taken a fairly decent point and made some factually innaccurate and sweeping generalizations, and whats more decided to make the point in a season where we're actually doing much better at playing youth players.
 
You mean the way young players are traditionally introduced to the squad? Once again your broader point is pretty fair, we have a terrible record of bringing through youth players from our academy, which is an issue because we have one of the best academies in the world. Once again however you've taken a fairly decent point and made some factually innaccurate and sweeping generalizations, and whats more decided to make the point in a season where we're actually doing much better at playing youth players.

Once Terry and Cahill leave (or retire) you will have no English players at all in your XI, nor even close to breaking into your XI. Is that a concern for you?

You used to have Terry, Lampard, Ashley Cole, Joe Cole, Parker, Bridge, etc
 
Once Terry and Cahill leave (or retire) you will have no English players at all in your XI, nor even close to breaking into your XI. Is that a concern for you?

You used to have Terry, Lampard, Ashley Cole, Joe Cole, Parker, Bridge, etc

It's not the biggest concern on my mind, but I would like us to have some key English players in the side. I think it helps the national game overall, so it'd be nice to have. We do have some extremely good players playing at the younger England levels though, so if we can improve the pipeline to the first team then it shouldnt be an issue long term. Nathaniel Chalobah, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Ola Aina are all starting to push through (although RLC seems to have dropped off a bit this season if anything), and are all extremely promising talents. A step behind them are a very large list of English lads who also have outstanding potential.

I'd rather let them have a chance to come through, rather than buying in over-priced first team players just because they're English.
 
As soon as I pointed out that you would be vulnerable to aerial attacks, you concede two headed goals and lose to Spurs. They dominated you physically because of the sheer size and strength of their players. Azpilicueta and Moses could not cope - just as I predicted.

If I was more arrogant I would claim to be prescient. I'm not. But I did call it - the deficiencies were glaringly obvious and it was only a matter of time before someone figured it out and used it to their advantage.
So... you're saying you do actually think you're prescient (but don't want to admit it in public) even though it was so glaringly obvious anyone could have seen it?!
 
Terry captained chelsea for the first time in 2001. He had 51 appearances in ranieri's final season and was the team's vice-captain. In total, he'd played 169 games for them to that point and captained them for most of the 2003/04 season after desailly's injury(and subsequent retirement). To credit mourinho for bringing him through and making him captain might just be the stupidest thing you've said in this thread, and you've said nothing but stupid things so far
 
Well, I think the whole point of a forum is to allow for debate. Which involves different points of view.

I have already admitted that I am biased, but so is everyone, and I would actually wonder why a few people seem to have a bias towards defeatism and pessimism. Writing off UTD in January seems too premature, especially when the gap is just 10 points.

I also don't understand why people seem to have a disproportionately favourable opinion of Conte (and Klopp) while not being entirely convinced about Mourinho, largely on the back of urban myths and misunderstandings. The history shows that Mourinho is a far more experienced, adaptable, and tactically flexible coach, and he has also proven himself repeatedly. Why would people doubt that Mourinho can and will take us to the very top, when he has done that at every single club he's been at since Porto?

Call me "deluded" but I believe that as a fan I should be loyal. My loyalties are to the Manchester United team and the man who currently manages it. I would rather stand by my club, my players and my manager than sing the praises of other clubs, other players and other managers.

We DO have the best squad and the best manager in the league, even if we aren't top of the league. Player for player we have the most quality and the most depth, and while our form was terrible, we are CURRENTLY the team with the best form in the league following Chelsea's defeat.

There is no way that Conte can say that he wasn't culpable for that defeat. It wasn't individual errors or refereeing errors. No player was to blame. It was the manager who lost that game with his tactical inflexibility and failure to adapt to the opponent.
Do not have the best squad.
 
For any jealous Chelsea fans, I lived across the road from Oscar, Matic and another Chelsea player who I've forgotten (they had a house share). Boring as feck they were, given how amazing their house would have been for house parties. My house mate use to teach a few Chelsea players kids at the local primary.
 
A youth academy player? Breaking through the ranks at Chelsea? That's laughable. Out of all the clubs in England, Chelsea have shown the least commitment to youth, regardless of who the manager is. Don't even try to pin this on Mourinho because he was the one who brought Terry through and made him captain. He is giving game time to Rashford at UTD.

Perhaps you would like to take Schweinsteiger off us for £25 million? He is a World Cup winner and CL winner and would arguably be an upgrade on Mikel :)
You are totally deluding yourself if you think Rashford will ever become regular at united. He will be starved of playing time till middle of next season, get frustrated and will leave united by Jan next year. I guarantee you that.
 
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Hasn't Conte won 43 of his last 50 league games as a manager?

The idea that he's been found out because his Chelsea side lost to a very good Spurs side is incredibly knee-jerk. Chelsea are still clear favourites for the title.
He has, Many Juve fans credit him with Juventus being where they are now, as he effectively put the wheels back in motion. Took them back up and won Serie A 3 yrs on the bounce breaking records.
 
Treble Yell, i am sensing you are either very bitter at all the praise Conte is getting and are finding any sort of stick to beat him with. Or you just generally dislike him and Chelsea enormously.

You can call him tactically naive, inexperienced, etc but the fact is, this manager who is a level above Neville and Giggs and below Rafa Benitez, is right now walking away with Manager of the year.

edit: Yeh, you definitely have an agenda against Chelsea having read some recent posts lol
 
Rumours of Batshuayi heading to Swansea on loan and Llorente coming in the opposite direction.

Conte obviously knows Llorente so maybe not a bad move.

Shame that Bats has flopped. Seems a nice guy.
Looked good when he had the chance to play early in the season.
 
For any jealous Chelsea fans, I lived across the road from Oscar, Matic and another Chelsea player who I've forgotten (they had a house share). Boring as feck they were, given how amazing their house would have been for house parties. My house mate use to teach a few Chelsea players kids at the local primary.

To be fair, Oscar and Matic wouldn't be first on my list of players I'd like to party with. It'd be like going out on the town with Alan Shearer and James Milner.
 
He hasnt flopped tbh. Just difficult to get in a side which has Diego Costa. Understandable. I would keep him and sign Llorente, straight up cash
Swansea need all the help to stay up that they can. Batshuayi will likely get more minutes at Swansea than second/third choice at Chelsea. Should be a win win for everyone if Batshuayi went on loan.