Just to add to that,i think hazard,luiz,kante,jorginho,kovacic,pedro,and willlian were absolute garbage. Why does eden get a free pass again?piss poor game from him, yet again.

I think in the end sarri's stubbornness will eventually cost him,no idea why CHO was completely omitted today. Ruben should've come on at half time not when the game was lost.

Lots of useless passing without actual penetration in the final third. I think our best hope of qualifying for the champs league is actually winning the europa. Arsenal and united will be ahead of us in no time. If pedro / willian starts the next game then i don't think sarri will last long.

Would be nice for the board to help ditch the dead wood and back the manager for a change though.

Edit: they even managed to smash a fourth past us!!!lol. If this doesn't wake sarri up, then nothing will.

This post has been edited by Kerplunk: Jan 31 2019, 05:57 AM

It seems sarri kept the players in the dressing room for more than 40 minutes after the game. I'm gonna go as far to say that there are a few rats in there who are doing their annual 'trick' of getting the manager sacked once there's nothing much to fight for in the season.

While i question some of sarri's subs and choice of starting 11, i think the trend is now clear that the main problem stems from the players. He needs to start dropping the likes of pedro,hazard, and willian imo.

Is anyone else going to address the elephant in the room?eden's head and heart look like they're already in madrid and his performances are showing it. At times i genuinely feel he's holding us back when he's in this kind of mood. He isn't ruthless enough to get the goals,and when he's not creating, he's basically a passenger. Lost count of how many times he passed the ball straight to a bournemouth player and does nothing to win it back.

Don't even get me started on willian. There are problems all over the pitch but it seems like our main issue is creativity. Kovacic should've scored our opening goal,kante should've got his feet sorted out to slot in our equaliser and their second goal never should've stood. But the most ALARMING thing about going behind is we never looked like scoring and everyone just collectively gave up. We surrendered so meekly it was embarrassing.

For the record i'm still firmly behind sarri. I can see what he's trying to implement and it will take at least a season to really come together. But he has to do more in terms of ripping out these rats from the team and begin fielding the likes of ruben and CHO more,heck even christensen. In case anyone's wondering,klopp's liverpool and pep's city didn't magically start to play great football.

It was all a process and in their first season pool did get hammered 3 nil by watford,and city got stuffed 4 nil by everton. They were eventually given the 'permission' to expel all the dead wood, and our board needs to do the same with sarri or else in the long term we're never moving forward as a club. The managerial merry go round will continue and i'm quite sick of it to be honest. Our transfer ban is definitely coming and keeping around players who aren't willing to fight for the badge will seal our fate as europa league material.

Crucial few weeks coming up. I want to see how brave sarri is. If he's all bark and no bite, then perhaps he's not the right man to lead us forward. But i'll be damned if the players aren't going down with him.

I think there's hope. The board have practically bought into his idea of football by bringing in his choice of players in kepa,jorginho and higuain. Kovacic to a certain extent is the type of player that should flourish in his system as well.

But if he insists on trying to get more out of players such as willian,pedro,and even alonso,i think he's digging himself into a hole. It's a slippery slope imo. On one hand you don't want a full blown mutiny from the senior players which will terminally damage our chances of a top four finish, in the event that our young guns fail to produce.

But on the other, you aren't fully confident that these older guys are going to give 100% to secure a spot in a competition they might not even be a part of , next season.

Personally though i hope he has the courage to throw all the underperformers under the bus. They're not fooling anyone this time.

I agree i think he's coming to realise that there needs to be changes, and emerson coming in is a good sign. Hopefully he starts dropping some star names as well, based on performances.

This looks exactly like that. A lot of them look like they're going through the motions, and worryingly it's the seniors who are setting an example. iinm i read that we've never won a single game under sarri once we go behind. That's a shocking statistic and i don't care if it's friggin' sam allardyce at the helm, they're professionals who are capable of turning around at least ONE GAME but are CHOOSING NOT TO. Says a lot about their mentality and it's no more a question about the manager, as there are certain individuals who think they're bigger than the club at the moment.

I honestly feel there will be a big cull in the summer and the first name on that list won't be sarri.

This post has been edited by Kerplunk: Feb 1 2019, 11:06 PM

Penalttyyyyyyy

Eden puts it away. Good positive run from azpi, and nice to see officials getting a crucial decision in our favour for a change.

Wow. That was quick.

Aguero channelling the spirit of morataaaaa

Well..spirit of morata is gone now.....sigh

Honestly don't think anyone expected that. Let's just make sure we don't get embarrassed.

I've totally lost faith in alonso now. Get rid of this guy or make him our back up LB immediately.

What a howler from barkley. Pathetic and embarrassing.

One of the biggest problems as well i guess. He keeps believing he can improve him but there's really no way that's gonna happen.

Barkley at fault again. Get a block in la you pussy. Why the hell did he turn away from the ball??? If sarri doesn't hook him at HT then there's something seriously wrong with him.

Pedro misses a sitter. Good keep on ignoring odoi for this bunch of useless seniors la. Go on.

Disagree. Kante has actually improved steadily. If anyone will be the downfall of sarri it's going to be willian / alonso.

Yep. No denying that. It really is a question of mentality now. The biggest problem i have with sarri now is he just doesn't have the courage to make changes. Barkley and alonso both did more than enough to be hauled off at HT. Heck i think both of them knew that. What does sarri do? Leaves them both on and dilly dallies before making the decision later on in the game. He just isn't ruthless enough.

This is where it gets interesting imo. You're spot on about roman knowing the risks and recognising exactly what he's getting himself into. Now does he preach patience and remain steadfast as the expected aches and pains of his long term project begin to manifest in full force?

Or does he take the easy way out as a lot of fans are already suggesting, and destroy the building before the foundations are even laid in place?I for one hopes sarri becomes more ruthless and the board sees this through.

Bear in mind no competent manager who's completely sane would touch our poisoned 'first team coach' chalice with a 10 foot pole if we continue our hire and fire policy. Those utterly wasteful compensation packages should be going towards replacing a number of deadbeats in the first team anyway!

Conte in his first season made the best of what he got and pulled off a brilliant title win. Unfortunately he practically threw his toys out of the pram after we failed to secure some unreasonable targets such as sandro,koulibaly,lukaku, and llorente among others during his second season. Still managed to secure the FA cup which was great.

The common theme right now between both Italians is they're let down by an almost identical group of players. Eden and willian were both widely reported to want out of the club, had conte stayed on. Looking back now, maybe he was on to something.

Is he better than sarri?well his track record speaks for itself doesn't it?
Would he have the ability to push allegri's juve all the way in the title race like sarri did with napoli?no. Conte's unique formation requires huge investments in specialist players for certain positions, which is why alonso and moses suddenly look obsolete. Fact of the matter is , sarri happens to be the type of non-volatile character who's willing to work with what he's got, while attempting to play progressive football which is in line with the club's vision moving forward.

In short,conte would be brilliant for a team like united,with lots of money to throw around in the transfer window and desperate for a big trophy soon. For chelsea though, we need to go down a different route as we're no more part of the big spending elite. It's change and nurture a young squad or get left behind.

Decent result, but I'd wager a team like united will definitely put away at least a couple of chances if they had that spell of insane pressure like malmo early in the second half.

Oh and odoi is definitely gone. I don't think we've fully recovered from that 6-0 mauling city gave us and if we manage to concede first against utd, I'm gonna mentally prepare myself for another drubbing

Luiz with another mistake that leads to a goal, surprise, surprise.

Note: if odoi gets a start or at least a half vs united, I'd consider that progress in terms of sarri lessening his stubbornness but I'm not getting my hopes up. Oh and those calling for lampard to get us out of this mess, please don't ask him to commit career suicide.

I'd rather we take a punt on jody morris since we don't have much to lose right? We've tried the superstar managers,the ex-players and the stubborn system manager. If we end up getting rid of the last one, may as well go for the decorated academy manager next. Knowing roman though that would make too much sense and he'd go for brendan rogers instead.

That wouldn't be too bad I guess. Or would it?

Higuan wasted two decent chances and then of course the defense let's us down again and again.

No balls to drop pedro or alonso. Damn. This is painful to watch.

I'd like to congratulate the team for not conceding 12 goals in the second half.

Apart from that everyone from kepa to higuan to sarri were all rubbish. Pity we didn't go all out for paredes or barella. Either one would definitely be starting for us right now but even then I'm not sure if it's gonna be the barkley / kovacic merry go round.

Zappacosta for azpi late on when we're chasing the game sarri? I think I would've made a better sub.

Exactly this. It's clear some of the seniors are just incapable of grasping his system or they can't be bothered. His insistence on relying on the exact same players who keep letting him down shows his unprecedented level of stubborness.

He's not the kind of character who would pluck someone from the academy to replace a member of the first team for a couple of games just to make a statement. Hence the seniors know he's all talk and I think there's a distinct lack of respect breeding within the team as a result.

The thing is, the idiots at the club who tracked his career up to his napoli days MUST HAVE KNOWN THIS so they should be the least surprised with how things have turned out.

That's a really interesting stat which puts sarri in a better light. The thing about pep though, he was constantly chopping and changing his squad to adapt to the opposition. If anything sarri needs to be more accommodating with his fringe players, especially since chelsea's buying power has diminished greatly over the years. Doubt he'll change his ways but a nifty little transfer ban might nudge him in the right direction.

Jose playing youth? Ahhh I'm not sure which version of Jose is this,but that's probably as likely as messi declaring he'd sign for us to help mitigate the transfer ban, and revealing he was always a closet chelsea fan

Good to see sarri at least trying to change it up. Hazard on false 9 duty again.

Holy crap that was a red card surely!! Kante was the last man there.. Unbelievable.