Robbie was the leader when he was at Chelsea. No doubt.


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I respectfully disagree. Last season I don't think RDM had any real control.

Your league form under RDM was pretty very average, and that for me is a truer sign of how good a manager you are. Bradford City have shown that with passion and luck you can get to a final of a cup competition. And that was what your Champions League campaign in the latter stages was, spirit , passion, luck and a will to not lose. The older players reignited the spirit of Mourinho, you went back to how you played under Mourinho and your experienced players who were all involved when Mourinho was there, stepped up, particularly Lampard and Drogba. Personally I don't think that had much to do with iI Matteo. The only thing that Di Matteo brought to the club was a little unity in the dressing room. They respected him as a former player and fan favourite. But tactically and motivationally, I don't think he had as much impact as you'd like to believe.

Your league form under RDM was pretty very average, and that for me is a truer sign of how good a manager you are.

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That to me tells me how little you know about the situation.

TBH, It's hard to gauge the technical impact of a manager other than what you see on the pitch. All I know is at the start of the season we were playing some really exciting football and now we are painful to watch. Who's to blame - any ones guess!

One thing that lead me to think that the players were taking charge was your Champion League performances. Those performances against were a throwback to the Mourinho days.

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that JanMolby is a ridiculous statement, we battered teams in the champions league under mourinho, and last year it was back to the walls stuff. completely different tactics and everything.

also JFDI has ignored it time and again when comparing how much influence di matteo and grant had but fact is di matteo had a significantly worse team than grant did. And if not for one of the biggest tactical mistakes I've ever seen(playin essien at RB against ronaldo, which led to ronaldo scoring from a header) we would of cruised that champions league final too maybe.

Grant is woeful, looked like he didn't know what he was doing and theres more rumours of clarke and terry taking charge then then there was last year.

also JFDI has ignored it time and again when comparing how much influence di matteo and grant had but fact is di matteo had a significantly worse team than grant did.
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Where have I done this once let alone many times?

you have retorted about the fact of the dressing room control but never once in your backing of grant acknowledged what a better team he had.

The discussion was not related to who had the better team and I have never denied that Grant had a better team, the only point I questioned was the view people have over who was in charge.

At no point have I compared teams and I certainly have not criticised Di Matteo nor would I so why would I have to acknowledge anything in that respect?

When we like a manager, the success in down to the manager and failure down to the players who aren't working or trying hard enough for them.

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So true and when the team loses Grant was responsible for being clueless, and when the team won, naturally it was Clarke Terry etc who got the credit. The selective reasoning at times is totally non rational.
Regarding Grant having a weaker team, I seem to remember that we were in the midst of ACON with four players including Drogba, Essien, Mikel and some others. To add to that we had an injury crisis to contend with. That was when Grant brought in Anelka and the team with most of "spine" missing aquitted themselves rather well.
I'm not at all convinced that Grant had the Stronger team until much later on after the Africa cup tied returned and injured players back to fitness.
Managers like Grant and Benitez who did not fit the rock star profile are pilloried for not showing enough emotion or having made wind up comments remembered from 6 years ago. To deny these two credit under any circumstances shows up the blinkered minds of the fans involved not to mention short sighted vision.

Tway ur talking nonsense, go through that team and compare to last years, plus we only would of missed drogba and Essien out of the 4.

Nickalopodis, people will argue which is the better team and you can all you want but do not let it distract you from the point that if a manager is popular then it is easier to believe he is responsible for success and the players for failure and if a manager is not popular then he is responsible for failure and the players for success. It doesn't matter who had the better team, if they had the exact same team it would be the same.