That season had to come around at some point because we'd left it too late to replace key players, the problem though was that when we had the big exodus of old players the board suddenly became deluded into thinking "Wooh the youth team won the FA youth cup that means their abilities will transcend into the first team and perfectly replace all the players we got rid of this summer" when in reality the squad was down to it's bare bones and we got lucky that every other team were even worse than us.

It wasn't so much that we didn't build, rather that we offloaded more or less all our midfielders and only signed Ramires. Ended up with no depth to the squad, which resulted in panic buying Luiz and Torres. But I agree because, without that poor season, the events that unfolded in 2011/12 would never have happened.

Maurice

The whole squad was getting on pretty much, keeping Ballack and co would have only served to delay what happened in 10/11 to probably 11/12.

I think our only key first team players not 29 or over were Ivanovic, Mikel and Kalou

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Luiz and Torres weren't panic buys, club were looking to purchase them for quite a long while prior to move(especially the latter).

We also signed Benayoun but didn't use him. It didn't help that Carlo ignored Sturridge, Kakuta and Bruma.

*but Benayoun got injured

It didn't help that Carlo ignored Sturridge, Kakuta and Bruma.

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Why wouldn't you ignore them when all 3 were/are crap

It was stupid to say that Josh, Bruma, Kakuta and Sturridge could replace Ballack/Carvalho/Belletti/Cole but then not use them. Carlo should have told the board that he wasn't comfortable with the plan and that he wouldn't be prepared to start this youth players like he would have started the players that had left.

Carlo should still take some blame for not trusting them enough but I don't blame him too much for that decision considering the circumstances. It's easy to blame the board as well for being naive but ultimately both parties were responsible for a lack of communication.

and in fairness to Carlo he was still pretty good in terms of giving young players chances under low-pressure situations. He just wasn't prepared to start them.

1L the same Sturridge who went on to outscore all our strikers the same season and was impressing in reserves/European matches? The whole board on BBC606 wanted him starting over Anelka who was in terrible form. There was that one match when Carlo went with Paulo Ferriera at CB over Bruma, and we all know how that ended. He's now starting for Ajax and is a Dutch international. Kakuta may not have acheved as much yet but you are loking at it just black and white. That first half of the season we were playing some pretty slow, dire football. There was no competition at all for the underperforming Malouda and Anelka. You were probably one of the biggest critics of their lazy performances that season as well. Maintain Carlo should have utilised the youngsters more that seaso, regardless of how their careers turned out competition was essential.

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Luiz and Torres weren't panic buys, club were looking to purchase them for quite a long while prior to move(especially the latter).

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If we hadn't struggled so much during the infamous "difficult moment", would we have bought both of them on deadline day for such large fees? I'm not so sure so, for me, they were panic buys.

I actually think the more pertinent question is "Was winning the double good for us?"

I actually think that the complacency about our squad was as a result of winning th double.

Carlo did the best he could with the resources he had. A lot of the players he had forced upon him still wouldn't make the grade now, 3 years later into their development. The bottom line is the board messed up and Carlo got the bullet for it in the summer.

It was certainly a learning curve for the club, the squad that Ranieri/Mourinho built was fantastic but we relied on them for too long and that season, and the awful league performance in 11/12 was the rocket the management needed to move things forward.

comment by The Blue Kenyan (U1641)
posted 1 hour, 24 minutes ago
We also signed Benayoun but didn't use him. It didn't help that Carlo ignored Sturridge, Kakuta and Bruma.
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Sturridge i agree with, but Bruma and Kakuta while should have been played more, were clearly not ready to play big role in the side.

the fact that Cech was our only player to emerge with any credit from that season speaks alot

the board did muck up but Carlo does have to share alot of the blame, the fact is some of our perfromances that season would have made newly promoted sides blush

don't know about helping us though, i'd actually argue it pushed us into some pretty rash decisions, the AVB farce where we tried to be too radical

although we did Mata so maybe it wasn't all wasted

Click, Luiz's arrival helped put a little bit of energy in the second half of the season, i think he deserves some credit for that season.

Under AVB we were disorganized, 10/11 we were borderline comatose. People like to say, well we finished 2nd, but that was with 71 points, most season's that would just about get us top 4, infact last season it would have dumped us back on channel 5.

and what i meant by helping us click it hopefully we will learn not to stand still and let our squad get in such a mess again.

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