*just a small matter of completely

Hazard' mindset needs changing, weak.

cmf..thoughts on mourinho?

I thought our play was starting to improve over the past few weeks under Jose but finishing cost us dearly and in the end his job.
Those moments when we are in control have to capitalise or as is always the case in football(especially PL) get punished.
Not converting chances has knock-on effect on team.

I'm not sure how many 1 on 1 chances Costa wants before he can score.
Failed to score on every single occasion he's been put through on goal from open play.


If players(namely Oscar, Hazard, Costa) are intentionally not responding to him then Jose ultimately had to go.

Yep I thought they were the 3 culprits too...

Our style of play is so disjointed. I'm sick of talking about it. There's so many errors in our football that it's actually a joke.. Players don't make the right runs off the ball, they don't think 2 or 3 passes ahead. They underhit or over hit passes. They cross when it should be driven in low. They drive crosses low when it should have been crossed. There's barely any players in the box, when a cross does go in. Players seem to run away from the ball after making a pass rather than going to the player they just passed to and giving him an option. It's just wrong to see a professional club play this kind of football. There's very little anticipation of danger. It's just a big mess for me and it's been going on for over a year.

Anyway I like Guus

Jose' post match analysis has picked up on all those points you mention at some point, which suggests for me that he's been trying to enforce improvement...
Clever man, not stupid and no doubt in my mind as meticulous as he wouldn't have pointed it out to the players repeatedly but players have "downed tools".

Hazard in particular showing lack of desire, that more than anything that is holding him back from taking those extra strides to next levels.
No player who intends to be the greatest footballers of this generation, turns up to season overweight for one.
Doesn’t seem motivated enough to get to that level and motivation/belief has to come from within first and foremost.

Costa is just really irritating with his everlasting elusive touches.

Oh and I've never been one to subscribe to the notion that Jose is solely stringent on defending and doesn't coach attacking play.

If that were the case his Madrid side don't score 121 goals in league(record still stands in Spain), neither do we play as well as we did last season.
Takes practice to achieve.

Yes, remarkably Barcelona haven't been able to break that record.
Which is a testament to work Jose did with that team in 11-12 season.

http://shop.soccertutor.com/Attacking-Finishing-Training-Sessions-Real-Madrid-p/st-b013.htm

Here's more in depth, scroll down to full contents.

Fair points cmf about the attacking play

but how has it got to a situation where we really struggle to test the opposition goalkeeper during our games. Minutes go by where we keep on conceding possesion then retreiving it then conceding possession again. Before we know, its 80 mins on the clock and we've failed to score. So many moves breakdown in the attacking third. Players are so careless when they have the ball and totally unaware of what to do off the ball

Fair point about Madrid but they did have Ronaldo in that team...

Also how did we go from winning to league to a broken squad within 4-5 months because this looks to have been brewing from July onwards and its hit rock bottom now.

Jose despite winning the league last season, was never happy imo. He seemed grumpy and this season he just seemed beaten and i honestly think the Eva situation had an effect on the players.

Also the Pep dream. Is it a pipe dream now?

It is.

City bound, those ex Barca directors in place are the clincher(get on well with Pep).

Yep. Oh well. Move on from that now. Would have been nice to see some of his football at the bridge.

Pep not the be all and end all.
There will be others in future. More coaches will be unearthed.

Yes but right now would have been good to see us passing teams to death in the premier league. Playing some seriously quick football.

Hypothetically speaking...If Hiddink were to repeat feat(losing 1 and draw 2) as well as guiding this group to semi-final or better, does his contract get extended by a year?

Also would that be the greatest achievement of any Chelsea coach to date?

Looking forward hopefully to 4-3-3, 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1 that was all the formations Hiddink will exhaust depending on opposition, If we are going by his last term here.


Usually deployed 4-2-3-1 in the tougher matches on paper, with Frank in #10 position.
4-3-3
4-4-2 against the very weakest(Anelka and Drogba up top)

comment by Chelseamf™®© (U1677)
posted 6 hours, 50 minutes ago
Hypothetically speaking...If Hiddink were to repeat feat(losing 1 and draw 2) as well as guiding this group to semi-final or better, does his contract get extended by a year?
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Are you talking about the CL? We have to take into account the players are not as good as they were when Hiddink was first here. Maybe he can inject some good feeling into the squad though. I get the feeling maybe sometimes Mourinho overcoaches players regarding tactics, systems, formations and that could be why it mentally drains players.

PL(lost once and drew twice) and CL.

I've taken into account different players, hence why I'm asking If he is successful with this group(which is a harder task than previous stint) does he get extended contract.
Will definitely bring tranquility back to the squad.


As for downplaying his work in previous term...

To not lose once against the tougher teams is something special in such a short space of time to work with players, not to be underestimated.
Especially when you take into account Liverpool had beaten United 4-1 at OT and were scoring lots of goals that season, beat them 3-1 at Anfield comfortably.
Arsenal were in a very good run of form, unbeaten in 21 league matches until we crushed them 4-1 away from home. Not to forget knocking them out of the FA Cup at the Emirates

Barcelona were destroying teams 4,5,6's, stopped them from scoring(bearing in mind they had scored in every single one of their home matches to that point) off the back of annihilating Madrid 6-2 at Bernabeu.
In the end reduced them to only one goal over two legs.

Hauling Kalou 2 nil down to Liverpool(in second leg) 10 mins before HT to be replaced by Anelka, who made a great impact. Decisive.

Players reaction from going a goal down in final against Everton was admirable, If Hiddink can instill that same confidence into these current crop... Force to be reckoned with.
Uphill task with the improved quality of teams but there is always a chance, when you've got such a cultured experience man/coach who has been through it all.

*Hauling Kalou off

cmf im hoping he can make a difference


Did you see Joshua v Whyte

Hiddink' fitness regime/routine is lauded as one of the best, so should be interesting...

Missed the fight, knew Joshua would KO the yardie at some point though.