Real Madrid 2 Chelsea 1

[Ham]

17 minutes ago, Proud-Blue said:

If you'd asked me prior to this tour what I wanted more than anything, it would be us returning without major injuries. That has happened. We've seen a lot of players who need minutes, such as Lavia, Nkunku, and James. 

My delight about this definitely trumps my concern about the system. If we can keep our players fit, we have a chance to keep improving. We need some stability.

The one negative for me is what Maresca pointed out about the difficulty of tactical work while doing these tours. I think this was a particularly bad year for us to do a US tour, especially one where the players were flying thousands of miles every few days. I know that money demands we do these tours, but while we were so radically changing our system, I think it has been somewhat disruptive.

I am very interested to see what is developed in Cobham over the next 10 days. There we will at least have a space to properly review and do some better tactical work.

I hope next year we at least stick to one coast or a smaller part of the US to minimise travel. 

Agreed.  On this one occasion, an entire pre-season at Cobham and UK based friendlies would have been massive. 

[ROTG]

With the inter game next Sunday one can assume Mascara has around 7 days to implement his ideas to the squad at Cobham. 

[Mark Kelly]

18 minutes ago, Proud-Blue said:

If you'd asked me prior to this tour what I wanted more than anything, it would be us returning without major injuries. That has happened. We've seen a lot of players who need minutes, such as Lavia, Nkunku, and James. 

My delight about this definitely trumps my concern about the system. If we can keep our players fit, we have a chance to keep improving. We need some stability.

The one negative for me is what Maresca pointed out about the difficulty of tactical work while doing these tours. I think this was a particularly bad year for us to do a US tour, especially one where the players were flying thousands of miles every few days. I know that money demands we do these tours, but while we were so radically changing our system, I think it has been somewhat disruptive.

I am very interested to see what is developed in Cobham over the next 10 days. There we will at least have a space to properly review and do some better tactical work.

I hope next year we at least stick to one coast or a smaller part of the US to minimise travel. 

Particularly when the coach himself says as much , he was saying that for him the time he had at Cobham was the most productive and his team haven't had the necessary time to do much other than prepare for the next game and there was no scouting of the opposition going on either whilst in the USA

We haven't looked great defensively but it's so early .

This time last year we looked great , then look what happened . 

[thevelourfog]

51 minutes ago, east lower said:

I’d read the article that referred to habits and commented earlier on that. I think it was @Ham that followed up with a further comment from Maresca that the players hadn’t listened. Commenting separately on that subsequently.

Ah, haven't seen that. Not great stuff then, I agree.

[martin1905]

1 hour ago, ROTG said:

So a one season championship coach is a better bet than two established coaches one of which had coached a team to a CL final, to lead the team to the top 4 holy grail.

As i said you are going to be shocked - the man is a fraud along with the two scouts that hired him 

I don't know how good he is, which I've said since day one, nobody does.

My whole point is I believe we have built a very good squad that is capable of finishing in the top 4. I don't think the previous two coaches were good enough to achieve this and that was proven to be the case.

If you look at the profile of player we have bought  we always needed a hands on, tactical coach that was going to do all the hard work on the training ground. To implement a system and philosophy, dill this squad day in day out to become a team capable of playing in a certain way. Is Maresca the right man? Absolutely no idea but I have said for 2 years that he is exactly the type of manager this squad needed. If he isn't he will be found out, quickly, and we will no doubt replace him. Either way I think the squad is more or less there.

I don't think is a fraud though to be fair. His record on football is there for all to see, there's no hiding and no doubt he will have to step up massively, again none of us know if he is capable.

[RDCW]

25 minutes ago, ROTG said:

With the inter game next Sunday one can assume Mascara has around 7 days to implement his ideas to the squad at Cobham. 

His name is Maresca you dullard.

[martin1905]

1 hour ago, Sleeping Dave said:

Exactly what I wrote. 

So I should watch pre season friendlies, with a new manager and half a team to judge if the manager has been able to implement a new tactic?

My opinion  on pre season is pretty clear. Maybe a bit of an old-school mentality,  based on everything I'm hearing and reading, nothing matters. Nothing other than getting players fit and ready for the new season, especially ones that are returning from long term injuries.

I could not care less about results or performances and I'm certainly not going to make any judgement on the new manager after a month of working here and having half his best team missing.

I've watched none of it but curious how many minutes have Cucurella,  Enzo, Caicedo,  Dewsbury-Hall,  Palmer and Jackson have between them?

[chiswickblue]

28 minutes ago, Ham said:

Agreed.  On this one occasion, an entire pre-season at Cobham and UK based friendlies would have been massive. 

It wasn't long ago that the summers where there were major tournaments, the club didn't go on intercontinental tours. The tours were only every other year, normally alternating between the US and Asia. Now, it doesn't matter what has happened and how knackered the players are: they must go on tour. All the top clubs are doing so, so we have to do so as well. All the while complaining about how many matches we have to play, how tired the players are and how many injuries we have.

[chara]

To emphasise a well made point by some ...I laid out a rough guide to the mileage and flying hours between venues,,,,shows just how little time was available for any on the grass tactical or formation work and in my mind takes a great deal away from preseason training....need to keep that in mind.

Reserve judgement on the new keeper.... but compared to my first impression of PC when he joined a tour out here somewhat underwhelmed.

[jonnyverco]

3 hours ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

Yeah, I was tracking that for the days leading up to our flight, just missed it! So far very hot, very humid and very much not at home working, I’ll take it!

Well, what's the verdict? Did you turn on the game or didn't you?

[Backbiter]

4 hours ago, Mark Kelly said:

The good thing is he's not shying away from it, he's not blamed Pochettino, that was the headline. 

He's also said we have been working on being 4-5 yards further back so we don't keep getting caught by balls over the top  but it's our old habits that need changing. 

 

Our defenders have been standing in the wrong places it seems.

[Ham]

1 hour ago, martin1905 said:

So I should watch pre season friendlies, with a new manager and half a team to judge if the manager has been able to implement a new tactic?

My opinion  on pre season is pretty clear. Maybe a bit of an old-school mentality,  based on everything I'm hearing and reading, nothing matters. Nothing other than getting players fit and ready for the new season, especially ones that are returning from long term injuries.

I could not care less about results or performances and I'm certainly not going to make any judgement on the new manager after a month of working here and having half his best team missing.

I've watched none of it but curious how many minutes have Cucurella,  Enzo, Caicedo,  Dewsbury-Hall,  Palmer and Jackson have between them?

None of Cucurella, Palmer or Jackson have featured at all yet.  Jackson is injured and the others have just returned to Cobham.  

Enzo, Caicedo and KDH have all featured in the last two games against City and Madrid.  

The players flew home last night and so it's all Cobham from hereon in.  

[ROTG]

2 hours ago, RDCW said:

His name is Maresca you dullard.

Eye see. Love the makeup of your insult. 

[chara]

44 minutes ago, ROTG said:

Eye see. Love the makeup of your insult. 

I just hope the mods are keeping an eye on it and keep the "discussion" in line.

[NoblyBobly]

12 hours ago, ROTG said:

I think you need to watch the friendly's before making judgment on why people are making comments. Even with the game changes back you are in for a shock, because the system trying to be imposed by the new coach, is quite amateurish IMO and its bloody obvious the players on tour have not got a scooby how to implement it. 

Now the coach 7-8 days to implement a system on the game changing players who did travel for pre-season, and were key in learning a particular system under the previous coach with the end result in the team wining 23/30 points from the 10 last PL games.

There is a saying horses for courses, IMO a majority of these horses will not produce the same level of performance on the new course.

But do you know what, Poch stunk the joint out for most of the season and was slaughtered on here. Then we had a little run of 6 games at the end of the season , and most then hoped he would stay….6 GAMES!! 
We haven’t kicked off yet so imagine the twists and turns. He’s certainly not picking player selection  I would like to see. I want Petrovic in , Bads out , Chalabah in, Chilwell and James as full backs, Enzo out, Gallagher to stay ( too late) to partner Caido  bla bla bla , but I’m an amateur armchair fan , so what the fec do I know? 

[ROTG]

4 hours ago, NoblyBobly said:

But do you know what, Poch stunk the joint out for most of the season and was slaughtered on here. Then we had a little run of 6 games at the end of the season , and most then hoped he would stay….6 GAMES!! 
We haven’t kicked off yet so imagine the twists and turns. He’s certainly not picking player selection  I would like to see. I want Petrovic in , Bads out , Chalabah in, Chilwell and James as full backs, Enzo out, Gallagher to stay ( too late) to partner Caido  bla bla bla , but I’m an amateur armchair fan , so what the fec do I know? 

I think Poch did slightly better than you are saying, with the real change in performance coming, when the racist went off for an op, and TC helped sure up the defence and Poch curtailed the squad rotation. Which IMO was the basis of moving forward with poch this season, supported by @Ham games changers coming back from their season long injuries.  

Unfortunately another summer and another epiphany, with the owners / TBSD desperate to shoe horn in their expensive buys into the first team, hence the hiring of a coach without any experience and will do what he is told. 

It's going to be a hard slog this coming season, with a majority of those players you mention who should be in the team shown the exit door. 

IMO by November it will be quite toxic at the bridge.

People are predicting top 4, I'll go for the coach is a fraud. 

[ROTG]

7 hours ago, chara said:

I just hope the mods are keeping an eye on it and keep the "discussion" in line.

No problem there, I'll flash my eyelashes at them 

[Thiago97]

10 hours ago, NoblyBobly said:

But do you know what, Poch stunk the joint out for most of the season and was slaughtered on here. Then we had a little run of 6 games at the end of the season , and most then hoped he would stay….6 GAMES!! 
We haven’t kicked off yet so imagine the twists and turns. He’s certainly not picking player selection  I would like to see. I want Petrovic in , Bads out , Chalabah in, Chilwell and James as full backs, Enzo out, Gallagher to stay ( too late) to partner Caido  bla bla bla , but I’m an amateur armchair fan , so what the fec do I know? 

We lost 3 out of our last 20 games. One was a cup final (should have won), one was a cup semi final (should have won) and one was a battering at Arsenal( 3 days after a cup semi final loss) - Poch definitely has some responsibility on those too.

It's about to become very obvious what a good job Poch done. There is a lot to be said for a safe pair of experienced hands, even more so when it fits with the environment of players at the club right now.

Was he the long term man to win major trophies at Chelsea ? Unlikely to be honest. Will we be better off with him still in charge fast forward 5 months........I strongly suspect that answer will be yes.

If anything, my respect for him has gone up. He deserves credit for mutually agreeing to walk away from a set up that has spent another £150m-£200m and yet absolutely no-one can pinpoint any obvious area we have improved the team.......and if they can, they are lying!

Edited August 8 by Thiago97

[Mark Kelly]

28 minutes ago, Thiago97 said:

We lost 3 out of our last 20 games. One was a cup final (should have won), one was a cup semi final (should have won) and one was a battering at Arsenal( 3 days after a cup semi final loss) - Poch definitely has some responsibility on those too.

It's about to become very obvious what a good job Poch done. There is a lot to be said for a safe pair of experienced hands, even more so when it fits with the environment of players at the club right now.

Was he the long term man to win major trophies at Chelsea ? Unlikely to be honest. Will we be better off with him still in charge fast forward 5 months........I strongly suspect that answer will be yes.

If anything, my respect for him has gone up. He deserves credit for mutually agreeing to walk away from a set up that has spent another £150m-£200m and yet absolutely no-one can pinpoint any obvious area we have improved the team.......and if they can, they are lying!

Our season changed when we signed Cole Palmer , a player Pochettino didn't want to sign by all accounts. 

We lost both Cup finals because of Pochettino's innate coaching cowardice.

His reputation should have gone backwards at mach speed. 

[Thiago97]

10 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

Our season changed when we signed Cole Palmer , a player Pochettino didn't want to sign by all accounts. 

We lost both Cup finals because of Pochettino's innate coaching cowardice.

His reputation should have gone backwards at mach speed. 

I keep seeing this as some sort of stick to beat him with. It looks brilliant in hindsight.

I thought Palmer was a good signing at the time, he did a lot better than I expected. However, I would imagine it is true that Poch didn't really want him, or was not fussed about having him is probably more accurate.  Why would he ?  He had not genuinely broken through at City, he had a handful of starts and a few sub appearances in 12 months previous, and he probably thought £42m was better off spent in another area of the team.

Why would Poch know much about Cole Palmer? I think we all know Poch is hardly the type of manager who is going to have his ear close to the ground with emerging talents at PL clubs, even more so when he had not been managing here for 3-4 years before he joined Chelsea.

It looks wonderful as some sort of quote to roll out when it suits. The reality is that it is hindsight that makes it look that way. Very few managers fresh into a new club with loads of new players would have been up for another £42m new acquisition being thrown into the pot, especially when they were still relatively unproven.

It's a ridiculous comment that keeps getting thrown about. I would have thought you would know a bit better to understand and appreciate that too.

[Mark Kelly]

12 minutes ago, Thiago97 said:

I keep seeing this as some sort of stick to beat him with.

Maybe , if you keep seeing it , it's true then.

Pochettino shit the bed because he lost Nkunku to injury , along comes Cole Palmer a player anyone who had a passing interest in Football would have heard of and possibly seen play - I know I had  , a player capable of playing in place of the missing Nkunku and Pochettino didn't want him.

Pochettino as a coach is indefensible , he loses every final he plays because of his timidity and lack of trust in his players .

I would have thought you would know a bit better to understand and appreciate that too. 

[Sciatika]

49 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

Our season changed when we signed Cole Palmer , a player Pochettino didn't want to sign by all accounts. 

We lost both Cup finals because of Pochettino's innate coaching cowardice.

His reputation should have gone backwards at mach speed. 

Sounds perfect for the England job. Cowardice is a requirement.

[ROTG]

50 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

Our season changed when we signed Cole Palmer , a player Pochettino didn't want to sign by all accounts. 

Let see how the lad performs with the new tactical genius at the helm

[Thiago97]

1 minute ago, Mark Kelly said:

Maybe , if you keep seeing it , it's true then.

Pochettino shit the bed because he lost Nkunku to injury , along comes Cole Palmer a player anyone who had a passing interest in Football would have heard of and possibly seen play - I know I had  , a player capable of playing in place of the missing Nkunku and Pochettino didn't want him.

Pochettino as a coach is indefensible , he loses every final he plays because of his timidity and lack of trust in his players .

I would have thought you would know a bit better to understand and appreciate that too. 

Yes, we had both seen him play and liked him. The point is , neither of us expected what we got from him in this first season. There is a huge difference being having some brief knowledge of who a player is, and actually wanting/not wanting to sign that player. It's a pointless discussion piece.

As for the bolded part. You may have some point here, but I am not really posting with reference to this am I ? I made it clear a number of times last season and in the first post this morning. Poch most likely not the man to lead us to serious trophies, but he is very much a safe pair of experienced hands. That was invaluable at times last season, we will see how invaluable that was in the very near future.

The problem is that a few posters like yourself have gone too far down this road to really ever row back from. It's quite amusing in many ways, cos when you look at football clubs in some sort of dispute between fans, owners and players. It normally comes down the same old 4-5 issues. Lack of investment, poor results, club losing its identify, owners sticking with managers too long etc etc

One of the main key issues is often identity and connection between fans of the club and owners. Yet here at Chelsea, we have a situation where the last manager still gets pelters from some, yet he is the man who made it crystal clear how important it is to have that same connection and identity to the club ( Gallagher, Chalobah picked majority of games they were available) that the majority of Chelsea fans also want.

Yet Poch is the fraud, despite mutually walking away from the situation, probably cos he in part he knew what was coming this summer, and it's safe to say he wanted what us fans also want! Yet new guy is the coaching messiah, despite so far coming out with stooge like comments about PSR forcing Chelsea into selling off our talent, no doubt endorsed by his managers above.

Football at its most perverse.

[Thiago97]

20 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

Maybe , if you keep seeing it , it's true then.

Pochettino shit the bed because he lost Nkunku to injury , along comes Cole Palmer a player anyone who had a passing interest in Football would have heard of and possibly seen play - I know I had  , a player capable of playing in place of the missing Nkunku and Pochettino didn't want him.

Pochettino as a coach is indefensible , he loses every final he plays because of his timidity and lack of trust in his players .

I would have thought you would know a bit better to understand and appreciate that too. 

It's also very easy to frame a position you can never be wrong on! Maresca does worse than Poch, he is a worse manager than Poch simple. Maresca does better than Poch, you were right all along and Poch is a terrible manager.

You can't really lose either way here can you.