Again, the fact the Lunatic Fringe have settled on their latest two minute's kvetch of "£30m for January!" is not a good sign...
Conte on Vialli: We had dinner together in London a few months ago as we enjoyed reminiscing about all our adventures and battles in the field. Unfortunately, in recent years you have had to fight a great and terrible battle in life. I have told and written to you that you have always been an inspiration to me as my Captain and how you were proving to be Strong, Proud and Courageous, fighting like a lion against this disease. Always in my heart my friend. Hi Gianluca ❤️
Has anyone set up a "Have Chelsea Sacked Potter Yet?" website...and sent the link to Levy and/or Paratici?
The problem is the baggage and what we know with hindsight about his lack of ability to recruit new players reliably. If Paratici had absolute control over that aspect, I'd be "ok" with Poch coming back. There'd almost certainly be too much water under the bridge with the 'old guard' like Hugo, Dier, Sanchez, Davies, Son and Kane, but all of them aside from Kane need to leave anyway this summer so it may well feel like a totally fresh start. Bottom line is, hand circa 2016 Poch this same group of players and we'd probably be top of the league. Conte doesn't have a clue how to get the best out of them.
Top of the league might be a bit of a stretch but we'd be an entertaining unit that'd definitely be breathing down the necks of the top two. But that totally fresh start may involve no Kane too, contract ends next summer so the club has a massive decision to make this one. I can see the Bayern move happening, especially as by the end of this season Kane should be our record goal scorer, so then what else is there left for him to do at the club? He'd own every individual record and it's only trophies he lacks which we're not likely to deliver. Leaves a Spurs legend and icon, one of the Prem's best ever strikers and then goes and wins a few doubles or a treble with Bayern to cap of a fine career.
I think he'll leave at the end of the season, and it is probably the right time to cash in what we can and move on, as much as that will hurt. I can't see him sticking around to break Shearer's record. Like you say, he'll break ours this season and then his desire to win silver will outweigh any desire to have Lineker and co smiling about him on a couch. Bayern or Real are probably the likeliest destinations. If it is going to be Poch, my gut says a totally blank canvas is necessary. Which also means either arranging for Ndombele, Lo Celso and Winks to either die in a freak snorkelling accident, or to make sure they're sold on June 1st.
I've just said that on the Prem board - Bayern. Practically guarantees him the domestic double plus a crack at the CL and at the end of his career he'll likely be Spurs and England's top goal scorer too, he'll finish as a legend of the game. Agree on Poch and blank canvas. A whole refresh could possibly be good, even if painful knowing Kane leaves with no trophy to his name, criminal a player like him didn't win anything with us.
It appears that Conte has learned that it is possible to play a back four please log in to view this image
I keep on asking the question would Kane have been on it a bit more if he didn’t feel the ‘pressure’ of the goal record? He known to like this fixture and he’s also known to crack under ultimate pressure imo
I think it was HBIC who mentioned that tactically once again we weren't set up to get much out of our attackers. Sess and Doherty looked to have shat their pants at having to deal with Saka and Martinelli so we often had a flat back 5 with a 20 yard gap to the midfielders and another 20 yard gap between them and the attackers. Xhaka and Rapist set up to squeeze those gaps and stop any passing between them, while Odegaard had a field day exploiting the spaces we'd left in the central channels. Kane had a couple of good chances in the second half including that header at the near post, but all in all what I saw yesterday wasn't Kane not trying, it was a tactical mess.
He probably would've been a bit more in tune with the match if we didn't have our forwards and defence playing completely different games to one another, leaving the midfield in a flap about which game they should join
It wasn't that Sess & Doherty were sitting back, they were told to sit back, as their positions mirror one another. If they were panicking their positioning would be off, but it was clear that Conte's instructions were for the defence to sit back when Arsenal had the ball and that included the WBs - which isolated the pivot
This month will be the last of Contes reign and could go down as one of the worst in the clubs history. I can see a scenario where lose to City, Fulham and Preston, Kane breaks Greaves record and signs of Man U on deadline day for £100m + Maguire on loan. We sign no other players and Conte walks on the 1st Feb.
I wouldn't mind Marcelo Bielsa in charge for the rest of the season and we use that time for a long overdue thorough reset and start again pretty much from ground zero in the summer.
The dumbest take I've seen on Twitter (natch...) is we should bin of Paratici and hire a "progressive" DM Because if anyone watches Kulusevski, Bentancur, Romero, Sarr, Bissouma or Udogie, they immediately think of Santiniball...
If true, he can **** right off. He's already the third-highest paid manager in the league, behind Pep and Klopp. Already on close to double what Arteta earns. I'm rapidly losing patience with him.
