Our team is a shambles at board level. To be honest, Roman came when United were in a dip (no titles in 3 seasons 04, 05, 06, thats terrible for United standards which says something), Arsenals invincibles were one season wonders, as all Wengers teams have been. We had the money and the manager (Jose) in place to go ahead and dominate, but we didnt. Roman began to serially unstabilise the squad with his manager merry go round and forcing duff signings on the managers (and I dont mean Damien Duff), like Shevchenko and Torres. Then inevitably SAF did it again and made an awesome squad out of nothing and roman sacked Jose and there it began. Things began to look up when Carlo arrived until Roman pulled the trigger again and caused all this ****. Then there was the AVB debacle and so on and so on. Winning the Champions League was a shock not so much because we werent the best team in Europe (lots of teams have won it whilst not being the best, Porto, Liverpool) but because we performed Shockingly bad domestically. To sum it up.....I dont want to make it look like I am kissing ass, but I cant help but respect Manchester United. Chelsea is my team and always will be, as it was my fathers team before me. But Manchester United just seem to always pull it out the bag, and as much of a douchebag SAF can be at times, no one can doubt he is an awesome manager. Plus every trophy you win pisses of Liverpool fans, and compared to their completely classless and hard done by "Victims", I mean fans....Man utd fans by and large are much classier and I always like to see a dipper cry. Chelsea are my first team, MK Dons my second. But I have always liked Manchester United. Cant stand that smug piece of **** Ronaldo though, something about him just makes me want to smash his face in. lol
Good to see a sensible Chelsea fan who actually recognises the situation for what it is. All the bollocks about Chelsea having won more trophies since 2004 masks the fact that with Mourinho in charge, obviously with a decent budget, you could have won three or four trophies in that first three year period anyway, and probably more since. And since then all the trophies you have won have essentially been won in the same way - a new manager comes in and just copies Mourinho's style, trying to play to the same strengths Mourinho established and using the same players (usually Drogba and Lampard). Then as soon as those same managers try to establish their own style you go rapidly downhill. Happened to Ancelotti, was starting to happen with Di Matteo before he got fired. Arguably the only worthwhile thing Abramovich has done for Chelsea is to get you Mourinho in the first place, and give him the money to buy Carvalho, Essien and Drogba. Pretty much everything after that has just hurt you in the long run. Not sure you'd have dominated in the same way we have for the past six and a half years had you held on to Jose, but you'd definitely have done a lot better and made a lot more genuine title challenges.
Agreed, I dont think United would have won 3 back to back titles in 07,08 and 09 if Jose had stayed, I also think we would have won the CL before 2012. But never mind. Chelsea fans need to accept that until Roman leaves or decides to hire a manager, give him carte blanche and money and sit back, then this will continue. For all the moaning some Utd fans did about the Glazers, what did they actually do? Okay they saddled you with some debt but thats easily paid back due to Utds huge revenues. They just give SAF absolute rule and money to sign players when he wants it....thats it.....thats what an owner should do imo. They are business men, not footballers. They should finance the game and leave the footballing decisions up to the football brains.
Are there any Chelsea fans left who still don't believe that Chelsea is Roman's personal fantasy football team? He doesn't give a **** about the club or the fans, it's a hobby to keep him entertained. If anything appointing Rafa was a way for him to remind the fans that he'll do whatever the **** he likes.
This is the third time I have said this today, but I wish I could say you are wrong, but you aint. I knew what kind of owner Roman would be as soon as he forced the purchase of Shevchenko on Jose.
The problem is RA is just going to continue to sack managers every season if they don't win a major trophy that year, and by major I mean the PL or CL. The FA and Carling Cups are just consolation prizes. AVB isn't a bad manager, he just had to deal with a group of players that were unwilling to play the way he wanted them to play. The players he did sign for you were good signings. Mata is your best player, whilst Lukaku looks very promising
Well I for one am actually looking forward to our cup quarter final! Hopefully Rafa will be gone and we'll be installed with confidence on and off the pitch! Depending on our allocation we will hopefully bring 6000 or 9000 to Old Trafford making it a good atmosphere. We have nothing to lose as we are rightly underdogs. Hopefully it's a nice day so we can be drinking all day before the late afternoon kick off. I'm looking forward to this one!
I've never complained about the Glazers. The only reason we have debt is that we are such a big club that they had to spend a ridiculous amount of money to buy us in the first place. They actually put more of their own money (£200 million) into buying Utd than Abramovich put into buying Chelsea (£60m for the club plus £80m to clear debt). If you include the PIK debts the Glazers paid off, they've put around £400 million of their own cash into buying Utd, and have taken very little out of the club other than the cost of the debt. But who would you replace him with? Zenden has no experience and there aren't many other good managers available. Benitez was bottom of the barrel for you, so where would you go from there?
Interim interim manager Avram Grant has a chance. Glenn Hoddle is available. Then they could start looking at other barely qualified lambs to the slaughter (I mean ex players) like Zola. I also reckon that right this second if Benitez went and they offered David Moyes the job he'd take it in a second.
My personal choice.... Di Canio... Can you imagine!? At the moment we lack passion. We lack pride. We lack grit, determination... Di Canio would get that into the players for the last 11 games at tbh I think we would get top 4. For a short spell he has got to be worth a gamble? And he would fit right in at Chelsea wouldn't he!? If not him then give it to Holland or Glenn Hoddle... but Di Canio would be my choice
I didnt mean you personally Swarbs, but there was alot of people who complained. Hell some even stopped supporting United and made their own club!! And you had the Green and yellow scarf thing. My point was though, the Glazers have actually been pretty good owners. They have invested and allowed SAF to carry on business as usual.
Di Canio is probably a decent shout, tho' he and Roman would probably end up at each other's throats within minutes. Grant is feasible, but then how would Chelsea fans feel about getting another interim manager when they didn't really like the bloke the first time? And not sure whether Grant would go back to the club where the players so openly tried to undermine him last time. Not sure about Hoddle - he seems to be too busy fannying around trying to stop his academy going under, and whilst Moyes and Zola would be interested I can't see them jumping ship before the end of the season, particularly with the FA Cup, top four and promotion up for grabs. Still, the chance of a massive salary and a massive pay off as soon as you lose a couple of game in a row must be hard to resist.
I don't think the interim manager thing mattered, it was WHO the interim manager was that mattered. We all knew Rafa was ****, they all knew Rafa was ****, but he got hired anyways. Regarding Roman, I think he does care about the club, maybe not the fans as much as he should. His biggest downfall is that he think he's a football expert. Look at City's owners, they stay out of the way and let Mancini do what he wants to do. The Glazers let Fergie do what he wants because they know, he knows a whole lot more than they do. Roman however doesn't give his managers that luxury and get stuck having to adept their methods to Romans.
Aye, but I think Grant may have the same problem. Chelsea fans didn't want him in 07/08, and gave him a lot of stick despite him performing better than Mourinho had done prior to that. I think replacing Benitez with Grant would just piss them off more, particularly if it's yet another interim manager thus guaranteeing more piss taking and instability.
