I think Luis Enrique is a fantastic coach. I think Flick is a fantastic coach, I think Klopp is a fantastic coach. I don't think any of them would have gone to you lot.
Xabi Alonso | Chelsea manager
- Thread starter JB08
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No, I think Alonso is a superior coach.
I guess we'll find out!
1, 3, 5, 7, 9...
You would imagine he's had discussions with BlueCo that made him feel he has a chance of getting Chelsea back on track. The job has plenty going for it if the upper management have learned their lessons from the Rosenior/Maresca business.
I guess so.
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I think he’ll be an excellent PL winger and has more chance of that then Quenda.
You send Tyrique to Portugal and he would absolutely destroy it.
Whatever happens at Chelsea doesn't stop him being Liverpool's top choice in 12 months is probably the attraction and he's likely had the memo Slot's getting another season (or less + interim to the end), easy payday or it goes well. Win-win for him.
What a feckin embarrassment of a post this is. Feckin hell
It’s a post on a football forum. Hardly anything to get embarrassed about. I hope it is proven to be a woefully inaccurate and ridiculous post in time. I truly do.
I’m just annoyed by what this represents. I was very clear that a good interim tenure should not result in the job. There’s a huge difference between a decent interim period and being the full time manager of a club like ours.
Michael Carrick has not shown, in his career, that he can be the level of manager this club needs.
What else annoys me is that those twats upstairs get to be lazy once again and have a nice convenience option, which I always knew they would.
To be fair, it's also just a football managerial appointment.... you you are getting openly depressed about it.
Carrick's a proven recent success at an exceptionally hard team to manage, Alonso's a proven failure in his only attempt at this, lost total control of that Madrid camp. But both miniscule sample sizes, so not much to truly go on. But this puts no fear into me, Chelsea are a mess, I'm not remotely convinced he's fixing it.
Carrick's a proven recent success at an exceptionally hard team to manage, Alonso's a proven failure in his only attempt at this, lost total control of that Madrid camp. But both miniscule sample sizes, so not much to truly go on. But this puts no fear into me, Chelsea are a mess, I'm not remotely convinced he's fixing it.
Sorry, but your post sounded like a kid crying cause their mate got a new shiny toy.
Who should United be giving the job to then?
That's possibly first elite manager Chelsea got since Tuchel.
I don't really get the uproar from some United fans about Carrick. He might not be super exciting but he fully saved your season and deserves the gig. Iraola would be just as much as a gamble if not more than Carrick. Enrique, Naggelsman are not really available and i doubt Xabi Alonso would completely burn the bridge with Liverpool going to United.
Slot is on borrowed time and with a bit of luck the timing will be convenient for Alonso to switch.
So if they don’t get Europe next season and (presumably) have to trim their squad and operate within a budget, I wonder how they will line up. Presuming Fernandez and Cucurella stay they have a decent group of players to build around -Caicedo, Fernandez, James, Palmer, Pedro. All pretty good ages too.
I can’t see a (realistic) scenario where he goes to Liverpool in 12 months.
Not being in Europe allows them to spend a great deal more money this summer does it not?
Weirdly yes because we're not bound by UEFA's financial rules but we also have to be careful still because presumably we expect to be back in the CL the following season.
We have been burnt before and now we're reluctant to expose our bruised hearts to another person, no matter how good he looks in a blazer
I was being somewhat tongue in cheek, seeing as there was a big debate about that on here at the time and Alonso's success at Leverkusen was built on the back of playing with 3 CBs
This place has been mentally scarred by your last boss for 3 at the back. When Conte did it for us it was great!
I think an excellent appointment and Chelsea squad is a good fit for Alonso's BL system - especially with Quenda joining who will provide competition at LWB to Cucurella. I also see the system really seeing a big improvement next year for Cole Palmer as a right 10
Obviously giving him a shed load of money, plus a guaranteed big pay out when they sack him and will have to pay the rest of his contract. Decent coaches not joining Chelsea for the right reasons.
I read that you can only afford a loss of around £69m otherwise you'll be suspended from UEFA competitions. So you'll need to make some big profits on selling players this summer as all the old loopholes are closed.
You'll need to sell academy players or players with a low book value.
Second this. Carrick has earned his stripes, and I agree on most of the other managers mentioned.
The one I really wouldn’t touch is Nagelsmann.
He may well be a tactical genius, but his man-management and his ability to manage upwards are major red flags. That matters at United. Bayern didn’t sack him because the results were catastrophic. They sacked him because the whole situation around him became too difficult: conflicts with players, poor communication, issues with senior figures and a sense that he couldn’t control the political side of a huge club.
That is exactly the kind of thing people often underestimate with managers. It is not just about formations. At clubs like Bayern, United, Madrid, Liverpool etc., you have to manage egos, hierarchy, the board, the dressing room, the media and the legends around the club. Nagelsmann has not shown that he is particularly good at that. You can see similar problems with Germany now. The Neuer situation is a good example.
Germany may end up recalling a 40/41-year-old Manuel Neuer, who is retired from the national team, injury-prone and clearly past his peak, at the expense of Oliver Baumann, who has actually been part of the current group. Neuer is obviously one of the greatest goalkeepers ever, but at this point it feels like reputation politics. It reminds me a bit of Buffon in his last years, or Cristiano Ronaldo now: legendary status makes the footballing decision much harder than it should be.
And with Neuer there is another layer. It is already well known that he and Nagelsmann have had a strained relationship for years, especially since the Bayern period. Neuer is a huge figure in German football and does not seem like the kind of player who naturally accepts Nagelsmann’s authority. That is precisely the type of situation where Nagelsmann tends to struggle: when he has to handle a senior player whose status may be bigger than his own.
Then you have the Undav situation, which was completely unnecessary. Undav basically said he would train hard and fight for a starting place. That is exactly what every player should say. But Nagelsmann appeared irritated because he had already told him he would be on the bench. That is terrible man-management. You don’t publicly box in a player before a World Cup and then get annoyed when he says he wants to compete.
And in Germany, this is not just a normal selection debate. The national team has had a very sensitive relationship with players of immigrant background for years, especially since the Özil fallout. Whether people agree with Özil or not is almost beside the point. The bigger issue is that many players with immigrant backgrounds feel they are treated differently: praised when they fit the preferred image, questioned more harshly when they don’t.
Germany is very comfortable with certain types of politics in football: taking the knee, Covid messaging, Pride armbands, anti-racism campaigns, all of that. But when a player’s politics, background or personal expression does not fit the expected consensus, the reaction can become much harsher. You saw that with Özil. You saw parts of it with Kimmich during the vaccine debate. You saw Rüdiger get a ridiculous amount of scrutiny for things that probably would not have become such a storm around a different player.
So when Nagelsmann mishandles a player like Undav, it lands in a bigger context. I am not saying every criticism of Undav is racism. But Germany has already lost a lot of dual-nationality talent in recent years, and a lot of those players clearly feel they may have a better chance, or at least a warmer environment, elsewhere. That is a real issue for the DFB.
That is why I don’t understand the idea that Nagelsmann would be some obvious elite solution. He is tactically interesting, sure. But he also seems like exactly the type of high-profile manager who could walk into United and create new fires very quickly.
Carrick may be less glamorous, but at least he knows the club, understands the dressing-room culture, has already steadied the ship, and seems to have earned trust. Sometimes that is worth more than hiring the cleverest tactics guy in the room.
If Chelsea retains its very young core, Xabi might end being a great choice
let's hope he is Chelsea's Amorim and not their Klopp
They say London is like the Madrid of England.
You have listed so Many great reasons why Nagelsmann isnt good fit but those reasons can easily be ignored if coach can get results along with playing great football , ultimately thats the only reason I don't want him here he simply isnt that good .
Great addition for Chelsea on paper as his accomplishments in Germany were incredible. At the same time, he’s making really hard for himself to follow up that stint with further success by picking the least manager friendly clubs out there. Madrid are known for being personality centric and Chelsea these days for being pretty badly run whereas a young manager like him should be going for an environment with a long term view.
Chelsea’s squad is actually well suited to him so o don’t know if their management has given him assurances
Chelsea’s squad is actually well suited to him so o don’t know if their management has given him assurances
I disagree strongly, it should put fear into you to some degree. If he has assurances from BlueCo, the job is perfect for him and I think he will make Chelsea challengers.
He is a very good coach, people have just forgotten that because of the Madrid debacle. But Chelsea are not Real Madrid, far from it.
As Bale said in his recent thing on Stick to Football, Madrid needs a certain kind of hands off, ego massaging manager for the whole thing to work. Alonso was not that guy, but he fits Chelsea much better, IMO.
I think he will do well.
Yeah surprised we didn't at least ask the question, well unless we did but he quickly rebuffed the idea. Just hope he doesn't get Chelsea firing straight away and providing more competition next season. Mind you if missing out on him still means we get Enrique one day I can live with it. I would even put him above Nagelsmann on my list and that's coming from someone who is a huge fan of the latter.
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Put it like this - I think he is akin to Andre Villas-Boas, AVB. Young prodigies that probably do better at Leipzig, Tottenham and Marseille than Bayern, United or Madrid.
I do however believe Nagelsmann can go on and do things, huge things, in football but I don't think a position as manager for a club like United is a good fit. Neville and his gang will eat him for lunch before November. Nagelsmann will sooner or later become a Sporting Director or like AVB a president of some team.
Yeah that's what I need to tell myself
No European football for them. They’ll be hoping for a miracle with him next season.
In one sense, like us with Carrick this season or Conte many years ago, having one game a week might be good for them and their big players. On the other hand, I wonder if their big players might be looking for moves away from the club?
In one sense, like us with Carrick this season or Conte many years ago, having one game a week might be good for them and their big players. On the other hand, I wonder if their big players might be looking for moves away from the club?
As long as they have players like Malo Gusto, Delap, Fofana and Garnacho etc. playing regular football, they're going to have a problem. Can they spend a lot given the new financial rules? They will have to.
Don’t think Garnacho and Delap are regulars? But yeah, I doubt Alonso will stick with them. I have no idea how their finances are shaped by this.
They do have a core of some good young players there it’s whether or not any manager can make them into a good team. Two of their big players were making noises about moving on under the previous manager so it will be interesting to see if they can keep them.
Makes it all the more annoying if anything.
How we can be capable of dismantling Villa at Villa Park (could have honestly been 8) to not scoring for 6 games drives me up the wall.
Would be a lot easier to accept if we were outright shit all over.
Not starters, no. Still, 24 and 28 PL appearances this season is more than you would ideally give them next season.
A bit like Liverpool your midfield looks very decent on paper but your forward line is inconsistent and Palmer looks to have fallen off a bit. Not sure what to expect at all from Chelsea next season.