Problems lie deeper than Rafa

great article @theshanahan I'd love jose back too or has you say the other options of Zola or poyet the problem with those two guys yes there chelsea legends and we love them.but roman has to have a big name coach that's just how he does things. Zola and poyet are relatively just beginning their journey in management in terms of experience.if I could advise them stay where they are build up a reputation then look to get a prem job in a few years they have time on their side.

Russian* so they need time*. (Damn iPhone changing words)

Unfortunately at @trueblue44 he'll get sent on loan next season to progress his development. I just hope not too many next season are sent on loan.this season the squads too small need more strength in numbers next year.

Shanahan...the following is not taking issue with you. It's the people who run CFC. Yes...fire Rafa and bring in another legend. Poyet or Zola. Tell them they are INTERIM, leak that so everyone knows (players, fans, media). The players will be SO motivated. Let the legend go in the summer because Roman sees a 'better' option. LOL.

Oh No you didn't just do that?? Did you just say Rafa isn't the "only" cause of our problems?? I feel sorry for you lad, because the "all problems = Rafa" brigade will hound you and insult you till kingdom come

Yes, the passionate 'true' Chelsea fans will boo, hurl insults, call out Robbie's and Jose's name, venting their own feelings, giving absolutely no consideration for the feelings of the players on the pitch who need to concentrate on beating their opponents. Smart like dump truck!

Problems are way deeper than Rafa, but you have to deal with the problems one at a time

Haha! true @JojnnyOz.... but the Rafa is more of a symptom of problems.....

Rafa is the first part that needs dealing with. Then Emenalo,Gourlay and Buck. these are another part of the problem at the club. Then once they get the right manger in it is then his job to start moulding this squad,moving dead wood on and bringing in some new players and some of the youth we have blossoming away from stamford bridge this season. The problems will always arise while we keep sacking managers every season! Yes we have still won trophies while chopping and changing managers but so we bloody should with £200/£300 million pound squads!! christ as harry redknapp said if anyone failed with the CFC squad and budget then there not very good lol.

agreed Kaku lol

Lmaooooo @ arrange preseason trip.....

No i disagree,rafa alone is the problem,once we get rid of him then all our problems are solved,we would win the league,torres will regain his lost form,the defence would be tighter,the fans would start cheerin even mediocrity,lamps would get a life contract,player power would no longer exist,the board would make wonderful decisions,e.t.c..just sake him,he is the Problem

Mourinho! or we will be in this mess next season to!

On a more serious note now,i totally agree with the author of this article,chelsea problems are far beyond rafa..alan hansen is speakin some sense here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/columnists/alanhansen/9891425/Chelsea-problems-are-much-bigger than-Rafael-Benitez.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/chelsea/9702184/Chelsea-manager-Rafael-Benitez-will-not-be-able-to-inspire-Fernando-Torres-to-recreate-his-past-glories.html

@JohnnyOz, When you say that Buck cocked up the CPO vote which resulted in us missing out on Battersea. Do you mean that he and his associates, only arranged to illegally obtain £250k worth of shares to corrupt the vote, which ultimately failed, so they should have got even more, to ensure that legitimate shareholders were cheated ? Incedently Battersea has been empty for 30 years now, why did the club not just buy it earlier ? How is that the CPOs fault ?

@Ken4CFC, Alan Hansen? Seriously? I will not bother to read anything Chelsea written by Hansen, the only reason he has interest in Chelsea is because of his ex Liverpool contingent playing with us now.

Well here in lies the poison challace that is Chelsea FC Manager. Roman is a highly successful business man. He gets results and isn't scared to upset the apple cart to get them. It's very well documented that his hire/fire policy has not impacted on the club's medium term success levels. In fact we often see a halo effect when a new manager comes to ANY club. What we have done at our club is surf the wave created by the halo effect for far too long. Someone further up pointed out that we've had the £200/300m squad to be able to do this, but paying for a F1 car and putting a taxi-driver behind the wheel won't win you the race, so I think it's wrong to say that any mug could be successful with a Chelsea team (shame on you 'Arry!). Now we see that the game rules have been changed. We can no longer buy big to get the multi-million £ squad for the new manager to bounce results off. Now we need to manage smart and let's be honest in saying that the club has done an EXCELLENT job in build a highly promising youth set-up, arguably amongst the best youth talent in the world.... BUT we have failed to tap into the wealth that we have at our disposal. Too often talented players leave our club for faster opportunities elsewhere. With the FFP choke-hold that we'll be facing we must change our plans. This involves a fundamental change to the running of the club, but after we've seen so much success with the current set-up it is just not so simple to drop everything and change direction. For me Rafa isn't even a problem. He's a temporary blip (blimp? ;) ) that will soon go away. Fan's focusing their rage on him is wrong in my eyes due to the knock on effects to the players, but that's a completely different point to the one I'm trying to make..... Before we can consider the next manager we need to consider the entire path that this club is taking. We need to begin along a journey to fundamentally alter our operating principles. We need to OPENLY say "This next manager is being brought here to rebuild the club. Results must be maintained to a level, but trophies are not expected during this period but progression of the club towards a sustainable entity is a must". I seriously think that this is the project that AVB was always bleating on about. Building the club to a better position from base principles upwards. The time wasn't right a year ago, but with a few small changes the time WILL be right. My personal belief is that the club is already thinking of a longer strategy. This is the reason why Lampard is not being offered a longer deal. The club sees a near future where the team is young and hungry and they believe we can get there without Lampard (and Terry?? Wait and see...) and believe that the time is right to make that change. The problem is that there are no "wonder managers" left to headhunt. No one will buy into a project just to have the rug pulled like AVB. So now we revert to type.... We bring in another block-buster manager to make an interim term fix (2 years max for the next guy!!) and we fall back into this never-ending cycle of hire/fire to get peak/trough. Forget the "RAFA OUT" banners. Instead try "IN STABLE AND SUSTAINABLE WE TRUST". We need to change. Those who fail to evolve become extinct, and I hope that our club can see that NOW is the time to make those changes!

Great post @Ken4CFC... this is the point I like most in the article "Benitez is limited enough without having to fight against 40,000 fans not getting behind the side he is trying––and largely failing––to manage. The boo boys can blame Benitez all they want, but they are in denial if they cannot accept that they have contributed and exasperated an uncertain situation"... Plain fact, and this coming from a Chelsea fan....

The main problem is roman, then the players and rafa. Our players lack so much discipline it's incredible, player power has been a disease at Chelsea and is still affecting us. I don't think the players like rafa and his training methods, sorry guys if we don't get into the top 4 I wud blame the board for employing rafa and the players for not trying deer best.

I'll like peeps to get there facts right in this whole scenario, and stop making assumptions, one or two which is a known fact by all is acceptable but an outright lie is not what is good both morally or in a public forum except offcourse it is thru mistakes then it is forgiveable.

@Latunvic, 40000 fans not getting behind the side? You make it sound like there are more 'Rafa out' banners than chelsea flags on European night

As I keep saying but pertinent once again to this thread, RA has to get a DOF he trusts that will be HIS go-between the coaching and playing squad. There are cancers breaking out all over the set up, we pretty much all agree that Tubby & Torres have to go, but the real root of the problem is the set-up higher up the chain, the 3 amigos. They are not real proper footballing men, not even Emanalo. This chain of advisors have to be broken. Emanalo has to go just for bringing the fat one to SB, Buck should busy himself on expansion of SB or new site acquisition, and Gorulay can count the beans, but he definitely should not have any say on who gets loaned or not (I blame him in only focussing on breaking even at the expense of sending out so many players on loan, sell them if they are never going to make it into the first team). RA & DOF decide who the next manager is, and then these 3 re-structure the club and squad. It will be a nice project for Roman!! But for goodness sake, get the 3 amigos in their right places, and get the Liverpool element as afar away from this Club as is possible.

Which means priority no. 1 at the moment is getting the right DOF, not the next manager. Use this time now, to get things moving in time for a new manager appointment. Get the right DOF and he can even act as caretaker until season end and sack that sorry ass that is the Fat One.

@blueabs,Thank u once again for some of ur points, but I disagree with one, getting rid of emenalo, his eye for talent shouldn't be ignored, if we get rid of him today, he'll be another club's gain. Perhaps city? Spurs? He can go back to his role as a scout. You know we don't have good scouts all over SB, perhaps only a handful, we need to recruit more not send em away, he ecked up with rafa's appointment, I believe he doesn't know it'll backfire, besides he is not in the same wavelength with the fans to understand their animosity towards the declining one before he made the mistake of suggesting him to rafa. #justhavetodefendhim :-)

@gabeu, Perfectly put!!.....last time I checked, VC have a member going towards 10,000 (merlin?), and out of that number I think we can say, not many visit the bridge among the members here except for a few, now how are peeps who are not in SB know the amount of fans that boo rafa on game days? Or can boldly tell the time that the boos starts. That is what I have been asking those making that assumptions since the articles berating fans booing rafa started springing up yesterday. I agree my tv set might not be the clearest when I listen, but the way we go out and imply we boo rafa from the first half whistle to the final whistle is laughable...... As I have said earlier, fans should sing on top of their lungs, all our songs and encourage the boys, if rafa does any stupid thing again, boo him after the final whistle and the boos should be loud and clear. He is been paid to do a job, he should get along with it and we'll be just fine

the majority of the vital chelsea members here would like jose or Michael laudrup apart from @mq who's the villain on this site everyone loves to hate lol.

Desmond - I can live with Emanalo staying as scout, that demotion from Technical Director can be his penance for bringing Tubby.

@raybell and @johnny,does bein an ex scouser make him a liar??,read the piece without sentiments and see the man states some truth

@latunvic,ofcos they would leave in denial and not accept their contribution to our current condition,instead they single out rafa for blame for everything that goes wrong...watch your back,seems the wolfs are on regardin the rdm comment.

*live in denial*

Haha! @Ken4CFC... LOL!.... I'm all in for the wolves whenever time permits me....

If Chelsea is an F1 car, the engine certainly isn't.

@Jolly. You always have a way of bringing CPO to every argument recently...Lol. Come on mate,its another debate for another day.

@nelyvanile you are right. The CPO issue is for another day, but it would help if people understood all the facts, as opposed to a few of them, an independent site www.stamfordbridgethetruth.blogspot.co.uk, I believe gives a balanced view. We must not forget, that Roman is only passing through.

@Jolly. Agreed mate! Some of us sensed it,and Rafa's appointment has not helped either. @Blueheart9. I'm a regular visitor of that site,and my take on the matter is well known. Like I said its another debate for another day. Cheers Mates!

Typo again @ use these opportunities******

Rafa name will come first in Chelsea Hall Of Shame..

Of all these articles supporting Benitez, they keep citing our past history with sacking managers. However, no one cites Benitez's recent past such as his failure with Liverpool and Inter Milan. They refuse to point to his incompetence. The fans is NOT the reason he has the worst record in 2 decades of any chelsea manager. The last 2 teams he last managed suffered like this. His proponents keep making the most pathetic excuses to cover up his incompetence from failing to qualify for top 4 with Pool, Inter Milan record etc.....It was the owners at Pool, owner at Inter Milan, and it is now the fans, owner and management at Chelsea. In each of these cases, the only thing common is Benitez. @Latinvic, you clearly miss the point with RDM. People don't waste their time yelling that since we know it's impossible in addition to better options being out there. You rarely see bring back AVB, bring back Carlo etc.....Only bring Jose is common and deservedly so. The point about RDM is simply on everything measurable and available, RDM has done better including making the most out of the most useless player in Chelsea's history in Torres. For a player that Benitez managed for so many years, the player scored the most important goal in his club career under RDM. No need to start any debate about whether things would have been better. What we know for sure is things are much worse under Rafa and it was easily foreseeable because 1.) he was never liked 2.) His recent résumé is crap 3.) He is incompetent 4.) He is incompetent 5.) He is incompetent. None of the Benitez proponent have any explanations besides Chelsea fans are making his job harder, it is management, it is the owner, or was RDM better? All that is irrelevant as none of that have any impact with his incompetence. Not one department is responsible for a club's failures or its success. Every department contributes an its all about the percentage. People thank Roman for sacking AVB, thank RDM and the players for their effort with hardly any mention of senior management in our UCL and FA Cup success last year. I can blame RDM, and senior management for not competing for trophies this year with Roman insisting on Torres (which I understand given the investment which could have been avoided if he didn't go out and buy him in the first place). If we end up outside top 4, the blame lays majorly on Benitez because he is clearly incompetent and arrogant living on his almost decade ago achievements.

@Kaku... I understand and agree with some of your points as regards Benitez's arrogance and tactical ability and I don't think anyone has suggested that Rafa is better or has done a better job than RDM..., but the point some, including myself, are making is that Rafa, despite his flaws, is a coach who should be able to achieve top 3 finish and win us one trophy if given a chance to do his job without distractions... and that even if he's not competent enough to do so, creating a negative and hostile atmosphere will not help our fate but rather worsen it. The Liverpool and Inter you mentioned, Rafa was able to win trophies at those clubs despite his incompetence (not many Lpool fans will agree with u that Rafa is incompetent)... that's history though and doesn't really matter to me... the point is, let's not worsen an already precarious state... As for fans not calling for the return of RDM, it was meant to point out that the hostility on Rafa is more subjective than objective, it's more of hatred than out of love for or confidence in RDM.... Some suggested that the boo boys are angry because we lost a highly competent hero for one a lot of fans detest... but the fact that not even one of them is mentioning a return of this hero suggests to me that he was loved but not really highly valued by these fans... Why do you think a return of RDM is impossible even if fans push for it?... I think not pushing for his return has to do more with your 2nd point that "there are better options"... but really, there is only one proven better option (Mourinho)... there is nothing to suggest that the other names being brandished around are better or will do a better job than RDM....

@Jollyheart of course you are correct, we need to plan for a future without the reliance of Romans money. So simply knock down the hotels and enlarge the ground. No need to sell it, redevelop it, make a massive profit and relocate to somewhere further than 3 miles away. Problem solved.

@ Blueheart9, how do we pay for Stamford Bridge redevelopment? Why do we have to go get loan for the project when we are sitting on a huge reserve of diamond, gold,oil? Imagine CFC with those money, Real,Braca even man u would be chasing our shadow. Do u remember how the birth the Real Galaticos came about? Real sold their training ground to Madrid city council for almost thrice the market value and with loads of money over after paying their debt they was able to get the best players in world. Marques players are good and important recipe for sponsors and increase revenue.That was the foundation that have propelled them to be the richest team in the world.

@Blueheart9, This is the problem. We are again asking him to provide the money for the expansion very funny mate. The feeling that we are entitled to this after close to 2 billion dollars in a 10 years period and with little appreciation from the fans is baffling. From reports the board are not looking into expanding SB because of the cost involves. His resources is not limitless and he has properly recognised after 10 yrs that the only way for CFC to remain competitive in the future is for us to be self sufficient. So what are our plan B? Wise saying “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime"

@ Blueheart9. Of course he knew the size of the ground. But CFC has grew rapidly in the last 10 years compare to anytime in our history. He can never recoup the money he has invested on CFC. Mate if you think CFC is worth £1b now u are in a dream land the highest would be close £500m. If the main motives as u keep pointing at is for the profit Roman deserve compare to Ken Bates that bought CFC for a symbolic £1 and for 21 yrs wasn't able to build that solid foundation for the future but made close to £140m profit from the sales. Your argument confirm u will be happy for the status quo. All the brave decisions makers in the world we prefer to regret decisions they have made rather to regret decisions the could have made. If you are satisfied with were are now, a foundation build on sandy soil to a future where a foundation on the rock or solid

@ Blueheart9 correction to the £140M Ken Bates profit. That was the amount Roman bought CFC for. never the less Ken made close to £17m profit. The rules of the games has change re FFP + the lofty ambitions of the owner to take us to another level that is good enough motive in my opinion. You are correct we all have the right to get detail explanation from the board but the CPO as well has to show the willingness to be flexible and not rule out straight away the options to moving from SB. If there is no plan B that is not good for millions of fans dreaming for CFC to be the best, biggest and richest team in world. We are so close to that level if only we can put our differences aside for the sake of CFC

If redeveloping SB costs £100m, that is at least 5 times less than relocation. I would also add that if Roman is `here for the long haul` as stated many a time by the club, it would be self financing in a very short period of time, as opposed to wasted on assets like, Veron, Mutu, Shevchenko, Torres etc etc etc. The upshot of it all, is that it will cost Roman nothing.

@ Blueheart9, I quite understand your feeling towards this issue. I am looking at it from a sporting angle. My gut feelings are, the excess money will be invested in players. That is the reason I keeping talking about an opportunities to building a solid foundation. The most important question to ask the board guaranties that the excess money will be reinvested on the players. These are more valid and direct questions rather than asking for the motives. The CPO argument should be re-branded to focus more on getting these guaranties. If the CPO adopt this strategy they will be able to change fans perception that they are blocking the club from moving forward. This will push the pressure back to the board if they really have other motives.