Dear Roberto,
Let me start off with: its you, not me. For the last few months, you've been there for some of the greatest nights of my life. Napoli, Benfica, Barca, and most of all, we had Munich. But you notice a trend there? None are English teams. The most notable win domestically when you took over was Torres' hat trick during the 6-1 slaughtering against QPR. you went 4-3-3 to end the league season last year. Started the year looking the champions the club is, slaughtering Arsenal and Spurs on the road. Then the Champions League started. 2-0 lead at home blown to Juventus and handled by Shakhtar in Ukraine. After the Shakhtar game, the club went 0-2-2 in the weeks leading up to this moment.
Back in May when the teams position in the league table was close to locked in to the Europa League, a MUST win game against Newcastle came up at The Bridge mid-week. After coming back from Barcelona and trouncing QPR. The lineup you put out that Wednesday night was unacceptable. Mata, Lampard, Essien, and (for the second game in a row) Drogba cannot all be on the bench at the same time. So after we got beat 2-0, I didn't trust you with making lineup adjustments again (not including putting Bertrand on the wing in the final). When the season started and it seemed the team had a set starting 11 and rotation, I wasn't surprised the team was dominating and was relieved most of the lineup choices were made for you. Then we started slipping. Instead of making lineup adjustments or tinkering with the formation at some point during the winless streak. You waited until a do or die game, on the road in Italy, to make the first formation change and you played essentially a 4-6-0. Got slaughtered 3-0 and it was curtains for the teams title defense and yourself
Having said all that, I'm sad you're leaving. Your positives outweigh your negatives. You took over a club that was desperate to regain its identity as a European power and they did just that under your managing. The Napoli comeback, the semifinals against Barca, and of course Munich. No matter what happened between us while we were together and whatever happens with us in the future...we'll always have Munich.
Love,
Chelsea fan
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