Can we really blame for our fall on last summers transfers?

I'm not so sure we can.

Nastasic came in last season and I'm sure most of us thought we had a gem. Why strengthen CB when we had Kompany and Nasty with Lezza as backup? How was anyone to know that Nasty regressed rather than progressed? If he had just stood still, he'd be a good defender for us.

Clichy was pretty good in our title winning season. Who was to know that he'd fall off a cliff as well?

We strengthened in areas that needed strengthening.

DM - Fernandinho. Check.
Winger - Navas. Check.
Forward - Negredo. Check.
AM - Jovetic. Check.

I thought we'd done pretty decent business in the summer though I did want another quality CB for whenever Kompany was injured or banned.

I think we've been a bit unfortunate that Nasty has gone backwards and Clichy has too but we can't blame the manager or board for that.

We didn't strengthen in the area that needed strengthening tho

Kolarov is not a LB so we were left with Clichy who did have a good season but what if he was injured. No back up

Lescott has been deemed not good enough by 2 successive managers altho he is much better than DeMichelis. I'm not totally blaming Demichelis but he is utter dog shite and has cost us several games. 

Micah as we all know is ALWAYS injured so when Zabba is suspended or injured we have no back up

IMO we need a new CB and LB and cover at RB and CB
MF or attack is not a priority so before we do anything we need to massively strengthen the defence

We lost Tevez and got Negredo. Tevez is having a great season at Juventus & is better but Negredo has shown he was a good buy before his injury
Fernando was a good buy.However NDJ who did more or less the same job was sold for £4 million !
Navas has done OK. Any better than Adam Johnson. Not so sure 
Jovetic has been injured too much to make a fair judgement but he looked Montenegros best player against England

In hindsight getting rid of Barry & Kolo was not the brightest of moves

Hmm... Not sure I agree with you entirely.

We were all calling out for a decent CB two seasons ago. We know Lescott does a job, but he's not getting any younger. Also bearing in mind we had Kolo (another ageing player who could do a job) and we let him go, but replaced him with someone who was older, slower and had no PL experience at all. Nastasic should've improved by now, but maybe it's one of those things - he was good under Mancini, but perhaps Pellegrini's methods don't suit him.

Also, we've known we haven't had a decent cover at LB as Kolarov isn't a defender (although he's been much better this season, to be fair, which has taken the pressure off a bit even with Clichy getting worse) and we've known that we can't rely on Richards being fit to cover Zab at RB.

Basically, our defense isn't as world class as the rest of our squad, nor is it as deep. We all know this and have done for a few years now, but the board singularly failed to bring in anyone to plug these holes.

The players we did bring in, Demichelis aside, have been improvements on the players who made way for them and as such they were decent business. However, I would argue that we perhaps didn't need Jovetic or Fernandinho as much as we needed a solid CB to partner Vinny.

Well I for one don't regret selling Kolo, thought he was a liability every time he played.
I still think Nasty will come good, but he should be used as back up for a while, if we get a decent partner for Vinny.
Kolorov should not even be considered as an option at LB, he is not a defender! A passable left MF at best.
Clichy should be playing as back up to Luke Shaw from next season, in an ideal world.
Sorry, but I don't think Micah's good enough even on the odd day he is fit, so a decent back up to Zabba at RB also needs looking at.
So, I think Zabba and Vinny are rock solid but we need another CB and LB, as well as cover at RB.
That's not too much to ask, is it?

agree with you tbm...on all those points.

But didn't we have the best defence just two seasons back? I'm not saying we didn't need to strengthen there, but we also needed other players (DM + CF) and maybe defence was considered to be in better shape than attack.

Apart from the season we won the PL....our defence have been distinctly average...last season they were poor....and we've carried on where we left off.

If you look at the goals we've conceded....it's only because we were scoring so many it didn't matter.

Villa, Cardiff, Arsenal, Swansea, Watford....you rarely see Chelsea concede 2 goals....

Maybe it was MP's philosophy...we'll outscore the opposition so it doesn't matter.....well we were, and it didn't..but when the goals dried up....we've been left exposed.

Chelsea play a completely different style to City,much more like we played under Mancini hence the much tighter defence.
The high line we play is more attacking but much more susceptible to leaking goals.I suspect if we can recruit similar quality to Kompany and zabaleta on the left side we will kick on but having to use either a centre half who's slower than Garcia or the alternative being one who is a pub player with the ball at his feet then clearly whenever our attacking form dipped we were going to struggle.
Absolutely ridiculous that we didn't strengthen our left side in the January window while still involved in every competition. We will only win the COC this year and that's because we weren't proactive

agree...i just can't see us winning all 3 games in hand and then going on a run that will see us lose only one more...

I like what MP has done this season and hope, regardless of what happens, he stays....but FFS....every man and his dog can see the problems we have.....and if the board haven't, or don't identify 2 world class defenders for prior to the WC and get them signed....then it'd be as much their fault as MP's selections this season.

Another £100m is needed...we just need to ensure we recoup half of that with the sale of 6 or 7 players. At 19/20...we should be promoting some of the EDS squad who have done so well at home and in Europe into the first team over the summer.