Slojo

They've always been an entertaining side. I thought they were going to bottle this one mind, as they've done a few times against the big teams this season after leading, even against us. Nice to see them get the deserved win.

What's to be positive about lately? We've won one game in 8, do you want me to be bouncing around with joy? I've already gave my reasons, I don't need to keep repeating myself further. My point is, there shouldn't have been a "back on track" in the first place, the performances and results have been unacceptable. I've got every bit of respect for people who want to keep Frank and think the reactions on here are over the top, that's their opinion and I can roughly see their point. But again, as I've previously explained a couple of pages ago, I've made my mind up on the managerial situation and I'm going to stick to that for this season and next unless somehow or somewhere we really turned this around and mounted a title challenge or won a cup. I don't see either of those things happening, but if he stays here, I just hope we get top 4. If you don't like my "negative" posts, feel free to put me on ignore.

I agree context matters, this doesn't justify 6 weeks of piss poor performances though. There might be one factor I've severely undermined though, admittedly, and it's fitness. Teams who've rotated looks like they've had their rotation pay off, whereas teams that haven't, like us, have suffered. Maybe playing Rudi, Azpi, Christensen, Tomori, Emerson, Anjorin, Gilmour might have paid off more in the longrun and won us some points. But that's all hypothetical, I have no idea if it had made any difference. I know I myself would've been fuming to see a teamsheet like that against say West Ham or Aston Villa.

Yeah but did you know Liverpool are missing Van Dijk?

I don't see how or why Liverpool losing makes our performances okay under Frank.

There must be some way we can get Alan Pardew out of Bulgaria.

Like I said in the matchday thread, McClaren is available, surely worth a punt?

I think it's obvious that there's a real lack of intensity in our games the past month.

I like Kovacic, but I think you'll only get the best out of him if you play him in the pivot. We have a great side, but the problems are definitely stemming from midfield, far too many passengers in the midfield area that aren't pulling their weight and stepping up.

True, but they should be hungry right? Look at Werner and Havertz last season stats wise, Havertz at 20 had better stats than Messi and Ronaldo at that age, he got his opportunity at Bayer and boy did he take it. Werner was lethal at RB and one of the biggest goal threats in the world. I think both of them want to succeed here, but there's a mental block there, especially with Havertz currently. The midfield though definitely not, they look half bothered. The only ambition I see coming out of Kovacic and Mount are them striving for the most side passes in a season award, the pair of them are just completely conservative on the ball, especially Kovacic who is the more senior player and absolutely has to step up and take the mantle. I'll let Kante off because I think he's been given too much to do, but he is trying. At the moment though it's only Giroud you can rely on, easily our most reliable player.

I hope you're right mate, I do envy your support and enthusiasm though.

We have some of the best talents in Europe, a very young and hungry team with creativity, pace and even some good experience. In no way shape or form is this the worst Chelsea team. I would say Conte's 2nd season Chelsea team was even worse, when he had Bakayoko and Morata, although we did have Hazard... But AVB period was definitely the worst Chelsea period talent wise under Abramovich for sure. We had the characters and leaders, but we lacked pace and creativity, all of our key players were in their 30's.

Silverlining, maybe he's ready to be given another chance against Fulham?

Probably the best solution a the moment, I think starting Gilmour is a good idea. Let's see what he can do.

This sums up a lot of my feelings perfectly. It gives me zero pleasure in writing what I did this morning. I do differ in some ways though, I was never keen on the Frank appointment to begin with, I do think he did a great job last season. But I'm not subscribing to this narrative that Frank has it worse than AVB did in 2012. Werner, Pulisic, Ziyech, Havertz, Callum Hudson-Odoi some of the best talents in Europe right there. Giroud, Abraham, two fantastic backup strikers. Kovacic, Jorginho, Kante, again, these three should be playing much better, they're good players, why aren't they? This is not the "worst chelsea team ever", these are good players that aren't performing well and don't suit the current system they're being told to play. Werner Exhibit A, he doesn't suit this style of play whatsoever. Anyway, forget all that for a second. With Frank it's different, I was always going to give Frank a harder time than other managers because of his lack of experience. If things were to go down the sh*t pan, I wouldn't have gave him the same time as other managers. Because he's a club legend is irrelevant to me at this point, this is the manager’s job, I want what’s best for this club. Last season we saw some great moments in the team, how good we were going forward but our defence kept holding us back big time. But what's going on now? We've got better players and we are playing even worse football, like you said, we just can't seem to play through the middle whatsoever... There's no Plan B in our attack, completely one dimensional at the moment. The midfield 3 is just sideways pass, sideways pass, sideways pass, that 20 minute cameo from Jorginho against West Ham showed me something that was deeply missing in this team, a distributor in the middle who will take risks and pass the ball forward for a f**king change.... But sadly, Jorginho is not playing well, like many others.

During the game, someone blamed Pulisic for our performances. Said "It's a coincidence we're playing this badly since he's came back" even though we lost to Everton without him. And I didn't think that post was going to be topped, worst post of the season. Then just like that, I hear Frank is now racist towards his own players? Oh stfu. Glad the mods banned him, nothing but a troll.

But who's to say another manager can't come here and get the best out of all those players you just mentioned? At the end of the day, the manager always goes before the players, that's the reality nowadays. I have no disrespect towards people are loyal to Frank and want him to stay, I just think some of them are thinking with their hearts too much on this.

Glad this moron was banned now, what a f**king stupid thing to come out with.

This is basically what it has come to for many people on here, thinking with their hearts over their heads. For example this quote below me from dansubrosa is exactly that. Not to attack you Dan, but this just reeks of exactly what the bolded points in RickUK's post is about. Because you have a special bond with Lampard as a player, you're looking past all the negatives and not being objective. The fact that he's a former player here doesn't actually mean anything, and why is it that some foreign manager won't love the club? Did we care about that before we appointed Jose? Carlo? Conte? Yet all of us cherished those managers when they were winning things here, every one of them celebrated like mad men, would you take that all away because "they don't give a f**k about the club" ? By this logic, we should only hire people who've played for the club then...

I've pretty much already said it after the game, but my verdict on it right now. Time to go. I see no evidence that Frank can turn this around and I can only see it getting worse. We should jump ship now while we can still salvage a good season. And if by some miracle he turns this around and we get some good results, I don't trust in his managerial ability that the exact same thing isn't going to happen again in the following season. Do I think he's the only problem? No. He's no doubt had it very hard compared to a lot of other managers and football is currently in a very strange climate. But it's no excuse to be playing so badly for well over a month now. On paper we have a very good team with quality players, but they're not being utilised effectively. If you're sick of sacking managers and want something different, okay, I raise you this. Why Frank? Just forget about who he is for a minute, the player, why do we put all our eggs in one basket for a man who has won nothing, and started his managerial career just over 2 years ago? City and Liverpool both brought in top managers for the long term and gave them big contracts because Klopp and Pep can provide evidence in their CV's that they know how to build title winning teams. Frank doesn't have any of that. He doesn't deserve that luxury of time when he has no evidence that as a manager that he can turn this around and get this group of players winning things. On paper, Frank is the most unqualified manager we've had under Abramovich. It isn't just results, it's about the dire football situation and how badly these players are underperforming. There appears to be no identity or way of going forward from here. It all looked good before the Leeds game, no doubt about it. But it's a bit of a coincidence that as soon as we started playing teams in the top 10, winning games became impossible. What's that now? 1 win in the last 8 games? Yikes. Overall, as a unit, I see little to no improvement from last season despite spending over 200 million on players and bringing top profile targets. Defending is better for sure, but what happened to the attack? If it's not one problem then it's another. So, I say, nip it in the bud before it gets any worse, this current situation isn't helping anyone. I think currently it's going to be difficult to get a high-profile manager right now, so I hope the club has a shortlist of candidates who can take the reins and salvage this season. It's happened plenty of times before and it's worked out well, all besides one time, Hiddink part two. But even then, we ended up winning the league the season after. People on here act as though if you want the manager gone, you're being hyperbolic and it's all doom and gloom, on the contrary, I think some of you act like it's all doom and gloom if we sack Lampard, and that's it, nothing can get better, we've reached a low point. When realistically, it could be the complete opposite. Love him as a player, as a bloke, but as a manager, he's not cut out for it. I say it with my chest, I think it's time to go, the sooner the better.

You've been a major critic for years though and wouldn't even admit he was having a good season last season. The people who are jumping on his back now after a crap season were the same ones who wanted him gone the first few months they saw him play here. So all due respect, I'm not going to entertain it.

It's almost as if you pass Pulisic the ball, something happens. Weird...

I actually put him in my starting lineup over Kovacic because I just wanted something different from that boring midfield 3 of Mount-Kante-Kovacic. But I don't think Gilmour is the answer, in fact, he could actually be worse given he's so inexperienced. However, worth a punt isn't it.

He's offering nothing this season, so I'll let you off a bit, I can't really defend him this time. One of his worst games if not his worst I've seen though this one, looked piss poor.

Yeah it's a load of rubbish, there must be a word coined for this somewhere, but it's how people overstate what youngsters do and hype them up after one game that they pretend their on a higher level than senior and experienced players almost instantly. I wanted Gilmour to start for something different, but if Kovacic or any other senior player had a game like that against Leicester, people wouldn't want to see them play in a Chelsea shirt again. And his game against Everton was just a standard day in the office for what Kovacic was doing last season, but because he was 18, you're more impressed. Great game against Liverpool though, have to give him that.