Davey Baby

In his pre-match presser today he said the big problem is our failure to convert chances, while saying we're creating plenty. Poor comments in my opinion, as they lay the blame at our players' door rather than his own. Finishing isn't the problem Frank. We just don't create enough.

Here's the press conference. Talks about Cavani on 3 minutes, and talks about short-term signings on 6mins 30secs. He also emphasises the point that we're not scoring enough. Looks like he definitely wants this to happen...................

Lampard doesn't usually speak about other clubs' players but today he spoke about Cavani very highly in his pre-match presser for the Arsenal game. I think we can gleam from his comments he's interested. Atletico Madrid have already approached PSG. In 3 weeks he's 33, the same age as Olivier Giroud, for what that's worth. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jan/20/chelsea-edinson-cavani-psg-transfer-frank-lampard

If Lampard thinks our defeat was all about finishing and that Kante played excellently then we really have to worry. Kante was far from excellent and our defeat had f**k all to do with finishing.

Well, if you put a decent cross into the danger zone, with whip and pace, you've got a chance. Anybody's got a chance. We scored recently from a corner. I can't remember which game. Emerson took it. Dave scored. It was the quality of the cross. Mount delivers quality balls from set pieces.

100% Spiller. Harry was a good coach, the finest English coach for a while, but he was always a win-a-few-lose-a-few sort of coach. He let his players play but so did Fergie, who wasn't too hot on tactics himself, difference is Fergie was a master of psychology, of motivation, of the art of leadership and he had great judgement. He also had that nasty and ruthless streak you often need. I like the fact it isn't too methodical with Frank and he lets his players play, but in the modern game, against the very best, maybe you need a bit more method and a bit more drilling on the training ground, especially if you don't possess the quality of a Fergie.

For me it's all about our inability to deal with crosses. Yes Kepa has a lot to answer for there but I'd go for the two who are best in the air. Other teams now know all you have to do is lob it into our box.

Saying they were already great players is rewriting history. Edit: Liverpool weren't what they are now when Klopp arrived. He could only buy realistic targets. He wasn't fighting teams off for their signature. Double edit: They weren't even in the CL.

They're vital for him but he's been a hell of a lot more vital for them. That's the bottom line. The manager.

You have to be able to say the words and still command the respect of your players. As you say, you have to be a boss.

"Modern football at the highest level, though, as Liverpool and Manchester City make clear every time they play, is about structured gambits. Attacking, just as much as defending, is about organisation, about players knowing where to move so that when the chance comes, the play is semi-automatic and too rapid even for packed rearguards to repel. A year on, there has been no sign of Solskjær coming close to achieving that." The above is a key paragraph from an article in one of the broadsheets about Solskjaer. It sums up perfectly what I think when I watch us play. Obviously Lampard deserves time, just as Pep and Klopp got, but for my money our problems breaking teams down are less to do with personnel and more to do with coaching. Salah, Firminho and Sane is an awesome trio. They owe all their success to Klopp however. He's turned them into elite players, because he's a f**king brilliant manager, who knows how to produce cut-throat attacking sides that go for the jugular and kill you. Sorry for the strange font. Don't know what's going on there.

Drop Kepa. Yes Willy is sh*t but enough is enough. If you're not performing you should be out of the side. Kepa is having a wretched season. Christensen should be dropped. No doubt about it. He's just not good enough and never will be. He has zero personality. He never imposes himself on a game. He always tries to just get through it. We need personality and leadership. I would go with Zouma. He's the best of a bad bunch, only because he can compete in the air, and we are pathetically vulnerable at set pieces and crosses in general. Our midfield three should consist of Barkley, Kovacic and One Other. Tammy, Willian and Callum up front.

Mount should be taking all our corners. It's criminal that CHO and Willian are taking corners when Mount is on the pitch. You can tell a lot about a manager by these things. You have to have the mettle to tell your players who's taking corners, whether that risks upsetting them or not. Every time CHO or Willian step up to take a corner when Mount's on the pitch, a little bit of faith in Lampard in me dies.

This. No sympathy for Lampard today. Kante is his untouchable. Newcastle played like an away team today, sitting deep and looking to hit us with a sucker punch. Why play Jorginho and Kante? It makes zero sense. It's been proven it doesn't work against teams that set up that way. Barkley was in form, he's more creative, he has a cutting edge. Why drop him when he's playing well? Kovacic was the Prem's best midfielder until not so long ago yet he can't get a game even though he would offer us a bit more of what we need. Strange decisions from Frank lately. Why did Zouma get suddenly dropped? Newcastle knew they only had to lob it into the box and they would stand a good chance of scoring. So it proved. None of our CBs nor our keeper are particularly great but until we strengthen we need to play a CB pairing that can compete in the air. If I was a striker the CB I'd most like to play against is Christensen. Yes we dominated but we didn't have enough creativity or wit in midfield and we simply aren't good enough at defending crosses. No excuses for Frank today. He should have learned his lesson by now.

Surprise surprise. Chris Foy.

Remember the game well. The end of our unbeaten home record, I think, or Mourinho's unbeaten home record. I was thinking that bad calls are part and parcel of football and add to the drama, and because of VAR we're not going to see so many of them, but after being reminded of some of these calls, I'm not sure my blood pressure could take it much longer.

What an absolute muppet.

Talk of the Matic red card against Burnley on the Nearest & Dearest thread got me thinking about other poor decisions we've seen through the ages. The first one that sprung to mind was Van Persie's against Uefalona. Who remembers it? It was a few years ago. I couldn't believe my eyes, the sheer injustice of it, and the sheer predictability. Second half, knockout tie, Arsenal have the away goal and are going through, so what does the ref do? He sends off their main man, inexplicably. One of the most scandalous decisions I've ever seen. Watch Van Persie's interview afterwards. He wasn't even fined for it. Compare that to the likes of Boswinga who were fined for much milder comments after the infamous Ovrebo game. Van Persie doesn't hold back, and because it was all true, Uefa let it slide. Anyway, disregarding the obvious injustices against us which we've gone over a million times, regardless of team, which poor decisions stick in your mind, and can you find anything worse than this............................?

Yes but you've never played against Tottenham.

This is what I say every time me and the missus have a fight.

He's got a dog called Didier folks. For f**k's sake. Just buy him.

On MOTD they analysed the two decisions. They said it was a penalty but said Willian was clever and played for it. They said Tammy got away with a push in the back for his goal. He did give the defender a little push in the back. It's funny, but when we played Burnley away earlier this season, Callum was given a little push in the back, and we won a penalty, which was subsequently overruled by VAR, and Callum was inexplicably given a yellow card. On MOTD that night, they said it wasn't a yellow but they also said it wasn't a pen. So, if that wasn't a pen, surely Tammy's goal was fine on Saturday, but no, according to MOTD, a little push in the back is fine on a Chelsea player but it's not fine if a Chelsea player does it. Maybe they need to have less ex-Spurs players in the studio. Lineker, Murphy, and Jenas, what a trio. I think we should start a thread where we keep a record of what decisions are analysed by MOTD when it comes to our games. It seems to me that they only analyse decisions that go our way. It would be interesting to see over the course of the season what the numbers are. I think the numbers would surprise those who think it's all a case of paranoia. The evidence is clear, decisions that go our way are far likelier to get the pundit treatment than decisions that favour us. Maybe we should collect the evidence and present it to the BBC, after all, we pay our licence fees on the basis of their impartiality. Against Arsenal recently, Ian Wright and Martin Keown agreed Jorginho should have been sent off for a second bookable offence, disregarding the fact Guendouzi should have been sent off earlier in the game for the exact same offence, and we should have got a pen. Amazing how many times our games are analysed by pundits who used to play for the team we're playing against. Edit: It really is quite uncanny.

There I fixed that for you, Nibs.

I hope we've inserted a clause insisting that Danny absolutely must play in their game against us.

We're interested allegedly. Massive Chelsea fan. 28 years old. Scorpio. Check out his passing ..