2 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

?

One slightly under hit pass made worse by a retard in goal but otherwise what are you complaining about?

Some serious knee jerking on here. He's been our best defender since March. 

So you think he's still good at playing it out from the back? 

He's the best out of a bad bunch. 

1 minute ago, Slojo said:

So you think he's still good at playing it out from the back? 

He's the best out of a bad bunch. 

I think he is good at playing out from the back yes. 

One, ONE mistake in 6 months doesn't change that otherwise you'd be suggesting liverpool should sell van dijk. 

We were always going to concede today when we have kepa in goal. He makes our entire defence play worse and I don't think we should even consider anything that happens in defence when kepa is playing

 

Edited October 17, 20205 yr by bisright1

2 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

I think he is good at playing out from the back yes. 

One, ONE mistake in 6 months doesn't change that otherwise you'd be suggesting liverpool should sell van dijk. 

We were always going to concede today when we have kepa in goal. He makes our entire defence play worse and I don't think we should even consider anything that happens in defence when kepa is playing

 

Zouma has never been comfortable under pressure when he's on the ball, that was another instance of it. As bad as Kepa was for that goal, Zouma's pass was just ridiculous. Zouma can be complemented and accomodated with a good CB, but he's never going to be the man who can play in defence the way Frank wants us to play. 

I do think Kurt is one of our best defenders, behind Silva. But the sad reality is our defence is just crap. I think this club should press on with replacing Zouma eventually once they've kicked out Christensen and Rudiger. 

7 minutes ago, Slojo said:

Zouma has never been comfortable under pressure when he's on the ball, that was another instance of it. As bad as Kepa was for that goal, Zouma's pass was just ridiculous. Zouma can be complemented and accomodated with a good CB, but he's never going to be the man who can play in defence the way Frank wants us to play. 

I do think Kurt is one of our best defenders, behind Silva. But the sad reality is our defence is just crap. I think this club should press on with replacing Zouma eventually once they've kicked out Christensen and Rudiger. 

You are basically saying we need to completely replace our defence. Can you even name 3 defenders who are better than zouma and signable? 

It is illogical to think every defender we have is awful (including thiago who has made more mistakes this season than zouma).

The logic is that it has to be something else. A mix of the coaching and the fact there is a conference level goalkeeper behind them. 

Edited October 17, 20205 yr by bisright1

11 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

You are basically saying we need to completely replace our defence. Can you even name 3 defenders who are better than zouma and signable? 

It is illogical to think every defender we have is awful (including thiago who has made more mistakes this season than zouma).

The logic is that it has to be something else. A mix of the coaching and the fact there is a conference level goalkeeper behind them. 

Even despite Thiago's mistakes, he was quality. He's 37 coming into a new league, rushing to fitness with a tiny break and he still showed a lot more in those games than Zouma has here. His passing is exceptional as is his defending, even though he is way past his prime. 

And you seriously don't think we need to replace our defence??? 

4 minutes ago, Slojo said:

Even despite Thiago's mistakes, he was quality. He's 37 coming into a new league, rushing to fitness with a tiny break and he still showed a lot more in those games than Zouma has here. His passing is exceptional as is his defending, even though he is way past his prime. 

And you seriously don't think we need to replace our defence??? 

I think we both think zouma is our 2nd best defender and you think that means we need to sign 3 central defenders who are better than him and I think we need to sign 1. 

I also think a season with Mendy in goal and a world class CB next to him and no one will question zoumas place in the team. 

He still had a good match overall despite the mistake, I'll give him that one. We might have lost if he didn't charge in at the end with the interception.

He's hitting top form at the moment, we can't take him out of the team and ruin his momentum. If there is to be a change Christensen should be dropped.

I just re-watched the 2-2 and what Zouma did after commiting that pass was criminal. He just stopped playing and in the end he could have easily prevented the goal had he charged back instead of just switching off for no reason. That was horrible. Lampard has to have a few words with him about that.

 

 

 

Any defender can pass the ball from side to side but I never felt comfortable with Zouma when he has ball under pressure. Like Slojo said "He's the best out of a bad bunch."

He was so bad for the second goal against Southampton. 

Not only the poorly hit back pass to Kepa but after that he basically stood still afterwards making no effort to try and mae amends for his error. 

Zouma is a squad player, what do you expect him to do? That's what squad players do, they make mistakes from time to time. 

This team used to be ruthless with the players that do not perform. This is not towards Kurt but his colleagues.  We keep them so he looks like prime Maldini. And when he does something like that we are all shocked. 

1 hour ago, Droopy said:

Zouma is a squad player, what do you expect him to do? That's what squad players do, they make mistakes from time to time. 

This team used to be ruthless with the players that do not perform. This is not towards Kurt but his colleagues.  We keep them so he looks like prime Maldini. And when he does something like that we are all shocked. 

The problem is there are no quality defenders out there. Arsenal signed 2 defenders from Ligue 1, Spurs a Championship defender, City a relegated defender & another from the Portuguese league, and Utd’s most expensive defender in the world looks bang average. 

It’s all well and good saying 4 international defenders are average/dross, but spending big money on CBs doesn’t guarantee success. For every Van Dijk there is a Maguire. Pretty much this same defence was the 3rd best defence in the league 2yrs ago, what has happened in the last year? 
 

 

I'll reiterate it again, we cannot persist with this guy in the long term, as soon as he's pressured he's vulnerable. He can't play it out from the back and he's a limited defender to boot. Besides being a physical presence, he offers very little else. 

He was the weakest link again today. I blame Christensen.

2 minutes ago, Slojo said:

I'll reiterate it again, we cannot persist with this guy in the long term, as soon as he's pressured he's vulnerable. He can't play it out from the back and he's a limited defender to boot. Besides being a physical presence, he offers very little else. 

He looked vulnerable tonight more than usual. 

Maybe he's suffering from the chelsea defender curse of one mistake and they turn rubbish. 

Still. Prefer him to the others

You can blame him for bad passing ability and few errors with the ball, but we still managed to get a clean sheet and kept Sevilla strikers away.

He is not the top defender we all want to see but for now he's the best option next to Silva.

People keep blaming Lampard's defensive coaching, but as we could see once again tonight, there was nothing wrong with it. The problem isn't Lampard, it's the players making individual errors. On another day, Zouma's mistakes would have been punished and that would have had nothing to do with Lampard's defensive coaching tonight.

It's the players that are to blame for most of our defensive problems, not the coaching team. Kepa, Christensen, Zouma and Rudiger have been taking in turns making errors for over a year now.

2 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

He looked vulnerable tonight more than usual. 

Maybe he's suffering from the chelsea defender curse of one mistake and they turn rubbish. 

Still. Prefer him to the others

So do I, make no mistake, I would have him over Christensen and Rudiger any day, because he can at least defend. But it's not saying much. 

He is our best player to play next to Silva. And I'm not even saying we need to sell him, but we can't persist with Kurt Zouma in the long term, we do need better there. Obviously that isn't going to be until next season with all the money we've spent. We'll just have to hope him and Silva can play as many games as they can together this season, with Mendy in goal. 

My heart is my mouth whenever he is on the ball, looks like he has a mistake in him at anytime in the game. Doesn't say a lot for the other two when he is the best to play alongside Silva.

1 hour ago, charierre said:

My heart is my mouth whenever he is on the ball, looks like he has a mistake in him at anytime in the game. Doesn't say a lot for the other two when he is the best to play alongside Silva.

He is the only one to get a chance to play next to silva so far and look how he played tonight. We don’t know how Tomori, Christensen or Rudiger would look next to our best centre half yet.

I don’t have it in for Zouma but I don’t think he’s an automatic pick or is worthy of comments like ‘he’s the best to play there’. Still hasn’t proved that after his last two games 

Well I said Tomori or Christensen would be better off playing and learning alongside Silva and tonight has only further cemented that.

Zouma will not get any better than he currently is, Tomori and Christensen have more potential. I would be more willing to accept mistakes from those two as I can see there is something there, they just need to be consistent. 

Edited October 21, 20205 yr by Remodez

7 hours ago, Remodez said:

Well I said Tomori or Christensen would be better off playing and learning alongside Silva and tonight has only further cemented that.

Zouma will not get any better than he currently is, Tomori and Christensen have more potential. I would be more willing to accept mistakes from those two as I can see there is something there, they just need to be consistent. 

Really? i can think of only one attribute Christensen has over Zouma and that is he's better on the ball. Everything else Zouma is better than him.

27 minutes ago, jack_super_class said:

Really? i can think of only one attribute Christensen has over Zouma and that is he's better on the ball. Everything else Zouma is better than him.

Positionally, I think he's better. 

I don't want this to become a Zouma pile on but he's making the sort of mistakes in the last couple of games that David Luiz would be slaughtered for. 

It's not just the dodgy back passes it's over/under hitting passes when playing out from the back which is allowing the opposition to turn over possession high up the pitch in dangerous positions. 

Seems like Frank sees him as the most suited to that left sided centre back role, maybe he's the most confident playing out with either foot? 

He can have perfect games for a while then start making mistakes all of a sudden, I don't get it. Had a couple of miskicks last night and a short chest back to the goalie but he made up for it with a clearance.

He's the only one who could defend, and has the physicality to handle fast and strong attackers. Put Christensen next Silva and he will still struggle, because he could not win duels against   striker with either pace or strength. Unless Timori improves dramatically and Sarr proves his value when he comes in next season, Zouma is the second best striker we got.