Lampard moving Azpilicueta to left back and subbing off Alonso was a great move. When Alonso has games like he had today, we have seen both Conte and Sarri just stick with him and hope for him to improve, but Lampard was having none of it, he needed to make that sub.

Lampard seems to be the only manager who actually have the same thoughts as the fans.

I feel confident in him as a manager, clearly he has a lot of balls, keeping the faith in youth, making subs for the team, despite the risk of upsetting the player.

The only thing he need to improve on is set pieces, but to be fair we are lacking leaders - Zouma and Tomori are young and aren’t exactly leader material. Hopefully Rudiger will shore the defence up when he’s back.

12 hours ago, dansubrosa said:

Lampard seems to be the only manager who actually have the same thoughts as the fans.

I feel confident in him as a manager, clearly he has a lot of balls, keeping the faith in youth, making subs for the team, despite the risk of upsetting the player.

The only thing he need to improve on is set pieces, but to be fair we are lacking leaders - Zouma and Tomori are young and aren’t exactly leader material. Hopefully Rudiger will shore the defence up when he’s back.

There are signs of leaders in both Zouma yesterday with his run and shot and Tomori a while back scoring from outside the box are showing signs of initiative, also Jorginho and Mount also seem to be giving out instructions on the pitch.  I think with the younger and newer players it will get better as the season progresses.

There's a clear top 4 at the moment. Whether it sustains itself remains to be seen.

This season has exceeded my expectations. I had us finishing somewhere between 4th-8th which may still happen but I'm loving the direction we're going in under Frank and optimistic we'll see more improvement when we're allowed to get involved in the transfer market.

I think Frank's aim will be top 4 and possibly higher. He's a driven and motivated manager and done well to get the best out of the squad so far.

Think we will finish top 4 like this season. I can see us finishing 3rd this season, and same next year as well.

Still not happy to predict where we finish because..... well just because. Frank and the team are doing extraordinarily well and I'm just enjoying the ride and feel no need to make predictions.

We have exceeded my expectations so far and to be in the top four at this stage is a bonus. We still have a problem with set pieces and as long as this continues we are vulnerable so lets wait and see. Ask me again in the new year when Rudiger and RLC are back.

We are not even 3rd of the season in. Although things look pretty good I can still see us going on a winless run and dropping down the table. We haven't seen young players frustrated yet but it is bound to happen. Tammy doesn't score, Mount can't retrieve a ball, Reece makes blunders and so on. They are young and are allowed to have bad games.

Frank hasn't really faced any contoversy and real pressure. This is bound to happen at some point. Will it be this season or the next...

Not trying to paint negative pictures but I wouldn't be surprised at a low period where we drop down a bit.

1 hour ago, evissy said:

We are not even 3rd of the season in. Although things look pretty good I can still see us going on a winless run and dropping down the table. We haven't seen young players frustrated yet but it is bound to happen. Tammy doesn't score, Mount can't retrieve a ball, Reece makes blunders and so on. They are young and are allowed to have bad games.

Frank hasn't really faced any contoversy and real pressure. This is bound to happen at some point. Will it be this season or the next...

Not trying to paint negative pictures but I wouldn't be surprised at a low period where we drop down a bit.

The thing is, even if we do I can't see anyone outside the top four being strong enough to take advantage.

1 hour ago, evissy said:

We are not even 3rd of the season in. Although things look pretty good I can still see us going on a winless run and dropping down the table. We haven't seen young players frustrated yet but it is bound to happen. Tammy doesn't score, Mount can't retrieve a ball, Reece makes blunders and so on. They are young and are allowed to have bad games.

Frank hasn't really faced any contoversy and real pressure. This is bound to happen at some point. Will it be this season or the next...

Not trying to paint negative pictures but I wouldn't be surprised at a low period where we drop down a bit.

And I was feeling so positive today, your not related to private Fraser off of dad's army are you mate, "we're doomed"

On 12/11/2019 at 07:36, chi blue said:

And I was feeling so positive today, your not related to private Fraser off of dad's army are you mate, "we're doomed"

Hardly doomed, just being realistic. 

If we keep this form up for the rest of year, we’ll be close to Liverpool for the title, and we’d go far in Europe which I can’t see happening.

Theres bound to be a bad patch at some point in the season, I just want everybody to be prepared for that so there isn’t too much disappointment. 

I'm not even going to entertain a title challenge as I think we are lightyears behind this Liverpool team. 

I'm just so happy with how well we've done as I never expected this. A bad result against City would definitely keep us grounded but regardless I'm still very pleased with how this has all gone. I think not getting top 4 would be a disappointment given how well we've done so far, but even then I never expected top 4 at all. I wasn't even expecting top 6, at this point it would be very difficult for me to say it has been a bad season. But not getting top 4 would certainly be a taking the candy away from a baby situation. 

We have a very strong and stable squad, no reason why we shouldn't finish in it, even though I expect us to go through a rough patch eventually and drop points. 

7 hours ago, dansubrosa said:

Hardly doomed, just being realistic. 

If we keep this form up for the rest of year, we’ll be close to Liverpool for the title, and we’d go far in Europe which I can’t see happening.

Theres bound to be a bad patch at some point in the season, I just want everybody to be prepared for that so there isn’t too much disappointment. 

In fairness that Evissy guy is probably the most negative poster on this forum, it doesn't surprise me at all that he of all people would have something negative to say about the team when we are doing really well. I've never seen him give the team any praise for anything. 

28 minutes ago, Slojo said:

In fairness that Evissy guy is probably the most negative poster on this forum, it doesn't surprise me at all that he of all people would have something negative to say about the team when we are doing really well. I've never seen him give the team any praise for anything. 

Talking about fairness: Evissy was being realistic a few posts up, as was Dansubrosa. Any squad has ups and downs during a season, and I expect ours - with so many youngsters in it - will be even more susceptible to inconsistancy. The unrealistic shopping/selling lists and cries of 'Lampard out' will soon follow from supporters with inflated expectations of this season.

Edited November 17, 20196 yr by Valerie

4 minutes ago, Valerie said:

Talking about fairness: Evissy was being realistic a few posts up, as was Dansubrosa. Any squad has ups and downs during a season, and I expect ours - with so many youngsters in it - will be even more susceptible to inconsistancy. The unrealistic shopping/selling lists and cries of 'Lampard out' will soon follow from supporters with inflated expectations of this season.

I don't disagree, football fans are very fickle. And I know we have to remain realistic, if City beat us 3-0, we can't throw our toys out the pram, we've had a great season so far and we must acknowledge we aren't title challengers yet. 

We haven't really felt the pressure and for a young squad the pressure is massive, it's why I'm glad we've been operating in the background, if we do beat City the pressure will be on this team massively. 

However, my point here is that this particular poster is constantly negative, so it's no surprise. I don't completely disagree, but just a page back he was saying we aren't better than Spurs. There's being realistic and then there's being negative all the time, and the latter is certainly applied here. 

56 minutes ago, Slojo said:

I don't disagree, football fans are very fickle. And I know we have to remain realistic, if City beat us 3-0, we can't throw our toys out the pram, we've had a great season so far and we must acknowledge we aren't title challengers yet. 

We haven't really felt the pressure and for a young squad the pressure is massive, it's why I'm glad we've been operating in the background, if we do beat City the pressure will be on this team massively. 

However, my point here is that this particular poster is constantly negative, so it's no surprise. I don't completely disagree, but just a page back he was saying we aren't better than Spurs. There's being realistic and then there's being negative all the time, and the latter is certainly applied here. 

So he's a glass half empty sort of person , that's allowed, isn't it. I have a fearful and pessimistic side myself when it comes to Chelsea 

1 hour ago, Valerie said:

So he's a glass half empty sort of person , that's allowed, isn't it. I have a fearful and pessimistic side myself when it comes to Chelsea 

Being consistantly negative is not rational, and you're very far from that. 

I don't actually see that many negative posts from you. 

12 hours ago, dansubrosa said:

Hardly doomed, just being realistic. 

If we keep this form up for the rest of year, we’ll be close to Liverpool for the title, and we’d go far in Europe which I can’t see happening.

Theres bound to be a bad patch at some point in the season, I just want everybody to be prepared for that so there isn’t too much disappointment. 

Yes your right there will be a dip in form and results I'm sure, but it is so much better than the farce of last season with sh*t football, fans arguing and a manager who split the fan base  the most in my lifetime and I've been going to bridge for nearly 40 years

Thank you guys for speaking on my behalf. [emoji16]

Personally I am not a glass half empty person at all. I just believe in balance. Sometimes people as a mass go on to some direction let it be 'Chelsea are doomed' or 'Chelsea are going to win the league' . The truth is usually somewhere between. I love people's optimism but not afraid to comment on it or try to calm them down to save them from going to extremes. That is telling more of my personality than anything else.

I am also saying what Frank is saying. If you listen closely to our manager every week you learn what everything means. Frank is very honest in his speaking which is great to hear. Sarri and Conte were also but their limited English usually took away all the nyances.

Frank is trying to calm everyone down all the time. He has said about the young squad many times you can go on bad spells because of their age and limited capacity to handle negative things. It is not all about age but it is much more probable for a young side to go on a bad spell.

Personally this is the best time of being a Chelsea fan in a long time. May it continue!

So with all the weekend's PL games concluded, we are firmly in 4th, 6 points ahead of the team in 5th, despite losing two on the bounce. And we still have more PL clean sheets than Liverpool ?

 

On 01/12/2019 at 18:58, Sexyfootball said:

So with all the weekend's PL games concluded, we are firmly in 4th, 6 points ahead of the team in 5th, despite losing two on the bounce. And we still have more PL clean sheets than Liverpool ?

 

I think the key is momentum & unfortunately we dont have momentum with us in the current moment whereas Spurs seem supremely confident and Mourinho would not like anything more than finishing ahead of us.

I still think we will finish top 4 but the whole mourinho situation has made things interesting

2 hours ago, Imran_CFC said:

I think the key is momentum & unfortunately we dont have momentum with us in the current moment whereas Spurs seem supremely confident and Mourinho would not like anything more than finishing ahead of us.

I still think we will finish top 4 but the whole mourinho situation has made things interesting

New manager bounce, even with that they have been getting extremely fortunate (Bournemouth missing a sitter, Rice goal not standing).

Even if Spurs somehow get level with us I'm confident we can claw it back (like we did when United got ahead of us out of nothing last year) because their form doesn't look sustainable.

1 hour ago, Argo said:

New manager bounce, even with that they have been getting extremely fortunate (Bournemouth missing a sitter, Rice goal not standing).

Even if Spurs somehow get level with us I'm confident we can claw it back (like we did when United got ahead of us out of nothing last year) because their form doesn't look sustainable.

Because its Mourinho I think its a lot more than purely New Manager Bounce and he has the ability and know how to continue that momentum for a lot longer than someone like Ole.

Having said that I do agree that I think we will finish ahead of Spurs

Nice to see the Tottenham momentum going tits up tonight ... while we are back on the winning trail ... have a little faith people !

Looks more like 6-8 place of late.