Super Frank Lampard

[Slojo]

25 minutes ago, coco said:

This is the thing, imo this is probably the worst team for over 20 years, maybe the worst ever EPL team we have had, so 28 years.

 

When i'm not sure about a player, i imagine them going to Liverpool or City , like imagine if Hazard went to any of them, we would be devastated because we know how good he is. But seriously i wouldn't mind any of our current team going to them.

 

I'm 24 years old, the earliest memories I have of this team are like 02/03, the earliest, and we still had a really good team then. So this is a big wakeup call for me, even though it isn't for most fans on here. The youngsters have been great this season, it's the older players that have let us down. 

[Brutos]

He has to share some blame Brutos, but you look at that team and who do you think could get results with that? The team we've fielded in the past 3 games is easily the worst Chelsea team I've ever laid eyes on, it's no wonder Bayern spanked us hard. 

Our last manager got 16 cleans sheets last season with what most on here called one of the "worst" defenders to wear the Chelsea blue and a guy who has zero interest in anything defensive.

So clearly these defenders aren't as bad as they are being made out to be, add to that the guy who "doesn't provide defensive cover" is also playing in the same position he did last year.

So are we saying the defenders we have all got worst since last year, and the ones we brought back from loan aren't good enough?

Or maybe in a transition season we should of kept that guy " who was one of the worst defenders" to add experience to the younger guys for another season. So maybe that guy isn't as bad as he was being made out to be. I mean he does have a error or two in him per game when he's bad but when he's good he's top notch.
An young coach coming into a big job, you would think he would want all the experience he can get around the squad especially defensively.

Anyway he's a very clever guy with a high IQ, I am sure he will get it sorted eventually similarly to Derby.

[Slojo]

54 minutes ago, Brutos said:

Our last manager got 16 cleans sheets last season with what most on here called one of the "worst" defenders to wear the Chelsea blue and a guy who has zero interest in anything defensive.

So clearly these defenders aren't as bad as they are being made out to be, add to that the guy who "doesn't provide defensive cover" is also playing in the same position he did last year.

So are we saying the defenders we have all got worst since last year, and the ones we brought back from loan aren't good enough?

Or maybe in a transition season we should of kept that guy " who was one of the worst defenders" to add experience to the younger guys for another season. So maybe that guy isn't as bad as he was being made out to be. I mean he does have a error or two in him per game when he's bad but when he's good he's top notch.
An young coach coming into a big job, you would think he would want all the experience he can get around the squad especially defensively.

Anyway he's a very clever guy with a high IQ, I am sure he will get it sorted eventually similarly to Derby.

I said at the start of the season selling David Luiz was a mistake, not because he's a good defender, he isn't, but the experience was valuable. Especially with Rudiger and Christensen injured, I was deeply worried. But lets be honest, Frank has a worse team than Sarri did, he's had an injury prone Kante, and all of the other senior players a year older. I mean sure Sarri would've preferred this Kovacic than the one last season, but he had Hazard to score our way out of trouble. Lampard has an abysmal front 3 right now, that's not his fault. 

[strider6004]

I think we need to remember a few things before we judge Frank too harshly.

• Consider Hazard, no defensive genius yet they always needed more than one player to cover him, so one less available player in the opposition midfield or attack.
• Sarri also did not like our players dribbling, except for Hazard it was one touch and pass and this is why we rarely saw Kovacic breaking the lines.
• As well as losing Hazard we lost Luiz and though most of us thought defensively that was a good thing he was also a creative outlet for Jorginho and could often find Pedro in space who would sometimes score.
• I prefer Frank's more open football and today's game was bloody exciting though only a point yet a seesaw game. Frank was right we should have been two up at half time yet it seems only Alonso is consistently good in front of goal just now.
• The defence is an issue probably not helped by Frank's frequent personnel changes and switching between 3cbs and 2 cbs. Not sure what the answer is there as we cannot strengthen until the summer.
• The only thing we can do is strengthen defensive midfield and while Jorgy is suspended and Kante injured I would be tempted to play Barkley with Kovacic and so bring on another attacking forward or midfielder.

On a side note, Bats scored with a decent strike yet was of course off-side, a childish error yet at least he hit the target as last time out he was both off-side and couldn't get anything on target. Still for me he is a last throw of the dice when there are not any more options.

 

 

[Jangz]

6 hours ago, Brutos said:

Excuses excuses excuses that's all I keep hearing, people are acting like we are a bottom ten club with relegation level players.

 

We lost an attacking player who had little interest in defending and a defender who always get abuse because of his defending yet we have gotten dramatically worst at basic defending, you can all make up as much excuses as you want to but losing those players shouldn't make us worst at defending it should be the opposite.

 

 

And if he can't organise a defence now what's the point of buying new defenders?

 

His ability to organise a defence will not improve with new defenders suddenly.

We didnt just lose one attacking player we lost the player who scored and assisted every second goal we scored and didnt replace him... as for defensive org. under Sarri - we got our fair share of drubbings at Spurs, City, BM under him too..   

[Sexyfootball]

Lampard is quite correct about the importance of taking chances and scoring goals. Even with our dodgy defence, if we can score twice in a game we do very well.

Here's our PL record season to date:

The absence of Pulisic and CHO (and obviously Hazard) has bit us harder than anything this season, as we are getting minimal output from the players who are replacing them on the wings.

Edited March 1, 2020 by Sexyfootball

[coco]

34 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Lampard is quite correct about the importance of taking chances and scoring goals. Even with our dodgy defence, if we can score twice in a game we do very well.

Here's our PL record season to date:

It's all a smoke screen. 

We have scored plenty, 47 goals in fact, only 3 clubs have more goals, and they are the top 3. Our attack has been decimated by injury, and yet we still rank 3rd for goals.

Defence is another story. 39 goals conceded, ranked 11th. We have conceded one goal more than Brighton, who are one point above relegation. If it wasn't for our attack scoring the 47 goals we would be in that relegation battle.

[Gol15]

2 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

Lampard is quite correct about the importance of taking chances and scoring goals. Even with our dodgy defence, if we can score twice in a game we do very well.

Here's our PL record season to date:

The absence of Pulisic and CHO (and obviously Hazard) has bit us harder than anything this season, as we are getting minimal output from the players who are replacing them on the wings.

Conte and Sarri had Hazard and they still wanted a striker, Conte got Giroud, Sarri got Higuain.
Lampard got Tammy's injury so he has a very weak set of players part from the midfield being somewhat decent, seeing how we struggled against Hull I think this squad in the current state without Tammy,Pulisic,Kante,CHO and RLC wouldn't finish at the top of the Championship.

[Gol15]

1 hour ago, coco said:

It's all a smoke screen. 

We have scored plenty, 47 goals in fact, only 3 clubs have more goals, and they are the top 3. Our attack has been decimated by injury, and yet we still rank 3rd for goals.

Defence is another story. 39 goals conceded, ranked 11th. We have conceded one goal more than Brighton, who are one point above relegation. If it wasn't for our attack scoring the 47 goals we would be in that relegation battle.

The only team that has more shots at goal this season than us is Man City but they also scored 21 goals more than us.

I mean the fact that we are depending on Alonso to score our goals shows that we lack serious fire power in attack. Lampard's whole point is to outscore the opponent but without players this whole project falls apart since we can't defend.

[coco]

55 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

The only team that has more shots at goal this season than us is Man City but they also scored 21 goals more than us.

I mean the fact that we are depending on Alonso to score our goals shows that we lack serious fire power in attack. Lampard's whole point is to outscore the opponent but without players this whole project falls apart since we can't defend.

 

Goals for: ranked 3rd

Goals against: ranked 11th

If we converted more chances, we might concede less?? It just doesn't make sense.

 

[dansubrosa]

Yeah he really need to start doing something about the defence. If we carry on like we are currently, there’s no chance in hell we’ll finish top 4. Time for a change of tactics.

[Gol15]

59 minutes ago, coco said:

 

Goals for: ranked 3rd

Goals against: ranked 11th

If we converted more chances, we might concede less?? It just doesn't make sense.

 

If you want to outscore your opponent you need to score more than usual in order to cover for the defense. I'm not saying we would concede less goals if we scored more goals.

In the first 10 games of the season in the league we scored 23 goals (16 conceded), that was obviously above 2 goals per game overall but in the most recent last 10 games we scored 14 goals (14 conceded) so we always let in goals but the moment we stopped scoring our form was gone.

Edited March 1, 2020 by Gol15

[Davey Baby]

It's an interesting question that @Brutos poses and I haven't seen anyone attempt to answer it yet. Why are we conceding so much more than last season? We have the same players, apart from Luiz, who was much maligned and wasn't wanted by Lampard. People talk about the loss of Hazard in terms of our attack being blunted but defending is the far bigger issue and Hazard was never asked to do much defending and possession hasn't been the problem this season, as we've seen much more of the ball in all our games than our opponents. Why are we conceding so many? What's changed? Was Luiz a lot better than some thought? He hasn't exactly done well at Arsenal. Is it the manager?

 

Last season we had Luiz and Rudiger, and Christensen in reserve, and Cahill was never used. Basically it was Luiz and Rudiger the entire season, apart from right at the end, when Rudiger got injured. This season we've added Tomori and Zouma. This season, as last season, we're playing Jorginho in front of our defence. It doesn't really seem to be about personnel. 

 

Maybe we're playing a more open, less structured style, but when you need points and you're shipping goals for fun, you need to tighten up, especially when injuries have ensured your attack has been blunted, but Frank seems incapable of tightening us up, much as we saw at Derby last season. Derby were also very bad at set-pieces. There is obviously a pattern emerging, albeit a very short one, given Frank's inexperience in the role.

 

This season I notice far more posters are complaining about the players, whereas last season everybody was complaining about the manager. Go on the threads for Kepa, for Dave, for our LBs, for our CBs, for Kante, Barkley and Jorginho, for our wingers and our strikers, and the players are getting a lot of criticism. Sure, one or two of them attracted stick last season, particularly mid-season, but it wasn't as consistent as it is this season, and it wasn't spread so thickly. People saying the squad aren't good enough and sure, it's not the best, but we should be beating a lot of the sides we've faced over the last 16 games or so. I mean, our squad is better than most in the PL. It's better than Watford's and look at the job Pearson has done there since he took over. He's managed to stop them conceding so many goals. We need to stop conceding. That's the bottom line. That's our priority, otherwise we have no chance of achieving top four. Even with a back five we can't do it. What's going wrong?

 

When everybody is complaining about the players that makes me worry. In that scenario it's almost always the manager. Who's playing above their level? Who has he improved? Maybe one or two. Many more have seriously declined. Are we better than the sum of our parts or worse? We have very hard fixtures to come. We enjoyed a great start but since then it's relegation form and top four is looking less and less likely by the week. We had a big cushion but we've been unable to exploit it, and we may well pay, and that's because we can't stop shipping goals, and that appears to have f**k all to do with the loss of Hazard. We re pitiful in defence. Shameful. I'm sure it's embarrassing Frank.

 

We can still do it, but we need to sort this issue out, and we haven't been able to sort it all season.

 

This season he gets a pass, from the media as much as from everyone else. Nobody wants to see him sacked. There was very little expectations at the start, but our form in the last months has really fallen off, after such a promising and exciting start. Still, he's new and he's been handicapped in certain ways. Next season we have to improve, otherwise he's under intense pressure. That's just the nature of the job. Much as he wants genuine attacking talent, he has to create a team that can defend, otherwise you have to worry about his prospects. It's a long time since I've seen a Chelsea side that defends as poorly as this.

Edited March 1, 2020 by Davey Baby

[Scott Harris]

Lampard could change tactics and make us more defensive, but I don't see anything changing. We will still concede goals because our defenders can't defend set pieces. That has been our biggest issue all season and it's not improved since day one.

[General]

I know stats can be misleading but his record managing CFC is almost identical to last season at Derby

https://www.sofascore.com/manager/frank-lampard/790203

So we’re just seeing him continue the same ‘form’ managerially as his debut season, most of us are backing him due to his status as club top scorer etc  me included. It’s easy to focus in on poor tactics, coaching the defense, Hazard leaving etc but in reality he’s done nothing more or less than his debut season in the role, plus he’s stepped up a division and inherited some body else’s squad and for whatever reason has had no new players brought in under his current tenure. So if anybody was expecting a novice manager to come into Chelsea and improve his win rate under those circumstances was rather hoping for a bit too much. Sure it’s probably 50/50 inexperienced manager/ coaching team vs a vs  some players not performing / out injured. Bottom line is what’s happening is to be fully expected in reality. Bit of a stretch expecting him to improve upon CFC’s 2018/19 season or even maintain that standard, in fact I think he’s done an acceptable job based on his CV & the squad at his disposal.

 

 

 

Edited March 1, 2020 by General

[Ballack & Blu]

18 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

It's an interesting question that @Brutos poses and I haven't seen anyone attempt to answer it yet. Why are we conceding so much more than last season? We have the same players, apart from Luiz, who was much maligned and wasn't wanted by Lampard. People talk about the loss of Hazard in terms of our attack being blunted but defending is the far bigger issue and Hazard was never asked to do much defending and possession hasn't been the problem this season, as we've seen much more of the ball in all our games than our opponents. Why are we conceding so many? What's changed? Was Luiz a lot better than some thought? He hasn't exactly done well at Arsenal. Is it the manager?

 

Last season we had Luiz and Rudiger, and Christensen in reserve, and Cahill was never used. Basically it was Luiz and Rudiger the entire season, apart from right at the end, when Rudiger got injured. This season we've added Tomori and Zouma. This season, as last season, we're playing Jorginho in front of our defence. It doesn't really seem to be about personnel. 

 

Maybe we're playing a more open, less structured style, but when you need points and you're shipping goals for fun, you need to tighten up, especially when injuries have ensured your attack has been blunted, but Frank seems incapable of tightening us up, much as we saw at Derby last season. Derby were also very bad at set-pieces. There is obviously a pattern emerging, albeit a very short one, given Frank's inexperience in the role.

 

This season I notice far more posters are complaining about the players, whereas last season everybody was complaining about the manager. Go on the threads for Kepa, for Dave, for our LBs, for our CBs, for Kante, Barkley and Jorginho, for our wingers and our strikers, and the players are getting a lot of criticism. Sure, one or two of them attracted stick last season, particularly mid-season, but it wasn't as consistent as it is this season, and it wasn't spread so thickly. People saying the squad aren't good enough and sure, it's not the best, but we should be beating a lot of the sides we've faced over the last 16 games or so. I mean, our squad is better than most in the PL. It's better than Watford's and look at the job Pearson has done there since he took over. He's managed to stop them conceding so many goals. We need to stop conceding. That's the bottom line. That's our priority, otherwise we have no chance of achieving top four. Even with a back five we can't do it. What's going wrong?

 

When everybody is complaining about the players that makes me worry. In that scenario it's almost always the manager. Who's playing above their level? Who has he improved? Maybe one or two. Many more have seriously declined. Are we better than the sum of our parts or worse? We have very hard fixtures to come. We enjoyed a great start but since then it's relegation form and top four is looking less and less likely by the week. We had a big cushion but we've been unable to exploit it, and we may well pay, and that's because we can't stop shipping goals, and that appears to have f**k all to do with the loss of Hazard. We re pitiful in defence. Shameful. I'm sure it's embarrassing Frank.

 

This season he gets a pass, from the media as much as from everyone else. Nobody wants to see him sacked. There was very little expectations at the start, but our form in the last months has really fallen off, after such a promising and exciting start. Still, he's new and he's been handicapped in certain ways. Next season we have to improve, otherwise he's under intense pressure. That's just the nature of the job. Much as he wants genuine attacking talent, he has to create a team that can defend, otherwise you have to worry about his prospects. It's a long time since I've seen a Chelsea side that defends as poorly as this.

I'd say Frank should Beg beg beg JT to come home next season, we need a defenders input to sort it out, Lamps would of seen thousands of training sessions, but never as a defender.

I have studied our style, and Franks more adventurous style allows quick transition for the opposition, we lose the ball in attack, most of our team are committed to going fwd, and our lack of midfield nous, allows quick counter attacking, pressure mounts and we concede, if we go 2 or 3 up with the pressure we usually put on teams, then they don't come back, laterly Liverpool are the bench mark, for a team with a similar style, but loads of goals from midfield.

Its a steep and brutal learning curve for Frank, and if i'm brutally honest he is struggling, results and performances don't lie

[bisright1]

People may never want to admit it, but we lost a world class player but significantly also a world class coach in the summer. 

Our team has progressively got worse as they have unlearnt the lessons Sarri drilled into them. The players "hated" his training sessions, but they worked. This stage last year we had 11 more points, conceded 10 less and scored 2 less (so we are still able to score goals without Hazard).  

Lampard isn't a world class manager. Maybe he can become one. But it's going to take time. Until then, we just have to be patient because lampard isn't sarri or Conte. 

[Brutos]

Lampard could change tactics and make us more defensive, but I don't see anything changing. We will still concede goals because our defenders can't defend set pieces. That has been our biggest issue all season and it's not improved since day one.

How was our defending at set pieces last season?

[Ballack & Blu]

A nice positive to all this, Spurs just f**ked up at home, and Utd held, always a silver lining

Edited March 1, 2020 by Ballack & Blu

[axman2526]

There are justifiable concerns Frank does not know how to properly organize our defense. Our defenders are not the best. But are a lot better than is shown this season imo.

We all want Frank to succeed and be here long term. If he does not improve the way we defend, I doubt he will be.

[Ernie_blue]

29 minutes ago, Brutos said:

How was our defending at set pieces last season?

Wasn't great

[Gol15]

2 hours ago, Davey Baby said:

It's an interesting question that @Brutos poses and I haven't seen anyone attempt to answer it yet. Why are we conceding so much more than last season? We have the same players, apart from Luiz, who was much maligned and wasn't wanted by Lampard. People talk about the loss of Hazard in terms of our attack being blunted but defending is the far bigger issue and Hazard was never asked to do much defending and possession hasn't been the problem this season, as we've seen much more of the ball in all our games than our opponents. Why are we conceding so many? What's changed? Was Luiz a lot better than some thought? He hasn't exactly done well at Arsenal. Is it the manager?

 

 

Last season Sarri implemented his system and he was sticking to it even when it didn't work at all and he kept it till the very last game.

Sarri's tactic was to keep possession and to not take many risks, it meant that we weren't putting up long balls and we didn't put that many crosses because chances are that is how you lose possession, the key was team movement. This is why last season when we managed to score first, you could feel more secure that we might hold on the lead and we did hold on to many leads and had more clean sheets, the bigger problem was to come back into the game when the opposition had scored first. But Sarri did have Hazard so he could also set the team to play with a false 9 and he parked the bus against Man City for example. In some ways Sarri was hiding our defensive problems with his possession based tactic.

This season we play an open game for 90min, every game, when we score first you know it means nothing.

Sarri's system worked. Lampard is yet to implement his system he needs the summer and the board to back him for the signings that he wants, this is the only way someone would objectively judge him.

Edited March 1, 2020 by Gol15

[coco]

2 hours ago, Davey Baby said:

When everybody is complaining about the players that makes me worry. In that scenario it's almost always the manager.

People are complaining about the defenders and not the manager because they can see them failing to win battles, whether its being out jumped, missing a tackle, being sold a dummy, out muscled, if a keeper gets his hand to a shot you expect him to save it, if a defender is in position to make a tackle/header, you expect him to win it. Serious question, what can Frank do about defenders losing personal battles.?

Although Luiz was a poor defender, aerially hes very strong, and we've missed his presence at defending set pieces. Rudiger may have been hiding behind Luiz last season and got away with it, not this season.

[axman2526]

7 minutes ago, coco said:

People are complaining about the defenders and not the manager because they can see them failing to win battles, whether its being out jumped, missing a tackle, being sold a dummy, out muscled, if a keeper gets his hand to a shot you expect him to save it, if a defender is in position to make a tackle/header, you expect him to win it. Serious question, what can Frank do about defenders losing personal battles.?

Although Luiz was a poor defender, aerially hes very strong, and we've missed his presence at defending set pieces. Rudiger may have been hiding behind Luiz last season and got away with it, not this season.

Would not surprise me if we fail to keep a single clean sheet in our remaining  games.

[ducavis]

1 hour ago, Gol15 said:

Last season Sarri implemented his system and he was sticking to it even when it didn't work at all and he kept it till the very last game.

Sarri's tactic was to keep possession and to not take many risks, it meant that we weren't putting up long balls and we didn't put that many crosses because chances are that is how you lose possession, the key was team movement. This is why last season when we managed to score first, you could feel more secure that we might hold on the lead and we did hold on to many leads and had more clean sheets, the bigger problem was to come back into the game when the opposition had scored first. But Sarri did have Hazard so he could also set the team to play with a false 9 and he parked the bus against Man City for example. In some ways Sarri was hiding our defensive problems with his possession based tactic.

This season we play an open game for 90min, every game, when we score first you know it means nothing.

Sarri's system worked. Lampard is yet to implement his system he needs the summer and the board to back him for the signings that he wants, this is the only way someone would objectively judge him.

We all know we need new signings and we will make a few, I am just curious as to how many players would he require to make things work. You can either go the City of pissing £270m on defenders and £50m on goalkeepers with only Laporte & Ederson the standouts, or go the Liverpool route of spending £62m on Allison, £82m on Van Dijk, £9m on Robertson and making use of your youth prospects. We will never know what he wanted, all we will see is what the club signs.

As things stand he probably needs 2GKs, 1-2CBs, 1-2LBs, 1ST, Probably another winger and probably a midfielder. We are talking 4-9 new signings, I just think whatever happens in the summer a selection of fans will blame the board for not backing him enough.