9 hours ago, Slojo said:

Would benching Kepa make things worse at this point? Or do we stand by him and let him recover his form and show his potential? 

I'm not sure if it's a lack of confidence or over confidence with Kepa, with the continious mistakes he's making you would say confidence but when you look at it it's mistakes he's making that you could boil down to over confidence, overplaying it and trying to make clever passes. That Cup final also pretty much solidified him as an ego player... I really can't tell what would be the right move at the moment. 

Praying these mistakes get put to bed and it stops. I remember De Gea going through this stage when he was a young lad at United, he a bit younger than Kepa but he was constantly making errors in his first season, he looked abysmal. I think I remember one game against Spurs that Spurs's tactic was to shoot from range at any given moment to cause De Gea problems because he was that mistake prone at the time, and now nobody ever thinks about those days because for the last 5 years or so he has been a fantastic keeper for United. 

Frank has some big decisions to make, luckily we are playing West Ham this weekend and they look god awful lately. 

If we had a solid back up I'd say go for it but I think even this version of Kepa is better than Caballero (for reference, look at goals 1 and 3 in let in when Spurs broke their Stamford Bridge hoodoo or the goal he conceded against Huddersfield weeks later).

Unless Jamie Cumming is impressing in training and looks ready there's not really anything we can do until we can buy again.

Regarding Kepa's long term future I think we should sign a keeper that's not total top drawer but good enough to come in if he keeps flopping (Sergio Rico would be my pick) giving him one last chance in the process and if that's not enough, then look for a replacement.

Re; our midfield ‘problem’ of who should play with who gets a little easier when RLC is back. We have no ‘like for like’ (so to speak) rotation for Mount right now and we shouldn’t be playing him to death either. He probably doesn’t want it but he’s earned himself a rest the last two games. When RLC is back I think they’ll be fighting each other so that position (although RLC can come in for one of the deeper roles too). 

11 hours ago, Argo said:

If we had a solid back up I'd say go for it but I think even this version of Kepa is better than Caballero (for reference, look at goals 1 and 3 in let in when Spurs broke their Stamford Bridge hoodoo or the goal he conceded against Huddersfield weeks later).

Unless Jamie Cumming is impressing in training and looks ready there's not really anything we can do until we can buy again.

Regarding Kepa's long term future I think we should sign a keeper that's not total top drawer but good enough to come in if he keeps flopping (Sergio Rico would be my pick) giving him one last chance in the process and if that's not enough, then look for a replacement.

Also, his positioning on that Rashford goal, Caballero is hit and miss i'm afraid. 

About the gung Ho.. When you are an attacking side the best defence is attack. We are not there yet. If we want to be there in a couple of year this is the best time to practice it. City is awful at saying back. They don't have the personnel. Actually against us they did a great job in that.

There are levels of defending at bay and we were all over the place against Valencia. We need to learn as a team. I'd rather get punished this season than go full Jose.

4 hours ago, evissy said:

There are levels of defending at bay and we were all over the place against Valencia.

 

It's not just Valencia, we concede way too many, heck we nearly conceded 2 against Ajax while they had 9 men, and lest we forget, they scored 4 in that game, and we were at home. If Frank wants to be successful he needs to learn the balance between defence and attack. But for a horrendous miss on Wednesday, we'd be all-but-out of the CL. Frank's a very lucky boy indeed. Our performance once they equalised in the 82nd minute defied belief. Chasing a goal as if our lives depended on it was inexplicable, and that's being kind. Valencia score a winner, as they should have, and our season starts to look a lot different. We're out of the LC, our winning streak in the league came to an end last weekend, a defeat on Wednesday would have been a real sickener and dampened a lot of the euphoria of this season and dented our confidence. It was kamikaze stuff and there was no need for it. Hopefully that gave Frank a real wake up call. Nobody should be letting the result kid themselves.

5 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

It's not just Valencia, we concede way too many, heck we nearly conceded 2 against Ajax while they had 9 men, and lest we forget, they scored 4 in that game, and we were at home. If Frank wants to be successful he needs to learn the balance between defence and attack. But for a horrendous miss on Wednesday, we'd be all-but-out of the CL. Frank's a very lucky boy indeed. Our performance once they equalised in the 82nd minute defied belief. Chasing a goal as if our lives depended on it was inexplicable, and that's being kind. Valencia score a winner, as they should have, and our season starts to look a lot different. We're out of the LC, our winning streak in the league came to an end last weekend, a defeat on Wednesday would have been a real sickener and dampened a lot of the euphoria of this season and dented our confidence. It was kamikaze stuff and there was no need for it. Hopefully that gave Frank a real wake up call. Nobody should be letting the result kid themselves.

I actually think there's a quick fix to the defensive issues but i don't want us to go there, i'm talking generally obviously we should have made an exception late on in Spain.

We could stop the fullbacks bombing forward, ease on the pressing and make sure there's atleast 5 players behind the ball even while in possession, restrict movement and be cautious with passing but going forward we will look toothless again, it will be back to the middle 3rd of last season and Conte's second year where we will be relying on individual magic bail us out, only this time it will be a young Pulisic we send the SOS out to instead of a peak Hazard.

I feel we need to take the punches with the defense right now, it's a demanding system we're going all in on and i feel this squad are more eqipped (plus will benefit more in the bigger picture) trying to outscore as opposed to grind out 1-0's.

I am not concerned. We can't be a full functioning team so early on. Players will learn as do Frank. We already know how Frank wants to play. He wants to be aggressive up top and kill games off by scoring early on.

We won't sit back in any game as we really don't have the personnel for it and even if we did Frank wants us to attack to defend. I admit there is a balance to it but if Frank would all of a sudden discourage our players to not attack we will never learn and at some point we will find comfort from it and lose our positive identity.

After 2 seasons and 4 additions we can talk about winning certain games by sitting back but I don't want it now and it seems Frank doesn't want it either.

I don't see we could read too much into the last 2 games, what we missed were fine margins in the game of 90, and there were problems areas on the filed we won't be solving until the transfer window re-opens on us. I reckon we are caught a bit between attacking the same way like the last half a dozen games, and being pragmatic against better teams. Especially against Valencia, we were throwing numbers into attack when we had the lead, and kept getting caught. With the team we sent out that night, probably should have tried to play out same and boring like a typical European knock out game. If were to attack them, should have taken 1 of the midfielder off and playing Mount, we were caught in between and paid for it. It will take time, and in a way it's good Lampard didn't have the false flying start like OLE had, got do the hard work and keep improving. The playing out from the back has been getting messy for weeks now, we are probably over doing it, but if that's way Lampard wanted them to play, got stick with it. Most top teams are playing from the back, so I doubt we will drop it just because conceding a few goals from that. Players need to make better decisions on the field, would help if we get 1 or 2 better players, in the short term just got to work harder and improve.

Really need to start focusing on getting our defence right we won't out score everyone we need our defense to win those 1-0 games

The decision to go with Giroud and Pedro seemed like a sensible enough call given the tired legs but it just didn't work... And the subs in the second half were ineffective... 

I would have liked to see Batshuayi maybe alongside Giroud or at least on as his sub with maybe a system change... Having Willian put in hopeful crosses in s crowded box with Pulisic as the man through the middle seemed pretty pointless. 

A bit of a dip in form but to be expected. 

The same lack of confidence in defending set peices and balls into the box remains and the overall height of the team doesn't help much. Today once Giroud was off it was literally only Zouma who offered any presence aerially with all those crosses and corners going in. 

 

Edited November 30, 20196 yr by GhostOfDembaBa

Not the first time Frank has seen that, just the first time his team as their manager has done that.

Very much a down tools performance from the players today. Come on, west ham are garbage and we made it easy for them because they worked for it and our players did not give two sh*ts. 

Frank should be worried. He knows what happens if the dressing room turns and that was not a team who wanted to play for their manager.

2 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Not the first time Frank has seen that, just the first time his team as their manager has done that.

Very much a down tools performance from the players today. Come on, west ham are garbage and we made it easy for them because they worked for it and our players did not give two sh*ts. 

Frank should be worried. He knows what happens if the dressing room turns and that was not a team who wanted to play for their manager.

wow just wow! 

I knew results like yesterday would happen, the truth is our squad depth isn’t good enough especially with injuries too. It won’t be hard to find a better second striker than bats and Giroud, but until then we’re in for a bumpy ride.

All I ask for is a top 4 finish.

3 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Not the first time Frank has seen that, just the first time his team as their manager has done that.

Very much a down tools performance from the players today. Come on, west ham are garbage and we made it easy for them because they worked for it and our players did not give two sh*ts. 

Frank should be worried. He knows what happens if the dressing room turns and that was not a team who wanted to play for their manager.

Give over. 

Fank has shown to be a good manager and has the potential to be an exceptional one. I would have never thought that we would be playing so well and be in the running for champions league at this stage. However, in my opinion he needs a van dijk type of leader in defence, someone who is great at defending but can contribute with goals at the other end like van dijk did yesterday. In our team the defence is the poorest in my opinion. 

3 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Not the first time Frank has seen that, just the first time his team as their manager has done that.

Very much a down tools performance from the players today. Come on, west ham are garbage and we made it easy for them because they worked for it and our players did not give two sh*ts. 

Frank should be worried. He knows what happens if the dressing room turns and that was not a team who wanted to play for their manager.

It's a big leap to label a few bad or baddish matches from an overall young team that probably have been a tad overperforming as "not wanting to play for their manager". I'd say a dip in performance was bound to happen, plus West Ham have more players with wiley EPL experience. If anything, our senior players should have pulled up the youngsters by their ears and kick them into working their socks off. And perhaps Lampard should have been more forceful in his halftime talk (admittedly not knowing anything about what he did say).

At least now we know we do need some new signings, preferably with a few years' experience at the highest level.

Edited December 1, 20196 yr by Valerie

3 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Not the first time Frank has seen that, just the first time his team as their manager has done that.

Very much a down tools performance from the players today. Come on, west ham are garbage and we made it easy for them because they worked for it and our players did not give two sh*ts. 

Frank should be worried. He knows what happens if the dressing room turns and that was not a team who wanted to play for their manager.

You have to be on a wind up .We had a poor game,it had to against the pikeys which makes it worse ,but that is defo an over reaction .

3 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Not the first time Frank has seen that, just the first time his team as their manager has done that.

Very much a down tools performance from the players today. Come on, west ham are garbage and we made it easy for them because they worked for it and our players did not give two sh*ts. 

Frank should be worried. He knows what happens if the dressing room turns and that was not a team who wanted to play for their manager.

Were you saying this before the match? Easy to say in hindsight but I didn't see many people saying Frank got the team selection wrong before kickoff. 

I actually agreed with the team selection bar Giroud over Michy, but I had no idea in the world how bad Giroud would be, or Pedro. The problem in the game was a lack of striker, it was glaring to see, it's not Franks fault he doesn't have a good backup striker. 

4 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Not the first time Frank has seen that, just the first time his team as their manager has done that.

Very much a down tools performance from the players today. Come on, west ham are garbage and we made it easy for them because they worked for it and our players did not give two sh*ts. 

Frank should be worried. He knows what happens if the dressing room turns and that was not a team who wanted to play for their manager.

??????? Have I read just read what I think I have just read or am I still pissed from yesterday, dressing room turned, team not playing for manager, wow!

I don't think the players have turned on Frank, just think he got the tactics wrong against a 4-5-1 after going a goal down.

Jose changed system mid match by going 3 at the back to beat West Ham recently.

Frank takes off our recognised striker and throws in more crosses, I think that goes down as managerial error. No problem with that as long as he does not repeat it and it becomes part of his learning curve.

Also question using both Pedro and Giroud, was this his way of letting them say goodbye to SB?

Edited December 1, 20196 yr by strider6004

I really don't think Frank got much besides the Giroud situation, he shouldn't have started and he should've came off at halftime. 

First misstep from Frank for me. The team selection with two players who have barely featured all season, showed for me that he was taking the game a bit for granted. That is how.it felt the players were playing. He took far too long to sub them both. 

I don't know what CHO has done wrong, but that game needed pace and CHO Michy and Kante starting would have given it. 

It happens, just hope the team learn from it and the club learn we need to make a couple of big acquisitions next year. 

Away from home were fine, the opposition come out to play, and we find the spaces. But at home we have to play teams who get everyone behind the ball, stay compressed and concentrate on defending, then we struggle to open up teams and leave ourselves vulnerable, when the opposition wins ball we don't have all the players behind the ball.

For me the home problem can be overcome with improving our dead ball game. At the moment we have virtually zero threat coming from dead balls (bar pens). Corners we may as well take from the centre circle, then you have dangerous free kicks, again we just don't seem to have a threat, its all a bit comfortable for the opposition. 

 

20 minutes ago, coco said:

Away from home were fine, the opposition come out to play, and we find the spaces. But at home we have to play teams who get everyone behind the ball, stay compressed and concentrate on defending, then we struggle to open up teams and leave ourselves vulnerable, when the opposition wins ball we don't have all the players behind the ball.

For me the home problem can be overcome with improving our dead ball game. At the moment we have virtually zero threat coming from dead balls (bar pens). Corners we may as well take from the centre circle, then you have dangerous free kicks, again we just don't seem to have a threat, its all a bit comfortable for the opposition. 

 

I think we need someone like Isco or Grealish to unlock defences tbh - Mount for all his efforts isn't really a #10, he's a second striker / inside forward who can fill in at left centre mid. Would like to see what Pulisic can do at #10 (he had one or two good moments yesterday) but from what I've seen so far he lacks the craft to rely on him week in week out.

Grealish's set pieces are deadly, nails it everytime.

2 hours ago, Slojo said:

I really don't think Frank got much besides the Giroud situation, he shouldn't have started and he should've came off at halftime. 

Hindsight is great though isn't it. In the Valencia game everyone was saying if only Lampard played Giroud to get in the end of crosses from James. Michy hasn't been that good either so playing Giroud a French first team player wasn't a bad idea.