The defending has been shambolic this season, theres no way we will finish top 4, unless it improves drastically. 

Going forward we generally look okay, but theres the attack isnt good enough, compensate for shipping goals every game. 

We had decent run against some of the weaker teams, which coincided with some poor results from our rivals, but on reflection we are still a young side, with potential, but ultimately lacking quality. 

Hopefully some january additions will help, but its important to remember the expectations at the start of the season, and remember how big of a job lamps has got to turn us into title contenders again.

2 hours ago, Davey Baby said:

 

Tomori, Jorginho and Emerson had all clearly dipped in form. Frank was right to give Christensen a chance. He just hasn't taken it.

 

Jorginho? We could go with a 3 in midfield and leave out Mount, but Jorginho was dropped for the first time against Villa, and we actually performed really well in that game, and Mount especially, and in the previous game where Jorginho was suspended, against Palace, we performed really well.

 

I don't blame Frank one little bit for the starting line-up and he can't legislate for the goals we conceded, which were comical. Everton were really up for it today and we couldn't afford to gift them goals like that.

I don't think so Davey, I think Tomori should play over Christsensen on his season form alone, we shouldn't be rotating at the back so much. 

41 minutes ago, Slojo said:

I don't think so Davey, I think Tomori should play over Christsensen on his season form alone, we shouldn't be rotating at the back so much. 

 

Fair enough, I thought Tomori was poor against West Ham and his form had dipped generally, but he's better than Christensen, so you're probably right.

2 hours ago, sonic90 said:

It doesn't matter how we set up the defence, Kepa or the defenders can f**k it up anyway. A Zouma scoop, Christensen missing the header against someone much shorter and then Zouma fumble and fail to clear to concede a goal is not something the manager can legislate for.

I think we need to play suicide football and the best scoring team wins, it will all change if we buy the right players and when Rudiger comes back but with what we have now going into the new few games there is no real solution.

You make a good point.

I don't even think our defence is set up that badly, it's just stupid mistakes. It gets to the point where you just have to ask if these players are good enough. The best coach in the world can't stop the mistakes these players are making. When you have one defender that can't read a simple pass or clear an easy ball, or a defender that can't win any aerial duels, you have to question if they are good enough. These mistakes they are making are so poor, the majority of our goals conceded come from them. 

My fear for Lampard is that he will be too loyal to some of the youngsters or those he has put his trust in. Is he willing to upgrade Zouma, , Tamori, Mount or Abraham? 

I worry that he is not ruthless enough. 

40 minutes ago, JM7 said:

My fear for Lampard is that he will be too loyal to some of the youngsters or those he has put his trust in. Is he willing to upgrade Zouma, , Tamori, Mount or Abraham? 

I worry that he is not ruthless enough. 

It is a tricky one for Lamps.

No doubt, we need upgrades in certain areas but he will need to balance any upgrades with showing faith in SOME of the youngsters. I wonder whether Lamps actually welcomes the lift of the transfer ban or was maybe hoping it stayed in place so he could continue to work with what he had and experiment knowing he had a "free ride" and the pressure was off. IF we make a number of big signings, the pressure will be on to make top 4 a certainty and the powers that be won't be so accepting of defeats like today and against West Ham.

I have faith in Lamps & Jody that they will be ruthless when they need to be and replace the players that just aren't up to what we are looking to achieve. No room for sentiments in football - especially at this level. 

15 minutes ago, Nibs said:

It is a tricky one for Lamps.

No doubt, we need upgrades in certain areas but he will need to balance any upgrades with showing faith in SOME of the youngsters. I wonder whether Lamps actually welcomes the lift of the transfer ban or was maybe hoping it stayed in place so he could continue to work with what he had and experiment knowing he had a "free ride" and the pressure was off. IF we make a number of big signings, the pressure will be on to make top 4 a certainty and the powers that be won't be so accepting of defeats like today and against West Ham.

I have faith in Lamps & Jody that they will be ruthless when they need to be and replace the players that just aren't up to what we are looking to achieve. No room for sentiments in football - especially at this level. 

Absolutely. I don’t see us challenging for the title with Zouma, Tamori and Christensen as our centre backs. They are squad players. 

The only thing I really blame Frank for today is playing Zouma and Christensen together.

We created enough chances to win two matches between the first and second goals, we somehow managed to not score via three tap ins and a three on one.

The Premier league pundits before the game were saying that Frank shouldn't rush to buy anyone because it will upset the balance of the team and the youth coming through. I disagreed when they said that and I disagree even more after that game. If we want to make top 4 we need reinforcements in our defence in January, at least 1 CB shore things up. Otherwise I'm getting nervous about making top 4, there are a lot of teams below us starting to pick up points and we've already dropped points against two bottom half teams. I dont even think Rudiger is enough to solve out problems (I haven't forgotten some of the mistakes he made last season).

25 minutes ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

The Premier league pundits before the game were saying that Frank shouldn't rush to buy anyone because it will upset the balance of the team and the youth coming through. I disagreed when they said that and I disagree even more after that game. If we want to make top 4 we need reinforcements in our defence in January, at least 1 CB shore things up. Otherwise I'm getting nervous about making top 4, there are a lot of teams below us starting to pick up points and we've already dropped points against two bottom half teams. I dont even think Rudiger is enough to solve out problems (I haven't forgotten some of the mistakes he made last season).

It's not an issue imo, especially if it's replacing deadwood. I wouldn't mind seeing the likes of Alonso, Pedro, Giroud on there way out for starters, we can replace all those players with better alternatives. We could also do with replacing Zouma and Christsensen if I'm being honest, Christensen isn't cutting it these days and we can't afford to give him the time to return to form, he's always a mistake waiting to happen. Zouma is not Chelsea level imo, that might be harsh considering he's had some good games this season but he's just too erratic at the back for me. 

5 minutes ago, Slojo said:

It's not an issue imo, especially if it's replacing deadwood. I wouldn't mind seeing the likes of Alonso, Pedro, Giroud on there way out for starters, we can replace all those players with better alternatives. We could also do with replacing Zouma and Christsensen if I'm being honest, Christensen isn't cutting it these days and we can't afford to give him the time to return to form, he's always a mistake waiting to happen. Zouma is not Chelsea level imo, that might be harsh considering he's had some good games this season but he's just too erratic at the back for me. 

Bit harsh on Zouma imho, if judged on his performances at RCB he's having a good season - he's being shoehorned into the LCB role because of the lack of left footed/sided CBs in the squad.

Edited December 7, 20196 yr by the special one

1 minute ago, the special one said:

Bit harsh on Zouma imho, if judged on his performances at RCB he's having a good season - he's being shoehorned into the LCB role because of the lack of left footed/sided CBs in the squad.

I know, Franks biggest mistake that for me, is changing the back 2, it makes little sense to me. 

But I've not rated Zouma since his injury, he was proving my wrong last month and doing really well but I don't find him reliable as a CB. And for me he's not Chelsea level, I don't think he's the one who can make us title contenders at the back, and that's ultimately what we are looking for right? He's not a bad CB by any means, but he's just not top level in my opinion. I really do hope I'm wrong but I have to go with what I've seen of him, and even though he's done better than what I expected, he's still not good enough. If he was Tomori's age I would be more lenient but he's 25 now. 

Not much Frank could have done about this. He rotated the team against West Ham, got hammered. He played the same 11 based on a good performance, nothing he could have done with defenders couldn't clear the damn ball to concede 2 goals. He could have made a change here and then, but he didn't have the benefit of hindsight, and not helped by some amateur defenders. He needs reinforcement, either Rudiger comes back soon or we'd have to spend next month.

When we played Christensen and Zouma on the left against Valencia we could've conceded about 6 goals, we were atrocious at the back. Zouma was all over the place at the beginning of the season when we were getting our bearings, he started to settle down when we started getting a structure and found a good way of being compact and pragmatic when needed. It was never perfect, but we weren't conceding on average 2 goals a game for quite a while. Now just like that it's gone back to how it used to be, Villa it seemed to work but this game reminded me of earler in the season. 

If Rudiger isn't fit it has to be Zouma and Tomori for me, why disrupt it? The backline is not something you can keep rotating with. 

Kepa, Christensen and Zouma deserve official disciplinary action for that gross negligence of a performance.

Edited December 8, 20196 yr by GhostOfDembaBa

4 minutes ago, GhostOfDembaBa said:

Kepa, Christensen and Zouma deserve official disciplinary action for that gross negligence of a performance.

I think you have to add Azpi unfortunately. Chelsea-great and captain but he is done.

Key moment for Lampard now. We've lost a lot of points in a short amount of time now and our rivals for top 4 are catching up. So we really need to regroup and go on a run again. We have Tottenham and then Arsenal away next after Bournemouth at home. I think it's safe to say we'll be out of top 4 quick if we don't do something about the defence first and foremost.

Even if we do get overtaken we'll just have to take it on the chin and move forward though. It's a rebuild and we are missing a lot of key pieces.

We are probably lucky with the next two fixtures, Lille and Bournemouth and the latter with many injuries. 

Then we have JM's Spurs, hopefully we are more solid by then.

Are we linked to any CBs, apart from Ake? We really need someone who is in same class as the likes of Van Dijk.

Edited December 8, 20196 yr by dansubrosa

1 hour ago, dansubrosa said:

Are we linked to any CBs, apart from Ake? We really need someone who is in same class as the likes of Van Dijk.

I don't think there are any though. He's the best CB in the world.

Liverpool signed him in January interestingly enough so it is possible to make signings that transform a team in January.

Alderweireld wouldn’t be a bad shout imo. He’s not young but he would transform our defence for a year or two, which is what we need imo while Tomori develops into a very good centre back.

He wants to leave Spurs doesn’t he? And I don’t think he’d cost a bomb, the only trouble is Mourinho.

2 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

Alderweireld wouldn’t be a bad shout imo. He’s not young but he would transform our defence for a year or two, which is what we need imo while Tomori develops into a very good centre back.

He wants to leave Spurs doesn’t he? And I don’t think he’d cost a bomb, the only trouble is Mourinho.

Can't see him leaving while Mourinho is playing him.

I don't care how good we are in attack, we need to sort out the back and sort out set pieces now it's become a crisis. I said it before we can't outscore everyone we need to be a 1-0 Chelsea team then build on that

On 05/12/2019 at 10:38, bisright1 said:

With kovacic and MS, our defence would be screened AND we'd have a more potent attacking threat AND we'd have someone who is tall enough to actually defend corners. 

With kante we just have the former. 

It's not a popular opinion I agree, maybe not even one I fully think. Is kovacic and savic better than kovacic and Kante. Is Kante and savic the solution? We'd have to sell someone out of those 3 if we buy savic. 

Is this Milinkovic-Savic talk anything more than a rumour at this stage? Doesn’t seem like a priority in terms of the areas that need strengthening, and I’m also not sure it would be a good idea for a few other reasons.

37 minutes ago, Dean said:

Is this Milinkovic-Savic talk anything more than a rumour at this stage? Doesn’t seem like a priority in terms of the areas that need strengthening, and I’m also not sure it would be a good idea for a few other reasons.

A Serbian player it might make more sense to pursue is Nikola Milenkovic of Florentina. He can play centre half and right back (remind anyone of anyone?). He’s been linked with United last year (fiorentina rejected a bid I think) and Barcelona recently. He’s young (22) and 6’5, can win aerial challenges, scores some goals too. Despite his size, he’s more the ball-playing, cultured type of centre half than the crunch-tackling type but he can tackle too. He’s no Christensen. I’m not sure if it’s at all realistic though and the asking price would almost certainly be high.

He will improve. That's for sure.