9 hours ago, Argo said:

Point is everyone wanted Conte "fully backed" and one of those players he wanted was someone he shafted as soon as he got hold of him at his next club.

Three years after he wanted him here. That's an important distinction as a lot can change in three years.

Conte wasn't fully backed, that's just the truth. Not that it matters at this point but he wasn't.

It wasn't just about incoming transfers either. The club sold Matic against his wishes to a direct rival and replaced him with Danny Drinkwater. Not much of a thank you after winning the league was it.

Try selling Jorginho to City now and replace him with Jack Cork. I'm pretty sure Lampard would go berzerk at the club too.

Edited January 24, 20206 yr by Sindre

5 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Three years after he wanted him here. That's an important distinction as a lot can change in three years.

Conte wasn't fully backed, that's just the truth. Not that it matters at this point but he wasn't.

It takes looking at certain situations from afar to get some perspective. Looking at his signings with Inter presently, glad he left when he did. Conte doesn’t strike me as a manager who takes accountability, all he cares about is the now.

No point debating whether Lampard is being fully backed when he's yet to make a transfer.  I wouldn't be making any transfers anyway given the options available and that could well be Lampard opinion.  If we are going to drag up past mangers as a forecast for future transfer backing then using the most recent manager as an example would be most logical and Sarri was well backed in my opinion.

39 minutes ago, DarkMata said:

No point debating whether Lampard is being fully backed when he's yet to make a transfer.  I wouldn't be making any transfers anyway given the options available and that could well be Lampard opinion.  If we are going to drag up past mangers as a forecast for future transfer backing then using the most recent manager as an example would be most logical and Sarri was well backed in my opinion.

Granted any signings at this point will be either a panic or a rip off, not making any transfer might not be a smart call in the long run. There are short term options (loans) available on the market that might give us something different, and with the Euros coming up in the summer it’s an incentive to move and get competitive mins.

Whatever happens this season Lamps is guaranteed a 2nd season, what you don’t want happening is starting on the back foot because we have Europa football to offer. You compare the players a novice like Ole managing the biggest club in the world with what Klopp attracted with Europa places and it’s like night and day. Lamps doesn’t have the draw to attract the best players, if we end up in Europa next season we will be behind Klopp, Pep, Jose and maybe even Rodgers and whoever nabs 4th place as an attractive destination for a transfer. Couple that with the loss of earnings from CL football and it could be a long summer.

a loan will arrive. The presser sounded like a choice of strikers has been identified, and its a case of narrowing in on one

Saw the presser. Frank said we are creating 20 chances per game and our problem is finishing. He has said this a lot lately. He is deluded. 20 shots per game does not equate to chances. Real bona fide chances are at a premium. I remember Morata missing loads of chances. I do not remember anyone this season missing loads. It simply hasn't happened.

25 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

Saw the presser. Frank said we are creating 20 chances per game and our problem is finishing. He has said this a lot lately. He is deluded. 20 shots per game does not equate to chances. Real bona fide chances are at a premium. I remember Morata missing loads of chances. I do not remember anyone this season missing loads. It simply hasn't happened.

Yes I agree there is a difference between shots and good chances.

A number of our attempted shots seem pointless too as they are closed down so quickly.

 

21 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

Saw the presser. Frank said we are creating 20 chances per game and our problem is finishing. He has said this a lot lately. He is deluded. 20 shots per game does not equate to chances. Real bona fide chances are at a premium. I remember Morata missing loads of chances. I do not remember anyone this season missing loads. It simply hasn't happened.

I was looking at that XG data site yesterday, and Tammy for example has actually scored marginally more often than the algorithms predict that he should have ...

https://understat.com/team/Chelsea/2019

I guess what we really need is to create more clear cut chances that even my dead gran could score ...

 

9 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

Yes I agree there is a difference between shots and good chances.

A number of our attempted shots seem pointless too as they are closed down so quickly.

 

https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/big_chance_missed?se=274

2nd in big chances missed
2nd in shots, even ahead of liverpool
 

Though Ive no idea what big chance is

6 minutes ago, dkw said:

https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/big_chance_missed?se=274

2nd in big chances missed
2nd in shots, even ahead of liverpool
 

Though Ive no idea what big chance is

Shots on target says we are third.

Through balls sixth.

5 hours ago, Sindre said:

Conte wasn't fully backed, that's just the truth. Not that it matters at this point but he wasn't.

He wasn't but he was still given players of his liking even if they were plan Cs.

The reality is we are a club without the funds of Paris or City (and that's before we factor in the fact Pep is a much more appealing manager to play under than Conte) or global appeal of Real/Juve/Barca/Bayern etc meaning were unlikely to beat them to players (I'd go as far as saying to stand a chance against those clubs we have to hope they're either fans of the club or want to live in London so badly) All Conte's supposed plan A's (bar Lukaku) were either at one of those clubs already or wanted by them, there's no problem being ambitious and going for them, but there needs to be a bit of reality while doing it and accepting that there's every chance we won't win out against those clubs.

For example, if Frank decided he wants Mbappe and Oblak this summer I will applaud him for ambition, but if on the extreme likelyhood that we miss out on both he then decides to put his tools down and act like a schoolchild he will be very much open for critisism and rightly so.

5 hours ago, Sindre said:

It wasn't just about incoming transfers either. The club sold Matic against his wishes to a direct rival and replaced him with Danny Drinkwater. Not much of a thank you after winning the league was it.

Try selling Jorginho to City now and replace him with Jack Cork. I'm pretty sure Lampard would go berzerk at the club too.

I wouldn't expect Frank to happy but I'd still expect him to get on with the job he's paid multi millions of pounds for.

Infact I would imagine Lampard would tell the club to not bother signing Cork and instead promote Gilmour, if Conte was that outraged by the prospect of Drinkwater he could have used Chala, Ruben or even Mount, that way he'd have money stored up for a when a player he really wants becomes available and have even more protection/leeway against bad results.

5 hours ago, Sindre said:

Three years after he wanted him here. That's an important distinction as a lot can change in three years.

Fair enough, but two years (he wanted him in 2017) is still quite a short turnover to go from one extreme to the other (wanting him so badly to not even wanting him when he inherited him).

Bare in mind he wanted Alexis aswell, had we granted him both wishes we'd be currently stuck with two more past it duds on extreme wages.

1 hour ago, Davey Baby said:

Saw the presser. Frank said we are creating 20 chances per game and our problem is finishing. He has said this a lot lately. He is deluded. 20 shots per game does not equate to chances. Real bona fide chances are at a premium. I remember Morata missing loads of chances. I do not remember anyone this season missing loads. It simply hasn't happened.

I think it's something in the middle to be honest.

We aren't creating glorious chances at will, but we mess up a lot of promising situations. Although that's probably to be expected when it's Willian and young players fronting our attack.

16 minutes ago, Argo said:

I think it's something in the middle to be honest.

We aren't creating glorious chances at will, but we mess up a lot of promising situations. Although that's probably to be expected when it's Willian and young players fronting our attack.

Personally don’t think getting another frontman will change anything, it is the wings & at LB that needs to be the primary focus. Tammy is exceeding expectations and fair enough he might be getting overworked, however we are only going to play 1 frontman so whoever comes in will have the same issues with chances created and an inconsistent/fading winger.

1 hour ago, dkw said:

https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/big_chance_missed?se=274

2nd in big chances missed
2nd in shots, even ahead of liverpool
 

Though Ive no idea what big chance is

Our conversion rate is 22%, while Liverpool before their last game had a conversion rate of 50%, now its around 46%!

Man city has the highest amount of shots, but they also score the most goals, while we being second highest in shots score less than 2 goals per game.

It's important to note that our team isn't encouraged to take long distance shots, some of our players only do it while in desperation.

Edited January 24, 20206 yr by Gol15

6 hours ago, Sindre said:

Conte wasn't fully backed, that's just the truth. Not that it matters at this point but he wasn't.

Conte wasn't backed but what he wanted is ridiculous imo and in hindsight helped us in the long term. Imagine having Lukaku and Sanchez in our team now on obscene wages. The only transfer target from Conte's time with us that was worth anything was Alex Sandro.

Not to mention the fact that he threw his toys out whenever he wamted things to go his way. He was a good player and a good coach but his professionalism leaves a lot to be desired

16 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Personally don’t think getting another frontman will change anything, it is the wings & at LB that needs to be the primary focus. Tammy is exceeding expectations and fair enough he might be getting overworked, however we are only going to play 1 frontman so whoever comes in will have the same issues with chances created and an inconsistent/fading winger.

I do think individual quality does make a big difference, when two of our front players are on form like say Pulisic and Willian were in October we don't even miss Hazard but at times like now his absence is really hitting us. Look at Liverpool for example, the crazy thing is as a team playing unit they have actually declined this season but they have a sheer amount of peak quality that they get the job done regardless.

18 minutes ago, Argo said:

I do think individual quality does make a big difference, when two of our front players are on form like say Pulisic and Willian were in October we don't even miss Hazard but at times like now his absence is really hitting us. Look at Liverpool for example, the crazy thing is as a team playing unit they have actually declined this season but they have a sheer amount of peak quality that they get the job done regardless.

I think what helped us early in the season was the number of new players others teams could not prepare for like Mount & Pulisic and Tammy.

Possibly with Kante being out then we had another genuine attacking midfielder that made a difference too.

Bringing in a new striker won't necessarily change that overnight it depends on how well he links with the other players. 

1 minute ago, Strider6003 said:

I think what helped us early in the season was the number of new players others teams could not prepare for like Mount & Pulisic and Tammy.

Possibly with Kante being out then we had another genuine attacking midfielder that made a difference too.

Bringing in a new striker won't necessarily change that overnight it depends on how well he links with the other players. 

While this might be true it's hard to hide that Tammy doesn't have anyone to step in when he isn't in form and when he is burned-out.

As time passes by it has been evident that when Tammy isn't on the pitch our team looks significantly weaker ( Michy instead of Tammy in the recent months have made our team look very harmless ) and that's even taking in count that Tammy has 15 big chances missed so far in the league.

Tammy looked very tired and almost injured in the last game he played, if we were to lose him due to overplaying him which would cause an injury, the overall quality of our attack would be pretty much gone, our best attacking duo this season has been Tammy+Mount and you may put in Pulisic there as well that has only 1 assist less than Mount.

A new striker is almost like a must, Giroud last time showed that he can't play with this team and Michy can't hold the ball like Tammy does so he doesn't do much in the build-up for our attack.

I wager we were creating a lot more chances before December than we have been since. A lot of games we aren't really creating chances, borehand we would create chances for fun, score plenty but miss a f**kload then concede about 2-3. 

8 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

A new striker is almost like a must, Giroud last time showed that he can't play with this team and Michy can't hold the ball like Tammy does so he doesn't do much in the build-up for our attack.

I agree with most of what you have said though don't think we can judge Giroud on one outing as players would need to adopt to his game.

For example, Tammy likes balls to his chest, Giroud in the air.

34 minutes ago, Argo said:

I do think individual quality does make a big difference, when two of our front players are on form like say Pulisic and Willian were in October we don't even miss Hazard but at times like now his absence is really hitting us. Look at Liverpool for example, the crazy thing is as a team playing unit they have actually declined this season but they have a sheer amount of peak quality that they get the job done regardless.

There is this mythical idea that Willian is  having a good season, stats say something different.

Willian 1714mins : 4 goals + 4 assists

CHO 680mins  : 1 goal + 4 assists

Pulisic 1076mins : 5 goals + 2 assists 

When you compare with what Leicester get out of Pérez & Barnes, it paints a startling picture. 

Barnes 1315mins: 3 goals + 4 assists

Perez 1359 mins: 7 goals + 4 assists

Perez is a player approaching his peak, Willian has peaked and on the downturn, Barnes is probably performing true to what you would expect from a 23yr old player, same applies to Pulisic albeit his 1st season in a new league and you could argue he is outperforming, and CHO should be seeing way more mins based on his output.

On the wings is where our issues lies for me personally and where we should be investing this winter. Signing a new No 9 won’t change anything as he will be replacing Tammy’s output. 

 

34 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

I agree with most of what you have said though don't think we can judge Giroud on one outing as players would need to adopt to his game.

For example, Tammy likes balls to his chest, Giroud in the air.

Well maybe it isn't fair to judge him only for that performance against West Ham. Though Inter wants to sign him and I really don't know if Lampard wants him still.

29 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Well maybe it isn't fair to judge him only for that performance against West Ham. Though Inter wants to sign him and I really don't know if Lampard wants him still.

You are probably right that Giroud has got himself in Frank's black book perhaps for speaking out of turn.............

This game was a perfect example of what Frank has been saying. But I still don't think we've been creating enough chances for the possesion we've had in most of our games in the past two months. There's more problems in the side than just us not finishing chances. 

I would like to see Alonso back in the team, just think he gives us something extra in attack.

I've been one of those criticising Kante in his advanced position yet think in left midfield covering Alonso's forward forays would work as Alonso adds a better attacking quality than some of our forward men.

I also would hope Gilmour goes straight to the team or bench not sure what midfield position he will fill yet looks quality.

For Leicester I would consider this:

                       Kepa

          Rudiger                       Tomori

James                                                  Alonso

          Gilmour                    Kante

                         Kovacic

Willian            Tammy          Mount