2 hours ago, Bob stark said:

It won't work because it will put too much burden defensively on Mount especially with the way Pulisic defend. 

It's worth a try since Mount often comes very deep to get the ball and he did spend some games trying to help out Alonso on that left hand side before, maybe he would do better in the future.

1 hour ago, abramovich said:

The reason people are mentioning all these things now is because we've been struggling, so instead of blaming Frank for being incompetent or simply too inexperienced and not ready yet for a job of this magnitude people go to any lengths in order to protect their hero and shift the blame onto anyone or anything else. How settled was that Arsenal's first eleven that embarrased us recently? City were missing several players due to COVID, while we had nearly everyone available and they absolutely destroyed us. It wasn't a question of us being f**ked by a ref or playing relatively well but not taking chances, being unlucky in front of goal or anything like that. We were totally outclassed, outplayed and outfought, looked like a bunch of amateurs thrown together for the first time half an hour before the game.

I think those are fair points. We've barely resembled a football team since we beat Leeds on December 5th. I'm certainly not going to argue that as I would agree with that sentiment.

I don't think we were particularly good yesterday either for that sake. I still saw the same issues that will give us a hard time against Fulham if we play similarly against them on Friday.

But I do feel people get slightly overfocused on this bad, very bad period we are in. Up until December the signs were very promising if I may say so myself. The defence was sorted out, the offense was starting to click and we were league leaders for a short while after Leeds I believe. So I still believe Lampard can get us back to where we were as a team a month and a half ago.

Right now we don't look like the same team to me. I don't know what's caused it and if the cause happens to be a divided dressing-room and some key players have lost faith in the manager like rumoured then that's a hard thing to come back from. But I could also be far less sinister reasons for what's happened like a young team with a young manager having ups and downs for example. I suspect next three games against Fulham, Leicester and Wolves will give us a lot of answers though.

18 hours ago, RMH said:

You can not expect a coach with one season and a half at the top flight, and no more than another season at the championship to have a clear vision and know it all in tactics. I see how Lampard wants Chelsea to play, but I understand that it is going to take a while until he has the clear plan that works. It’s fair for fans not wanting to have patience and prefer to bring in the Mourinho of turn to win a trophy and F off to some other team afterwards. But I’d rather we gave him time to learn the trade with us. Just like I rather we gave Gilmour playing time to bring in other midfielder.

Sorry, but if you are saying that Lampard does not have a clear vision of how he wants his teams to play then I cannot see any reason for the season to improve. At the moment he is relying on flashes of individual talent to win games but if you want to be a successful coach in the PL, you need to have a vision of how you want to play and get the players to buy into it. All of the successful coaches have tacics and planning in their mind before they started coaching but Lampard's History and Enthusiasm are insufficient to get this group of players performing week in, week out. Sadly I believe Lampard should have spent more time at another club really learning and deciding how he wanted his teams to play. Anyone can see that against the better teams, sending in high crosses time after time is not working.

15 minutes ago, pcmacca said:

Sorry, but if you are saying that Lampard does not have a clear vision of how he wants his teams to play then I cannot see any reason for the season to improve.

Do you really think he has no clear vision on how he wants us to play? 

57 minutes ago, pcmacca said:

Sorry, but if you are saying that Lampard does not have a clear vision of how he wants his teams to play then I cannot see any reason for the season to improve. At the moment he is relying on flashes of individual talent to win games but if you want to be a successful coach in the PL, you need to have a vision of how you want to play and get the players to buy into it. All of the successful coaches have tacics and planning in their mind before they started coaching but Lampard's History and Enthusiasm are insufficient to get this group of players performing week in, week out. Sadly I believe Lampard should have spent more time at another club really learning and deciding how he wanted his teams to play. Anyone can see that against the better teams, sending in high crosses time after time is not working.

Of course he has a vision of how he wants us to play, but he hasn't got the skillset yet to make it happen week after week or to make game changes according to how the match goes. He is learning. If we wanted the full coach with all the skills ready, we should not have given Frank the job, it is really absurd to expect him to have the experience of other coaches in the PL. For what is worth, im happy to give our legend time to learn and get the experience with us, just like I'm happy to give academy players the time to become good footballers with Chelsea first team.

3 hours ago, Gol15 said:

It's worth a try since Mount often comes very deep to get the ball and he did spend some games trying to help out Alonso on that left hand side before, maybe he would do better in the future.

Offensively it should be ok to some degree but you kinda waste mount pressing ability there. I don't know, Mount is excellent defensively but unless it is against a poor team, I can see it being a nightmare. Double pivot require two sitting midfielder, both mount and kante aren't. 

2 hours ago, dkw said:

Do you really think he has no clear vision on how he wants us to play? 

I think he did. He wanted 4231. It turned out kante need a partner. Havertz can't hold the ball. Pulisic and ziyech don't really want to defend. 

5 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Offensively it should be ok to some degree but you kinda waste mount pressing ability there. I don't know, Mount is excellent defensively but unless it is against a poor team, I can see it being a nightmare. Double pivot require two sitting midfielder, both mount and kante aren't. 

Pressing a lot doesn't make you excellent defensively, I've seen many times this season where Mount's man marking and defending has been piss poor. You bring up helping Alonso, he completely failed in helping Alonso with Lamptey. 

12 minutes ago, Slojo said:

Pressing a lot doesn't make you excellent defensively, I've seen many times this season where Mount's man marking and defending has been piss poor. You bring up helping Alonso, he completely failed in helping Alonso with Lamptey. 

Defensively he is perfectly fine as cm, but he is not a dm. I honestly can't remember that game against Brighton anymore. 

I am honestly not concerned with Mount. Our problem right now is more on defending against bigger team aka team with good player (city and arsenal, arsenal is maybe at midtable but they have decent players). As long as our front 3 defensive contribution is very little, it is going to very2 difficult playing for us to defend against decent team unless they decide not to attack aka spurs. 

 

Edited January 11, 20215 yr by Bob stark

38 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Offensively it should be ok to some degree but you kinda waste mount pressing ability there. I don't know, Mount is excellent defensively but unless it is against a poor team, I can see it being a nightmare. Double pivot require two sitting midfielder, both mount and kante aren't. 

It was in the context of having Mount-Rice as the DM pair while Havertz would have a free role in front of them as a more traditional number 10 and at most occasions as a false 9.

I do know that Mount isn't really a DM but maybe with Rice he can do well...

3 hours ago, dkw said:

Do you really think he has no clear vision on how he wants us to play? 

Sadly in this article, I believe you could swap Chelsea for United.

https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/covid-era-football-nonsense-man-utd-title-bid-proves-it/1a7k8ttu4zttt1m7cdvlq7ywm1

 

2 hours ago, pcmacca said:

Sadly in this article, I believe you could swap Chelsea for United.

https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/covid-era-football-nonsense-man-utd-title-bid-proves-it/1a7k8ttu4zttt1m7cdvlq7ywm1

 

Ole has been a Manager for a decade now and this is Lampard's third season & in addition the United position is an incredibly fortunate one because some of the decisions they have got in the first half of the season have been borderline pure corruption, games such as Brighton, WBA, West Ham & Aston Villa.

I've read a few of your posts stating a lack of identity in terms of style of play and its weird how the question never arose when we were on the unbeaten run but only once we were plagued with injuries which resulted in the downturn in results. The question should not be what is the style of play but the question should be why did Lampard not change the system once we had our key personnel out and the system was no longer functioning.

Lampard's system involves stretching teams using the fullbacks and have the wingers tuck in on both wings to exploit holes in the opposition defense, whilst we had Ziyech, James and Chilwell in full fitness it worked incredibly well offensively. The criticism of Lampard comes from persisting with the same system even without the 3 named players, Azpi does not have the legs to offer the same offensive threat as James and with Werner off color and Pulisic just returning from injury we struggled to offer an alternative threat from the Central areas. The noise on the forum has been to change things and go with a wingback system or go with 2 strikers but the challenge has been the congested period during which Lampard has been unable to change things around due to limited time on the training ground.

I am hoping with the recent break he could shake things up and develop other plans when the original tactics are not working but with new players it will take time for things to settle.     

17 hours ago, dkw said:

And all the other managers are struggling too, but you equated his PPG to our ex managers in a completely different situation, so no its not all relative at all.

I don’t get your logic there. 
 

when we are struggling now other managers are too.

 

When there was no Covid the other managers didn’t have to deal with Covid rather so contes and Jose were competing with people also not struggling. 
 

In both cases the managers are completing on a level playing field. 
 

One in difficult circumstances facing everyone the other in good circumstances facing everyone so how is that not relative? 
 

You’re saying it weakens frank but it weakens the other managers when Jose and conte were competing the other managers weren’t weakened so it’s always a level playing field unless it’s something club specific and Covid isn’t. 

12 hours ago, Gol15 said:

It was in the context of having Mount-Rice as the DM pair while Havertz would have a free role in front of them as a more traditional number 10 and at most occasions as a false 9.

I do know that Mount isn't really a DM but maybe with Rice he can do well...

Against weaker team sure but again we are forcing player to play role that is completely different to his natural role. The fact that we are discussing this is a problem

I personally Lampard biggest problem is thinking I should play all of my signings together.

Unless they have proven to be undroppable, which I am being honest none of them are he should just use them as just part of rotation. 

Does this mean he make mistakes on signing all these players? Not really, but it show maybe he is a rookie manager. 

 

3 hours ago, Bob stark said:

Against weaker team sure but again we are forcing player to play role that is completely different to his natural role. The fact that we are discussing this is a problem

Yet this is exactly what has happen to Kante that will play any game if possible and let's be honest here, Mount has been playing all the time regardless of what role he had, he has been used in several positions.

5 hours ago, SFL82 said:

I don’t get your logic there. 
 

when we are struggling now other managers are too.

 

When there was no Covid the other managers didn’t have to deal with Covid rather so contes and Jose were competing with people also not struggling. 
 

In both cases the managers are completing on a level playing field. 
 

One in difficult circumstances facing everyone the other in good circumstances facing everyone so how is that not relative? 
 

You’re saying it weakens frank but it weakens the other managers when Jose and conte were competing the other managers weren’t weakened so it’s always a level playing field unless it’s something club specific and Covid isn’t. 

All the other managers at the moment will be seeing their points per game drop because of the last few seasons also, Klopp`s Liverpool for example is about 14 points down on last season, so comparing his points per game against an old Liverpool manager will be unfavourable.

Did the other managers also lose their best player while also having to cope with integrating youth into a side due to having a transfer ban?

 

Lampard is making mistakes and needs called out for them, but if you truly believe there arent extenuating circumstances having a big impact on this season then I dont know what to say to you.

Edited January 12, 20215 yr by dkw

1 hour ago, dkw said:

All the other managers at the moment will be seeing their points per game drop because of the last few seasons also, Klopp`s Liverpool for example is about 14 points down on last season, so comparing his points per game against an old Liverpool manager will be unfavourable.

Did the other managers also lose their best player while also having to cope with integrating youth into a side due to having a transfer ban?

Lampard is making mistakes and needs called out for them, but if you truly believe there arent extenuating circumstances having a big impact on this season then I dont know what to say to you.

Agreed. I think Frank will continue to learn and shouldn't get a free pass, but at the end of November everyone was flying off the chain saying we were a title chances. A bit of moderation never went astray in the reactions to a run of results either way. 

1 hour ago, dkw said:

Did the other managers also lose their best player while also having to cope with integrating youth into a side due to having a transfer ban?

Lampard is making mistakes and needs called out for them, but if you truly believe there arent extenuating circumstances having a big impact on this season then I dont know what to say to you.

Why are we still talking about last season? Yes, Frank did better than expected but that was then, this is now. Should we ignore the fact that we spent more money on players before this season than any other club in Europe? Because this is just as much true as us losing Hazard and unable to buy anyone a year earlier.

What extenuating circumstances are having a big impact on this season? Injuries? Every team has them and some have it worse than us. Covid situation also affects everbody. Every manager of every team has to deal with these problems, they're not exclusive to Frank and Chelsea.

 

Trying to integrate over half a team of new players (Havertz, Werner, Ziyech, Mendy, Silva, Chilwell), with no pre-season to help. Who else in the league is doing this ?

13 minutes ago, coco said:

Trying to integrate over half a team of new players (Havertz, Werner, Ziyech, Mendy, Silva, Chilwell), with no pre-season to help. Who else in the league is doing this ?

He chose to buy these players and it's his job to integrate and get the best out of them. It's increasingly looking like we bought Havertz because we could he looks completely lost at times and I know he's young and had Covid but judging on his performances well I doubt he will turn it round goal aside he didn't play well against Morecambe either.

11 minutes ago, coco said:

Trying to integrate over half a team of new players (Havertz, Werner, Ziyech, Mendy, Silva, Chilwell), with no pre-season to help. Who else in the league is doing this ?

And people droning on about how much money we spent ( seemingly an obsession with some of our fans) ignores the fact that Havertz and Werner have turned out to be not quite good enough yet (actually they are both a bit pants, but I don't have a Youtube compilation to prove that), Ziyech has been good-ish the very few times he's actually played at full fitness, Chilwell has been out for a good period and Silva is 104-years old.

But the fickleness of some (a lot?) means that the same supporters who were raving on a few weeks ago about challenging for the title after a long unbeaten run then turn after a few poor results and start ranting about Frank not being good enough and we need a new old man from the EU (would that be allowed anyway, these days?)

And mostly, these were the same people who last season were saying "I will accept a period without European football,  silverware and titles as long as Frank brings through the young 'uns and doesn't look like Sarri".

No f**king patience and a deep sense of entitlement, some people.

 

No patients for sure, remember we started late so in reality were still in late november/ early december, with no pre-season in August, and 2 international breaks in amongst it.

54 minutes ago, coco said:

Trying to integrate over half a team of new players (Havertz, Werner, Ziyech, Mendy, Silva, Chilwell), with no pre-season to help. Who else in the league is doing this ?

I just hope that this argument is accepted among the cynics here when it comes to those players as well and not just when it comes to defending the manager. 

9 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

I just hope that this argument is accepted among the cynics here when it comes to those players as well and not just when it comes to defending the manager. 

I would say the players have had it a lot easier then Frank amongst the Chelsea fans (Competitors have been pretty brutal on the signings), our fans have mainly been backing the players and blaming Frank for playing them in incorrect positions.

Both Werner and Havertz have probably been below average in terms of performances but the finger has been pointed at Frank for Playing Werner wide and Havertz as a number 8. For Werner he had no choice with our wingers injured and Werner has actually played a lot of his football as a Wide Forward and some may say that is his preferred position although he has not said that himself. With Havertz he has said on record that his preferred position is as the right sided Central Midfielder but once again Lampard has been criticized for playing him there.