9 hours ago, Mr. President said:

Frankie, you are a problem.

Repeating the same mistakes every day is something that cannot be admitted.

I do not know any TOP team that reaches the end of a season and it is not known how to recognize their starting defense or their starting midfield.

The team does not know how to defend.
A corner is half a goal for the opponent.
We are butter back there.
And it's not just the players who are to blame.
Which are not that bad.

Why not hire an excellent defensive assistant coach?
Neither at the beginning of the season nor in the middle of the season, when it is evident that Frankie cannot do anything about it, nor does he know how to do it.

The team has the same virtues and the same problems since day 1.

It is unbelievable the amount of games and points we lost due to completely stupid mistakes and with a clear responsibility of the coach.

I like you, but if you are not able to learn from mistakes, self-criticize and evolve, please leave.

BTW did you ever find out the name of the player with number 3 on his back, you not knowing because you started to support Chelsea only last month?

What pisses me off is the board are now finally making good moves in the market, but for the past few seasons they've not supported the manager enough. The odd good signing here and there, but overall we've not invested well in the defence at all. Look at who we bought. Emerson, Alonso, Zappacosta, Rudiger, Luiz. Bang average defenders. Alonso scores the odd goal, but his all round game leaves a lot to be desired. Azpilicueta is aging, can't get a cross in to save his life, and only now he has a little bit of competition with James, who is still a young player developing. 

10 hours ago, Belfast_blue5 said:

We had 71% of the possession tonight the problem is creating chances. Apart from the Pulisic chance we didnt have anything else in the first half. We got into a number of good positions we couldn't play that final ball. 

Thank you! And in the reverse fixture when he started we had on 65% possession. Passing stats were also about even;  671 with him, 657 without, passing accuracy even 88% with him & without. West Ham actually had more passes with him playing;  354 with him & 273 without him.  
A few fans were waiting for us to lose to start the whole Jorginho narrative. He isn’t the reason we lost, it is down to Frank’s defensive frailties. Like someone pointed out team with worse defenders have better defensive stats than we do, and I don’t think spending £200m on a new defence will fix the issue. We also lack any creativity bar Pulisic which is reminiscent of  the problems we had when we had Hazard. 

These same defender's perform well defensively last season so what's the difference with them this season?

Usually after a bad result has particularly annoyed me I eventually look at it in a bit more context and feel a bit better on refection, not today, if anything it's got me even more wound up.

 

The main reason being it was totally avoidable, I have got a bit of stick for being critical despite the three wins last week but I was doing it for a reason and that was because I could see a night like this coming from Mars. Even if we got away with it last night (which we nearly did as Giroud should have scored near the end) I still would have felt worried as it was only kicking the can down the road, make no mistake this was coming, if it didn't happen tonight it would have been Bramal Lane or Selhurst Park (possibly even Watford at home), still could be if no lessons are learned!

 

If that was our best line up I'd suck it up until there's a chance to change things, but it wasn't, EVERY SINGLE PLAYER who was part of that incredible smashing of Everton (which was probably our best and most complete performance since the same fixture in Conte's title season) have been available since the restart, why haven't we seen that lineup (exception being Pulisic in instead of Pedro) again? and worse than that, why has the catalyst for that display only been seen in 50 minutes out of position in 4 games? That game (and the Liverpool game) were beautiful, it looked like we finally found our best core of players, best system, the style of play was mesmerising and it didn't even last another game, ripped up for sh*t on a stick football where a player that wasn't even playing for us that afternoon is now having to bail us out constantly, just how?

 

Another thing really annoying me are the CB issues. I'm not Zouma's biggest fan but him and Rudiger were slowly forming a really good partnership before the break, WHY THE HELL HAS THAT BEEN TINKERED WITH? I'm one of the minority that think while our CBs will never be world class (apart from potentially Fik) they've been dealt a bad hand with Kepa's form and constantly being rotated about, pick Zouma with either Fik or Rudi keep them there and all off a sudden things won't look too bad.

 

Don't get me started (again) on Kante always being picked AND playing 90 minutes no matter what, it was bad enough earlier on in the season but Frank still hasn't learned his lesson. The fact he's still being selected means either Lampard genuinely thinks we're actually better with him in the team despite all the evidence and metrics saying otherwise or he's playing him because of what he was/is at his very best. I hate being critical of him (Kante) as he's one of my favourite all time players for the club and I'll always appreciate the difference he made when he arrived but that's one thing with me, I'm so club/team orientated that I don't have trouble letting my head rule my heart (Drogba is my all time favorite and i was against him returning in 2014). Also with Mount in the side, we don't even miss Kante's engine as much as we use too.

 

Then there's the regista issue. Some people don't seem to want to embrace the idea of a regista because they're all on the "traditional DM" idea and can't be moved, but it's actually one of the most important positions in the modern game, having players who can dictate from deep at a high level are absolute gold dust in the modern game, we've got not only one but two and neither are being played, and in favour of putting a box to box player there (therefore neglecting his best attribute), that's Mourinho lite.

 

Frank's a young manager so I will give him the time to fix this sh*t especially as I have seen serious promise with him (if this was an experienced manager pulling this I'd be going full Claude) but if these tactics and selections are the "new normal" then *yikes*.

Edited July 2, 20206 yr by Argo

8 minutes ago, Brutos said:

These same defender's perform well defensively last season so what's the difference with them this season?

Er.. did they? I seem to recall some piss poor performances and batterings under Sarri.

6 minutes ago, Brutos said:

These same defender's perform well defensively last season so what's the difference with them this season?

We've not only struggled at set pieces but we're  more open for sure than previous seasons. For the last 15 mins we never had more than 3 players behind the ball. Sometimes (like when we conceded the third we had two). 

For comparison, Jose rarely had less than 5 behind the ball. It's something that needs to be addressed, but Frank will learn just like the players will.

Just now, Zeta said:

Er.. did they? I seem to recall some piss poor performances and batterings under Sarri.

Indeed...

Manchester City6–0Chelsea

Bournemouth4–0Chelsea

Tottenham Hotspur3–1Chelsea

I love Frankie but we better prepare for some annoying performances down the road next year. Yes, the transfers are definitely gonna strengthen us but we are not buying defenders and Frankie is quite trustful towards the likes of Rudiger, Alonso and especially Cristensen who'd been awful for years. Just look at how dumb he was yesterday. Losing one of the dumbest players in the league Antonio several times, including for a goal. Cristensen is a player with no physique, no speed, no respect, can't command and if you say something like that about somebody you'd expect him to have the opposite qualities - to be smart, precise, good passers, good positioning. Cristesen is just dumb af as a player. But Frankie loves him for some reason. 

Entertaining attacking-minded football with lots of goals, unfortunately equally spread between opposition's goalies and our fish Kepa. 

I can see Liverpool under Klopp before Van Dijk's arrival season like. Frankie is neglecting the D but he is young and he will learn. Guardiolla would have thrown Kepa and Cristesen so far. 

Er.. did they? I seem to recall some piss poor performances and batterings under Sarri.

A few battering compared to consistent crap defending all season are two different things. Picking selective matches doesn't prove they perform bad through the entire season. 

What I am seeing here is a consistent sh*t organised defense all season from the first kick of the season against United.

 

This is completely different to the odd hammering we got.

 

We conceded 39 goals last season, currently on 44 with 6 matches remaining so I estimate we will close to 50 conceded with the team's we have to play next.

 

 

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/frank-lampard-chelsea-west-ham-champions-league-race-top-four-a9597076.html?amp


"Chelsea still badly struggle to defend. Yarmolenko inflicted the 44th goal they’ve conceded this season, which is their second worst record after 32 games in the Premier League after conceding 47 in 1996-97"

As much as Willian scored two, he is the main problem in setting up rapid attacks, Rather like  Hazard was, he slows the pace to a standstill, then tries to bamboozle all defenders, by which time the defence have easily reorganised, he just slow slows us down, when you have Vibrant attackers like Pulisic, and Mount showing, he's good but he aint Messi.

Edited July 2, 20206 yr by Ballack & Blu

We always said Frank gets a bye this season,but if he doesn't address this situation next season  when a lot of other clubs will be stronger i really don't feel he will get a third season.

Frank biggest problem still is he has no idea what his best team is.

12 hours ago, Argo said:

The best way to protect the defense is keeping possession and playing on the front foot.

Yes, but the problem is we often do not generate shots with possession. I think, more than the defense, is that we do not do enough with possession. We don’t get into the attacking third fast enough. Often, once we get there, we do not really generate a serious attack because Azpi and Alonso turn the ball over or Kante resets the attack by passing short or back to the midfield.

I really believe that they went after Ziyech and Warner to try and convert possession into shots. Right now, the only guy who does that every week is Pulisic. When the offense was clicking before the break, Tammy and Mount were also doing this. 

2 hours ago, Argo said:

Usually after a bad result has particularly annoyed me I eventually look at it in a bit more context and feel a bit better on refection, not today, if anything it's got me even more wound up.

 

The main reason being it was totally avoidable, I have got a bit of stick for being critical despite the three wins last week but I was doing it for a reason and that was because I could see a night like this coming from Mars. Even if we got away with it last night (which we nearly did as Giroud should have scored near the end) I still would have felt worried as it was only kicking the can down the road, make no mistake this was coming, if it didn't happen tonight it would have been Bramal Lane or Selhurst Park (possibly even Watford at home), still could be if no lessons are learned!

 

If that was our best line up I'd suck it up until there's a chance to change things, but it wasn't, EVERY SINGLE PLAYER who was part of that incredible smashing of Everton (which was probably our best and most complete performance since the same fixture in Conte's title season) have been available since the restart, why haven't we seen that lineup (exception being Pulisic in instead of Pedro) again? and worse than that, why has the catalyst for that display only been seen in 50 minutes out of position in 4 games? That game (and the Liverpool game) were beautiful, it looked like we finally found our best core of players, best system, the style of play was mesmerising and it didn't even last another game, ripped up for sh*t on a stick football where a player that wasn't even playing for us that afternoon is now having to bail us out constantly, just how?

 

Another thing really annoying me are the CB issues. I'm not Zouma's biggest fan but him and Rudiger were slowly forming a really good partnership before the break, WHY THE HELL HAS THAT BEEN TINKERED WITH? I'm one of the minority that think while our CBs will never be world class (apart from potentially Fik) they've been dealt a bad hand with Kepa's form and constantly being rotated about, pick Zouma with either Fik or Rudi keep them there and all off a sudden things won't look too bad.

 

Don't get me started (again) on Kante always being picked AND playing 90 minutes no matter what, it was bad enough earlier on in the season but Frank still hasn't learned his lesson. The fact he's still being selected means either Lampard genuinely thinks we're actually better with him in the team despite all the evidence and metrics saying otherwise or he's playing him because of what he was/is at his very best. I hate being critical of him (Kante) as he's one of my favourite all time players for the club and I'll always appreciate the difference he made when he arrived but that's one thing with me, I'm so club/team orientated that I don't have trouble letting my head rule my heart (Drogba is my all time favorite and i was against him returning in 2014). Also with Mount in the side, we don't even miss Kante's engine as much as we use too.

 

Then there's the regista issue. Some people don't seem to want to embrace the idea of a regista because they're all on the "traditional DM" idea and can't be moved, but it's actually one of the most important positions in the modern game, having players who can dictate from deep at a high level are absolute gold dust in the modern game, we've got not only one but two and neither are being played, and in favour of putting a box to box player there (therefore neglecting his best attribute), that's Mourinho lite.

 

Frank's a young manager so I will give him the time to fix this sh*t especially as I have seen serious promise with him (if this was an experienced manager pulling this I'd be going full Claude) but if these tactics and selections are the "new normal" then *yikes*.

Sorry to drag this out but what other top teams use a Regista? Football is constantly evolving & if you don’t adapt you will be left behind. Fans seem to have forgotten how narrow we looked last season, all an opposition team had to do was sit back & hit us on the counter. With a regista everything starts & goes through him in the middle of the park. 
Liverpool & City to an extent now use a system where the ball is moved quickly to the flanks using fullbacks as playmakers. With Liverpool the ball spends so little time in the middle, and they push their fullbacks so far upfield with their midfielders filling the spaces behind them.

For me personally I find “registas” as part of an hipster movement. We now have fans saying without Jorginho we can’t play good football, which is entirely false. We are not hoofing the ball upfield, still seeing loads of the balls, we just aren’t punishing them because we lack creativity in the final third. We get a decent pair of fullbacks to explore the width of the field and we are an entirely different side. People might call Pep mad for spending £50m on fullbacks, but you can’t underestimate how pivotal Mendy & Walker are to his system. Ask anyone who watches Serie A what teams have been the most exciting, and Sarri’s Juve might not even make top 3. They might play more passes, but Lazio & Atalanta have scored more goals & been more exciting to watch.

1 hour ago, jack_super_class said:

Frank biggest problem still is he has no idea what his best team is.

Probably because that's not his team.

I'm divided on Frank. On one hand, he inherited somebody else's squad that relied for years on an individual brilliance of a player who'd left just before Frank took over, a squad lacking in individual quality and suffering from  years of poor scouting and transfer blunders. He couldn't get rid of the deadwood or buy the players he'd have wanted in the team due to the transfer ban. He had to involve young players with little to no experience at the PL level probably much more often than he'd have done under different circumstances  and that made things even more difficult. He's also a young inexperienced manager who's learning his craft in the most competitive league in the world in a club where the pressure on a manager to deliver results and trophies is enormous. Before the season started, given all these factors I expected us to finish outside of the top four, closer to 7th spot rather than 4th. The fact that we're still in the race for the top four with a handful of games to play is a credit to his work. 

On the other, I'm puzzled by some of the things I've witnessed this season time and again. I know Lamps didn't sign our defenders but as bad as they are there are worse defensive units out there who do a much better job. It comes down to coaching and we were struggling in that aspect all season. Defending set pieces  has become an impossible task. Who's in charge of those in training? Morris? Edwards? Whoever it is, they're stealing a living. Frank needs an experienced assistant who knows how to coach proper defensive organization, what we've been watching for months now has been an embarrassment and cost us valuable points.

8 minutes ago, abramovich said:

Probably because that's not his team.

I'm divided on Frank. On one hand, he inherited somebody else's squad that relied for years on an individual brilliance of a player who'd left just before Frank took over, a squad lacking in individual quality and suffering from  years of poor scouting and transfer blunders. He couldn't get rid of the deadwood or buy the players he'd have wanted in the team due to the transfer ban. He had to involve young players with little to no experience at the PL level probably much more often than he'd have done under different circumstances  and that made things even more difficult. He's also a young inexperienced manager who's learning his craft in the most competitive league in the world in a club where the pressure on a manager to deliver results and trophies is enormous. Before the season started, given all these factors I expected us to finish outside of the top four, closer to 7th spot rather than 4th. The fact that we're still in the race for the top four with a handful of games to play is a credit to his work. 

On the other, I'm puzzled by some of the things I've witnessed this season time and again. I know Lamps didn't sign our defenders but as bad as they are there are worse defensive units out there who do a much better job. It comes down to coaching and we were struggling in that aspect all season. Defending set pieces  has become an impossible task. Who's in charge of those in training? Morris? Edwards? Whoever it is, they're stealing a living. Frank needs an experienced assistant who knows how to coach proper defensive organization, what we've been watching for months now has been an embarrassment and cost us valuable points.

You last statement there is the key I dont feel there is a proper defensive coach we have 2 goalkeeping coaches but I would like to have a proper old school defender turned coach in there 

1 hour ago, Bluesince66 said:

We always said Frank gets a bye this season,but if he doesn't address this situation next season  when a lot of other clubs will be stronger i really don't feel he will get a third season.

Nobody should, no matter how much of a club legend you are. Of course, results will show next season. I do think he's still a decent manager, but I believe Jody is the one who has more input than we think. Jody, after all, was the greatest youth coach in Europe for a while. Lampard on the other hand has only coached one side previously to this. I will stick by and support Lampard of course, but the jury was out for me before he joined the club due to his limited coaching career and unspectactular time with Derby.

People, especially the media, can rave about him being an English coach and previous player etc, etc, but they are and always will be the first to bring the guy down when he doesn't do well. It is why It doesn't matter who we hire because they'll never been shown the respect by the media and will start to be hounded by them as soon as there are a couple poor results. We saw evidence of that before this virus lockdown when we weren't on the best of form. 

Edited July 2, 20206 yr by enigma

3 hours ago, coco said:

Indeed...

Manchester City6–0Chelsea

Bournemouth4–0Chelsea

Tottenham Hotspur3–1Chelsea

Yeah that's it. The problem this season is they are consistent. 

40 minutes ago, abramovich said:

Probably because that's not his team.

I'm divided on Frank. On one hand, he inherited somebody else's squad that relied for years on an individual brilliance of a player who'd left just before Frank took over, a squad lacking in individual quality and suffering from  years of poor scouting and transfer blunders. He couldn't get rid of the deadwood or buy the players he'd have wanted in the team due to the transfer ban. He had to involve young players with little to no experience at the PL level probably much more often than he'd have done under different circumstances  and that made things even more difficult. He's also a young inexperienced manager who's learning his craft in the most competitive league in the world in a club where the pressure on a manager to deliver results and trophies is enormous. Before the season started, given all these factors I expected us to finish outside of the top four, closer to 7th spot rather than 4th. The fact that we're still in the race for the top four with a handful of games to play is a credit to his work. 

On the other, I'm puzzled by some of the things I've witnessed this season time and again. I know Lamps didn't sign our defenders but as bad as they are there are worse defensive units out there who do a much better job. It comes down to coaching and we were struggling in that aspect all season. Defending set pieces  has become an impossible task. Who's in charge of those in training? Morris? Edwards? Whoever it is, they're stealing a living. Frank needs an experienced assistant who knows how to coach proper defensive organization, what we've been watching for months now has been an embarrassment and cost us valuable points.

I wasn't blaming Frank for not knowing his team, wasn't a criticism about him. I dont know our best team either.

Have we ever tried Kovacic as the so called regista? Wouldn't he combine Kante and Jorghinos attributes the best. 

Maybe the overall shape doesn't work, something more in line with Conte's midfield pair (Kante Matic) could work. I don't like the regista approach, too depended on one player, split up the duties of this position. 

2 minutes ago, jack_super_class said:

I wasn't blaming Frank for not knowing his team, wasn't a criticism about him. I dont know our best team either.

I know, I wasn't disagreeing with your point, just quoted it because it made me think about things I wanted to discuss.

5 minutes ago, Nevamind said:

Have we ever tried Kovacic as the so called regista? Wouldn't he combine Kante and Jorghinos attributes the best. 

Maybe the overall shape doesn't work, something more in line with Conte's midfield pair (Kante Matic) could work. I don't like the regista approach, too depended on one player, split up the duties of this position. 

Sarri tried it didn't. Our best form came when Kante was out of the team and it was Jorginho and Kovacic and Mount. Not sure why Frank doesn't try it again.

8 hours ago, Gol15 said:

Mount has played all 32 games so far (27 as a starter), Kova 28 (20 as a starter), Jorgi 26 (23 as a starter). 

This illusion that Kante ruined "super stars" is hilarious 

I never said "ruined" but Kante coming in when he did definitely upset the balance we had at the time. You don't break up a winning team, it almost always has a negative affect.