We personally should have stuck with the team that beat Everton but it is what it is, hopefully we can get a result against Watford now.

1 hour ago, Scott Harris said:

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.

Did he, or did we overrate our own wins?

The longest winning streak match wise we had this season started in late September and lasted till late October, during that period we won these 7 games:

Chelsea 7:1 Grimsby (League Cup) W
Chelsea 2:0 Brighton (Premier League) W
Lille 1:2 Chelsea (Champions League) W
Southampton 1:4 Chelsea (Premier League) W
Chelsea 1:0 Newcastle (Premier League) W
Ajax 0:1 Chelsea (Champions League) W
Burnley 2:4 Chelsea (Premier League) W
Chelsea 1:2 Manchester United L

Lets see those wins now a bit closer shall we;

League Cup win against Grimsby was always going to be a win so you can count that out as a great achievement! ↘️
Premier League wins during that period: Brighton, Southampton, Newcastle and Burnley. This is how the league table was after those 10 Premier League games were played:
Brighton was 14th, Southampton was 18th, Newcastle was 17th, Burnley was 13th. We won 4 games in a row in the league during our 7 game winning streak in total, all against the bottom feeders, the only club that isn't among the lower half team today is Burnley that is sitting at the very edge there being 9th, with 2 points ahead of Sheffield and Everton.
Was this such an amazing achievement, to win 4 games against these weak teams? I think not! ↘️
That leaves the last 2 games, group stage of the Champions League, wins against Lille and Ajax. Is Lille a good team that should have had a chance against us? Not at all. ↘️ Is Ajax? Yes. ↗️

But wait, lets see if Kante played in any of these matches that made our biggest winning streak this season...It turns out...hold on...
Kante played 90 minutes against Lille & Southampton, he scored a goal vs Southampton as well!

So you're telling me that Kante somehow affected negatively our squad, even though our biggest winning streak was actually made out of wins against teams that we most definitely should have won in any scenario but that's not all, you're saying that he upset the balance of the team WHILE playing a role in our biggest winning streak this season at the same time! I think we are ready to close this argument now!

Conclusion:
Our biggest winning streak this season came from winning games that we should win anyway, we just had a run of easier games and the only notable win that can be seen as a real achievement was our win against Ajax away in the Champions League group stage.
Kante did play 90min in 2/7 of those wins, scoring 1 goal so he can't be blamed at all for upsetting the balance of our squad. 

 

 

5 hours ago, ducavis said:

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.

City have Fernandinho (and wanted Jorginho as his successor), PSG have Verrati, Real Madrid have Modric and Kroos, Barcelona have De Jong who's Busquets long term successor (the latter won his place over more "traditional DM" Keita and box to box Yaya), De Jong was also by far the most crucial player to the Ajax team that became a story in the CL. The only real exception to the rule are Liverpool. If not a regista a player who can dictate from deep helps a lot.

Also it's not just in terms of dictating and playing out that having a regista gives you a tactical edge, it's also in their ability to naturally drop between the two centre half's basically giving the team the chance to seemlessy switch between 433/343 at the drop of a hat, City especially do that a lot, for reference look at the build up to their 2nd goal against Burnley the other week.

Edited July 2, 20206 yr by Argo

1 hour ago, Argo said:

City have Fernandinho (and wanted Jorginho as his successor), PSG have Verrati, Real Madrid have Modric and Kroos, Barcelona have De Jong who's Busquets long term successor (the latter won his place over more "traditional DM" Keita and box to box Yaya), De Jong was also by far the most crucial player to the Ajax team that became a story in the CL. The only real exception to the rule are Liverpool. If not a regista a player who can dictate from deep helps a lot.

Also it's not just in terms of dictating and playing out that having a regista gives you a tactical edge, it's also in their ability to naturally drop between the two centre half's basically giving the team the chance to seemlessy switch between 433/343 at the drop of a hat, City especially do that a lot, for reference look at the build up to their 2nd goal against Burnley the other week.

Fernandinho isn’t a Regista though, and with the emergence of Liverpool and their style of play I don’t think he will be interested in Jorginho anymore. Rodri who is meant to be a replacement for Fernandinho is a pure DM. Verratti tends to play more a box-to-box role for PSG or paired in a 4-2-2-2 with Gueye to free up their wingers. Kroos is renowned for his playmaking further up the field, passing & long ball accuracy. He is a different player to Jorginho. Madrid don’t use a Regista, they use Casemiro as their defensive midfielder. 
 

 

4 hours ago, Gol15 said:

Did he, or did we overrate our own wins?

The longest winning streak match wise we had this season started in late September and lasted till late October, during that period we won these 7 games:

Chelsea 7:1 Grimsby (League Cup) W
Chelsea 2:0 Brighton (Premier League) W
Lille 1:2 Chelsea (Champions League) W
Southampton 1:4 Chelsea (Premier League) W
Chelsea 1:0 Newcastle (Premier League) W
Ajax 0:1 Chelsea (Champions League) W
Burnley 2:4 Chelsea (Premier League) W
Chelsea 1:2 Manchester United L

Lets see those wins now a bit closer shall we;

League Cup win against Grimsby was always going to be a win so you can count that out as a great achievement! ↘️
Premier League wins during that period: Brighton, Southampton, Newcastle and Burnley. This is how the league table was after those 10 Premier League games were played:
Brighton was 14th, Southampton was 18th, Newcastle was 17th, Burnley was 13th. We won 4 games in a row in the league during our 7 game winning streak in total, all against the bottom feeders, the only club that isn't among the lower half team today is Burnley that is sitting at the very edge there being 9th, with 2 points ahead of Sheffield and Everton.
Was this such an amazing achievement, to win 4 games against these weak teams? I think not! ↘️
That leaves the last 2 games, group stage of the Champions League, wins against Lille and Ajax. Is Lille a good team that should have had a chance against us? Not at all. ↘️ Is Ajax? Yes. ↗️

But wait, lets see if Kante played in any of these matches that made our biggest winning streak this season...It turns out...hold on...
Kante played 90 minutes against Lille & Southampton, he scored a goal vs Southampton as well!

So you're telling me that Kante somehow affected negatively our squad, even though our biggest winning streak was actually made out of wins against teams that we most definitely should have won in any scenario but that's not all, you're saying that he upset the balance of the team WHILE playing a role in our biggest winning streak this season at the same time! I think we are ready to close this argument now!

Conclusion:
Our biggest winning streak this season came from winning games that we should win anyway, we just had a run of easier games and the only notable win that can be seen as a real achievement was our win against Ajax away in the Champions League group stage.
Kante did play 90min in 2/7 of those wins, scoring 1 goal so he can't be blamed at all for upsetting the balance of our squad. 

 

 

You mean those same teams that beat us and took points off us with Kante in the team? 

Great logic as always Gol, tremendous high IQ on display. 

 

56 minutes ago, Slojo said:

You mean those same teams that beat us and took points off us with Kante in the team? 

Great logic as always Gol, tremendous high IQ on display. 

 

I pointed out that Kante didn't dismantle "a winning team" which was the initial argument.
Our biggest winning streak had only 1 real big win, adding that Kante was involved in that same streak as well, it's simply false to say that Kante upset any kind of balance in our squad.

Unless you can prove that it's somehow Kante's fault for a loss you have no argument here 
Now if you ignore the facts again and continue with personal insults I will be happy to report you 💣
 

1 hour ago, Gol15 said:

I pointed out that Kante didn't dismantle "a winning team" which was the initial argument.
Our biggest winning streak had only 1 real big win, adding that Kante was involved in that same streak as well, it's simply false to say that Kante upset any kind of balance in our squad.

Unless you can prove that it's somehow Kante's fault for a loss you have no argument here 
Now if you ignore the facts again and continue with personal insults I will be happy to report you 💣
 

Well first you say the stats are meaningless and you trivialise our good early run by saying "well it was against crappy teams and we got lucky", but when we started losing after we disrupted the midfield you say that's not enough evidence. Even though in another thread you were bragging that we've won 3 games in a row with Kante as our CDM. So when it's convenient for you to use stats, you'll do it, but when other people do it, it's misleading and not correct. 

If we didn't have that run between August-November we wouldn't be in the position we are now, it's because of that run against "the weak teams" as you point out, the Newcastles, the Southamptions, the same weak teams that we can't coincidentally seem to beat at the moment, that we are even in the top 4. 

Go ahead and report me, I can safely bet it will be you who's gone from here before me, since all you do is wind everyone up on here with your drivel. 

1 hour ago, Slojo said:

Well first you say the stats are meaningless and you trivialise our good early run by saying "well it was against crappy teams and we got lucky", 

I never said that stats are meaningless, we did win 4 games in the league against much weaker teams that's a fact.

1 hour ago, Slojo said:

 but when we started losing after we disrupted the midfield you say that's not enough evidence. 
 

We never started losing after we disrupted our midfield because we never disrupted our midfield and stats prove it.

1 hour ago, Slojo said:

Even though in another thread you were bragging that we've won 3 games in a row with Kante as our CDM. 

We did win 3 games in a row with Kante as our DM. That goes against everything you stand for.

 

1 hour ago, Slojo said:

So when it's convenient for you to use stats, you'll do it, but when other people do it, it's misleading and not correct. 
 

Point 1 example of that, I don't see you using any stats at all you're just talking rubbish all the time. I used stats to prove that Kante didn't disrupt anything and you simply don't like it so you whine about it but I don't see you making any counter argument at all. 

 

1 hour ago, Slojo said:

If we didn't have that run between August-November we wouldn't be in the position we are now, it's because of that run against "the weak teams" as you point out, the Newcastles, the Southamptions, the same weak teams that we can't coincidentally seem to beat at the moment, that we are even in the top 4. 

I simply proved that our best strike of games isn't a big achievement since it was mostly wins against lower end teams and that Kante did play during our best run of wins, that is very much relevant to the discussion because the opinion was that Kante brought unbalance to the squad and I showed that that isn't true.

1 hour ago, Slojo said:

Go ahead and report me, I can safely bet it will be you who's gone from here before me, since all you do is wind everyone up on here with your drivel. 

Well good luck with that, as long as you keep insulting you will keep getting reported from me. I did ask you to prove that Kante is at fault for some of the losses that you think happened but all you did was to act out as a child.

Uhm, Kante coming back into the side means it's a different midfield... 

I just can't deal with this superior logic, you are right about everything once again. 

14 minutes ago, Slojo said:

Uhm, Kante coming back into the side means it's a different midfield... 

I just can't deal with this superior logic, you are right about everything once again. 

Yea, it's different but that is true when Gilmour and RLC play as well. That doesn't really prove that either player ruined any kind of balance out there, different doesn't mean bad automatically. This is nothing but being realistic, basic logic that's all.

I "just", don't think that Kante did us wrong when he played, he didn't disrupt any other player, nobody looked worse with him in the midfield (well recently he did ruin Jorginho so there's that).

Anyway all of our main midfielders have played more than 20 games as starters, if you can tell me without ad hominem attacks what you want me to believe or what football-wise is wrong with Kante playing, that would be great because I don't really care about me here, I discuss football this isn't about a person but about Chelsea, football tactics and so on, so if you want to discuss football do it, don't confuse a person with the idea that the person is presenting.

 

Personally we are better without Kante with the system we use, it is as simple as that.

1 hour ago, Malcolm9 said:

Personally we are better without Kante with the system we use, it is as simple as that.

Genuinely don't understand why so many are so sensitive to that. 

This is the one (and only) disadvantage of having bonafide world class players who give us their peak years, when they drop off they still get treated as such and pointing that out apparently means you never appreciated them in the first place.

Edited July 3, 20206 yr by Argo

40 minutes ago, Argo said:

Genuinely don't understand why so many are so sensitive to that. 

This is the one (and only) disadvantage of having bonafide world class players who give us their peak years, when they drop off they still get treated as such and pointing that out apparently means you never appreciated them in the first place.

We've had some fantastic years from him but I personally would cash in on him like we did with Eden, I think he has had his peak years.

We could then finance more signings to propel the club forward.

Edited July 3, 20206 yr by Malcolm9

1 hour ago, Argo said:

Genuinely don't understand why so many are so sensitive to that. 

This is the one (and only) disadvantage of having bonafide world class players who give us their peak years, when they drop off they still get treated as such and pointing that out apparently means you never appreciated them in the first place.

To argue that Kante passed his peak and that we should sell him for a higher profit while we can isn't exactly the same as saying that he basically ruins our first team when he steps on the pitch!

He doesn't do anything in offense but he's not half as bad as you make him look

 

I actually think Kante has been playing ok in the holding role except the winner at West Ham though this might have been down to Frank's instructions.

Kante is not  a natural yet I don't think he is suited to any other position in Frank's team. 

Third with four games to go. No one expected that before the season so one must give Lampard a ton of credit for that.
Not crossed the finish line yet and missing out on top 4 would be a big blow at this point but the manager has done really well so far this season. Dealt with several key players massively underperforming as well really and you'd have to say we'd already have secured third at the very least with a half decent goalkeeper this season.

 

On 03/07/2020 at 16:14, Malcolm9 said:

We've had some fantastic years from him but I personally would cash in on him like we did with Eden, I think he has had his peak years.

We could then finance more signings to propel the club forward.

Sad to say it, but i agree. I think his best years are past him, and this will be one of the last years we can really cash in on him.

PSG and Madrid are definitely interested and im sure we can sell to one of them. I would buy Milinkovic-Savic as the ideal replacement as well

Just now, driller97 said:

Sad to say it, but i agree. I think his best years are past him, and this will be one of the last years we can really cash in on him.

PSG and Madrid are definitely interested and im sure we can sell to one of them. I would buy Milinkovic-Savic as the ideal replacement as well

PSG maybe; not starting ahead of Casemiro at Madrid.

Just now, ducavis said:

PSG maybe; not starting ahead of Casemiro at Madrid.

Not sure about starting and all that, but Zidane is definitely a big admirer. As far as im aware, those are the only 2 clubs that are linked with him anyway

Do we think Frank should change Jody as our no2, or is he doing ok?

5 minutes ago, Ballack & Blu said:

Do we think Frank should change Jody as our no2, or is he doing ok?

Impossible for us to have any clue whether Jody is doing a good job. But I've seen no evidence he isn't. 

5 wins in the last 6 PL games, with a blip against West Ham.

Compared to the hype surrounding Man United, I don't think we're getting enough credit yet we're churning out good results at the moment.

Have to keep this momentum going and ensure we secure a top 4 spot.

Frank has done an outstanding job in my opinion. We've had our moments, but I've thoroughly enjoyed this season and getting behind our favourite son.

Just now, Jezz said:

5 wins in the last 6 PL games, with a blip against West Ham.

Compared to the hype surrounding Man United, I don't think we're getting enough credit yet we're churning out good results at the moment.

Have to keep this momentum going and ensure we secure a top 4 spot.

Frank has done an outstanding job in my opinion. We've had our moments, but I've thoroughly enjoyed this season and getting behind our favourite son.

I think it benefits us not to get the recognition now and go under the radar.

Its the business end of the season and every win is hard fought, i would have snapped your hands off if you offered me the position we are in with 4 games to go, Frank and Jody are doing an amazing job with the squad they inherited, you can't turn our defence around until we recruit better players and we have the worst goalkeeper in the division.

Its nerve wracking and exciting, scoring loads of goals and shipping too many but what a season this has been.

After 48 games:

• Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool) = 22 wins, 15 draws, 11 losses (winning percentage of 45.83%)
• Pep Guardiola (Man City) = 28 wins, 11 draws, 9 losses (winning percentage of 58.33%)
• Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (Man United) = 24 wins, 11 draws, 13 losses (winning percentage of 50.00%)
• Frank Lampard (Chelsea) = 26 wins, 9 draws, 13 losses (winning percentage of 54.17%)

After the same period of time, Frank has been as good as the other three. Only Pep edges him out slightly.

Solskjaer is the best comparison and he had the benefit of two transfer windows at the same stage, whereas Frank has only begun utilizing the transfer market for next season.