Super Frank Lampard

[icecoolguy22]

Thought we were positive yesterday, just the final touch not there. Given the way Jose setup and their threat, it'd be reckless to throw everyone forward and risk getting caught by a Kane pass to Son. What was slightly disappointing that Lampard didn't make those changes early enough to have an impact on the game, yesterday the game flew past us and opportunities were lost.

[Deino]

1 minute ago, icecoolguy22 said:

Thought we were positive yesterday, just the final touch not there. Given the way Jose setup and their threat, it'd be reckless to throw everyone forward and risk getting caught by a Kane pass to Son. What was slightly disappointing that Lampard didn't make those changes early enough to have an impact on the game, yesterday the game flew past us and opportunities were lost.

Yep, that was the only issue for me too. Frank's in-game management still needs to improve. 

We could maybe have a few more chances but that's just whataboutism. 

[MayosNoun!]

The sheer amount of happy clapping because of who the manager is, as opposed to what he does, is absolutely bewildering. 
 

If Sarri had played like this against every decent team we faced he would be getting slaughtered. Frightening how much armchair fans sit back and accept 0-0 draw at home to Spurs as acceptable. 

[dkw]

51 minutes ago, MayosNoun! said:

The sheer amount of happy clapping because of who the manager is, 

f**king shut up with this you tedious prick, its not happy clapping its having a different opinion to yours.

Were currently unbeaten in 14 games, scored 35 goals in those 14 games and conceded 2 goals in the last 9 games. Last season and the start of this defence was the major problem and the thing we really needed to concentrate on, that has been done and we are miles ahead as a team compared to last season. We are creating enough chances to have won 75% of the draws we have had which is an indicator we aren't far off. We currently sit 3rd 2 points of the top and have just totally dominated the top team firm wise and should really have won if we had taken our chances. 

Your pathetic agenda against our manager shows you are unable to subjectively opine anything and is embarrassing. 

[Imran_CFC]

There seems to be a clear consensus that Lampard got the timing of his Substitutions wrong in yesterday's game, especially Giroud for Tammy. I have rewatched the game and I think we had the game under complete control in the 2nd half and one of the main reasons for that was Tammy. The CB's were struggling to play the ball out through the middle and were having to go long, this was mainly down to Tammy cutting the passing lanes hence I don't think Lampard wanted to change something that was clearly working.

I feel as though if Spurs had a stronger hold of the game in the 2nd half we may have seen the changes earlier but we absolutely bossed that 2nd half and therefore Frank was reluctant to tweak too much. 

[Guest Sindre]

Lampard is doing great. Anyone saying otherwise are wide of the mark in my opinion.

I don't want to get ahead of myself but at this point i don't see any reason why we can't be part of the title-race this season. Which for me is some achievement considering Lampard is still an unexperienced manager and learning on the job. But if you are a Chelsea-fan and remain unexcited about the way we are developing currently, then i don't understand that.

I very much doubt Mount, James or Abraham would currently be playing for us if Lampard weren't here. If Sarri stayed on and Lampard remained at Derby i bet you a lot of money they would still be out of loan somewhere. Instead they are integral parts of a first-eleven that's currently fighting for the top spot in the premiership.

 

 

[bisright1]

1 hour ago, MayosNoun! said:

The sheer amount of happy clapping because of who the manager is, as opposed to what he does, is absolutely bewildering. 
 

If Sarri had played like this against every decent team we faced he would be getting slaughtered. Frightening how much armchair fans sit back and accept 0-0 draw at home to Spurs as acceptable. 

How is it not acceptable? Nil nil against the team top of the table who have just beaten man city. That's a good result. 

A nil nil where we were the more positive team, had the best chances and should have scored at least 2 of them in my opinion. Nah. I'll take that all day. Perform like that against all the other big teams and carry on performing against the bottom half and we win the league. 

Nothing to do with me liking lampard. I liked sarri. I didn't like conte. But I can recognise a good performance and a bad one. We were ineffective against united and sevilla. We weren't yesterday. 

 

[coco]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55100050

Chelsea: Frank Lampard still learning but is improving Blues - Alan Shearer

By Alan ShearerMOTD2 pundit

Chelsea are not a club known for giving their managers much time to get things right, but the progress Frank Lampard has made so far as Blues boss means he is not in a position where he has to ask for patience.

Yes, Sunday's draw with Tottenham meant Chelsea missed the chance to go top of the Premier League for the first time since Lampard took charge in June 2019 - and that would have been a very visible way of marking their development.

But even without finding a way through Jose Mourinho's side and therefore reaching the summit, their performance quietly underlined the improvements Lampard has made in 17 months in charge.

 

In his first season, their main issues were how they coped defensively, but they have looked far more solid for a few weeks now and it was the same again this time.

Everyone knows how dangerous Spurs are on the counter-attack, but Chelsea completely nullified the threat of Harry Kane and Son Heung-min. Those two did not get a sniff at Stamford Bridge.

I'm sure Frank will be a little disappointed his side did not take their chances, but the quality he has up front means scoring goals is not often going to be a problem for him.

When you look at the bigger picture, Chelsea are clearly still heading in the right direction - even if Lampard will have to wait a little while longer to hit top spot.

'No-one has any reason to doubt him as manager'

I spoke to Lampard last week and, quite rightly, he was delighted with the progress his side had made and where they were at, defensively and offensively.

Sunday's draw does not change that. Chelsea have now only lost once - to Liverpool - in 16 games in all competitions in 2020-21 and are already through to the last 16 of the Champions League.

They are third in the Premier League, only two points off the top, and are joint-highest scorers. Things are coming together nicely for them, and Lampard deserves a lot of credit for that.

He will tell you himself that he is a rookie manager and still learning about the job, but he has been very impressive in everything he has done so far.

Frank's achievements as a Chelsea player, his relationship with the fans and his friendship with the club's owner Roman Abramovich made him a good fit when he was appointed but without results to back that up he would still not have lasted very long.

He achieved his objectives last season under difficult circumstances - Chelsea had just sold their best player, Eden Hazard, and could not make any signings because of a transfer ban.

The Blues had to rely a lot on young players - one of the things that stood out for me was that Frank gave so many of them a chance - but they still finished in the top four and qualified for the Champions League.

At the beginning of this season, expectations were very different because they spent so big in the summer and there is probably more pressure on Lampard. So far, though, he has delivered.

There is still so much that Frank wants to achieve - and win - at Chelsea, but he has made a very strong start. He has not given anyone any reason to doubt him as manager - far from it, in fact.

 

What has Lampard changed about Chelsea?

There was a time when Chelsea were leaking goals badly at the back but that is no longer the case. In all competitions, they have conceded only two goals in their past nine games.

Bringing in Edouard Mendy has made a big difference, because they now have a confident goalkeeper who has kept five clean sheets in six league games.

Thiago Silva also looks an excellent signing, bringing experience and nous to their back-line. He is 36 so he cannot play twice a week, but Lampard is using him wisely too, in order to manage his performances.

 

Then they have N'Golo Kane back doing what he does best - protecting the defence. Along with Mateo Kovacic, he did a great job of tracking Kane and Son and keeping them quiet on Sunday.

It means the Blues are harder to break down, but they have not lost their cutting edge in attack, where they have so many options to choose from.

They did not manage a goal against Tottenham, but had by far the better opportunities even though Mourinho's side were reluctant to open up for the majority of the game.

At times, Spurs had Moussa Sissoko playing as a third centre-half and they were happy sitting deep in their own half.

 

There was not much space for Chelsea to exploit, but they still should have scored. Tammy Abraham had three good chances, Olivier Giroud was through late on and Mason Mount forced a brilliant save from Hugo Lloris.

A point against Spurs in the form they are in goes down as a good result of course but, knowing Frank, he will believe his side can get even better. His challenge now is to build on this excellent start.

Alan Shearer was speaking to BBC Sport's Chris Bevan.

[Valerie]

3 hours ago, MayosNoun! said:

The sheer amount of happy clapping because of who the manager is, as opposed to what he does, is absolutely bewildering. 
 

If Sarri had played like this against every decent team we faced he would be getting slaughtered. Frightening how much armchair fans sit back and accept 0-0 draw at home to Spurs as acceptable. 

Yes, it would have been glorious had we beaten Spurs or Liverpool 4-0, and be top of the league with no points dropped and a 42 goal difference. If accepting anything less (or being realistic, as what most people would call it) is typical of armchair fans, then I'd guess most of us are armchair fans. 

But you just go ahead expecting miracles and slagging off our manager for not delivering those miracles.

[Slojo]

A lot of people say Lampard gets too much protection on here, but I don't think he does. I remember after the Spurs game, a game we only lost on penalties people mind. But people on here were suicidal after that. One of the worst I've seen it on the forum, so many of them wanted him gone on the spot after that game. 

I said before the season started, if we are still conceding the same amount of goals, we will have to start asking serious questions. But since Mendy, Silva and Chilwell have arrived and playing together we've had the best defence in the league. Mendy has the most clean sheets in the league while every other keeper has had a 4 or 5 game head start on him. 

You must give Frank massive credit. Rival fans will no doubt pull the "Well if you spend 250 million" bull sh*t. We had a transfer ban and on top of that bringing that many players isn't easy. Did it improve Conte when he brought in about 7 players after winning the league? What happened there again? Signing that many players requires transition. It's back to 2013 again, with those core players we signed we won the league, two leagues. Transition is overused a lot, but it actually means something in this case, we currently have 6 new starters who we signed in this window, that's a massive factor and takes time to adapt. Klopp and Pep didn't just sign that many players and won the league overnight, It took Klopp 6/8 transfer windows, and Pep 4. Lampard has had 2, and one of them he didn't even spend a penny in. 

I mean, I'm just echoing the growing sentiment here (thankfully), but to the minority of people who think Lampard isn't doing well enough, please for the love of god get some perspective. 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Slojo

[Slojo]

7 hours ago, bisright1 said:

How is it not acceptable? Nil nil against the team top of the table who have just beaten man city. That's a good result. 

A nil nil where we were the more positive team, had the best chances and should have scored at least 2 of them in my opinion. Nah. I'll take that all day. Perform like that against all the other big teams and carry on performing against the bottom half and we win the league. 

Nothing to do with me liking lampard. I liked sarri. I didn't like conte. But I can recognise a good performance and a bad one. We were ineffective against united and sevilla. We weren't yesterday. 

 

Also keep in mind United are a real dark horse in the big games. They beat us 3/4 times last season and in each and every game we outplayed them. Last time, Lampard did the smart thing and played for point, just like Jose did this time. Only this time, we definitely could've won that game, where as we kept United quiet besides the Rashford chance. 

A 0-0 at Old Trafford when we've only won 2 games there in 10 years is a good result I don't care what anyone says. 

[MayosNoun!]

8 hours ago, dkw said:

f**king shut up with this you tedious prick, its not happy clapping its having a different opinion to yours.

Were currently unbeaten in 14 games, scored 35 goals in those 14 games and conceded 2 goals in the last 9 games. Last season and the start of this defence was the major problem and the thing we really needed to concentrate on, that has been done and we are miles ahead as a team compared to last season. We are creating enough chances to have won 75% of the draws we have had which is an indicator we aren't far off. We currently sit 3rd 2 points of the top and have just totally dominated the top team firm wise and should really have won if we had taken our chances. 

Your pathetic agenda against our manager shows you are unable to subjectively opine anything and is embarrassing. 

How come when an faux internet hardman as the one above can spout verbal abuse and others are banned for much less? As the resident happy clapper, do you find it satisfying using such language on the internet? Speaks volumes. 

[Gol15]

It's pretty obvious that we are better this season than what we were last season, yes we had 6 wins in the first 10 games in comparison to having now 5/10 wins but we have lost only 1 game and we have gained more points than last season in the first 10 games.
Last season we also lost 4:0 against ManUtd and conceded 12 goals not counting that 4:0 loss. While this season we conceded 10 goals in 10 games which is a clear improvement in defense and that was our biggest issue, we went down from conceding 16 goals in the first 10 games to 10 goals and the 2 games where our opponents scored 3 goals we didn't lose those game, we played 3:3 draws twice so even when we did concede a higher amount of goals we still managed to not lose the game.

I'm not ashamed to say that I'm happy with the 0:0, it's a derby even if some won't acknowledge that and anything could have happened.

When Zouma passed the ball very sloppy in the last minutes Lo Celso could have decided to shoot instead of trying to pass it and Mendy had a nice save in the first half when Spurs attacked through the middle, it was a tight game and people already forgot that we are missing our first choice left winger Pulisic and that Havertz had the virus.

I can't say how things would have been if Sarri had stayed when it comes down to players but I feel very confident about one thing, had Sarri stayed we wouldn't have signed Werner and Havertz and maybe not even Ziyech. Lampard was a key figure in those signings.

[Valerie]

14 hours ago, MayosNoun! said:

How come when an faux internet hardman as the one above can spout verbal abuse and others are banned for much less? As the resident happy clapper, do you find it satisfying using such language on the internet? Speaks volumes. 

Others haven't been banned for much less.

BTW what bothers you so much about the more nuanced position most posters take up here when it comes to our results so far? As far as I can tell none of us are blind to any mistakes or shortcomings Lampard might have, it is generally agreed that he isn't the finished article and still has a lot to learn. It is hardly happy clappy.

We are currently 3rd in the league, 2 points off first, and a goal difference of plus 12, and 5 clean sheets out of 10. In the CL we are currently 1st in our group, goal difference of plus 8, 3 clean sheets out of 4 matches. Comparing the corresponding league matches of last season, we've improved our result in 5 matches, equalled 3 matches and did worse in 1 (I'm not counting the West Brom match because we didn't play them last season). The only match we lost this season we also lost last season, against Liverpool. After 10 matches last season we had lost 2, occupying 4th spot. I see improvement, don't you?

In view of the fact that we have no god given right to win everything, what were your expectations for this point in the season? Or is winning against Spurs your only desire for a season?

Edited December 1, 2020 by Valerie

[MayosNoun!]

Scoring a goal against any decent team would be a positive start...

[Valerie]

20 minutes ago, MayosNoun! said:

Scoring a goal against any decent team would be a positive start...

Strictly speaking that would mean losing 2-1 would be a positive start to you. 

[Guest Sindre]

23 hours ago, Gol15 said:

I can't say how things would have been if Sarri had stayed when it comes down to players but I feel very confident about one thing, had Sarri stayed we wouldn't have signed Werner and Havertz and maybe not even Ziyech. Lampard was a key figure in those signings.

Not to forget Thiago Silva and Chilwell.

I've had major issues with the clubs scattergun approach to transfers and plan for the future in previous years. I've had a go at the board for what i thought was incompetence in certain windows and in general i struggled to see a clear plan for where we wanted to go at the club.

Appointing Lampard was a masterstroke though. Really ballsy move which the club deserve massive credit for. Appointing Petr Cech as techincal director as the bridge between Lampard and Marina was another. For me they have turned the club around in a very short period of time.

 

[Barry Bridges]

2 points off top of the table with 25% of the season gone while geling a new team together, and not having a decent keeper for the first bit?.....pathetic.

Qualifying from the CL group stages with multiple games in hand?...pathetic.

 

I mean for heavens sake when is Lampard going to finally win the World Cup with Chelsea? He should be doing it every other year, and already in his second year at the club.

 

Oh, but if he manages to challenge for the title and do well in the CL I bet some of the happy clappers will be happy......but what about Euros?  Why hasn't Lampard won that with Chelsea yet?

 

If Gilmour doesnt win the BallonDo'r, and we dont pick up wither the World Cup or Euros this season only deluded Lampard fans will be happy regardless of how we do in the CL or PL. Pathetic fans.  Sarri would have won them all had he 2 seasons with us.

 

 

[Argo]

On 30/11/2020 at 19:13, MayosNoun! said:

How come when an faux internet hardman as the one above can spout verbal abuse and others are banned for much less? As the resident happy clapper, do you find it satisfying using such language on the internet? Speaks volumes. 

Many people constructed decent country arguments to your post, if you did the same back Instead of trying to deflect with a patronising remark maybe you wouldn't have been treated to a "faux hard man".

I'll give you that chance now, apart from maybe keeping Tammy on a bit too long what exactly did Frank do wrong tactically against Tottenham? Also I myself was quite critical of the attacking performances against both United and Sevilla (and you can check my posting history around that point if you don't believe me) so the happy clapping deflection won't work this time!

[Ballack & Blu]

Anyone who thinks you're going to steam a team that at times was playing 6 defenders, and a completely abject performance from Kane, who Mourinho thinks is now Englands premier league version of Tom Brady FFS, Kantes easiest game of the season, a little more self belief, and converting some of RJs delicious crosses, we would of buried them, KTBFFH

[Deino]

On 30/11/2020 at 17:23, MayosNoun! said:

The sheer amount of happy clapping because of who the manager is, as opposed to what he does, is absolutely bewildering. 
 

If Sarri had played like this against every decent team we faced he would be getting slaughtered. Frightening how much armchair fans sit back and accept 0-0 draw at home to Spurs as acceptable. 

I am genuinely baffled. 

In the build up to this game, the Spuds were in lethal form and had a week's rest. All their starters were experienced Premier League players who gave played for a while together and are hitting their prime or in their prime with Jose Mourinho at the helm. 

On the other hand we are a team still getting to know each other with 6 starters being introduced and each one of them were in and out of the squad during certain points of the season with Frank entering his 3rd year of management starting to hit a bit of form. Bear in mind this is in a season where there is a game every 3 days just after a season of no transfer window, barely scraping 4th last season with a team that was depending 100% on a young inconsistent Pulisic to get us out of tough spots last season. 

Against them, Frank's tactics and personnel were spot on. We didn't give Spurs a sniff and we were creating good chances. Kept a clean sheet as well. Everyone associated with and is a fan of football would've understood that it was a game won in the moment. 

Had Tammy tilted his head 5cm forward soon as the ball was in front of him, we would have won.

After all that, the one you blamed is Frank? Wtf? 

 

Edited December 2, 2020 by Deino

[bluedave]

3 hours ago, Deino said:

I am genuinely baffled. 

In the build up to this game, the Spuds were in lethal form and had a week's rest. All their starters were experienced Premier League players who gave played for a while together and are hitting their prime or in their prime with Jose Mourinho at the helm. 

On the other hand we are a team still getting to know each other with 6 starters being introduced and each one of them were in and out of the squad during certain points of the season with Frank entering his 3rd year of management starting to hit a bit of form. Bear in mind this is in a season where there is a game every 3 days just after a season of no transfer window, barely scraping 4th last season with a team that was depending 100% on a young inconsistent Pulisic to get us out of tough spots last season. 

Against them, Frank's tactics and personnel were spot on. We didn't give Spurs a sniff and we were creating good chances. Kept a clean sheet as well. Everyone associated with and is a fan of football would've understood that it was a game won in the moment. 

Had Tammy tilted his head 5cm forward soon as the ball was in front of him, we would have won.

After all that, the one you blamed is Frank? Wtf? 

 

Yeah but, happy clapper!

 

[Munkunku]

Guys it’s not a fair fight if you use constructive, intelligent arguments against someone who doesn’t possess the requisite assets to fight back. You’ve scared the poor lad off now. Shame on you all. 

[MayosNoun!]

I let action do the talking. 
 

The manager finally starts Giroud, we finally score against a good team. 
 

Thanks for playing anyway. 
 

 

[ForeverCarefree]

On 01/12/2020 at 14:12, MayosNoun! said:

Scoring a goal against any decent team would be a positive start...