Funnily enough I don't think Frank is that articulate as a manger think what he excels at is the ability to motivate and inspire players.

They seem to want to play for him and its funny watching him jump and punch the air after we win almost like a Conte show of emotion.

 

6 hours ago, Sindre said:

What's really exciting is how young we are. If you think about it most of our XI is merely getting started in their career and yet we are still looking like we can compete for the title this season already. Seven of our usual starters are 23 or under, and the likes of Kovacic and Zouma aren't excactly old either at 26. 

It's just a year and a half ago that the squad looked very old and stale. To turn it around as quick as the club and Lampard have managed to is nothing short of incredibly impressive.

His squad building feels too good to be true. Lampard has blended our best prospects with star signing's AND has benched/got rid off all the player's the average fan complained about under Conte and Sarri. What's even more promising is the rare times he does get it wrong (wanting the club to cave into Willian's demands for a 3 year deal) the board is ready to intervene. 

Edited December 6, 20205 yr by Argo

So far this season Lampard has managed to have 13 different players to score a goal in the PL. We got Werner with 4 goals and Zouma with the same tally, that's how versatile our team is.

6 hours ago, Strider6003 said:

They seem to want to play for him and its funny watching him jump and punch the air after we win almost like a Conte show of emotion.

 

It’s almost as if he’s emotionally invested in the club and happy when we do well. Odd behaviour indeed. 

I'm a happy clappy ecstatic fanatic at the moment. 

An urbane, genuine club legend in charge of a team of mostly young, some home grown players, playing an exciting, modern brand of football.

The team is showing real signs of quality coaching too. Real competition for places and it looks like they've all bought into the plan.

This could turn into dreamland.

 

 

I'm viewing other platforms and Leeds fans in big numbers are gushing over our performance saying it's the best they've faced this season by a distance (for context they've faced both City and Liverpool) and they believe it was the first time all season they were truly outsmarted and kept at arms length.

For them to concede that as a herd given how they feel about us and especially Lampard carries some weight in my eyes.

22 minutes ago, Argo said:

I'm viewing other platforms and Leeds fans in big numbers are gushing over our performance saying it's the best they've faced this season by a distance (for context they've faced both City and Liverpool) and they believe it was the first time all season they were truly outsmarted and kept at arms length.

For them to concede that as a herd given how they feel about us and especially Lampard carries some weight in my eyes.

There's really no way they can feel hard done by due to the penalty situation. Yes, if their player goes over, it's a penalty for sure and it's potentially 2-2, but they got smashed that game. Very lucky to not have conceded about 6 or 7 with some absolutely crazy sitters. 

 

Michael Owen talking about how Grank would be mistaking to rely on Giroud to lead us to the title. Stating he never won a title with Arsenal and has not so far with us, and that he did not score at the world cup, and that neither us nor Arsenal considered him first choice.

Disagree on that one. He is the perfect link forward. France won the world cup with the other attackers scoring. We just need Pulisic, Mount, Havertz, CHO, Ziyech and Werner to step up.

7 hours ago, Slojo said:

There's really no way they can feel hard done by due to the penalty situation. Yes, if their player goes over, it's a penalty for sure and it's potentially 2-2, but they got smashed that game. Very lucky to not have conceded about 6 or 7 with some absolutely crazy sitters. 

Yeah maybe I'm blinkered, but he didn't go down and therefore it's not a penalty. He rode the challenge, kept the ball and play wasn't affected. Yes if he had gone down if would be a penalty, but he didn't. That's not the refs fault. 

Or to twist that annoying cliche. "If that had happened anywhere else on the pitch it wouldn't be a free kick"

 

4 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Michael Owen talking about how Grank would be mistaking to rely on Giroud to lead us to the title. Stating he never won a title with Arsenal and has not so far with us, and that he did not score at the world cup, and that neither us nor Arsenal considered him first choice.

Disagree on that one. He is the perfect link forward. France won the world cup with the other attackers scoring. We just need Pulisic, Mount, Havertz, CHO, Ziyech and Werner to step up.

Also Giroud has scored in the last 6 games he has started and we've scored 25 goals in 11 games. 

1 hour ago, bisright1 said:

Yeah maybe I'm blinkered, but he didn't go down and therefore it's not a penalty. He rode the challenge, kept the ball and play wasn't affected. Yes if he had gone down if would be a penalty, but he didn't. That's not the refs fault. 

Or to twist that annoying cliche. "If that had happened anywhere else on the pitch it wouldn't be a free kick"

 

That was exactly my thought, I was literally shouting at the TV at the clueless commentary trying to make an issue out of nothing. Contact was made but not enough to make him go down and breakdown the play, they carried on and got a shot off. If he went down when he clearly could have stayed on his feet it would be a dive and would in my book go down as cheating and therefore no penalty.

Football has to be the only sport where even the commentators promote cheating to gain their team an advantage.

1 minute ago, Imran_CFC said:

That was exactly my thought, I was literally shouting at the TV at the clueless commentary trying to make an issue out of nothing. Contact was made but not enough to make him go down and breakdown the play, they carried on and got a shot off. If he went down when he clearly could have stayed on his feet it would be a dive and would in my book go down as cheating and therefore no penalty.

Football has to be the only sport where even the commentators promote cheating to gain their team an advantage.

The compliment on Match of the Day to the player staying on his feet baffled me. The contact was minimal and not enough to take a tumble, so if he had fallen it could be constituted as a dive. So was he complimented for not diving?!

1 minute ago, Valerie said:

The compliment on Match of the Day to the player staying on his feet baffled me. The contact was minimal and not enough to take a tumble, so if he had fallen it could be constituted as a dive. So was he complimented for not diving?!

I remember Souness calling it a "Latin" thing when players went down, it certainly is becoming an "English" thing with commentators and Pundits asking for a player to go down and the England Captain diving around like prime Tom Daley on a weekly basis.

6 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Michael Owen talking about how Grank would be mistaking to rely on Giroud to lead us to the title. Stating he never won a title with Arsenal and has not so far with us, and that he did not score at the world cup, and that neither us nor Arsenal considered him first choice.

Disagree on that one. He is the perfect link forward. France won the world cup with the other attackers scoring. We just need Pulisic, Mount, Havertz, CHO, Ziyech and Werner to step up.

Michael open is another ex pool who media companies love to give him time and really talks crap 

1 minute ago, Valerie said:

The compliment on Match of the Day to the player staying on his feet baffled me. The contact was minimal and not enough to take a tumble, so if he had fallen it could be constituted as a dive. So was he complimented for not diving?!

I think it's just the 'norm' for players to go down like a sack of sh*t at the slightest hint of contact and referees can't really do anything about it. If there's no contact it's a dive and a yellow card, but if there's any contact at all, no matter how slight, it's fair game and it's expected the player will take a tumble. The possibility of winning a penalty is too valuable to pass up. With that in mind, I don't think it's remarkable that commentators would compliment a player for not going down when most other players would have.

34 minutes ago, bluedave said:

I don't think it's remarkable that commentators would compliment a player for not going down when most other players would have.

Can we expect the same credit from Lineker and co when our players stay on their feet ? i doubt it.

33 minutes ago, coco said:

Can we expect the same credit from Lineker and co when our players stay on their feet ? i doubt it.

Unfortunately I think we'll have to wait a long time to find out.

52 minutes ago, bluedave said:

Unfortunately I think we'll have to wait a long time to find out.

You will have a long wait if you don't watch that crock of sh*t MOTD.

3 hours ago, Valerie said:

The compliment on Match of the Day to the player staying on his feet baffled me. The contact was minimal and not enough to take a tumble, so if he had fallen it could be constituted as a dive. So was he complimented for not diving?!

Baffled me because I do actually agree he should have taken a tumble. He should be criticised for not diving. It's the premier league and these margins matter. I guarantee bielsa will not be complimenting him. 

My problem is purely criticising the refs and VAR in this instance. If the guy doesn't go down and play hasn't been affected, it's not a foul and it shouldn't be. I also think that too many fouls are given because there is contact and too often fouls aren't given because half a toe nail grazes the ball.

 

9 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Michael Owen talking about how Grank would be mistaking to rely on Giroud to lead us to the title. Stating he never won a title with Arsenal and has not so far with us, and that he did not score at the world cup, and that neither us nor Arsenal considered him first choice.

Disagree on that one. He is the perfect link forward. France won the world cup with the other attackers scoring. We just need Pulisic, Mount, Havertz, CHO, Ziyech and Werner to step up.

There are very few ex-players who are not biased .. of the ones that are it is easy to spot how both the Owen's (Michael and Hargreaves) big up their ex-clubs and talk down others, Micah is extremely pro city, same with Schmeichel , Scholes for utd ... Wright and Kewon are Arsenal .. CFC has some voice with Joe and Ashley.. pool has Souness and Steve Nicol.. While Spurs boy Jenas is unbearable ..
 

but a lot of the other pundits are quite balanced in their view.. i think Shearer, Sherwood, Keane (is actually anti-united and i find it funny), Carra , Neville, Craig Burley are balanced.. 

then there are some ex-players who just wake up do no homework and reach the studio.. Frank/Shaka/jenas/savage/Danny Murphy to name a few..

Second highest team in PL history after the latest win now.

What are they talking about on sky? Carra and Freddie trying to justify Klopps claim we have the strongest squad?

How so? They say Gilmour is the only one who is a downgraded when picking 2 11s from our squad because he is wet behind the ears. Are you guys serious.

You ripped Kepa to pieces, and rightly so. Now he is not a downgrade on Mendy? Do me a favour, he is the worst goalkeeper in the league. Period.

Alonso not a downgrade on Chilwell, did you see him at West Brom? How about rudiger the christensen last season? They are not a downgrade on Silva? Laughable.

I could go on but shesh guys get your heads out of Klopps a$$

Edited December 7, 20205 yr by axman2526

8 hours ago, Gol15 said:

Second highest team in PL history after the latest win now.

Is that based on points won?

I'm still fully preparing for that bad patch where things will inevitably turn sour and we start dropping points. Don't get me wrong, I expect we'll finish top 4 this season, I would say comfortably but you look at the ridiculous luck United are getting and are still somehow only 3 points behind with a game in hand. Last season things were going great until that West Ham game and December we really struggled, obviously at the moment we can treat this month as November given the COVID situation. 

The major difference this time is, is that we are solid at the back. Last season you could tell things were eventually going to start dropping, the defence was piss poor, constantly letting goals in nonstop. I remember we were waiting for Rudiger's return so that he can rally the troops, he turned out to be the worst of the lot and an absolute liability. Then on top of that you had Kepa, no doubt one of the worst signings in football history when it comes to flops. 

Now it's a lot different! December is going to be hard, no Ziyech is a right pain in the balls, I expect us to drop some points here and there. You've got West Ham coming up and no doubt those c**ts will probably prove to be Franks official bogey team as they somehow beat us twice last season. And I have no doubt that we'll play Arsenal just as they're starting to find their feet, that happened last season. Just be prepared for that period, it's going to be tight, lots of tight fixtures and hard games. 

The main factor for us having a strong season will be fitness. I don't think we'll challenge for the title, so I'm not going to even start thinking about it until another 10 games or so. But if we can keep all of our key players fit, we're in for a good season. Because we have the quality, going forward we are brilliant, that's something Frank has never had trouble with since coming here. But what happens if Chilwell is out for a month? Oh great, we've got Emerson at left back, a complete liability and offers nothing going forward. It's situations like that which will determine our success big time. It might sound pretty obvious, but it's not, this time it really is just about keeping players fit and we will do well. 

Come the end of the season I think we'll be in the market for another DM (Declan Rice probably) to compete with Kante and offer rotation, a new LB to rotate with Chilwell and probably a new defender. I don't think we will need to sign anyone in January fingers crossed.