13 minutes ago, mm24 said:

I'm a bit dissapointed in Frank tonight. I thought that for sure he was going to go with 3 at the back considering all of our wingers are injured. That way Chilwell and James could play as wb's and neither of Werner or Havertz would have to play on the wing. 

3-5-2 was the way to go here and tbh I was shocked when i didnt see it in the second half at least when it was clear that James is our only attacking threat lol

Bringing Gilmoure on was icing on the cake. What was he trying to do with that change? 

For me a good point about going 3-5-2 in the 2nd.

1 hour ago, Scott Harris said:

One thing is for certain, both Havertz and Werner weren't bought in to be played on the wing, and that is where Werner has been playing in nearly every game he has played for us. Get him up front and settled. I know Hudson-Odoi is injured now, but he is the one that should have been filling in for Pulisic when Pulisic is out injured, not Werner.

As for Havertz, it looks like he has been rushed into the team too soon. I think Lampard should have done with him what he did with Pulisic when he first signed for us. Give him time to settle before throwing him in to the first team in every game. Havertz has a lot of work to do to adapt his game to the Premier League.

Pretty much this they are not wingers and being asked the play there in new league(physically the toughest)in a unusual season. This will only kill their confidence.

I think this is what happened with Werner already, sadly his work rate didn't properly reward him and he looks like his confidence has taken a hit, understandable.

Lampard has to adapt his tactics to the players he has, he can't just play the same formation regardless of which players he has available. Tactically he had changed the formation for the Man Utd game where we were focusing primarily not to lose and that was a good decision but otherwise he has been pretty rigid so far this season.

And I said the same thing about Sarri as well, a manager should adapt to the strengths of his players, to me this isn't about a principle, it's not like the team isn't playing the way Lampard wants them to, which is what used to be Sarri's complaint.

I mean at one point I saw Werner on the right side as a winger close to the corner flag trying to cross the ball towards Giroud... That's your last seasons 30+ goal scorer trying to assist to Giroud when we are chasing the result, I see that as a totally wrong setup, both need to be around the box at that time and chances are Werner is going to be closer to get himself into a scoring chance than anyone else on the pitch so he shouldn't be the one making the cross in the first place.

Everton dealt with our crosses anyway but the point remains, we had no real idea how to attack and it's somewhat ironic that we were counting on the players that were outside of their comfort zones to create something.

Both Werner and Havertz are new players that just came to a new country, at least play them where they are at their best, you can't just expect that they will change their whole game and their strongest attributes in a matter of a few months and without a pre-season, but I honestly don't even think that Lampard wants to change them anyway, he is probably just playing them there as he sees them as versatile enough.

Lampard knew last season that he needs a winger, he was playing Mount wide last season already.
Great job by replacing Willian with Ziyech but we also lost Pedro as well, I don't think that Werner was bought to be a winger. We have 3 natural wingers and all of them are injured so Lampard is unlucky and that is a fact, but we knew that Pulisic is a bit injury-prone already.
I think that Lampard simply thinks that the squad is versatile enough and kudos to Werner for working so hard but if I were Lampard I would consider looking for a new winger in the summer, he might still want Rice even if our deeper midfield is totally fine but the fact is even if CHO was healthy and fit we would still play with Werner or Havertz far too wide this game against Everton or if not one of them, then Mount as a winger and I'm not a fan of that either.

This month relies on Pulisic's fitness, which isn't good. CHO and Ziyech are out for the month. Pulisic picked up a niggle on Friday according to Frank and wasn't ready to make the bench. What do we do here? Do we wait until the muscle injury calms down, which could mean weeks, or do we take the risk and put him on there hoping he can play through it or it will be fine? 

Because without Ziyech, Pulisic and CHO, I think we are going to drop so many points these next 2-3 weeks. One thing we do know now though, scrap Havertz on the wing, can't be having performances like that, it's not good for anyone. I can't believe I'm saying it, but it's time to put Mount there, or we can take a big gamble and put Anjorin out wide. Either way, this isn't good. It really does all lie with Pulisic I think, he makes a huge difference when he's in the team. 

Not sure what formation we were playing with 3 strikers on the field, from my uneducated eyes looked a mess. like others said above, when chasing a game we have Werner running down the touch line trying to whip a ball in, surely something was not right. You want him in the middle of the chaos, and making the defenders nervous.

8 hours ago, Slojo said:

This month relies on Pulisic's fitness, which isn't good. CHO and Ziyech are out for the month. Pulisic picked up a niggle on Friday according to Frank and wasn't ready to make the bench. What do we do here? Do we wait until the muscle injury calms down, which could mean weeks, or do we take the risk and put him on there hoping he can play through it or it will be fine? 

Because without Ziyech, Pulisic and CHO, I think we are going to drop so many points these next 2-3 weeks. One thing we do know now though, scrap Havertz on the wing, can't be having performances like that, it's not good for anyone. I can't believe I'm saying it, but it's time to put Mount there, or we can take a big gamble and put Anjorin out wide. Either way, this isn't good. It really does all lie with Pulisic I think, he makes a huge difference when he's in the team. 

This is Lampard's role to make those decisions, Mount out wide is better than Havertz out wide yet why bring on Gilmour and not Anjorin with 10 mins + injury time?

Frank is not reading the game for me, footy365 was saying that Everton were playing 4 CBS so our crosses were likely to be cut out.

He could have changed the system to a 3-5-2 or brought Anjorin on or Azpi and moved Chilwell forward, lack of tactical in-match awareness for me. 

 

2 hours ago, icecoolguy22 said:

Not sure what formation we were playing with 3 strikers on the field, from my uneducated eyes looked a mess. like others said above, when chasing a game we have Werner running down the touch line trying to whip a ball in, surely something was not right. You want him in the middle of the chaos, and making the defenders nervous.

Was still 433 at the end but when James or Werner had it in an attacking area in the wide right Tammy came central with Giroud. 

But the game plan became dependent on service from the wide positions and Everton looked comfortable with crosses all game long. 

I'm surprised the likes of Mount and Havertz weren't trying their luck with some shots outside the box because Pickford has the reach of a T-Rex and would have struggled. He got away with poor goalkeeping on a couple of occasions during the game so I thought we'd have put more pressure on him. 

Truth is our game plan recently has been largely based on play in the wide areas and without any natural wingers in the team yesterday we looked lost. 

The excuses from last season will not fly this season every manager gets injuries deal with it Everton had three key players out and what does Carlo do adjust his framework to his situation. You get pay to make the most of what you have, Lampard shows sometimes he can be flexible so I can't understand why he's so rigid especially yesterday, he looked quite lost.

36 minutes ago, Brutos said:

The excuses from last season will not fly this season every manager gets injuries deal with it Everton had three key players out and what does Carlo do adjust his framework to his situation. You get pay to make the most of what you have, Lampard shows sometimes he can be flexible so I can't understand why he's so rigid especially yesterday, he looked quite lost.

So if Spurs lost Son, Moura and Bergwijn they wouldn't have excuses? If Liverpool lost Mane, Salah and Jota they wouldn't have excuses? 

Funny you say this because I remember when we lost against Spurs in the Cup you did nothing but make excuses for them because they couldn't start with Harry Kane as he was coming back from an injury. So our rivals get excuses but Frank doesn't? Sounds to me like a double standard on your end since you've had a hard on for Frank for months now. 

3 wingers out from an injury is massive, especially when they're your only wingers, it would affect any top team I don't care what anyone says. If Liverpool were in that position and we lost to them you would instantly be saying "Wow, how could they beat us with all them players missing, it shouldn't be happening". 

We all have the benefit of hindsight. We dominated the game but with lack of wingers 3-4-3 would probably have worked better.

However, in my opinion best system for our team currently with lack of wingers and to get the best out of Havertz and Werner would be:

4-3-1-2 similar to what Ac Milan played in the past when they dominated with Kaka in that number 10 role. 

Defense would remain unchanged, james and chilwell have the pace and stamina to provide the width.

Midfield 3 of Kovacic Kante and Mount provide protection and skill.

Havertz would have that free role similar to how Kaka played for Ac milan. He infact reminds me a bit of Kaka. Would be able to score and provide more goals with his quality. 

Werner and Giroud would cause havoc with pace and power combined at the top. 

I think that would suit the strength of each player in our team. 

 

15 hours ago, mm24 said:

I'm a bit dissapointed in Frank tonight. I thought that for sure he was going to go with 3 at the back considering all of our wingers are injured. That way Chilwell and James could play as wb's and neither of Werner or Havertz would have to play on the wing. 

3-5-2 was the way to go here and tbh I was shocked when i didnt see it in the second half at least when it was clear that James is our only attacking threat lol

Bringing Gilmoure on was icing on the cake. What was he trying to do with that change? 

Why would Lampard bring on an additional Defender to go 3 at the back especially in the 2nd half when we are chasing a game. James played practically as a wingback anyway so I don't think it would've impacted his positional play.

In regards to bringing Gilmour on we needed more creativity centrally as we were having absolutely no joy out wide. My gripe with Lampard is he did not change the system earlier, Kai should've been hooked at half time and we finished the game with a 4-2-4 with Tammy and Giroud Central and Mount went out wide on the left with Werner on the right I just hoped we did that for majority of the 2nd half rather than the 85th minute.

1 minute ago, Gentian said:

We all have the benefit of hindsight. We dominated the game but with lack of wingers 3-4-3 would probably have worked better.

However, in my opinion best system for our team currently with lack of wingers and to get the best out of Havertz and Werner would be:

4-3-1-2 similar to what Ac Milan played in the past when they dominated with Kaka in that number 10 role. 

Defense would remain unchanged, james and chilwell have the pace and stamina to provide the width.

Midfield 3 of Kovacic Kante and Mount provide protection and skill.

Havertz would have that free role similar to how Kaka played for Ac milan. He infact reminds me a bit of Kaka. Would be able to score and provide more goals with his quality. 

Werner and Giroud would cause havoc with pace and power combined at the top. 

I think that would suit the strength of each player in our team. 

 

Interesting suggestion though for pace I would opt for Tammy rather Giroud.

Agree on Havertz having the free role,

34 minutes ago, Slojo said:

So if Spurs lost Son, Moura and Bergwijn they wouldn't have excuses? If Liverpool lost Mane, Salah and Jota they wouldn't have excuses? 

Funny you say this because I remember when we lost against Spurs in the Cup you did nothing but make excuses for them because they couldn't start with Harry Kane as he was coming back from an injury. So our rivals get excuses but Frank doesn't? Sounds to me like a double standard on your end since you've had a hard on for Frank for months now. 

3 wingers out from an injury is massive, especially when they're your only wingers, it would affect any top team I don't care what anyone says. If Liverpool were in that position and we lost to them you would instantly be saying "Wow, how could they beat us with all them players missing, it shouldn't be happening". 

100% agree, losing defenders isnt a big a blow than losing your attackers. You can find ways around losing defenders, being more defensive changing shape etc. Attackers they are the players who make the difference.

1 hour ago, jack_super_class said:

100% agree, losing defenders isnt a big a blow than losing your attackers. You can find ways around losing defenders, being more defensive changing shape etc. Attackers they are the players who make the difference.

It's quite simple really, would you rather be in Arsenals position this season, or our position last season? Complete polar opposites, one could defend but not attack, the other could attack and not defend. 

Of course Frank gets this as an excuse, it's a massive blow to the team. Hindsight is a wonderful thing for sure, how many people were saying "he should've played this formation" before the game? Or "he should have signed more players due to injury proneness in the squad"? I can't remember this being a consensus on the forum, but it is now. I said a week ago that losing 3 players is massive, that's why I completely lost confidence after I heard Pulisic had a setback. I said all this days before the game kicked off so nothing here is hindsight or reactionary posting on my end. I can't blame Frank for it, but I do think questions have to be asked for why our players especially can't keep fit. This has been going on longer than the COVID period, the injuries we're having at this club has about trippled, we never used to get injuries like this. 

7 minutes ago, Slojo said:

It's quite simple really, would you rather be in Arsenals position this season, or our position last season? Complete polar opposites, one could defend but not attack, the other could attack and not defend. 

Of course Frank gets this as an excuse, it's a massive blow to the team. Hindsight is a wonderful thing for sure, how many people were saying "he should've played this formation" before the game? Or "he should have signed more players due to injury proneness in the squad"? I can't remember this being a consensus on the forum, but it is now. I said a week ago that losing 3 players is massive, that's why I completely lost confidence after I heard Pulisic had a setback. I said all this days before the game kicked off so nothing here is hindsight or reactionary posting on my end. I can't blame Frank for it, but I do think questions have to be asked for why our players especially can't keep fit. This has been going on longer than the COVID period, the injuries we're having at this club has about trippled, we never used to get injuries like this. 

And i think the injuries to our wingers could happen again this season. Pulisic seems to me that he will always get injuries, i still dont feel Frank trust CHO and Ziyech injuries seems more bad luck than anything. We have to look for a winger even if its just short term in January and then look again in the summer. Mount/ Havertz and Werner outwide is a waste of everyones time. Talk of going for Rice in January, should target a winger instead. 

1 hour ago, Gentian said:

We all have the benefit of hindsight. We dominated the game but with lack of wingers 3-4-3 would probably have worked better.

However, in my opinion best system for our team currently with lack of wingers and to get the best out of Havertz and Werner would be:

4-3-1-2 similar to what Ac Milan played in the past when they dominated with Kaka in that number 10 role. 

Defense would remain unchanged, james and chilwell have the pace and stamina to provide the width.

Midfield 3 of Kovacic Kante and Mount provide protection and skill.

Havertz would have that free role similar to how Kaka played for Ac milan. He infact reminds me a bit of Kaka. Would be able to score and provide more goals with his quality. 

Werner and Giroud would cause havoc with pace and power combined at the top. 

I think that would suit the strength of each player in our team. 

 

I agree and I also see a bit of Kaka in Kai, he's tall and can fly away with the ball leaving a few players behind him.

Good shout of AC Milan, I think this is also similar to what Conte has been doing in Inter he plays in front a combination of strenght and pace with Lukaku and L.Martinez, Lampard could really try to pair up Giroud/Tammy and Werner.

10 minutes ago, jack_super_class said:

And i think the injuries to our wingers could happen again this season. Pulisic seems to me that he will always get injuries, i still dont feel Frank trust CHO and Ziyech injuries seems more bad luck than anything. We have to look for a winger even if its just short term in January and then look again in the summer. Mount/ Havertz and Werner outwide is a waste of everyones time. Talk of going for Rice in January, should target a winger instead. 

CHO has a record with injuries, and Ziyech can't seem to escape that hamstring. It's an absolute sh*tshow really, got 3 wingers that aren't reliable to play football. 

7 minutes ago, jack_super_class said:

And i think the injuries to our wingers could happen again this season. Pulisic seems to me that he will always get injuries, i still dont feel Frank trust CHO and Ziyech injuries seems more bad luck than anything. We have to look for a winger even if its just short term in January and then look again in the summer. Mount/ Havertz and Werner outwide is a waste of everyones time. Talk of going for Rice in January, should target a winger instead. 

Problem is we will either end up with dross or overpay in the Jan market. He could always play James as a winger ahead of Azpi on the right in the interim. 
The injury situation is across Europe because of the pandemic so it isn’t a Chelsea problem. Most teams are looking inwards and fast tracking their youth players into the first team. Liverpool, Bayern, Barca, Dortmund, Juve are some of the big teams that have given debuts to kids some as young as 16. Lamps might just have to trust Anjorin.

3 hours ago, Slojo said:

Hindsight is a wonderful thing for sure, how many people were saying "he should've played this formation" before the game?

Well me and @Gol15 did so when Frank moves on I expect you to campaign tirelessly for our instalment as Head & Assistant Coach. 

Not really sure 4312 would have been the answer, you put Kai in with a dominate strong Everton midfield and he would have just got smothered and gave the ball away even more IMO, they would eat him up. I actually think it would have played exactly into Everton’s hands playing straight through the midfield. They had no fullbacks so that’s we’re they was most vulnerable. No point in talking about AC Milan played that formation when that was ages ago and with world class players, your talking about Kai, Giroud and Abraham ffs and Werner is good but is struggling with confidence. Conte’s formation probably would have been better tbh.

8 hours ago, Slojo said:

CHO has a record with injuries, and Ziyech can't seem to escape that hamstring. It's an absolute sh*tshow really, got 3 wingers that aren't reliable to play football. 

The fact of the matter is the scheduling for this season has been brutal. As it stands, we play at a high intensity for most games. Injuries are bound to occur when you add our style of play to the crazy schedule. 

3 wingers that aren't reliable to play football? Guess we better sell them all then. 

47 minutes ago, Deino said:

3 wingers that aren't reliable to play football? Guess we better sell them all then. 

I don't want to sell them of course, but seriously what do we do here? Ziyech has struggled all season with fitness, Pulisic it's very troubling, likewise with Callum. What's the answer here? 

Literally I cannot imagine us going through a full season without any of those guys getting injured, maybe Ziyech but that's it, the other two, same old story. 

One of the worst things to happen in the last 10 years has been the proliferation of 'tactical analysis' thinkpieces in both traditional and social media. This analysis is typically based on a circular post-hoc assumption - that which happened was planned to happen, because it did happen. The analysis is usually further characterised by overly simplistic statistical discussion and a tendency to make strong statements of apparent fact that actually have little basis in the data that it is supposed to be based on.

We're told that Carlo Ancellotti 'tactically outclassed' Frank Lampard, and some Chelsea fans have unfortunately extended that to argue Ancelotti is performing better than Lampard. Carlo's illustrious career aside, the evidence doesn't actually stack up in either case.

While there's no doubt that Lampard made some tactical mistakes and that he probably could have done better in that second half, the idea that Everton's win was a result of a carefully orchestrated master plan on Ancelotti's part is nonsense which unfortunately continues to be regurgitated by the press and on social media. I think it's far more likely that both managers made a big gamble, but Carlo's paid off and Lampard's didn't.

Ancelotti and Autumn go together like broccoli and chocolate. Any Chelsea fan who remembers our time under Don Carlo would surely shudder looking at Everton's recent results, with just one win (vs Fulham) prior to beating Chelsea on the weekend. An even closer look at their results shows a huge disparity in results depending on whether Everton score first or not. Everton are one of the best teams in the league if they score first; they're relegation candidates if they don't. 

From game analysis we know that Everton are set-up to counter-attack which is natural given they are run by one of the best counter-attacking managers in the modern game. Their tactic is simple; sit deep, win the ball and get it as quickly as possible to Richarlison or Calvert-Lewin. It is a very uncomplicated strategy that pays great dividends provided Everton score first. But Everton's results show that this is a high-risk strategy for them.

Lampard knows this and given the way we started the game, it seemed like the team was instructed to go for the early goal. If Chelsea score first, Lampard knows the game is effectively over. Ancelotti knows the game is over. It works well right up until a penalty given to Everton largely against the run of play. Once the goal is scored, despite Everton being clearly inferior, they are have an extremely favourable situation that allows Carlo's tactical plan to take fruit.

Everyone's favourite stat xG seems to confirm this (Understat):

 

The graphs indicate that until the goal, the teams were playing as 'expected' but following the goal Everton had much better quality chances - which is exactly what you'd expect from a naturally counter-attacking team.

It is also possible to infer that Lampard likely made the best possible decision. Everton's xG skyrockets after the goal, which on the pitch, usually translates to Lampard seeing their players get in good positions and make key passes with ease. Yes, he could have changed the formation to a 3-5-2 to allow for more width, but if you're watching Everton easily picking out Iwobi, Richarlison and DCL in the channels you are not going to want to do anything that risks given them more space in wide areas, meaning you don't push James and Chilwell higher up because the risk of countering is too high, and given we were creating chances, it may have seemed the right thing to do.

However, another way to look at it is that Lampard actually wasn't aggressive enough. For a title-chasing team like Chelsea, anything short of a loss is a bad result, and a 2-0 or 3-0 loss is functionally the same as 1-0. The graph above shows that post-penalty, Everton were able to restrict Chelsea to speculative chances but not cut them out completely, which in turn suggests that Lampard should have done more to get Chelsea creating half-chances and peppering Pickford's goal, especially given his current form as pointed out above. This would effectively be the tactic that teams were using against Kepa in the past. 

I hope that Lampard drowns out the nonsense and sees this game as an important lesson. Firstly, even against out-of-form teams, an all-in pursuit of the first goal is a suicidal tactic. Should Lampard perhaps have allowed Chelsea to concede more possession to Everton, given their almost complete lack of ability to create chances in possession?

Another question we could ask; did Lampard underutilise our 'secret weapon'? Zouma, the most aerially dominant CB in world football right now, is also one of our best chance creators and scorers from set-pieces. With both Giroud and Zouma in the team maybe we could have looked at getting players out wide to win corners and free kicks to turn the game. 

All the above for me are markers of Lampard's inexperience. By the same token, none of it tells me he was outclassed. You can improve inexperience but you can't always improve ability. The fact that Chelsea can go to a troublesome spot and dominate a game is a huge step-up from last season, and much closer to getting the result we desire. No one criticised Jose Mourinho when Chelsea went to Man City in 2004 and lost to a Anelka penalty. I hope that we can give Lampard the same respect.

 

 

 

BTW the appalling PE teacher can go past us with their one game in hand...this Everton game really felt like a game that showed we are miles away from being a functional side. We had some key injuries but that is just an excuse as we have arguably the best squad in the league. Among the best for sure. 

This December we really need to stay on the race if we want to entertain with the idea of winning the league. 3-4 max behind the top and we are good. Tough set of games ahead. 

I just checked the matches and I really hope Arteta stays on as we visit them on boxing day. With our luck Arteta gets sacked just before and Vieira or someone takes on and they play the best game of their season. 

 

On 13/12/2020 at 08:56, Slojo said:

This month relies on Pulisic's fitness, which isn't good. CHO and Ziyech are out for the month. Pulisic picked up a niggle on Friday according to Frank and wasn't ready to make the bench. What do we do here? Do we wait until the muscle injury calms down, which could mean weeks, or do we take the risk and put him on there hoping he can play through it or it will be fine? 

Because without Ziyech, Pulisic and CHO, I think we are going to drop so many points these next 2-3 weeks. One thing we do know now though, scrap Havertz on the wing, can't be having performances like that, it's not good for anyone. I can't believe I'm saying it, but it's time to put Mount there, or we can take a big gamble and put Anjorin out wide. Either way, this isn't good. It really does all lie with Pulisic I think, he makes a huge difference when he's in the team. 

Even if we take a bit of hit, we must not rush Pulisic in.

Agree that Havertz must play in the middle. Mount may actually be one of the best fit options we have down the wing. The other option is playing Azpi at right back and James down the right wing.