From footy365:

What are we to make of Frank Lampard and Chelsea? For all the plaudits bestowed upon him over the last two months, admittedly fuelled partly by an excellent Champions League group stage campaign, Chelsea are still to prove themselves as likely title candidates.

We asked Chelsea to be more solid, and they have been. The arrival of a left-back, central defender and goalkeeper has alleviated those nagging concerns about overloads in the final third leading to an exposure to the counter. Chelsea have conceded five fewer goals than at this stage of last season, although they have allowed an extra shot on target.

But they have still not found the right balance. We assumed – and perhaps Lampard did too – that the sheer volume of individual attacking talent at Chelsea would allow them to score goals regularly, but they rank sixth for chances created per game and fifth for total shots per game.

And just look at the split between their performance against top and bottom-half opposition. Chelsea have played seven league games against clubs currently in the bottom half, winning six and drawing one while scoring at a rate of over three goals per game.

Against top-half teams, they have drawn three and lost two of their five games and scored only three times. All of them were in the 3-3 home draw against Southampton when again the balance was wrong – they conceded three times. Against Tottenham, Everton, Manchester United and Liverpool, Chelsea have failed to score and had just ten shots on target in total.

That is the next step for Lampard and Chelsea and they will not challenge for the title without taking it. A cynic might conclude that they have proven nothing yet.

Arsenal were biggest losers on weird Premier League weekend (football365.com)

Sooner or later Frank needs to play Kai in his favoured position, with two of our wingers out now might be a good time to give it a go.

12 hours ago, Slojo said:

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. 

I can see us either buying another winger or promote one from the academy or make a makeshift one. 

It's a terrible situation to be in atm and I don't think Frank will change us into a diamond or a 352

1 hour ago, Deino said:

I can see us either buying another winger or promote one from the academy or make a makeshift one. 

It's a terrible situation to be in atm and I don't think Frank will change us into a diamond or a 352

I like Anjorin, but sadly by the look of him, he's not a winger. He plays out wide a lot but he's always going central and he's not exactly fast. I think think we would have to make a January buy, I probably still don't, it depends how the results go this month. If we go through December without getting a win, then yes I'll probably be begging us to go out and sign another winger. But that's a if the worst comes to a worst scenario. 

We need four wingers - plain and simple to me.  Volume of games, rotation, injuries and form.  I do not class Kai as a winger or particularly effective in that role.

Time to fire up the Jadon Sancho transfer thread :)!

2 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

We need four wingers - plain and simple to me.  Volume of games, rotation, injuries and form.  I do not class Kai as a winger or particularly effective in that role.

Time to fire up the Jadon Sancho transfer thread :)!

An easy solution is to return to 3-4-3 / 3-5-1-1, or whatever formation with 3 CBs where we can use James and Chilwell to deliver good crosses that they are more than capable to deliver.

Sancho would cost us a whole lot and it would be hard to imagine that we would be able to sign him in January. He's still just 20 years old though, yes he's a great talent but our fans would expect an immediate boost to our chances of winning something. So if we assume that we sign Sancho in the summer, that would be Lampard's 3rd season going underway.

While Sancho would be a great long term signing, he might not be able to push us to win a trophy as we would still have a young and fairly inexperienced team, in the front Werner would be just about 25 years old so that's fine but the rest would be 24 or under (Pulisic, Sancho, Mount, Havertz, Abraham) assuming that Giroud leaves ( IDK if it's actually against the rules to say that anymore).

Maybe for the more short term success Sancho might not be the ideal transfer target, if Lampard is eyeing on a possibility to win something next season.

We kinda knew that Pulisic had an history of injuries and CHO has it now too. But on top of that Ziyech has been injured now multiple times as well, what looked like a great depth now looks like we want to count on 3 players that are made of glass. This makes we want to really miss Pedro that always had a smile on his face and was ready to put in a good shift but I bet he also had many injuries as well... 

Maybe the answer is to bring back that doctor that left after Mourinho said some stupid things...

Edited December 14, 20205 yr by Gol15

7 hours ago, Gol15 said:

An easy solution is to return to 3-4-3 / 3-5-1-1, or whatever formation with 3 CBs where we can use James and Chilwell to deliver good crosses that they are more than capable to deliver.

Sancho would cost us a whole lot and it would be hard to imagine that we would be able to sign him in January. He's still just 20 years old though, yes he's a great talent but our fans would expect an immediate boost to our chances of winning something. So if we assume that we sign Sancho in the summer, that would be Lampard's 3rd season going underway.

While Sancho would be a great long term signing, he might not be able to push us to win a trophy as we would still have a young and fairly inexperienced team, in the front Werner would be just about 25 years old so that's fine but the rest would be 24 or under (Pulisic, Sancho, Mount, Havertz, Abraham) assuming that Giroud leaves ( IDK if it's actually against the rules to say that anymore).

Maybe for the more short term success Sancho might not be the ideal transfer target, if Lampard is eyeing on a possibility to win something next season.

We kinda knew that Pulisic had an history of injuries and CHO has it now too. But on top of that Ziyech has been injured now multiple times as well, what looked like a great depth now looks like we want to count on 3 players that are made of glass. This makes we want to really miss Pedro that always had a smile on his face and was ready to put in a good shift but I bet he also had many injuries as well... 

Maybe the answer is to bring back that doctor that left after Mourinho said some stupid things...

I was joking with Sancho as think we're overdue another 48 hours thread!  But a natural, experienced winger would be ideal - what about someone like Peresic.

Good call on the formation.  Key to me is keeping overlapping wide runs that get towards the byline - it pulls out 2 or 3 defenders and creates more space in the middle or the other side with a deeper cross.

7 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

I was joking with Sancho as think we're overdue another 48 hours thread!  But a natural, experienced winger would be ideal - what about someone like Peresic.

Good call on the formation.  Key to me is keeping overlapping wide runs that get towards the byline - it pulls out 2 or 3 defenders and creates more space in the middle or the other side with a deeper cross.

Hulks available......

 

 

 

 

 

😬

9 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

I was joking with Sancho as think we're overdue another 48 hours thread!  But a natural, experienced winger would be ideal - what about someone like Peresic.

Good call on the formation.  Key to me is keeping overlapping wide runs that get towards the byline - it pulls out 2 or 3 defenders and creates more space in the middle or the other side with a deeper cross.

Perisic?? Are you Mourinho in disguise? 

4 hours ago, Deino said:

Perisic?? Are you Mourinho in disguise? 

haha, i always thought he was useful, scoring at or above double digits in most seasons.  But let's go with this.

I still believe we need four wingers, and can see a bid for Sancho Peresic Hulk Waddle <insert name here> in the new year.

Hes not the man to take us to the level we need to be. No plan b. Playing against teams missing their star players in James Rodriguez and Raul Jiminez, who's managers know how to switch it up without them. Frank persists with the same rubbish line up. Werner on the left does not work. Kai isn't ready. 433 with no wingers does not work.

I bet his odds for th tin tack are shortening, starting to look a bit bereft of ideas...

Edited December 15, 20205 yr by Ballack & Blu

Sorry but we all know Frank won‘t be our Pep, someone who will coach his love to the very top.

And we all know a more experienced coach like Allegri or Pochettino would do better with this current side.

 

 

 

His worst mistake was putting Pulisic on the right and Werner on the left, what the f**k was that about? Pulisic was causing them so many problems on that side while Werner was absolutely w**k. 

Lets hope Frank can bring in a winger in January, even someone like Perisic on loan, anybody! so then Werner can play centre forward.

He just needs to go back a bit to what used to work for us before.

Statistically Werner is the best as a striker, Kante as a box-to-box midfielder, Pulisic as the left-winger, Havertz as the attacking midfielder.

After some games at the start of the season we saw how well Werner worked as a striker, he was moving well and making runs and James and Jorginho could deliver the ball to him from one side and Kovacic and Chilwell from the other side.

Lampard is just hoping that a cross will win us the game at this point, we scored from our first shot on target today and on another day Rui Patricio saves that shot.

If we can't play 4-3-3 then don't play it, end of story. Wait till Ziyech is back and in the meanwhile play with 3 at the back and put Kovacic and Jorginho in the starting lineup if you want some real organization. 

I REALLY hate to say this but he looks absolutely clueless. It’s just not good enough. Changing the wingers was such a bad idea anyone could see that and should of been changed back ASAP but he obviously doesn’t like to be proved wrong

he was ordering players to retreat at 1-1 when we had a free kick in there half ffs ( on sky website )

he’s taken one of the deadliest strikers in Europe and made him a useless winger ffs  it’s not Werner s fault he can’t play there 

I have defended him to everyone but I think it’s time now  I do hope I’m proved wrong 

 

Reality check time.

Said it before the game today that it was a hugely important one. But we failed the test again unfortunately.

Forcing Pulisic over on the right to accomodate a piss poor Werner left me baffled though. Probably cost us the game that. Pulisic had Wolves scared and backtracking and Semedo and Nuno Santos must have thanked their lucky stars when they only had to deal with Werner for most of the second half. 

At this point we should be looking at Mount or Emerson on the wing, Timo is getting worse and worse confidence wise. Hopefully he's been stung enough to no longer persist with Timo there and Kai playing at all let alone starting.

Needs to be more brave and actualy attack the opposition team.We look like we think as if the goal is going to come by itself.Well it's not coming.We need more vertical and through the line passes that actualy damage the other team.This is a repeat of last sesaon.The team is getting worse instead of getting better.Timo looked like superman when he joined and now he looks worse than Torres in his last years here.Clear signs of poor managment im afraid even though I love Frank.Hopefuly he manages to turn it around but I just don't see us picking up all three point in any of our next 4 games.

Here we go. People went quiet during the long unbeaten run but back they come after a couple of defeats...🙄

1 minute ago, The Brit said:

Here we go. People went quiet during the long unbeaten run but back they come after a couple of defeats...🙄

To be fair. We should be questioning him.

His management of Havertz and Werner has been poor. Havertz should  be no where near the starting eleven. He's shocking. 

 

Just now, Andy2461 said:

I REALLY hate to say this but he looks absolutely clueless. It’s just not good enough. Changing the wingers was such a bad idea anyone could see that and should of been changed back ASAP but he obviously doesn’t like to be proved wrong

he was ordering players to retreat at 1-1 when we had a free kick in there half ffs ( on sky website )

he’s taken one of the deadliest strikers in Europe and made him a useless winger ffs  it’s not Werner s fault he can’t play there 

I have defended him to everyone but I think it’s time now  I do hope I’m proved wrong 

 

One of the issues we have right now is that we had all 3 wingers out at once. Although Pulisic is back most of us are sadly waiting for his inevitable next injury (hoping not but he seems to have little luck in that department). So without those 3 options Frank has had very limited choices unless he abandons wingers altogether or perhaps goes 5 at the back with Chilwell/James as wing backs.

Werner is not a natural striker from what I have seen but I agree he is not suited as a winger. But I am not quite sure of the clear alternatives unless he plays youth like Anjorin. Lets face it he would get pelters on here if he played Anjorin over Werner and we lost tonight.

One of our biggest problems (beyond our wingers) is that our 2 Germans are both woefully out of form right now. Easy to blame that on the manager but I think it is a combination of fitness (Havertz) and confidence (Werner). They will improve but in the short term we look toothless. I still see this young team as a work in progress. We had a good run in October/December but mostly against teams in the lower part of the table. Only the Sevilla game stands out. We need a win against one of the good teams to really boost the confidence of this team.

Just now, JoeyN said:

To be fair. We should be questioning him.

His management of Havertz and Werner has been poor. Havertz should  be no where near the starting eleven. He's shocking. 

 

I agree about Havertz after the last 2 games. But I didn't see many complaints about him starting tonight when the lineup was announced. If Kova or Jorginho had started instead people would have just found fault in that instead.

4 minutes ago, The Brit said:

Here we go. People went quiet during the long unbeaten run but back they come after a couple of defeats...🙄

We lost to an Everton side without Rodrigues and a Wolves side without Jiminez. Villa managed to beat the latter at the weekend. After £250m+ spent isn’t it a surprise questions are being asked?

9 minutes ago, The Brit said:

Here we go. People went quiet during the long unbeaten run but back they come after a couple of defeats...🙄

I noticed it already, I just saw the last few pages of the match thread, accounts that I've never seen before "Frank has to go now!" 

It's unreal, I've literally never seen these people before.