Lol so you guys are pleased with this 

Just really sad first and foremost.

Just a month ago i genuinly thought we would be genuine title-contenders this season. At this point i think it's safe to say we won't be. We were flying in early December but we have just fallen apart completely. And i mean completely.

I suspect there will be plenty of calls for Lampard dismissal. Am i among those? Not at all.

But we were Europes biggest spenders this summer. Massive investments usually comes with expectations and Lampard does need to turn this around quick. Two tough games against Villa & City coming up. We need to win both of them.

Top 4 will be a massive dogfight this season. I think Lampard at least needs to get us there. 

Edited December 26, 20205 yr by Sindre

This is a make or break period for Frank, he's got to find a way to revert this rut, ever since Leeds we've been diabolical.

 

I'm not LampardOut, but I'm growing increasingly unsure that he's not the man to get the best out of this team.

Frustrated by his tactics and team selections. 

I knew it, I've been dreading this game for a while because I had a horrible nasty feeling. But this is the turning point. Same mistakes from Lampard to play out of form players in a position they aren't delivering in. Playing our best player in the wrong position. 

Where do we go from here seriously? Is this really good enough? Call me fickle, but I said this before the match. And I've said it all month, I'm quite sick of repeating myself. I've cut him a lot of stick over the injuries, but we only have one player missing... Arsenal were riddled with injuries and played a C team and have absolutely tonked us. There's no excuses for that, it looks to me that Frank is out of his depth here. Any other manager would be getting the axe for that result. 

I did see a slump coming, but this is just over the top, you can't be having results like that. We've invested big, we can't let that go to waste, that game has just sealed the deal for me. Because I just can't envision how we are going to win silveware with performances like that, absolutely embarrassing performance, I'm gutted. 

Alright, I'm there.  Where do we go from here?  Lampard is a legend and my all time favorite Chelsea player, but repeating the same and expecting different results, well I don't have time for that.  Best player out of position (Pulisic, let him stay LW).  What we've done to Werner and Kai I don't know.  The rest is a bunch of square pegs and round holes.

We are regressing and he is unable to motivate the players.  That's not easy though, most managers struggle with this at Chelsea due to the player power at the club.  Posted this in the match forum, but from quick memory we've seen this performance repeatedly under Lampard.....

- 2019/20 United, West Ham, Everton, Bournemouth, Southampton, Brighton, Newcastle, Arsenal, United, West Ham, Sheffield Utd
- 2020/21 - West Brom, Southampton, United (created nothing), Everton, Wolves, Arsenal

It needs to change.  I'd prefer the players to be a little fearful of the Manager's presence.  I don't think there are many options out there, but this is untenable. 

I need to add to this - Lampard has a terrible mistake in him that he often sets his team out so respectful of the opposition that we forget how we are to play.  And often, he gets this the wrong way round.  Against Liverpool last season it was all out attack and we got battered.  Against a weak Arsenal, he spoke all week about how tough London derbies are and Arsenal are dangerous - he was right and talked them up nicely.  What about Chelsea's strengths and playing to those?  I'm sure those would win most games. 

Edited December 26, 20205 yr by PhilH930

I’m still willing to give him the season. Every team has a bad patch at some point in season, and ours is right now. Let’s not jump to conclusions just yet, he could still turn this around and we have a great season overall.

The only team who don’t have a bad patch throughout the season are title winners usually and we’re not quite there yet. Give it time.

Love someone to explain to me what our identity is , what our tactics are , what are we trying to achieve? 
Still willing to be convinced Lampard can turn us around like Klopp did Liverpool, I see that comparison made against Kloop quite often in the favour of giving Lampard time. 
 

Also separate your feelings for Lampard as a player to Lampard as a manager.

Edited December 26, 20205 yr by Brutos

I really like Lamps and want to see him do well here but i'm not really sure what our game plan is at the minute? There's no clear tactics that i can see from the players. If he's wanting to get the ball out wide and whip crosses in why are we not starting Giroud?

Wake up call for Frank today. We've not been good for a few weeks now (got lucky against West Ham). 

He's persisting with picking the same players and the same formation hoping they'll play themselves out of it. 

It's not working so now he has to take responsibility. 

We've got a big squad of players to choose from and options to play something other than 4-3-3.

He's got one of the most prolific strikers of the last couple of years misfiring out on the wing and our record signing restricted to cameo appearances from the bench. 

Form and results sits on his shoulders. I want and expect a reaction against Villa. 

Waiting to see what he says post match. If it’s his bog standard same old excuses routine then he needs to sort himself out. 

Edited December 26, 20205 yr by Munkworth

Said it before. He’s just not good enough and should fall on his sword ffs. 
Totally clueless and Morris can go as well he’s clearly not helping either. Wtf they have done to this team is beyond belief 

13 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Wake up call for Frank today. We've not been good for a few weeks now (got lucky against West Ham). 

He's persisting with picking the same players and the same formation hoping they'll play themselves out of it. 

 

Wake up call?  Really? Where have you been?

So is this a clear progress some guy was talking about few pages earlier, commenting on my post?

Clueless team. Cant create anything and we're becoming shaky defensively. Every player comes, is good or very good and suddenly drops off few months in.Clear progress lol

Not advocating for him to be sacked but it will be a miracle if we lose the next two games and he’s still the manager. We spent a lot of money in the summer and while the players need time to adapt and it has been a bizarre year because of COVID, the least Roman/Marina will expect is progress. Losing those two games will mean we’ve gone backwards compared to our point tally last season which could spell the end of Frank’s career as our manager.

Edited December 26, 20205 yr by Frankie8Lampard

I’ve stood by Lampard and still do. But I will call a spade a spade when it’s deserved. Yes the players are just as responsible IMO playing like that but Lampard got a lot wrong today too. Full backs clearly weren’t fit and while azpi and Emerson are nowhere near the same level, perhaps change the formation to compensate? Bringing on a slow Jorginho for ineffective Kovacic was swapping one problem for another. Giroud needed to come on too (even though Abraham eventually did something and scored). 
Lampard redeemed himself with Hudson-Odoi for Werner early but there are questions why Werner hasn’t been dropped before now. 
lampard is definitely under pressure for his job now

29 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

I really like Lamps and want to see him do well here but i'm not really sure what our game plan is at the minute? There's no clear tactics that i can see from the players. If he's wanting to get the ball out wide and whip crosses in why are we not starting Giroud?

The constant crossing is what boggles my mind. Suddenly we’ve gone from a team that passed through the middle with the occasional cross here and there to suddenly being super reliant on crosses even when giroud isnt playing

Edited December 26, 20205 yr by Frankie8Lampard

Will continue to support him. However performances of late have bot been good enough and I really hope if he feels he cannot do better he resigns rather than getting sacked.

29 minutes ago, Brutos said:

Love someone to explain to me what our identity is , what our tactics are , what are we trying to achieve? 
Still willing to be convinced Lampard can turn us around like Klopp did Liverpool, I see that comparison made against Kloop quite often in the favour of giving Lampard time. 
 

Also separate your feelings for Lampard as a player to Lampard as a manager.

I can't speak for other Chelsea fans but my personal reason for bringing the Klopp comparison last season was because it was a similar situation in our games kept bring ruined by players who weren't good enough.

There's no defense for our performances since Leeds however, he's at a crossroads now (similar to OGS after that defeat to Burnley before Bruno arrived) where he has to find some answer to things will spiral, the performances since Leeds have been unacceptable.

Lampard is sticking to his 4-3-3 just like Sarri did. But he isn't using the same approach to win a game and we look worse than last season where he relied on 4-2-3-1 and even played some key games with the 3 at the back.

To me it looked like he just wanted to force a win out of nowhere just by having James and Chilwell back.

He thought that we sealed the win against West Ham because he took out Jorginho but it was actually West Ham players that got tired, so he started Kovacic and Kante and we surrendered after the first 30 minutes of the game.

Some things are just a bit unlucky, a lucky goal, a penalty miss... But fact is we didn't show up, we can only blame ourselves here.

Lampard isn't really playing who is in form, he's basically trying to force some to get into a good form by pure luck, Werner and Mount have been poor in the last 5 games yet Lampard somehow expects them to just work their way out all by themselves.

At the start of the season he was playing 4-2-3-1 in some games and Werner was the striker while Havertz played behind him and it worked. But suddenly he decided to accommodate Kante in a new role and to put back Mount into the picture in his own role.

Now that 4-3-3 looks like a misshaped half-working tactic, it looks terrible and I believe that we got blinded by all those goals that came from the corner kicks, we're not really looking dangerous. I hope that he isn't going to put all of his hopes on Ziyech now, because they way we attack became really one-dimensional, if James or Chilwell don't put up a cross we're not doing anything with the ball.

5 minutes ago, Argo said:

There's no defense for our performances since Leeds however, he's at a crossroads now (similar to OGS after that defeat to Burnley before Bruno arrived) where he has to find some answer to things will spiral, the performances since Leeds have been unacceptable.

Without Fernandes, Solskjaer would be jobless right now.

Lampard won't have a player of that caliber joining in January, that we all know. Obviously we all hoped Werner & Havertz would have a similar impact to Bruno (at least combined) but to be blunt - they have both been sh*t for several months now,

Seemed to wait an age for the post match interview. I hope he was busy ripping that bunch of lazy c**ts a new arsehole. 

16 minutes ago, The Brit said:

I’ve stood by Lampard and still do. But I will call a spade a spade when it’s deserved. Yes the players are just as responsible IMO playing like that but Lampard got a lot wrong today too. Full backs clearly weren’t fit and while azpi and Emerson are nowhere near the same level, perhaps change the formation to compensate? Bringing on a slow Jorginho for ineffective Kovacic was swapping one problem for another. Giroud needed to come on too (even though Abraham eventually did something and scored). 
Lampard redeemed himself with Hudson-Odoi for Werner early but there are questions why Werner hasn’t been dropped before now. 
lampard is definitely under pressure for his job now

Yeah because Kante was also world class today wasn't he. 

2 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Without Fernandes, Solskjaer would be jobless right now.

Lampard won't have a player of that caliber joining in January, that we all know. Obviously we all hoped Werner & Havertz would have a similar impact to Bruno (at least combined) but to be blunt - they have both been sh*t for several months now,

I don't know if it's bad luck or just bad scouting, but our transfer business in recent years has been abysmal. I don't look forward to big money signings these days. 

After today I wouldn't mind seeing a couple of the promising youth players to make a breakthrough. So far there are experienced players doing naff all.