4 minutes ago, RMH said:

But that's just it, we have seen progress even this season, we have played well against Leeds, Sevilla, or coming back against West Brom (three down due to individual mistakes, we would not have come back in recent previous seasons), and I thought we started well against ManCity, or we showed glimpses of good play against Villa. I'm sorry, I'm not all doom and gloom, there are several clean sheets and good attacking at the beginning of the season. You can see now in the players faces that they are shattered, OK, we are playing crap and that Arsenal game was disgraceful, but against City you can see that players are all over the place but can't really run and are just basically jogging. I put that down to tiredness and we'll get over it. But mostly, I don't see any long-term manager available at the moment and I don't want to go down the hire-fire route again. Let's see how Frank does this season, which is what an interim coach would do, and assess at the end of it. But that's just my opinion.

It looks like if FL does struggle and gets released it won't be an interim this time but possibly Tuchel or Allegri.

2 minutes ago, Imran_CFC said:

I think the signings have been somewhat a blessing and a curse for Lampard especially considering majority of them are first teamers. I think he established a functioning squad last year and things were starting to take shape and he could've possibly done with Mendy, Chilwell and maybe Ziyech (With Willian leaving) but all the other high profile signings has meant he has started from scratch again.

I think 6 weeks ago he started to get some form of identity established within the team but injuries to key personnel and downturn in results has left the squad drained of confidence. I have confidence in Lampard to hit the reset button during this phase which is a bit of a post winter break. He just did not have the time to change things up in the winter's congested period, it is all well and good for members like us to say lets go 3 at the back or shift and go with 2 strikers etc, but implementation takes days on the training pitch and he has just not had that during this tough period.

We need to give him time to make these changes, I agree at times he has appeared lost on the sidelines but with time on his side where he has been able to establish a Plan A, B, C etc. This is his 3rd season in Management and I am sure with time he will be able to establish a playing style which will be beneficial to the team long term.

I am not trying to rude here, I genuinely would like to know. After three years in management, what do you think FL's playing style really is? Is it possession based with lots of sideways and backwards passing (as is currently being played) or is counter attacking (as against Sevilla) or is it the fast moving quick passing style seen against Liverpool in the Super Cup Final?

Sarri has been sacked by Juventus after 1 season, and he walked out on us - To be honest I wasn’t sorry to see him go. I think some Chelsea fans are overrating him massively. He hasn’t really done anything noteworthy since leaving Napoli.

He won Europa? Yeah, Arsenal was the only tough team we had to face... On the way to the final we faced Malmö, Dynamo Kiev, Slavia Prague, Frankfurt and then Arsenal.

He won the league with Juventus, let’s be honest there aren’t many strong contenders. It’s like saying Tuchel is world class for winning the league with PSG. Clearly Juventus wasn’t happy with him if they wanted to sack him even after winning league.

I just don’t rate him.

17 minutes ago, RMH said:

But that's just it, we have seen progress even this season, we have played well against Leeds, Sevilla, or coming back against West Brom (three down due to individual mistakes, we would not have come back in recent previous seasons), and I thought we started well against ManCity, or we showed glimpses of good play against Villa. I'm sorry, I'm not all doom and gloom, there are several clean sheets and good attacking at the beginning of the season. You can see now in the players faces that they are shattered, OK, we are playing crap and that Arsenal game was disgraceful, but against City you can see that players are all over the place but can't really run and are just basically jogging. I put that down to tiredness and we'll get over it. But mostly, I don't see any long-term manager available at the moment and I don't want to go down the hire-fire route again. Let's see how Frank does this season, which is what an interim coach would do, and assess at the end of it. But that's just my opinion.

If we could examine the start of the season where in some games even Kepa was still playing, we still looked better than right now, Lampard did a big change after the first 5 games of the season and from that point on things started to look worse and worse.

It's not all bad but we have been under-performing, so we should maybe go back to what we did at the start of the season and we should examine how did our best wins this season come to be.

Lampard deserves this season till the end of it if you ask me, he even deserves a big January signing if that is to help him for real, if you ask me.

2 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

Sarri has been sacked by Juventus after 1 season, and he walked out on us - To be honest I wasn’t sorry to see him go. I think some Chelsea fans are overrating him massively. He hasn’t really done anything noteworthy since leaving Napoli.

He won Europa? Yeah, Arsenal was the only tough team we had to face... On the way to the final we faced Malmö, Dynamo Kiev, Slavia Prague, Frankfurt and then Arsenal.

He won the league with Juventus, let’s be honest there aren’t many strong contenders. It’s like saying Tuchel is world class for winning the league with PSG. Clearly Juventus wasn’t happy with him if they wanted to sack him even after winning league.

I just don’t rate him.

He made us a top 3 team in the league in his first season, similar to what Pep did in his own first season in City. That's with Kepa, Christensen and so on...

He was sacked by Juventus because he did very poorly in the CL, but they wouldn't have called him if his season with us had been a poor one so he clearly did a lot of things right.

3 minutes ago, pcmacca said:

I am not trying to rude here, I genuinely would like to know. After three years in management, what do you think FL's playing style really is? Is it possession based with lots of sideways and backwards passing (as is currently being played) or is counter attacking (as against Sevilla) or is it the fast moving quick passing style seen against Liverpool in the Super Cup Final?

I think Frank wants to create overloads in the wide areas using the full backs with Pulisic and Ziyech almost playing as inside forwards and helping to transition play between the 2 wings.

We do see a lot of sideway passing in our defensive third and the reason for that is to get teams to come out of there shape to allow us to play on the wings and when teams are well drilled and maintain shape we end up looking silly (This is not unique to Lampard we ended up looking silly on numerous occasions with Sarri and having useless possession in non-threatening areas), the problem Lampard has is mainly on the right side. Teams have wised up to our way of playing because we appear most threatening on the left and they double up on the left and lately with Ziyech and James unfit we have looked completely toothless on the right. We are at our optimum levels with Chilwell/Pulisic on the left and James/Ziyech on the right and we are yet to see that combination this season.

 

6 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

He made us a top 3 team in the league in his first season, similar to what Pep did in his own first season in City. That's with Kepa, Christensen and so on...

He was sacked by Juventus because he did very poorly in the CL, but they wouldn't have called him if his season with us had been a poor one so he clearly did a lot of things right.

Ah yes I remember Sarri and his automatic subs .Barkley for Kovacic at 65th min mark and vice versa haha

Sarri did well ,but I wouldnt rate his season ahead of Frank's last season.Frank would obviously easily come third if he had Hazard .

51 minutes ago, pcmacca said:

If you watch City or Liverpool, you will have always some idea of how they are going to play. Match to match I have no idea of how Chelsea are going to play so who is the tactical mastermind? Has he been isolating due to Covid the last few weeks/months?

My point is that Jody isn't meant to be that person. There's this irritating trend of people trying so hard to avoid blaming Frank that they decide to blame Jody Morris instead. 

2 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

My point is that Jody isn't meant to be that person. There's this irritating trend of people trying so hard to avoid blaming Frank that they decide to blame Jody Morris instead. 

I don't think its a case of people blaming Jody, I think it's more of a case of getting some experience into the coaching staff and having a senior figure as a Number 2.

Currently with Jody and Lampard we seem a little short on experience.

10 minutes ago, Imran_CFC said:

I think Frank wants to create overloads in the wide areas using the full backs with Pulisic and Ziyech almost playing as inside forwards and helping to transition play between the 2 wings.

We do see a lot of sideway passing in our defensive third and the reason for that is to get teams to come out of there shape to allow us to play on the wings and when teams are well drilled and maintain shape we end up looking silly (This is not unique to Lampard we ended up looking silly on numerous occasions with Sarri and having useless possession in non-threatening areas), the problem Lampard has is mainly on the right side. Teams have wised up to our way of playing because we appear most threatening on the left and they double up on the left and lately with Ziyech and James unfit we have looked completely toothless on the right. We are at our optimum levels with Chilwell/Pulisic on the left and James/Ziyech on the right and we are yet to see that combination this season.

 

I do like the idea of Chelsea trying to play in that way and I do agree Azper is pretty poor in the final third but to get better results from this it needs to be played quicker from the back than is now. What concerns me with the current is that when in those positions the full backs/wingers are sending over high crosses when there is often only 1/2 players in the box and unless the ball is a miracle one, it gets cleared. We know Giroud is excellent in the air but not so Abraham or Werner. I would prefer to see the fullback/ winger getting closer to the bye line and then pulling the ball back to (hopefully) advancing attacking players. It is so much harder for defenders to deal with, compared to the square low cross close to goal which would have to go through so many players to get somewhere dangerous. Or if Chelsea players could only copy Leed's fifth against WBA!

5 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

My point is that Jody isn't meant to be that person. There's this irritating trend of people trying so hard to avoid blaming Frank that they decide to blame Jody Morris instead. 

I am not trying to blame Jody, I just see everyone complaining about FL At the moment we have two very, very inexperienced coaches with almost identical backgrounds and I believe if FL wants to save his season and probably his job, he should be looking to introduce a coach with more experience, a different background and different ideas. I worry that if they carry on as they are, they will be replaced at the end of the season or even before. It is not an admissioon of failure but accept one of strength to accept that at times you need specialised assistance. 

1 minute ago, pcmacca said:

I am not trying to blame Jody, I just see everyone complaining about FL At the moment we have two very, very inexperienced coaches with almost identical backgrounds and I believe if FL wants to save his season and probably his job, he should be looking to introduce a coach with more experience, a different background and different ideas. I worry that if they carry on as they are, they will be replaced at the end of the season or even before. It is not an admissioon of failure but accept one of strength to accept that at times you need specialised assistance. 

Sorry last sentence rushed - I meant to say -  It is not an admission of failure but of strength to accept that at times you need specialised assistance. 

32 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

If we could examine the start of the season where in some games even Kepa was still playing, we still looked better than right now, Lampard did a big change after the first 5 games of the season and from that point on things started to look worse and worse.

It's not all bad but we have been under-performing, so we should maybe go back to what we did at the start of the season and we should examine how did our best wins this season come to be.

Lampard deserves this season till the end of it if you ask me, he even deserves a big January signing if that is to help him for real, if you ask me.

Well, we did play well against Leeds and that was at the beginning of the December. So not only at the start of the season. I'd argue that we haven't had the chance to have a settled first 11 as when we were hitting form we were hit by several injuries. OK, that's not an excuse, we've been really bad this last month and Frank has to learn his trade, but teams that have been playing for longer together and coaches that have been in the PL for longer have had their issues this season. Look at City playing crap and how lost Pep was looking a month ago or so, or now Klopp and the scousers losing point everywhere. Imagine that in a team with a coach that is relatively new and a bunch of players that are new to this league and many are getting injured or covid every so often. A nightmare, and I don't think with an interim coach we'd be doing much more. The only team that is really overachieving is Varchester Utd, and we all know that they'd be on par with us had not been for the refs, VAR and their play-acting in the penalty area.

4 minutes ago, pcmacca said:

I am not trying to blame Jody, I just see everyone complaining about FL At the moment we have two very, very inexperienced coaches with almost identical backgrounds and I believe if FL wants to save his season and probably his job, he should be looking to introduce a coach with more experience, a different background and different ideas. I worry that if they carry on as they are, they will be replaced at the end of the season or even before. It is not an admissioon of failure but accept one of strength to accept that at times you need specialised assistance. 

I agree with you. He did look into our defensive horror of last season and got a specialised coach to help in our defensive set up, and that has worked out quite well if you ask me (especially defending set pieces). Maybe Frank needs someone in the set up to help with the attacking phase. But for me, most importantly and where we are being dominated in this last month, is the midfield. It is horrid to watch our midfielders defending. It has being a sieve this last month.

1 hour ago, RMH said:

But that's just it, we have seen progress even this season, we have played well against Leeds, Sevilla, or coming back against West Brom (three down due to individual mistakes, we would not have come back in recent previous seasons), and I thought we started well against ManCity, or we showed glimpses of good play against Villa. I'm sorry, I'm not all doom and gloom, there are several clean sheets and good attacking at the beginning of the season. You can see now in the players faces that they are shattered, OK, we are playing crap and that Arsenal game was disgraceful, but against City you can see that players are all over the place but can't really run and are just basically jogging. I put that down to tiredness and we'll get over it. But mostly, I don't see any long-term manager available at the moment and I don't want to go down the hire-fire route again. Let's see how Frank does this season, which is what an interim coach would do, and assess at the end of it. But that's just my opinion.

Agreed the Sevilla and Leeds game were great which makes what has happened since even more head scratching, how can we go from that to looking so structurally broken so quick? I'm someone that always tries to source out positives even through rough spells but recently i'm feeling mentally drained watching us. My worry is history shows when things snowball this badly that's it, you say you don't like the hire-fire structure and i understand why you have those feelings but without letting AVB go we don't have the best night in our history, without letting Mou go (against the wish of almost every supporter) we don't get Conte and another title (as much of a c**t as he became afterwards that season was truly special).

One thing is for sure however and that's Lamps will be incharge at Craven Cottage (unless something goes unbelievably bad vs Morecombe) and the only thing i ask is something in the performance that gives me hope that Lampard can sort this out, decent passing combinations (especially through the middle) and a structure/identity to our play, if that happens i'll be largely happy even if we drop more points. We have two free midweeks this week and next and most of the starters will get this weekend off, it's a perfect chance to get to work on the training ground and do some big tactical drills, hopefully that's what we're doing.

Edited January 7, 20215 yr by Argo

1 hour ago, mm24 said:

Ah yes I remember Sarri and his automatic subs .Barkley for Kovacic at 65th min mark and vice versa haha

Sarri did well ,but I wouldnt rate his season ahead of Frank's last season.Frank would obviously easily come third if he had Hazard .

Our squad is probably better right now than under Sarri, just saying.

42 minutes ago, pcmacca said:

I am not trying to blame Jody, I just see everyone complaining about FL At the moment we have two very, very inexperienced coaches with almost identical backgrounds and I believe if FL wants to save his season and probably his job, he should be looking to introduce a coach with more experience, a different background and different ideas. I worry that if they carry on as they are, they will be replaced at the end of the season or even before. It is not an admissioon of failure but accept one of strength to accept that at times you need specialised assistance. 

But  I don't think Jody is there to coach our attacking players. That's not his job. He executes franks plan and supports him in the dressing room. Franks job is to set out the tactical plan and the coaching set up. 

Hiring a coach who can tactically improve our team has nothing to do with Jody Morris. We have Anthony Barry, Joe Edwards and Chris Jones already. 

What you are suggesting is something Frank did in the summer when we added Anthony Barry. 

If Frank says he needs another coach, he's essentially saying he can't do his job. And he needs to go. He's the head coach, he's responsible for the set up, not Jody, Anthony, Joe or Chris. 

 

7 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Our squad is probably better right now than under Sarri, just saying.

We dont have Hazard who won many games on his own for Sarri, so I disagree entirely.

Just now, dkw said:

We dont have Hazard who won many games on his own for Sarri, so I disagree entirely.

Excuses excuses, typical. 

Just now, Gol15 said:

Excuses excuses, typical. 

How? We also had RLC entering into his prime, he was a monster.

No way Lampard’s team is better than Sarri. I’m talking about last season, I don’t see how you can make comparisons when the season isn’t even finished. We could end up winning the league or getting relegated for all we know.

7 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Excuses excuses, typical. 

Now, wheres that pot kettle thing I used earlier....

Give me 2 hours or so and I`ll post seventeen graphs to prove that Sarri`s squad was better than Franks last season, and probably even this season. Will that satisfy you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like f**k I will....

Edited January 7, 20215 yr by dkw

10 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

How? We also had RLC entering into his prime, he was a monster.

No way Lampard’s team is better than Sarri. I’m talking about last season, I don’t see how you can make comparisons when the season isn’t even finished. We could end up winning the league or getting relegated for all we know.

I said this season we probably have a better squad than what Sarri had.

I do know that the season isn't finished but player-wise we have improved, is it Sarri's fault that Lampard loned out RLC now as well?

We are currently under-perfoming, that's a fact.

15 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

But  I don't think Jody is there to coach our attacking players. That's not his job. He executes franks plan and supports him in the dressing room. Franks job is to set out the tactical plan and the coaching set up. 

Hiring a coach who can tactically improve our team has nothing to do with Jody Morris. We have Anthony Barry, Joe Edwards and Chris Jones already. 

What you are suggesting is something Frank did in the summer when we added Anthony Barry. 

If Frank says he needs another coach, he's essentially saying he can't do his job. And he needs to go. He's the head coach, he's responsible for the set up, not Jody, Anthony, Joe or Chris. 

 

I don't want that to be the case but if thinks don't improve and at the moment it doesn't look likely he probably will have to go as you say. However, I disagree with the idea that bringing in help says he can't do the job. Instead due to his lack of experience, he needs help in specialised areas. I do the same in running my own business. I think I am pretty good at repairing PCs but I give anything MAC related to a colleague as his experience is much greater. I am learning more and more about them and in time I will be able to do it but if I want to give my customers the best service and keep them coming back it is the best way. FL has only 3 years’ experience and he should be looking to learn from anywhere and everywhere.

23 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Our squad is probably better right now than under Sarri, just saying.

Man for man you are probably right that we have a better squad now however it is a far less settled and established squad than the one we had with Sarri.

We have a much younger team still quite a way away from hitting it's prime whereas under Sarri we had key players in their prime Hazard, Kante, Willian & Azpi to be precise. Hazard & Kante at the time could be said to be top 10 in the world whereas currently we don't have any player close to world class (Kante has not really been the same since his injury back end of the Sarri season).

Pundits are now getting on Lampards back, I find it a bit ironic how Keane is getting in on the action after constantly defending Ole and making every excuse for him.