Sky have just replayed highlights of league cup final loss to Man City two years ago. I forgot how well we played that day, helped by Hazard being the star of the show and Kante still with lots of energy.
Not doing a sarri v Lampard comparison as the former played a lot of dull football and relied on hazard a lot. But watching these extensive highlights hammered it home again to me: what progress have we made in two years? Still Nowhere near title challengers and scrapping for cl qualification. 
I’m not laying the blame all at Lampard’s door, though I’m increasingly disappointed in the job he’s doing this season having stuck by him since day one. Just feels as a club we can’t get our mojo back to being a genuinely top side and I do wonder when we will be again.

Edited January 18, 20215 yr by The Brit

19 minutes ago, The Brit said:

Sky have just replayed highlights of league cup final loss to Man City two years ago. I forgot how well we played that day, helped by Hazard being the star of the show and Kante still with lots of energy.
Not doing a sarri v Lampard comparison as the former played a lot of dull football and relied on hazard a lot. But watching these extensive highlights hammered it home again to me: what progress have we made in two years? Still Nowhere near title challengers and scrapping for cl qualification. 
I’m not laying the blame all at Lampard’s door, though I’m increasingly disappointed in the job he’s doing this season having stuck by him since day one. Just feels as a club we can’t get our mojo back to being a genuinely top side and I do wonder when we will be again.

We made a lot of progress last year in my opinion, to maintain our level losing Hazard (could argue a world class level Kante aswell given him being injured half the season and poor when he did play) is nothing to be sniffed at, compare that to Spurs and Liverpool losing Bale and Suarez respectively (the last two major examples of a team in this league losing such a huge matchwinner) and the difference is night and day. Infact if you look at it further we effectively lost 5 world class player's between the last title win and last summer (and that's before we mention Conte loading us up of £200m worth of sh*t). Hazard, Tibo and Costa to departures and Azpi and Kante to decline.

I'm very unhappy with the lack of progress this season but under Sarri and last season we did about as good as can be reasonably expected given our squad and obstacles we faced.

28 minutes ago, The Brit said:

Sky have just replayed highlights of league cup final loss to Man City two years ago. I forgot how well we played that day, helped by Hazard being the star of the show and Kante still with lots of energy.
Not doing a sarri v Lampard comparison as the former played a lot of dull football and relied on hazard a lot. But watching these extensive highlights hammered it home again to me: what progress have we made in two years? Still Nowhere near title challengers and scrapping for cl qualification. 
I’m not laying the blame all at Lampard’s door, though I’m increasingly disappointed in the job he’s doing this season having stuck by him since day one. Just feels as a club we can’t get our mojo back to being a genuinely top side and I do wonder when we will be again.

To be fair that team's cycle came to an end, most of that squad has either gone, are going or their place in the team is under threat. We're doing a rebuild job now but unlike before are using academy players and trying to groom our own coach, which goes against the cut throat ruthless competitive culture we had in the roman era so a lack of progress is to be expected.

We won't be a top side until Lamps becomes more experienced or we hire another top manager. Or really if we fill the squad with so much quality that we can't fail no matter who is manager.

8 minutes ago, Argo said:

We made a lot of progress last year in my opinion, to maintain our level losing Hazard (could argue a world class level Kante aswell given him being injured half the season and poor when he did play) is nothing to be sniffed at, compare that to Spurs and Liverpool losing Bale and Suarez respectively (the last two major examples of a team in this league losing such a huge matchwinner) and the difference is night and day. Infact if you look at it further we effectively lost 5 world class player's between the last title win and last summer (and that's before we mention Conte loading us up of £200m worth of sh*t). Hazard, Tibo and Costa to departures and Azpi and Kante to decline.

I'm very unhappy with the lack of progress this season but under Sarri and last season we did about as good as can be reasonably expected given our squad and obstacles we faced.

Not disputing Lampard did a good job last year with a lot less resources...my point is this is the fourth straight season we haven’t competed for the title...the longest drought under abramovich. 
I know we went five years without winning it between 2010-15, but we came second in 2011 and a very close third in 2014. Since we last won it in 2017, have been fighting for scraps in the PL.

2 minutes ago, The Brit said:

Not disputing Lampard did a good job last year with a lot less resources...my point is this is the fourth straight season we haven’t competed for the title...the longest drought under abramovich. 
I know we went five years without winning it between 2010-15, but we came second in 2011 and a very close third in 2014. Since we last won it in 2017, have been fighting for scraps in the PL.

That's true but unfortunately the 2017 transfer window, the transfer ban and Eden/Tibo etc going saw to that. Unlike the last two season's i genuinely believe we currently have the squad to challenge, possibly even this season if we can build some momentum which if i had to guess is a big reason the board are by all accounts mulling a change over.

41 minutes ago, The Brit said:

Sky have just replayed highlights of league cup final loss to Man City two years ago. I forgot how well we played that day, helped by Hazard being the star of the show and Kante still with lots of energy.
Not doing a sarri v Lampard comparison as the former played a lot of dull football and relied on hazard a lot. But watching these extensive highlights hammered it home again to me: what progress have we made in two years? Still Nowhere near title challengers and scrapping for cl qualification. 
I’m not laying the blame all at Lampard’s door, though I’m increasingly disappointed in the job he’s doing this season having stuck by him since day one. Just feels as a club we can’t get our mojo back to being a genuinely top side and I do wonder when we will be again.

It appears that we're going through the cycle again as others have mentioned. This season feels a lot like the 2012/2013 season when we went out and signed a sh*t load of players to finally replace a lot of the old guard from 2005-2011. Right now, we're replacing the old guard from 2013-2018, with the likes of Willian, Hazard, Luiz, Cahill, Courtois, Matic, Costa gone, and Azpilicueta on his way out. This is the fresh batch we've got in that's going to start a new Chelsea experience (hopefully a good one). The defence and midfield are still areas that need improvement, but we do have some really good talents, good wingbacks, excellent wingers and attacking options, plenty to build on. 

The big question is, who's going to be the manager to build this team? No matter what happens, Frank has done a great job with starting and helping our development. He's brought in some good players through the ranks and he has established a team there that can play well and look like title contenders when they're in-form. But I think it's pretty obvious that we need more than that. And as you've pointed out, this season has been a setback, when it shouldn't be, we look worse than we did last season and that's simply not good enough. 

 

14 minutes ago, The Brit said:

Not disputing Lampard did a good job last year with a lot less resources...my point is this is the fourth straight season we haven’t competed for the title...the longest drought under abramovich. 
I know we went five years without winning it between 2010-15, but we came second in 2011 and a very close third in 2014. Since we last won it in 2017, have been fighting for scraps in the PL.

Personally, I don't think the Chelsea job is a job where you learn your trade. I think we get a good reason to be harsh with Lampard due to his lack of experience. A manager who has good experience can provide evidence that they know how to win things, by that you can give them more time and put more faith into them. Lampard doesn't have that, for that reason I'm not very patient with him. For me he had to hit the ground running, and again that might seem harsh but given the reasons I've just explained I think it's a reasonable take. 

Even if we do manage to get 4th place, what then? How do we know the exact same thing isn't going to happen again, after 10 weeks of football we sh*t another brick and win one game every 5? That's what the evidence says. 

I understand the argument that managers have to start somewhere, but it's very rarely at top clubs, and it's rare managers pull it off. This is a reality people must accept. 

1 hour ago, The Brit said:

Sky have just replayed highlights of league cup final loss to Man City two years ago. I forgot how well we played that day, helped by Hazard being the star of the show and Kante still with lots of energy.
Not doing a sarri v Lampard comparison as the former played a lot of dull football and relied on hazard a lot. But watching these extensive highlights hammered it home again to me: what progress have we made in two years? Still Nowhere near title challengers and scrapping for cl qualification. 
I’m not laying the blame all at Lampard’s door, though I’m increasingly disappointed in the job he’s doing this season having stuck by him since day one. Just feels as a club we can’t get our mojo back to being a genuinely top side and I do wonder when we will be again.

Teams who win big trophies these days need a lot of the right ingredients. A big one is a top class goalkeeper. The competition is too fierce to lack here.

Go through title winners of late and, to a degree, CL winners and they have that. Liverpool did not win major honors under Klopp till they got Allison for example. 

We dont have that block to build on. Mendy is good, but not title winning good in my opinion.

Until we get one we wont be winning the title of CL again imo. 

That is just the start however, you do need more.

1 hour ago, The Brit said:

Sky have just replayed highlights of league cup final loss to Man City two years ago. I forgot how well we played that day, helped by Hazard being the star of the show and Kante still with lots of energy.
Not doing a sarri v Lampard comparison as the former played a lot of dull football and relied on hazard a lot. But watching these extensive highlights hammered it home again to me: what progress have we made in two years? Still Nowhere near title challengers and scrapping for cl qualification. 
I’m not laying the blame all at Lampard’s door, though I’m increasingly disappointed in the job he’s doing this season having stuck by him since day one. Just feels as a club we can’t get our mojo back to being a genuinely top side and I do wonder when we will be again.

It's harder to see a big progress because when Sarri left for Juventus, we were in a sense in the same position as when Sarri took over but with Lampard.

Sarri did manage to get us back in the CL but instead of building on that Lampard's job was to keep us there because he was new and what not and and that's what he did last season.

So the 2 of them managed to get us where we wanted to be at that time period.

We are in a problem this season because the plan was to build upon what the team accomplished last season but instead of that we have taken some steps back which wasn't expected at all, specially since on top of our younger players having the experience from the previous season to build upon we improved our squad overall and Lampard took this amazing opportunity to bring T.Silva as well.

To build a strong and stable team takes time, changing managers in general adds more time to it, if I'm allowed to play with the "what if" a bit here, I imagine if Morata and Bakayoko had been great signings for us or if we had managed to sign Lukaku and VanDijk for Conte, he would have been our manager still till this day most likely and we would have been a real top team.

1 hour ago, The Brit said:

Sky have just replayed highlights of league cup final loss to Man City two years ago. I forgot how well we played that day, helped by Hazard being the star of the show and Kante still with lots of energy.
Not doing a sarri v Lampard comparison as the former played a lot of dull football and relied on hazard a lot. But watching these extensive highlights hammered it home again to me: what progress have we made in two years? Still Nowhere near title challengers and scrapping for cl qualification. 
I’m not laying the blame all at Lampard’s door, though I’m increasingly disappointed in the job he’s doing this season having stuck by him since day one. Just feels as a club we can’t get our mojo back to being a genuinely top side and I do wonder when we will be again.

Not sure using that game as comparison is meaningful. It is better to use our game vs city last season, then watch how we played against city a couple weeks ago. 

 

1 hour ago, The Brit said:

Not disputing Lampard did a good job last year with a lot less resources...my point is this is the fourth straight season we haven’t competed for the title...the longest drought under abramovich. 
I know we went five years without winning it between 2010-15, but we came second in 2011 and a very close third in 2014. Since we last won it in 2017, have been fighting for scraps in the PL.

This season is supposed to be the season where we contend. Same manager, 200 m transfer and yet here we are 

3 hours ago, Wearyourblue said:

"2. Mount on the other hand is perfect for the way we want to play. He works incredibly hard off the ball and is a critical link player. He doesn't get into the team because of favouritism as many morons suggest but because he fits with the way we want to play and gives his all for the team."

If he's perfect for the way we want to play the way he's being used currently, we will never be good enough. He's not playing well enough that he would get into a similar role at Liverpool, Man City, or Man Utd. And Franks seems to have built our team around him. The way I could see him working is the way Matic played for us under Jose. I think he struggles higher up the field, but when he has room to step forward in, I like it. He should be a DCM in a double piviot. It would cut down on some of his aimless running around on defense, and let him pass forward. Also would give us a player that can step up and hit a 30 -35 yard shot, which Kante, Kovacic or Jorginho will not do.

Sell Kante and Jorginho. Start Mount and Gilmour in the double pivot with Kovacic rotating.. . start Pulisic, Havertz and CHO ahead of them with Ziyech rotating. Keep Werner up top, with Abraham rotating and sell Giroud. Like Giroud, but think he's gone on free after this year anyway, and I think too many different center forwards is a problem.

Saying that Lamp building around Mount is like saying Klopp is building around Henderson

That would be the same Jordan Henderson that is a league and CL winner?

5 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Saying that Lamp building around Mount is like saying Klopp is building around Henderson

 

1 minute ago, axman2526 said:

That would be the same Jordan Henderson that is a league and CL winner?

 

Yup, unless you are british media who crowned Henderson as poty, everyone know who klopp built this team around. 

1 hour ago, Gol15 said:

 

We are in a problem this season because the plan was to build upon what the team accomplished last season but instead of that we have taken some steps back which wasn't expected at all, specially since on top of our younger players having the experience from the previous season to build upon we improved our squad overall and Lampard took this amazing opportunity to bring T.Silva as well.

 

Honestly last year excited me especially in the end of that season, I thought we had a good base on how we will build the team. 

But Lamp decided he want to scratch everything and start new and we are back to square one. It is absolutely frustrating

 

 

37 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Yup, unless you are british media who crowned Henderson as poty, everyone know who klopp built this team around. 

Build it around whoever you want. If he kept the clown Karius in goal they would have won nothing.

11 hours ago, Slojo said:

Is it worth keeping the 3 man midfield? Might be a good idea to shot Kai in there now over Kovacic. It's obvious Gilmour isn't going to get the nod. 

Honestly we have nothing to lose at this point given our awful midfield.

8 hours ago, Slojo said:

Personally, I don't think the Chelsea job is a job where you learn your trade. I think we get a good reason to be harsh with Lampard due to his lack of experience. A manager who has good experience can provide evidence that they know how to win things, by that you can give them more time and put more faith into them. Lampard doesn't have that, for that reason I'm not very patient with him. For me he had to hit the ground running, and again that might seem harsh but given the reasons I've just explained I think it's a reasonable take. 

Even if we do manage to get 4th place, what then? How do we know the exact same thing isn't going to happen again, after 10 weeks of football we sh*t another brick and win one game every 5? That's what the evidence says. 

I understand the argument that managers have to start somewhere, but it's very rarely at top clubs, and it's rare managers pull it off. This is a reality people must accept. 

 

But clearly that is not the clubs view otherwise they wouldn't have appointed Lampard and lets say they only wanted Lampard in for the integration of youth to overcome the transfer ban season then why would they give him a 3 year contract, why not a 1 or 2 year contract. I am sure the board must've taken into consideration that we will be inconsistent due to the lack of experience not just in the players but also in the coaching staff.

In my view I think the club have decided to undergo a complete rebuild using the youth and therefore possibly lowered expectations, this may have been the result of spunking millions over the last few years on incredibly average players ad now finding huge difficulty in getting rid of them.

In my view we can judge Lampard at the end of the season and if we finish midtable with no clear development in style and squad development then I think there is a reason for the club to cut his tenure short however if he is to stop the rot and manage to get us a top 4 finish then I think he may warrant getting the third and final year when he should be looking to mount a challenge and the expectations will be higher. 

25 minutes ago, Imran_CFC said:

 

But clearly that is not the clubs view otherwise they wouldn't have appointed Lampard and lets say they only wanted Lampard in for the integration of youth to overcome the transfer ban season then why would they give him a 3 year contract, why not a 1 or 2 year contract. I am sure the board must've taken into consideration that we will be inconsistent due to the lack of experience not just in the players but also in the coaching staff.

In my view I think the club have decided to undergo a complete rebuild using the youth and therefore possibly lowered expectations, this may have been the result of spunking millions over the last few years on incredibly average players ad now finding huge difficulty in getting rid of them.

In my view we can judge Lampard at the end of the season and if we finish midtable with no clear development in style and squad development then I think there is a reason for the club to cut his tenure short however if he is to stop the rot and manage to get us a top 4 finish then I think he may warrant getting the third and final year when he should be looking to mount a challenge and the expectations will be higher. 

I think Lampard needs to go, I think we will lose to Leicester and Wolves this month and he should go at the end of Jan. I don't know this, but all the signs for me are pointing to a manager who is an excellent motivator but not a great organiser. Who doesn't see the game like a Klopp or a Pep. The team selection on Saturday was for me a sign that he is hoping senior players will get us out of a mess .

However if I am wrong and he gets us top 4, then he 100% should be here next year. I just don't see that happening. 

Just a month and a half ago everything was perfect and no one had questioned Frank's job.

I think our expectations have increased too much at that point. Yes it is a weird season where everyone is dropping points but did anyone really expect us to challenge for the title?

Realistically we are a level below Liverpool and Man City. And still, we are 8 points off the top, 5 points off the top 4 and we're not even halfway through this season.

24 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

I think Lampard needs to go, I think we will lose to Leicester and Wolves this month and he should go at the end of Jan. I don't know this, but all the signs for me are pointing to a manager who is an excellent motivator but not a great organiser. Who doesn't see the game like a Klopp or a Pep. The team selection on Saturday was for me a sign that he is hoping senior players will get us out of a mess .

However if I am wrong and he gets us top 4, then he 100% should be here next year. I just don't see that happening. 

Considering its his 3rd season as a Manager and 2nd in the PL he is never going to measure up favorably against the likes of Pep and Klopp who both are seasoned elite Managers. My argument for the last few weeks has mainly been to give give him this season to see if he can turn the ship around, I agree if he doesn't get top 4 the board have good reason to part ways but getting rid of him mid season in the hope that a new Manager can come in and resurrect our season is a no for me.

In my view Lampard has enough Credit in the bank as a player and Manager for us to give him the season to see if he can turn things around.  

I see Frank took his usual battering again this weekend.

Admittedly the team are in a poor run of form and I for one have sat at home and questioned what is the ethos of our play? We're all frustrated because we've seen money spent and expect more, but are we really in that bad a position that some of us are calling for the managers head.

Frank had a freebie last season, because of the transfer ban he had the luxury of blooding youngsters and trying other players without criticism. As soon as he spent a penny the magnifying glass is out and he's in the firing line, and rightly so, which manager isn't?

But do we really want to see him sacked? Do we really want another mercenary to take over? if we really want to see our own "Chelsea" brand of football then surely to achieve that we need continuity.

As ive said before, every great coach/manager at some point in their career's have had worse runs than we are currently undergoing but their clubs have stood by them and reaped the rewards.

Im not saying that Frank will be a successful Coach, but do we want to risk making the same mistakes as we've done in recent years with players like De Bruyne and Salah and abandon them without giving them a proper chance?

What risk are we taking by giving him at least the rest of this season and perhaps another? With the level of ability in the current squad CL football next season should be within our capabilities so is it that much of a disaster if we don't win a cup?

I for one am willing to undergo a mini baron spell if it means we see some stability and a manager is finally given the time to promote his own style and identity that we all crave from a Chelsea Team.

It may seem from the last 7 or 8 games that that style is somewhat difficult for us supporters to identify, but he has got a plan but it needs time, and new players need time.

Keep the faith

Edited January 18, 20215 yr by Osgoodwasgood

1 hour ago, Imran_CFC said:

 

But clearly that is not the clubs view otherwise they wouldn't have appointed Lampard and lets say they only wanted Lampard in for the integration of youth to overcome the transfer ban season then why would they give him a 3 year contract, why not a 1 or 2 year contract. I am sure the board must've taken into consideration that we will be inconsistent due to the lack of experience not just in the players but also in the coaching staff. 

Given the situation we faced in 2019 appointing Lampard was a win win. Worse case scenario is what looks like is unfolding he rebuilds the squad but making proper use of it himself is looking beyond him (ala Ranieri) but leaves a brilliant platform for someone who is and best case is/was we found our new long term guy. The 3 year contract wasn't too upsurd either, given the obstacles faced in season 1 he would have had to have been beyond bad to be in any danger.

One way or another we were almost definitely going to get some good out of Lampard as manager and we have, if/when we're back challenging Lampard has a big hand in us getting there regardless of whether or not he does it himself.

1 minute ago, Argo said:

Given the situation we faced in 2019 appointing Lampard was a win win. Worse case scenario is what looks like is unfolding he rebuilds the squad but making proper use of it himself is looking beyond him (ala Ranieri) but leaves a brilliant platform for someone who is and best case is/was we found our new long term guy. The 3 year contract wasn't too upsurd either, given the obstacles faced in season 1 he would have had to have been beyond bad to be in any danger.

One way or another we were almost definitely going to get some good out of Lampard as manager and we have, if/when we're back challenging Lampard has a big hand in us getting there regardless of whether or not he does it himself.

My response was based upon @Slojo stating that in his view "Chelsea is not a job you can learn your trade" and my point was that the club gave him a 3 year contract and due to his lack of experience they knew right from the start what they were getting into. 

A few years back I agree Chelsea was no place for an inexperienced Manager like Frank but due to more experienced Managers with a short term view we were left with an unbalanced squad, acquired spending millions with little resale value.

29 minutes ago, Osgoodwasgood said:

As ive said before, every great coach/manager at some point in their career's have had worse runs than we are currently undergoing but their clubs have stood by them and reaped the rewards.

So were Jose, Carlo and Conte mercenaries then? Our 3 most successful managers under Roman?