4 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

"Let's talk about our defense"

It's sh*t......

Think You Are Being Nice By Saying It's sh*t

4 hours ago, Slojo said:

What do we do? There's no way they can be this bad, yet they are... I don't understand. Is this mostly coaching, or just poor quality? Will this be a Van Dijk situation where we just need a big upgrade, or is this purely down to them being badly coached. I just don't know what to think. 

Probably a bit of both.

With the ball, we are horrendously open and attack in a way that feels naive at times. It exposes us to the counter and puts defenders in positions where they make mistakes that aren't always their fault. For me that remains the biggest weakness in Frank's way of playing. Third goal today and third goal against West Ham are good examples. Rudiger was top 5 centre back in the league last season, he was made look like a bit of a donkey for those goals. Kante back to his proper spot is helping that issue but it is tactical.

When we consider the first two goals today though you can see some issues in quality. First from Kepa who weakly parries straight back into the danger zone as he always does, while Christensen and Zouma are ball watching and not alert to the danger. Second goal again Christensen is ball watching and pulled into a position that only Didier Drogba could score from while leaving Zouma to mark two strikers. Kepa is standing a metre inside the near post, but is rooted to the spot as usual and gets beaten at the near post without moving. 

So it's both no doubt. Neither Christensen or Kepa have any place in the next Chelsea title winning team in my view. They along with Jorginho represent the Holy Trinity of players who seem to get amazing kudos for passing while forgetting that their defending (physically and in Kepa and Christensen's cases mentally) isn't at the level. That's the most critical thing for Frank to fix in the summer. 

The tactical I'm not sure about. This may just be the way he wants his teams to play. We may have to make a call as a club about whether we are okay with that. He gets a free pass this season because of the transfer ban and Hazard leaving, but if these sorts of preventable errors are still happening this time next season who knows what will happen.

24 minutes ago, Spiller86 said:

Probably a bit of both.

With the ball, we are horrendously open and attack in a way that feels naive at times. It exposes us to the counter and puts defenders in positions where they make mistakes that aren't always their fault. For me that remains the biggest weakness in Frank's way of playing. Third goal today and third goal against West Ham are good examples. Rudiger was top 5 centre back in the league last season, he was made look like a bit of a donkey for those goals. Kante back to his proper spot is helping that issue but it is tactical.

When we consider the first two goals today though you can see some issues in quality. First from Kepa who weakly parries straight back into the danger zone as he always does, while Christensen and Zouma are ball watching and not alert to the danger. Second goal again Christensen is ball watching and pulled into a position that only Didier Drogba could score from while leaving Zouma to mark two strikers. Kepa is standing a metre inside the near post, but is rooted to the spot as usual and gets beaten at the near post without moving. 

So it's both no doubt. Neither Christensen or Kepa have any place in the next Chelsea title winning team in my view. They along with Jorginho represent the Holy Trinity of players who seem to get amazing kudos for passing while forgetting that their defending (physically and in Kepa and Christensen's cases mentally) isn't at the level. That's the most critical thing for Frank to fix in the summer. 

The tactical I'm not sure about. This may just be the way he wants his teams to play. We may have to make a call as a club about whether we are okay with that. He gets a free pass this season because of the transfer ban and Hazard leaving, but if these sorts of preventable errors are still happening this time next season who knows what will happen.

Agree with all of that. I think Lampard sees it as the best form of defence is attack, but until we have real quality in that attacking third, we cant blow teams away and the defence isnt good enough to hold out. 

Its difficult to question his tactics away from home when we have actually took more points than anyone bar liverpool, but i think he could set us up to counter more on the round, and nullify oppositions threat. 

Maybe its a lack of experience, but sometimes pragmatism is required, even if we end up with 1 point.

 

 

He does like to muscle people off the ball. 

5 hours ago, Slojo said:

What do we do? There's no way they can be this bad, yet they are... I don't understand. Is this mostly coaching, or just poor quality? Will this be a Van Dijk situation where we just need a big upgrade, or is this purely down to them being badly coached. I just don't know what to think. 

We can buy better defenders and we will improve for sure, but we'll still concede more than a top team should because the defensive tactics aren't right.

35 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

We can buy better defenders and we will improve for sure, but we'll still concede more than a top team should because the defensive tactics aren't right.

I think a proper goalkeeper will improve us immeasurably. I also think beefing up our defence and focusing on defenders who can defend as oppose to pass will cut out 25 percent of the goals we concede. But as you say Frank will need to evolve his approach if he wants to win trophies rather than putting the pressure on.

3 minutes ago, Spiller86 said:

I think a proper goalkeeper will improve us immeasurably. I also think beefing up our defence and focusing on defenders who can defend as oppose to pass will cut out 25 percent of the goals we concede. But as you say Frank will need to evolve his approach if he wants to win trophies rather than putting the pressure on.

If Dean Henderson is not an option hopefully we look at Nick Pope.

2 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

If Dean Henderson is not an option hopefully we look at Nick Pope.

I think we need to be careful buying keepers who sit behind very deep and well organised defences. They tend to have to save easier shots which is not what happens with us. Both would improve our performance with crosses and set pieces though.

Part of the appeal of an Onana for me is that he has performed well behind a very open team who play a similar way to us at Ajax.

There's no doubt Kepa has been sh1t, but it's not gamble on a Henderson or a Pope and expect much better. We have to invest in the transfer window on a couple of defenders, I fear Rudiger will never recover to what he was, Zouma is not reliable although we'd probably keep him just because we are so short of options, and less said about Christensen the better. James is great going forward, but defensively he's all over the places, will get better in time, but we dont want start him every weekend.

Just realised that, despite our away form being decent (I think we had the second highest number of away points behind Liverpool before yesterday, but City have now overtaken us) we've actually only had ONE clean sheet away from home in our 18 games ... at Spurs ... if you're only going to have one, I suppose that's the one you'd choose ...

I certainly wouldn’t want to be a defender in that dressing room 

talk about uncomfortable silences and stares

Whole backline needs a change, and more importantly we need a defensive coach. Tactics are just as bad as the players. Signing a top CB will go a long way towards helping with that, but we still concede a ton of goals

I don't quite understand how the manager is supposed to coach away individual mistakes. Or simply create a leader in defence when it's obvious to anyone that there is none in the entire squad.

You can go through all the goals we've conceded this season and a huge percentage of them are simply down to braindead defending. Like failing at the ABC's like marking for example. Happened on the two first goals yesterday and then the third was just comical from Rudiger like so many times before.

On 12/07/2020 at 02:30, Spiller86 said:

Part of the appeal of an Onana for me is that he has performed well behind a very open team who play a similar way to us at Ajax.

Would be the first time a Rhianna song could be used on the terraces...

Lampard is a smart guy and this must be his no 1 priority to fix. Give him time and I’m sure our defence will be significantly better next season. We need to win all our remaining 3 games and we’ll finish in the top 4.

We just need to win more than Leicester, IMO.

On 12/07/2020 at 02:30, Spiller86 said:

I think we need to be careful buying keepers who sit behind very deep and well organised defences. They tend to have to save easier shots which is not what happens with us. Both would improve our performance with crosses and set pieces though.

Part of the appeal of an Onana for me is that he has performed well behind a very open team who play a similar way to us at Ajax.

Onana is the obviously choice, great shot stopper, fantastic distribution, close to ederson level, and reportedly available for €30m. 

Taller and more aggresive than Kepa, i think he would adapt well here. 

 

Yeah I would like Onana too but I’m not sure if we are willing to replace Kepa yet, especially after spending a fortune on him. Might be reluctant to cut our losses.

1 minute ago, dansubrosa said:

Yeah I would like Onana too but I’m not sure if we are willing to replace Kepa yet, especially after spending a fortune on him. Might be reluctant to cut our losses.

I think there are murmurs of Kepa going out on loan for a couple of years, somewhat similar to Courtois. It makes sense as he may rediscover some of his long lost form and this would eiether allow us to bring him back or sell him at a better point than he is at right now.

37 minutes ago, Imran_CFC said:

I think there are murmurs of Kepa going out on loan for a couple of years, somewhat similar to Courtois. It makes sense as he may rediscover some of his long lost form and this would eiether allow us to bring him back or sell him at a better point than he is at right now.

Given that Kepa is still quite young, that is for sure the best bet right now.

 

In my memory, Kepa signed a 6 years deal with us, so he could go on-loan for 2 years and still have plenty time left, hell he may recover in another league and be sold for a decent price, or more. I'd say the GK is the easier puzzle compares to what Central Defender to sign, they aren't many proven players out there, and just about every big team wants one. We don't want another promising 22 year old, we want a proven classy defender who's going to be the leader of the back 4 ( or 3).

I think we need to do 2 things on our defence.

1) Spend big money on a world class CB. Not many around. Inclined to go back to Koubailly, who seems to be realistic for £60-70m. With a genuine beast in the CB, I think the Rudi is a better player. Rudi has been poor as the senior/lead CB. But alongside someone else I think he can still be a big player. 

2) A goalkeeper that breeds confidence. Someone big. Oblak of course is the ideal - albeit unrealistic. I don't know who else. 

With a confidence inspiring GK, and a beast of a CB, I think a lot of our problems go away. I am not keen on dropping big money on Chillwell, and would prefer Azpi/Alonso to play there, and use the money saved on a CB. 

19 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

I think we need to do 2 things on our defence.

1) Spend big money on a world class CB. Not many around. Inclined to go back to Koubailly, who seems to be realistic for £60-70m. With a genuine beast in the CB, I think the Rudi is a better player. Rudi has been poor as the senior/lead CB. But alongside someone else I think he can still be a big player. 

2) A goalkeeper that breeds confidence. Someone big. Oblak of course is the ideal - albeit unrealistic. I don't know who else. 

With a confidence inspiring GK, and a beast of a CB, I think a lot of our problems go away. I am not keen on dropping big money on Chillwell, and would prefer Azpi/Alonso to play there, and use the money saved on a CB. 

3) Remove the deep laying playmaker role of Jorginho (sell), replace him with a proper DM. 

Just now, comtrend said:

3) Remove the deep laying playmaker role of Jorginho (sell), replace him with a proper DM. 

I am ok with Jorgi alongside Kova for another season.  But yes, ideal world, we turn back the clock and re-sign Maka!