1 minute ago, JoeyN said:

Sooo...you agree with me? 

 

That a game competing to finish in the top 4 is more important that a cup final? No, not at all.

Just now, jack h said:

That a game competing to finish in the top 4 is more important that a cup final? No, not at all.

Unfortunately we’re not an elite club anymore who wins the big trophies. Scraping top 4 just about keeps us there or there about. Dropping into the Europa league only reduces  our status further. 

1 minute ago, jack h said:

That a game competing to finish in the top 4 is more important that a cup final? No, not at all.

This is pretty short sighted if you don't mind me saying.

We could lose years worth of progress if we don't qualify and miss out on a world class striker. We can try for the FA Cup again next year. 

1 hour ago, Sindre said:

Knew the kneejerkers would be out in force.

Sucks to lose the final. Great achievement just getting there beating the best team in England. Even better achievement getting to the CL-final regardless of the result there.

And even if we do fail to finishing in Top 4 we can thank Lampard for that. Second best team in the league since he arrived, you couldn't possible ask for more.

 

I’m most impressed you’ve managed to someone miraculously blame Frank for this. We beat City and were comfortably in the top 4, bottled it against mid-table Arsenal to be dragged right back in to it & bottled the final that he rested players for. How you’re blaming Frank for that is laughable. Being the second best team in the country means literally nothing if you don’t close things out.

 

If we lose the CL final and drop out the top 4 will you be saying to people “yeah but we were the second best team in the country under TT, so that’s just as good”. There’s not titles or awards for second best. Pretty sure Leicester don’t care where they fall in that table now they’ve won a cup.

1 minute ago, JM7 said:

Unfortunately we’re not an elite club anymore who wins the big trophies. Scraping top 4 just about keeps us there or there about. Dropping into the Europa league only reduces  our status further. 

We're in a CL final and won a league 5 years ago. 

We're elite. 

Just now, JoeyN said:

We're in a CL final and won a league 5 years ago. 

We're elite. 

5 years ago? Really? We’re dominating Europe or own league 

2 minutes ago, jack h said:

I'm not necessarily talking about this season's recruits, though the warning regarding Werner and Ziyech look to be true. The overall quality of players we get compared to what we're spending is poor, it's that simple.

That is not on the board. Our scouting and information network can only go so far. Werner at Leipzig averages 20 goals a season for 4 consecutive seasons and just came off a 34 goal season.

He comes to Chelsea and goes on a barren run. Is that our board's fault?

Ziyech continuously won Ajax player of the year and put in good performances in the CL against good teams but became piss poor at Chelsea. Is that also the recruitment's fault?

Didn't see anyone complain about getting Werner and Ziyech when we signed them last summer.

9 minutes ago, Deino said:

That summer was a clusterfeck. 

This summer has been well. Last year we got Pulisic and Kova arguably one of our best forward and our second best midfielder.

You're telling me Marina can predict Ziyech's performance a year in advance? The agenda against our board is nonsensical

I'm not saying all the players we have signed recently have been flops. Even we can't be that bad! Also I didn't go after the board I said whoever is dealing with the player recruitment should be held responsible. 

Ziyech was what 27 playing in the dutch league? Hardly the calibre of player we should be going for in their prime years. Someone like Pulisic who is 21 has had a bigger impact even with the injury ridden season he's had. Our recruitment has been far from optimal. Serious questions need to be asked because there have been far too many mediocre signings. 

Edited May 15, 20215 yr by Valhalla

Just now, JM7 said:

5 years ago? Really? We’re dominating Europe or own league 

Well going by that, there's only three or four clubs in Europe you could consider 'Elite' then.

 

2 minutes ago, Deino said:

That is not on the board. Our scouting and information network can only go so far. Werner at Leipzig averages 20 goals a season for 4 consecutive seasons and just came off a 34 goal season.

He comes to Chelsea and goes on a barren run. Is that our board's fault?

Ziyech continuously won Ajax player of the year and put in good performances in the CL against good teams but became piss poor at Chelsea. Is that also the recruitment's fault?

Didn't see anyone complain about getting Werner and Ziyech when we signed them last summer.

If you look at his goal scoring record you will see that last season was an anomaly. That's not the normal amount of goals he scores in a season. It bumped up his average. 

supercup 2012

community shield 2012

world cup 2012

supercup 2013

world cup 2012

community shield 2015

fa cup 2017

community shield 2017

community shield 2018

carling cup 2019

supercup 2019

fa cup 2019

fa cup 2020

jesus christ. whats going on????

2 minutes ago, Deino said:

That is not on the board. Our scouting and information network can only go so far. Werner at Leipzig averages 20 goals a season for 4 consecutive seasons and just came off a 34 goal season.

He comes to Chelsea and goes on a barren run. Is that our board's fault?

Ziyech continuously won Ajax player of the year and put in good performances in the CL against good teams but became piss poor at Chelsea. Is that also the recruitment's fault?

Didn't see anyone complain about getting Werner and Ziyech when we signed them last summer.

The board should be aware of the differences league though and the level of teams. Teams don’t sit deep against Leipzig as they do against Chelsea. Defences as a whole are stronger in the PL than the Bundesliga, the physicality is much higher. Werner has always excelled at running in behind and being a volume shooter. There’s not much space in behind and we don’t create much so it’s not a massive shock he doesn’t excel for us. The really good games he does have are usually against City, Real etc which are teams that will press high and go toe-to-toe with us. Those games are few and far between for us and that’s something the board/scoring dept should be aware of.

6 minutes ago, EdinburghBlue said:

I’m most impressed you’ve managed to someone miraculously blame Frank for this. We beat City and were comfortably in the top 4, bottled it against mid-table Arsenal to be dragged right back in to it & bottled the final that he rested players for. How you’re blaming Frank for that is laughable. Being the second best team in the country means literally nothing if you don’t close things out.

 

If we lose the CL final and drop out the top 4 will you be saying to people “yeah but we were the second best team in the country under TT, so that’s just as good”. There’s not titles or awards for second best. Pretty sure Leicester don’t care where they fall in that table now they’ve won a cup.

It was a direct response to someone saying it's all on Tuchel if we drop out of Top 4.

Which is a ridiculous statement to begin with. As we were in 10th when he took the job and Top 4 looked very unlikely.

Not even entirely sure what Tuchel could have done different against Arsenal. We lost that match to a freak back-pass from our of our own players, something Tuchel could do absolutely nothing about. We also had plenty of chances (again) to win the game but we were let down (again) by our finishing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, Deino said:

That is not on the board. Our scouting and information network can only go so far. Werner at Leipzig averages 20 goals a season for 4 consecutive seasons and just came off a 34 goal season.

He comes to Chelsea and goes on a barren run. Is that our board's fault?

That would be like Kante signing for Pep's Barca, him failing expectations and then saying yes but he had an 86% pass completion for Leicester. 

The board signed a player whose main asset is running in behind, for a team that generally dominates possession and play on a small pitch every other week. 

Not a signing in the realm of Drinkwater by any stretch but still not what was required. 

Just now, EdinburghBlue said:

The board should be aware of the differences league though and the level of teams. Teams don’t sit deep against Leipzig as they do against Chelsea. Defences as a whole are stronger in the PL than the Bundesliga, the physicality is much higher. Werner has always excelled at running in behind and being a volume shooter. There’s not much space in behind and we don’t create much so it’s not a massive shock he doesn’t excel for us. The really good games he does have are usually against City, Real etc which are teams that will press high and go toe-to-toe with us. Those games are few and far between for us and that’s something the board/scoring dept should be aware of.

So you're telling me recruitment also need to account for if Werner plays on a given day?

Is the recruitment department that chose Werner against Leicester and plays him as CF? So does recruitment also need to account for loss of form and Timo getting the yips?

This myth that PL defences are soo much stronger is just not true. Timo gets loads of chances to score. Fecking loads. He just misses them more than he scored.

The lengths people go to just to blame, jeez.

8 minutes ago, JoeyN said:

This is pretty short sighted if you don't mind me saying.

We could lose years worth of progress if we don't qualify and miss out on a world class striker. We can try for the FA Cup again next year. 

No it isn't short sighted at all. A title is a title, 3rd, 4th or 5th isn't, it's that simple. No offence to you (genuinely) but I have a real problem with the attitude that top 4 is more important than a trophy. It's the executives job to worry about money, not ours. The only time in this clubs history where it could be argued that top 4 was more important than an FA cup was 02/03 and we all know the situation we were in then.

I'd take the FA cup over top 4 all day long, what I won't take is a piss poor performance in a cup final and dropping out of the top 4 because we didn't take every game seriously, that is the situation we are in right now.

4 minutes ago, Sindre said:

It was a direct response to someone saying it's all on Tuchel if we drop out of Top 4.

Which is a ridiculous statement to begin with. As we were in 10th when he took the job and Top 4 looked very unlikely.

Not even entirely sure what Tuchel could have done different against Arsenal. We lost that match to a freak back-pass from our of our own players, something Tuchel could do absolutely nothing about. We also had plenty of chances (again) to win the game but we were let down (again) by our finishing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

100%. As much as I get frustrated by the finishing, not soon after that I remind myself that our entire attack is almost always a combination of 1st season in the league and 20-22 year olds. We are very unique in that sense compared to any of the top 8.

1 minute ago, venom2011 said:

That would be like Kante signing for Pep's Barca, him failing expectations and then saying yes but he had an 86% pass completion for Leicester. 

The board signed a player whose main asset is running in behind, for a team that generally dominates possession and play on a small pitch every other week. 

Not a signing in the realm of Drinkwater by any stretch but still not what was required. 

What? Timo gets loads of chances. Loads. It's not anyone else's fault but Timo that he misses more often than he scores.

Off topic: Kante would have thrived in Pep's Barca. They had a 5 second rule to get the ball back whenever they lost the ball. Kante would give prime Iniesta and Xavi immense help.

FA Cup, who cares. But the performance we put against Arsenal was unforgivable from Tuchel. Even winning the CL doesn't compensate that. And if we miss top 4....

 

7 minutes ago, Sindre said:

It was a direct response to someone saying it's all on Tuchel if we drop out of Top 4.

Which is a ridiculous statement to begin with. As we were in 10th when he took the job and Top 4 looked very unlikely.

Not even entirely sure what Tuchel could have done different against Arsenal. We lost that match to a freak back-pass from our of our own players, something Tuchel could do absolutely nothing about. We also had plenty of chances (again) to win the game but we were let down (again) by our finishing.

 

 

...which is precisely why Tuchel should be playing a striker. You can't ignore weeks of poor finishing when chances are created and then give the manager a pass when he chooses to not use one striker and totally ostracize another.

4 minutes ago, Sindre said:

It was a direct response to someone saying it's all on Tuchel if we drop out of Top 4.

Which is a ridiculous statement to begin with. As we were in 10th when he took the job and Top 4 looked very unlikely.

Not even entirely sure what Tuchel could have done different against Arsenal. We lost that match to a freak back-pass from our of our own players, something Tuchel could do absolutely nothing about. We also had plenty of chances (again) to win the game but we were let down (again) by our finishing.

It was 9th and we were 6 points off top four with half the season to go and a favourable run of fixtures - I’m not sure where this narrative of us being miles off the race for top 4 comes from. How did it look highly unlikely when we were 6 points off it with Wolves, Burnley, Sheffield United & Newcastle as four of our next 5 games and a very poor Spurs side. It’s hyperbolic.

 

It’s completely irrelevant anyway as we were in a comfortable position to make top 4 last week so what happened 6 months ago isn’t really relevant.

 

He picks the bloody team. We’ve struggled to put chances away all year while our top scorer rots on the bench or in the reserves. Christ, even play Giroud, try something to get us scoring. You can’t admonish the manager of all responsibility in these games, we could have played until today against Arsenal and still not scored.

8 minutes ago, Deino said:

So you're telling me recruitment also need to account for if Werner plays on a given day?

Is the recruitment department that chose Werner against Leicester and plays him as CF? So does recruitment also need to account for loss of form and Timo getting the yips?

This myth that PL defences are soo much stronger is just not true. Timo gets loads of chances to score. Fecking loads. He just misses them more than he scored.

The lengths people go to just to blame, jeez.

What are you talking about? It’s all basic things that are key points to Werners game and the way he would adapt to our team and our league. Are you seriously implying that the recruitment team should just look at a stats sheet and sign players based on that? 
 

That’s exactly the point, he misses more than he scores because he’s a volume shooter, I don’t rate him as a finisher but it was clear that was the case before we signed him.

 

How is it a myth when players comment on it consistently when they move to the PL? Both Kai and Timo have mentioned in interviews you don’t get the time or space and the physicality is much more. I’ll trust the guys actually playing in the league over you.

2 minutes ago, Deino said:

What? Timo gets loads of chances. Loads. It's not anyone else's fault but Timo that he misses more often than he scores.

Off topic: Kante would have thrived in Pep's Barca. They had a 5 second rule to get the ball back whenever they lost the ball. Kante would give prime Iniesta and Xavi immense help.

That's fine, no one is saying he isn't getting chances.  He is still not a great fit for this team and most of those chances are the bread and butter for more traditional strikers. 

Off topic - In that case they would have need to use that 5 second rule a lot more and the team would have been much less effective. If Zlatan wasn't suitable, you can be damn sure Kante wouldn't have been. 

Too much tinkering, too much negativity, back passes grrr. How many times this season have we been on the outskirts of the opposition box just to pass it right back to the keeper to punt it up field. Every one loves it when you see a player doing an attacking run towards the box. It happens far to infrequently.

20 minutes ago, Valhalla said:

If you look at his goal scoring record you will see that last season was an anomaly. That's not the normal amount of goals he scores in a season. It bumped up his average. 

Since he signed for Leipzig

2016/17: 21 goals

2017/18: 21 goals

2018/19: 19 goals

2019/20: 34 goals.

Timo is 25. Since he was 21 years old, he has had a good record. 

I'm okay with people blaming Werner but to blame recruitment when all they do is try to sign the better talents out there just reeks of agenda.

Why didn't you blame recruitment for signing Thiago Silva?