17 hours ago, chelseablueboy said:

I like him..

He's honest and very open in press conferences. Comes across as very knowledgeable as well as likeable and intelligent.

I think he is going to do well here, I am confident in his ability to take us back to the top.

Because of their love for Frank there are some on here who want him to fail and will never really give him a chance which is a shame. I think we could have done a lot worse.

I'd argue that not only could we do worse I don't think we could do any better. Regarding TT a lot of people recognise him as a good coach but, some may not say world class purely for coaching PSG and Dortmund even with the records he broke with them. They want success replicated in the prem.

I don't think a manager will be available that can guarantee both short term and long term success come the summer. 

 

I'm 100% happy with TT and am willing to personally (I can't say for others) overlook the position we are in at the end of the season (within reason ofc) so that he finishes his contract. I don't see the point in not giving him the full 18 months unless we have another complete breakdown in relationship.

That doesn't mean I want us to finish outside of the top 4 but if I continue to see encouraging signs I can't understand why anyone wouldn't want him to carry on.

Edited April 7, 20215 yr by LongtimerLurker

As @dkw pointed out the lack of improvement of our attack has been the biggest cause for concern. This did not start with TT, it began with Frank during that Leeds game where we hit four but could have scored ten.

After that we created less and became more wasteful. A trend that has continued under TT. We have been generally toothless and lacked both in chances created and especially in ones missed. Werner being the main culprit of getting in to good positions and just missing the ball completely.

Unfortunately our recruitment has not helped us. Havertz got struck down by covid, werner and Ziyech have disappointed. It hindered Frank and TT is fairing no better there so far, though he has improved our defence a lot.

43 minutes ago, Argo said:

Difference is Just IIRC I can't recall you slating others for then believing Frank should go/it was too early for him. If you genuinely believed Sarri leaving was best for the club and Frank staying was best no problems from me and I'd equally respect whatever stance you eventually take with Tuchel.

What I found hard to take is some went down the integrity line with one manager but aggressively wanted another sacked, again I've got no problem with anyone going down that route in itself ofcourse it's their prerogative if giving managers x amount of time till they can be judged is their belief but anyone who goes down that route will look awfully hypocritical if it isn't blanket.

Who has said they want him sacked?

16 minutes ago, dkw said:

Who has said they want him sacked?

I was referring more to the Sarri situation.

13 minutes ago, Argo said:

I was referring more to the Sarri situation.

Ah right, sorry. I couldnt remember seeing anyone say they wanted Tuchel sacked.

On 06/04/2021 at 15:38, Sindre said:

Don't disagree with that.

Although it didn't exactly look promising when he took over. Most of it would have to go on Lampard unfortunately.

We were 4 points off top 4 with a favourable run of fixtures to come and still roughly half the season to play. Folk make out like we were 10 points adrift of the top 4 with barely any games to play.

23 hours ago, Argo said:

I'll never be able to prove it but my theory around RDM is Roman gave him the full time job to not ruin the post Munich summer in the sun (imagine if the RDM/Rafa switch was made days after that night). I don't think that night changed his mind about Robbie going forward even slightly.

I think if we get to the final that will give the players clear belief they can compete at this level even if they have to wait another year until their next shot at it to which point we will have two years more experience as a group.

Missing out on CL football next year will be a big issue for the board IMO. You can kiss goodbye to our number one targets. All reports are Haaland must be getting CL football and if Roman is as keen on signing him as he is reported, not having CL football next season will be crippling for that effort. Not saying it will or should cost TT his job (I don’t think it will or should) but I imagine the board will not be happy if we don’t achieve it, even if you take out the recruitment side of things, the purely financial side of not qualifying will be a big issue.

3 minutes ago, EdinburghBlue said:

Missing out on CL football next year will be a big issue for the board IMO. You can kiss goodbye to our number one targets. All reports are Haaland must be getting CL football and if Roman is as keen on signing him as he is reported, not having CL football next season will be crippling for that effort. Not saying it will or should cost TT his job (I don’t think it will or should) but I imagine the board will not be happy if we don’t achieve it, even if you take out the recruitment side of things, the purely financial side of not qualifying will be a big issue.

If we're honest with ourselves we haven't got a hope in hell of signing Haaland even if we win the CL. That tier of player is simply out of our range unfortunately, Mbappe was a (sort of) Chelsea fan and mates with Drogba yet even then there was still little to no real chance of getting him. I hope I'm wrong but Haaland with his Leeds fandom, Dad playing for City and every club in the world wanting him makes it even more next to impossible than it already was.

The next tier down I think we can still attract regardless. We had good windows the last times we were out of CL (got Kante and Kova in those windows both from CL clubs) and Ziyech, Pulisic, Werner and Havertz were all convinced to come here when CL was very far from secure (all bar the latter coming from clubs with CL all but secure). Not to mention players like Suarez, Pogba and Auba going to our CL less rivals.

56 minutes ago, EdinburghBlue said:

We were 4 points off top 4 with a favourable run of fixtures to come and still roughly half the season to play. Folk make out like we were 10 points adrift of the top 4 with barely any games to play.

We were 5 points off 4th placed Liverpool, but there were Tottenham and Everton ahead of us as well, 4 and 3 points respectively with Tottenham having one and Everton having two games in hand. So a pretty bad position to be in. Barely anybody believed in CL football at that point. Not saying we are going to achieve it now, but the position we're in at the moment is considerably better. 

Edit: West Ham were 3 points ahead of us as well.

Edited April 7, 20215 yr by True Blue23

The biggest concern I can see with TT at the moment is that his constant tinkering with the team selection, we all thought the Claudio was bad enough but TT has taken 'tinkering' to a different level.  We are now at the end of the season and big stakes still to play for.  He's had more than enough time to know what his best 11 is, so now is not the time to be pissing about chopping and changing.  IMO he needs to pick his best 11 and stick with them for the rest of the season barring the odd injury then we might some consistency and hopefully start scoring goals.   

22 minutes ago, True Blue23 said:

We were 5 points off 4th placed Liverpool, but there were Tottenham and Everton ahead of us as well, 4 and 3 points respectively with Tottenham having one and Everton having two games in hand. So a pretty bad position to be in. Barely anybody believed in CL football at that point. Not saying we are going to achieve it now, but the position we're in at the moment is considerably better. 

Edit: West Ham were 3 points ahead of us as well.

My opinion right from the start of our decline has been that we will achieve top 4, even after the Leicester game I had confidence in Lampard to steer us into the CL spots. My belief was based upon the factor that the longer the season goes on and the more acclimatized the new signings get to the new league and teammates the stronger we will get. Potential in our squad is far higher then some of the teams who were competing for the top 4 spots who I believe had peaked hence why I think we would achieve top 4 over the likes of West Ham, Leicester and Everton.

I still maintain that belief however I feel as though Tuchel needs to settle down on a starting 11 especially the front 3, his constant tweaking is having a slightly detrimental impact especially on the attacking players.   

1 hour ago, EdinburghBlue said:

We were 4 points off top 4 with a favourable run of fixtures to come and still roughly half the season to play. Folk make out like we were 10 points adrift of the top 4 with barely any games to play.

This is how it looked. Seven behind Tottenham, five behind Liverpool, 3-6 behind Everton.

Not impossible but overtaking all of Tottenham, Liverpool, Everton and West Ham from that position was always going to be very tough.

Just imagine if West Ham had loads of money and nipped in and bought Werner, Havertz, and Ziyech instead of us.

I wonder where they would be now ?

On 06/04/2021 at 10:40, ForeverCarefree said:

Look back at the first three months of the season we socred 3+ goals in a game on 9 occassions. 

This squad is capable of scoring goals but neither Lampard or Tuchel (so far) have found a balance between defensive solidity and attacking threat. 

Under Tuchel we've put great emphasis on the defence but it's been to the detriment of our attacking play to the point where we've quite toothless most matches going forward. 

I think the tempo of our game is a major reason why we have struggled to find a balance. Any time we play with pace, we go up a level in all areas. When we play slow, I notice more misplaced passes, runs not being spotted or being ignored and defenders losing their concentration. We try and play zero risk football and suffocate teams with possession, but it's not working and it rarely has for the past 3 years now.

I hate our current football in all honesty. It's boring, lifeless and not something I can ever get used to. 

32 minutes ago, Sindre said:

This is how it looked. Seven behind Tottenham, five behind Liverpool, 3-6 behind Everton.

Not impossible but overtaking all of Tottenham, Liverpool, Everton and West Ham from that position was always going to be very tough.

That was the actual table at the time of Franks sacking. Matches in hand may or may not have given extra points and could be only speculation at the time.

31 minutes ago, charierre said:

That was the actual table at the time of Franks sacking. Matches in hand may or may not have given extra points and could be only speculation at the time.

We didn't have matches in hand - the highlighted team is Villa. Or did I understand you wrong?

Edited April 7, 20215 yr by ashwin
.

12 minutes ago, ashwin said:

We didn't have matches in hand - the highlighted team is Villa. Or did I understand you wrong?

That is the nearest table to Frank getting sacked. It was after Villa beat Newcastle on the same weekend as the FA Cup 4th round. The table previously submitted took into account results that occurred after the sacking, which was an unknown commodity at the time of the dismissal.

Let's not forget by time he took his 1st match with us,  the day after he signed on to be our manager. We had dropped to 10th. I agree with the majority about the tinkering. It has got to the point now where he has to choose his starters and play them with a few being rotated in and out when necessary.

In his defence it's not been often where he has been able to pick from a fully fit squad. Now everyone is back we should hopefully see some consistency in lineups.

What happens after is irrelevant in the argument about when the dismissal occurs. On saying that it would be churlish to suggest Tuchel hasn’t done ok. He has stopped the goals being conceded  and won by narrow margins, would have results improved similarly under Frank is something we will never know. There was a good set of fixtures coming up and they have no doubt helped TT in stabilising the team. Saturday was the first real question mark, I don’t think he would make the same decisions again regarding substitutions and tactics if it was to play out again. He had a mare along with the team. It happens, just got to make sure it doesn’t reoccur. The board will have an interesting decision on him if he doesn’t achieve expectations, only having 12 months left on his contract will give hint of instability, so do they extend it?

1 hour ago, charierre said:

That was the actual table at the time of Franks sacking. Matches in hand may or may not have given extra points and could be only speculation at the time.

This was the table I used which as you’ve said was the closest to Franks sacking. There was no way to know if the other games would be won at that point in time. Apologies it was 5 points, not 4.

Edited April 7, 20215 yr by EdinburghBlue

2 hours ago, Argo said:

If we're honest with ourselves we haven't got a hope in hell of signing Haaland even if we win the CL. That tier of player is simply out of our range unfortunately, Mbappe was a (sort of) Chelsea fan and mates with Drogba yet even then there was still little to no real chance of getting him. I hope I'm wrong but Haaland with his Leeds fandom, Dad playing for City and every club in the world wanting him makes it even more next to impossible than it already was.

The next tier down I think we can still attract regardless. We had good windows the last times we were out of CL (got Kante and Kova in those windows both from CL clubs) and Ziyech, Pulisic, Werner and Havertz were all convinced to come here when CL was very far from secure (all bar the latter coming from clubs with CL all but secure). Not to mention players like Suarez, Pogba and Auba going to our CL less rivals.

I’m not sure there was anywhere near the same kind of noise about us being in for Mbappe as there is with Haaland. You could be right (probably are in all honesty) but I hold out small hope that we could pull a Hazard out the bag, where we didn’t think we had a chance. If Roman is really keen, it gives me a little hope ala Torres / Sheva - going off media reports. No guarantee he really was behind them as was reported. 
 

I see your point but Suarez was going from Ajax to the PL, Pogba was paid an absolute fortunate and Auba, I’m not sure there was that many teams in for him at the time but I get what you’re saying and fingers crossed it doesn’t change things but either way the club won’t be happy if we miss out.

Got it right again today no surprise there. Game plan is always the same, keep it tight and then overwhelm them with our quality to pinch a goal or two to win the game by. 11v11 its a completely different team even if he says they should still be able to do it wih a red card.

I like how he brought Giroud and Puli on together. We've been calling for that combo for a while now and I hope they both start vs Palace. That combo helped us to top 4 last season why not again?

It's funny people complain about his tinkering because you rarely then see anyone choose the same team in the next match thread.

The way we are playing at thisstage of the season, its not possible to have a settled 11. Too many players are not consistent enough to keep their spot nor is it smart not to rotate in order to keep harmony and a fresh squad at this stage.

Edited April 8, 20215 yr by KonaKai Blue

13 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

I think the tempo of our game is a major reason why we have struggled to find a balance. Any time we play with pace, we go up a level in all areas. When we play slow, I notice more misplaced passes, runs not being spotted or being ignored and defenders losing their concentration. We try and play zero risk football and suffocate teams with possession, but it's not working and it rarely has for the past 3 years now.

I hate our current football in all honesty. It's boring, lifeless and not something I can ever get used to. 

I honestly enjoy watching last year team better than this year.

 

It is really difficult to judge Tuchel. Purely from getting result point of view the way we are playing probably is the best way but my word it is so damn boring.

The worse part is I don't think it will get better. We are essentially poor man city and after watching city play against Dortmund, damn they are very2 boring, 325 offensively, little movement only, 0 risk, pretty much the same as we play, absolute snooze fest, all I want from that game was for Dortmund to score so the game will come alive. If that was the best version of this team, it is going to be super boring.