Maybe it’s not about the coach but that we have no such good team after all? I’m all for giving Tuchel this season and the complete next season to see if he can get these players to play the way he wants us play, but there’s something missing in every line of our team. Defensively we lack the quality to be solid every game. In midfield we lack creativity. In the attacking line we lack finishing quality and we are no near good enough to create clear cut chances. We just are not good enough to break open organised defenses, and we are not solid enough at the back to keep clean sheets consistently.

I actually believe we are short a number of decent players across several positions, it is the managers who keep us competing by motivation and tactics.

 

9 minutes ago, RMH said:

Maybe it’s not about the coach but that we have no such good team after all? I’m all for giving Tuchel this season and the complete next season to see if he can get these players to play the way he wants us play, but there’s something missing in every line of our team. Defensively we lack the quality to be solid every game. In midfield we lack creativity. In the attacking line we lack finishing quality and we are no near good enough to create clear cut chances. We just are not good enough to break open organised defenses, and we are not solid enough at the back to keep clean sheets consistently.

It's definitly not as great as some claim.

Our strikers for example aren't much better then most mid-table sides. As a matter of fact i'd rather have Danny Ings then Abraham or Giroud.

3 minutes ago, Sindre said:

It's definitly not as great as some claim.

Our strikers for example aren't much better then most mid-table sides. As a matter of fact i'd rather have Danny Ings then Abraham or Giroud.

I agree. Ines, Richarlison, Calvert-Lewinson... Quite a few teams have strikers that seem to do the job better than ours at the moment. We are similar to Manure except that they have been saved by Fernandes and Cavani. I mean, overall I prefer our team to theirs, but what Fernandes and Cavani provide them makes a great difference, similar to what we had with Hazard.

3 hours ago, Dubair said:

The lack of chance creation is the only negative I have towards his style of play so far

Can't agree with this. You could make a highlight reel this season rivalling (in quantity) 'great Fabregas passes' consisting of moments in the final third where the right decision or the right pass sets us up with  a wonderful chance. Tuchel's tactics are finding guys in half-spaces with time on the ball, 2 on 1s on the flank - but it all counts for nought if the guy on the ball makes the wrong decision, underhits, overhits, delays the pass etc. And the personnel doesn't matter - Mount, Ziyech, Pulisic, Odoi, Alonso, James, Werner, Tammy are all guilty. What's staggering is the sheer amount of times this has happened this season. The stats will count it as a completed pass, a progressive pass, possession retained - and it hurts us time and time again. We do not have a single world-class player arriving in forward areas. In fact, the only one we've got in the entire squad is a free, 36 year old. You look around at Kane & Son, Sterling,KDB & maybe Foden, Bruno, Sadio Mane et al.,  - not one of our players can touch these currently. I had high hopes for Pulisic after last season but...

No amount of tactical tweaking from Tuchel can fix this either. Here's hoping Havertz gets his act together sooner rather than later because he is head and shoulders above almost everyone in terms of passing in the final third.

57 minutes ago, venom2011 said:

Can't agree with this. You could make a highlight reel this season rivalling (in quantity) 'great Fabregas passes' consisting of moments in the final third where the right decision or the right pass sets us up with  a wonderful chance. Tuchel's tactics are finding guys in half-spaces with time on the ball, 2 on 1s on the flank - but it all counts for nought if the guy on the ball makes the wrong decision, underhits, overhits, delays the pass etc. And the personnel doesn't matter - Mount, Ziyech, Pulisic, Odoi, Alonso, James, Werner, Tammy are all guilty. What's staggering is the sheer amount of times this has happened this season. The stats will count it as a completed pass, a progressive pass, possession retained - and it hurts us time and time again. We do not have a single world-class player arriving in forward areas. In fact, the only one we've got in the entire squad is a free, 36 year old. You look around at Kane & Son, Sterling,KDB & maybe Foden, Bruno, Sadio Mane et al.,  - not one of our players can touch these currently. I had high hopes for Pulisic after last season but...

No amount of tactical tweaking from Tuchel can fix this either. Here's hoping Havertz gets his act together sooner rather than later because he is head and shoulders above almost everyone in terms of passing in the final third.

Very much agree with this. Lampard struggled with the same thing. 

25 games into the league season and our top scorer have six goals. Frankly it's a bit of a miracle we are Top 4 at this point considering how sh*te our attackers have been.

2 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Very much agree with this. Lampard struggled with the same thing. 

25 games into the league season and our top scorer have six goals. Frankly it's a bit of a miracle we are Top 4 at this point considering how sh*te our attackers have been.

I like it.....

3 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Very much agree with this. Lampard struggled with the same thing. 

25 games into the league season and our top scorer have six goals. Frankly it's a bit of a miracle we are Top 4 at this point considering how sh*te our attackers have been.

Probabaly to do with how sh*te most teams have been this season

1 hour ago, venom2011 said:

Can't agree with this. You could make a highlight reel this season rivalling (in quantity) 'great Fabregas passes' consisting of moments in the final third where the right decision or the right pass sets us up with  a wonderful chance. Tuchel's tactics are finding guys in half-spaces with time on the ball, 2 on 1s on the flank - but it all counts for nought if the guy on the ball makes the wrong decision, underhits, overhits, delays the pass etc. And the personnel doesn't matter - Mount, Ziyech, Pulisic, Odoi, Alonso, James, Werner, Tammy are all guilty. What's staggering is the sheer amount of times this has happened this season. The stats will count it as a completed pass, a progressive pass, possession retained - and it hurts us time and time again. We do not have a single world-class player arriving in forward areas. In fact, the only one we've got in the entire squad is a free, 36 year old. You look around at Kane & Son, Sterling,KDB & maybe Foden, Bruno, Sadio Mane et al.,  - not one of our players can touch these currently. I had high hopes for Pulisic after last season but...

No amount of tactical tweaking from Tuchel can fix this either. Here's hoping Havertz gets his act together sooner rather than later because he is head and shoulders above almost everyone in terms of passing in the final third.

Havertz has shown nothing to be better than anyone in terms of passing in the final third so far, the bloke struggles to make 5 yard passes.

3 minutes ago, Ernie_blue said:

Probabaly to do with how sh*te most teams have been this season

Definitly. One half decent run under Tuchel and we go from 9 points behind to inside Top 4 in a couple of weeks.

Attacking wise I honestly dont see any difference under Tuchel. It looks exactly the same to me but scoring goals through penalties. Defensively obviously better but that's because we have 7 defensive players on the pitch who are obviously working harder with the new manager in place, players like Alonso, Rudiger and Jorgingo will run and try more now they are in the team.

3 minutes ago, Ernie_blue said:

Attacking wise I honestly dont see any difference under Tuchel. It looks exactly the same to me but scoring goals through penalties. Defensively obviously better but that's because we have 7 defensive players on the pitch who are obviously working harder with the new manager in place, players like Alonso, Rudiger and Jorgingo will run and try more now they are in the team.

Defensively we are better now to what we were during the slump, but earlier this season we had several (7 if I’m not mistaken) clean sheets with four at the back. So no, we haven’t improved defensively, we’ve come out of the slump and are defending better than in December being more defensive minded.

Let's just go off the basis that Thomas has shored up the defense and made us difficult to beat, I know the real test is how well we did once the season is over but let's just assume the def is fixed for now.

Realistically what can be done about our attack? Because I'm not sure signing a new striker (although that is needed) will be enough to solve the problem that has effectively troubled our past 3 managers. Why did we become so over reliant on Hazard? 

Why do we struggle to do what almost every other team seems to do which is play an accurate early ball though? Is it the players, the coaching staff and how do we fix it because this can't be a problem that we can just keep throwing money at and hope that fixes it.

 

 

1 hour ago, Ernie_blue said:

Havertz has shown nothing to be better than anyone in terms of passing in the final third so far, the bloke struggles to make 5 yard passes.

Well, that's in no way true but you crack on sir.

40 minutes ago, LongtimerLurker said:

Let's just go off the basis that Thomas has shored up the defense and made us difficult to beat, I know the real test is how well we did once the season is over but let's just assume the def is fixed for now.

Realistically what can be done about our attack? Because I'm not sure signing a new striker (although that is needed) will be enough to solve the problem that has effectively troubled our past 3 managers. Why did we become so over reliant on Hazard? 

Why do we struggle to do what almost every other team seems to do which is play an accurate early ball though? Is it the players, the coaching staff and how do we fix it because this can't be a problem that we can just keep throwing money at and hope that fixes it.

 

 

Thing is that we can’t really say that we’ve sorted the defence definitely, can we? We were brilliant defensively up until Chilwell decided to say that we were unbeatable. Then we regressed. With Tuchel we’ve come back to being better and then today we concede in the first attack we have to defend. Our defence is comic when Silva is not playing, to be honest. Even with this defensive setting, we still managed to concede an easy one.

3 hours ago, Strider6003 said:

I actually believe we are short a number of decent players across several positions, it is the managers who keep us competing by motivation and tactics.

 

Of course we are.

 

We need to be realistic about expectations whoever the manager is.

Consider our starting eleven today. Only players in it who would be considered as possible starters for a title challenging side are Mount and Kante.

You would never consider Mendy, any of that back five (Azpilicueta obviously was when in his prime), Kovacic, Abraham, or Werner (in this form) as real title challenging players. They are a level below that. Top four is a reasonable challenge with this squad. Definitely achievable but not a foregone conclusion. 

1 minute ago, coco said:

At least wait till we lose a game

10 minutes ago, RMH said:

Thing is that we can’t really say that we’ve sorted the defence definitely, can we? We were brilliant defensively up until Chilwell decided to say that we were unbeatable. Then we regressed. With Tuchel we’ve come back to being better and then today we concede in the first attack we have to defend. Our defence is comic when Silva is not playing, to be honest. Even with this defensive setting, we still managed to concede an easy one.

Sounds like all our problems are due to Chilwell saying something in a post-match interview... If only we could just reverse the whole thing, let the man speak again!

8 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

At least wait till we lose a game

We need to be realistic, it doesn't matter what manager is put in place,this is just an average side,we also spent 200 mill in the summer and where has that got us.

29 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Sounds like all our problems are due to Chilwell saying something in a post-match interview... If only we could just reverse the whole thing, let the man speak again!

Working on my time machine, hold my beer mate...

Edited February 20, 20215 yr by RMH

2 hours ago, RMH said:

Defensively we are better now to what we were during the slump, but earlier this season we had several (7 if I’m not mistaken) clean sheets with four at the back. So no, we haven’t improved defensively, we’ve come out of the slump and are defending better than in December being more defensive minded.

That was the point.

2 minutes ago, Bluesince66 said:

We need to be realistic, it doesn't matter what manager is put in place,this is just an average side,we also spent 200 mill in the summer and where has that got us.

But, but, but..... when Frank was in charge so many people on here were saying the squad was great and it was all down to his lack of management and experience!!!!!! Now they're doing a complete 360!!!

23 minutes ago, coco said: