40 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

That we haven't been losing games has disguised how little we've been winning. 

The cup games have helped cover up our generally average form in the league under Tuchel as well. 

If you look purely at our league form we've drawn to Wolves, Southampton, Manchester United, Leeds and lost to WBA with wins in the other 6 games. 

So we're almost as likely to drop points under Tuchel as we are to win but when you look at the nature of the wins we've been very reliant on penalties to get results. 

Spurs and Sheffield United needed a penalty to win. Southampton a penalty salvaged a draw. Everton an own goal and a penalty. 

We've been really poor at winning games by our own creation under Tuchel and I think his constant rotation has played a part in that. 

That’s still a good run of games if you compare it to the standard of the league this year. Other than city and united, no other team went a run as good as Tuchel’s this season. Regardless of how we won those games it is still an improvement and he deserves the praise. 

Apparently he blamed Jorginho for 2 yellow cards that T.Silva got in the first 30 minutes of the game, yet it took him over 70 minutes to take out Jorginho that was clearly having a bad game.

I don't agree with the substitutions at all, with a player less and a goal down at half time you're thinking that you don't need to risk much at all in order to get something out of the game.

And to throw on Havertz with 10 men, against a big Sam side, he must be wondering, apart from the the Mahoosive pay packet, what good is this doing me, the PL is nowhere near as technically good as the Bundesliga, and its a fair bit slower than the 100 mph PL, more space, more time, more goals..

28 minutes ago, RMH said:

And some of you have an agenda defending anything Tuchel does just to prove that sacking Lampard was the right thing.

Maybe, just maybe, Lampard was doing as much as it could be done with this team and sacking him was not the right thing to do. Just like sacking Tuchel after this string of draws and loses against mid-low table teams would not be fair.

Wrong. I rarely have strong opinions, but there is just no “maybe” about it. We were in a death spiral with Lampard. I never once called for his head, but he’s just not a serious manager yet at this level, which is insanely competitive. I have no agenda, but at this point in time Tuchel is on another level. Ultimately that probably won’t be enough knowing Roman’s MO. But for now we’re miles better off with Tuchel. And we have a squad good enough to challenge the best sides, maybe one world-class striker short of what’s required to win major honours.

Today was on Tuchel and most on here seem to agree. That being said I am not going to judge him on 1 game. However it is also another reminder that our squad isn't good enough. When Lamps was shown the door there were many who claimed we had a squad on a par with any in the league. I have never agreed with that. Poor signings from the board over the last few years have cost us. Tuchel got some decent results by focusing on thr defense but the underlying issues are still there. We need an overhaul of the dead wood in my opinion. As far as this season is concerned we cannot afford to drop many more points if we want top 4, and with the cup distractions I think we will fall short. Will be interesting to see what sort of backing the board gives Tuchel if we don't make Champs League. Especially when he will only have 1 year left on contract.

3 minutes ago, Dean said:

Wrong. I rarely have strong opinions, but there is just no “maybe” about it. We were in a death spiral with Lampard. I never once called for his head, but he’s just not a serious manager yet at this level, which is insanely competitive. I have no agenda, but at this point in time Tuchel is on another level. Ultimately that probably won’t be enough knowing Roman’s MO. But for now we’re miles better off with Tuchel. And we have a squad good enough to challenge the best sides, maybe one world-class striker short of what’s required to win major honours.

I cannot agree with you on the squad. Today illustrates that perfectly. The squad is good enough to be where it is and no more. Challenging for top 4 and capable of surprising the odd major team. Even with a clinical finisher we don't create enough chances. That is a factor as to why so many strikers lose form in our system

31 minutes ago, forbzy said:

I cannot agree with you on the squad. Today illustrates that perfectly. The squad is good enough to be where it is and no more. Challenging for top 4 and capable of surprising the odd major team. Even with a clinical finisher we don't create enough chances. That is a factor as to why so many strikers lose form in our system

Where we are now -

2nd best record in the premier league since Tuchel arrived (granted we may slip but this objectively is where we are now).

QF of CL - fact. 

Several promising young players who are improving with every game - you may disagree. 
 

We create plenty of chances but don’t put them away. a top striker would change that, taking us one level higher, which is pretty much the top.

39 minutes ago, forbzy said:

I cannot agree with you on the squad. Today illustrates that perfectly. The squad is good enough to be where it is and no more. Challenging for top 4 and capable of surprising the odd major team. Even with a clinical finisher we don't create enough chances. That is a factor as to why so many strikers lose form in our system

Also I don’t think today illustrates much necessarily. It was one of those days when a couple of things go wrong and then it just snowballs. Wasn’t a good performance by any means, and Tuchel made some big mistakes, but let’s see how he and the team react. 

1 hour ago, Argo said:

As that was clearly aimed at me here we go.

The only reason I brought up Lampard up was to point out the double standards regarding the youth thing, Tuchel is literally getting battered for anything that could even be slightly regarded as not pro the youth while Lampard froze Tomori (who was probably the main reason he got the Chelsea job in the first place) out for an entire year and received little to no criticism for it and still isn't despite the early signs showing he could be another KDB/Salah level error.

For the record i sympathise with him a bit with that one, while I didn't want him totally frozen out he wasn't nearly as good as he's showing now at Milan but the point I'm making is TT does the same to an academy player and the reasonable best case scenario is he's chased out of London with a gun.

Actually, it wasn't aimed at you but at the post immediately before mine from someone who consistently gave stick to Lampard no matter what and now is complaining that some have an agenda against Tuchel.

55 minutes ago, Dean said:

Wrong. I rarely have strong opinions, but there is just no “maybe” about it. We were in a death spiral with Lampard. I never once called for his head, but he’s just not a serious manager yet at this level, which is insanely competitive. I have no agenda, but at this point in time Tuchel is on another level. Ultimately that probably won’t be enough knowing Roman’s MO. But for now we’re miles better off with Tuchel. And we have a squad good enough to challenge the best sides, maybe one world-class striker short of what’s required to win major honours.

After being thrashed by West Brom, West f**king Brom, relegation fodder, are you serious? Today we've lost against one of the bottom three letting in 5 golas and you still write that we are better under Tuchel than what we were under Lampard? Really? Have you seen today's embarrassment or Barnsley or Sheffield or Leeds? I mean, we were not good in the last month and a half under Lampard, but if today's performance doesn't make some of you wonder whether it's not about the manager, I don't know what it will take....

15 minutes ago, Dean said:

Also I don’t think today illustrates much necessarily. It was one of those days when a couple of things go wrong and then it just snowballs. Wasn’t a good performance by any means, and Tuchel made some big mistakes, but let’s see how he and the team react. 

But that's the thing, this is not a one off. If Sheffield had been more clinical in their finishing, we would have been out of the cup. This has been coming for a while now. I don't think it is only about the coach, this team is tough to motivate and it is proving difficult to make this group of players play together like a proper team, not just to Lampard who was inexperienced, but also to Tuchel.

2 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

That we haven't been losing games has disguised how little we've been winning. 

The cup games have helped cover up our generally average form in the league under Tuchel as well. 

If you look purely at our league form we've drawn to Wolves, Southampton, Manchester United, Leeds and lost to WBA with wins in the other 6 games. 

So we're almost as likely to drop points under Tuchel as we are to win but when you look at the nature of the wins we've been very reliant on penalties to get results. 

Spurs and Sheffield United needed a penalty to win. Southampton a penalty salvaged a draw. Everton an own goal and a penalty. 

We've been really poor at winning games by our own creation under Tuchel and I think his constant rotation has played a part in that. 

Maintain that form over a season and you get to 76 points. In the last decade we have only bettered that tally three times.
So i'd say it's far above average.

Especially taking the circumstances into consideration. Against Southampton, Leeds and today against WBA we have had one eye firmly on the CL and rested key players. With how thick and fast the games come at this point in the season it forces Tuchel's hand in that sense.

On the relatively few occassions we have been able to play our best XI we have looked absolutely terrific. That is for me a great sign for what's to come in the CL and not least for next season.

30 minutes ago, RMH said:

Actually, it wasn't aimed at you but at the post immediately before mine from someone who consistently gave stick to Lampard no matter what and now is complaining that some have an agenda against Tuchel.

In that case apologies.

31 minutes ago, RMH said:

After being thrashed by West Brom, West f**king Brom, relegation fodder, are you serious? Today we've lost against one of the bottom three letting in 5 golas and you still write that we are better under Tuchel than what we were under Lampard? Really? Have you seen today's embarrassment or Barnsley or Sheffield or Leeds? I mean, we were not good in the last month and a half under Lampard, but if today's performance doesn't make some of you wonder whether it's not about the manager, I don't know what it will take....

We are better by every metric that counts. 

Don't think you'll find many supporting the claim we aren't any better now then we were under Lampard this season. 

 

44 minutes ago, RMH said:

After being thrashed by West Brom, West f**king Brom, relegation fodder, are you serious? Today we've lost against one of the bottom three letting in 5 golas and you still write that we are better under Tuchel than what we were under Lampard? Really? Have you seen today's embarrassment or Barnsley or Sheffield or Leeds? I mean, we were not good in the last month and a half under Lampard, but if today's performance doesn't make some of you wonder whether it's not about the manager, I don't know what it will take....

I’m completely serious. Top teams periodically get beaten by bottom ones with embarrassing score lines. In pretty much any given season.bigger picture is we have the second best record in the league since Tuchel arrived and are playing in the CL QF this coming week. A few things went wrong today and it just spiralled out of control. Was a terrible match but that happens. Let’s see how they react. 

45 minutes ago, RMH said:

But that's the thing, this is not a one off. If Sheffield had been more clinical in their finishing, we would have been out of the cup. This has been coming for a while now. I don't think it is only about the coach, this team is tough to motivate and it is proving difficult to make this group of players play together like a proper team, not just to Lampard who was inexperienced, but also to Tuchel.

If we’re going down that route, I could say: if Silva hadn’t got sent off, we could have won pretty comfortably today. If James had put away his chance when we 1-0 up and a man down, we may well have won the match as the onus would have been on them to attack us, leaving them vulnerable to counters - the opposite of what happened. If Werner had been more clinical against Everton, we might have won 5-0 and people wouldn’t be complaining about a lack of goals..... we’re going to have to agree to disagree I guess. I think we’re heading in the right direction and today was a blip.

21 minutes ago, Dean said:

I’m completely serious. Top teams periodically get beaten by bottom ones with embarrassing score lines. In pretty much any given season.bigger picture is we have the second best record in the league since Tuchel arrived and are playing in the CL QF this coming week. A few things went wrong today and it just spiralled out of control. Was a terrible match but that happens. Let’s see how they react. 

I remember some months ago I argued that our bad form isn't as bad as the defending champions Liverpool getting humiliated by Villa... And a response I got was that they don't care about 1 bad result, that they are still going to do well overall (or something like that). Turns out, that 1 bad result was a big warning sign and now Liverpool is 7th in the league.

This second best record that we have since Tuchel arrived is much more fragile than you think, I saw a comment after our lineup was announced saying how we look so lightweight in attack and despite scoring first we had no real way of keeping the ball at the opposition half, at the first glance it might look like some unusual bad things occurred to us but West Brom managed to score 3 goals the first time we played them this season and T.Silva had a huge blunder there when we played a draw. 

Tuchel might be right when he said that he doesn't believe that our players underestimated West Brom but then it was definitely him that did that, T.Silva didn't play in 2 months and he was clearly reckless and the substitutions that were made, well I don't think anyone understands them. 

Edited April 3, 20215 yr by Gol15

21 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

I remember some months ago I argued that our bad form isn't as bad as the defending champions Liverpool getting humiliated by Villa... And a response I got was that they don't care about 1 bad result, that they are still going to do well overall (or something like that). Turns out, that 1 bad result was a big warning sign and now Liverpool is 7th in the league.

This second best record that we have since Tuchel arrived is much more fragile than you think, I saw a comment after our lineup was announced saying how we look so lightweight in attack and despite scoring first we had no real way of keeping the ball at the opposition half, at the first glance it might look like some unusual bad things occurred to us but West Brom managed to score 3 goals the first time we played them this season and T.Silva had a huge blunder there when we played a draw. 

Tuchel might be right when he said that he doesn't believe that our players underestimated West Brom but then it was definitely him that did that, T.Silva didn't play in 2 months and he was clearly reckless and the substitutions that were made, well I don't think anyone understands them. 

Time will tell I guess.

2 hours ago, forbzy said:

I cannot agree with you on the squad. Today illustrates that perfectly. The squad is good enough to be where it is and no more. Challenging for top 4 and capable of surprising the odd major team. Even with a clinical finisher we don't create enough chances. That is a factor as to why so many strikers lose form in our system

Our squad is a bit of a conundrum. Think I agree that it isn't good enough, yet until today, TT seemed to transform them and it was easy to get carried away and start thinking maybe we can challenge City and be in with a shout in the CL.

Up to today, all the players TT has trusted have on the whole justified the faith he has shown. But today was a reminder why we will struggle to compete if we keep playing the likes of Alonso and Jorginho and even the once dependable Azpi. All still okay as squad players, but when you play them all together and the team you play are up for it and organised and press well, it can go horribly wrong, as it did today.

I'm hoping TT will react to todays shambles and those who was so poor today are dropped and others will get their chance but I am slightly concerned that he has his favourites and the likes of Gilmour still won't get a look-in. Time will tell.................. 

1 hour ago, Sindre said:

We are better by every metric that counts. 

Don't think you'll find many supporting the claim we aren't any better now then we were under Lampard this season. 

 

Yeah, right, statistics badly used again. Still, we never were as bad as today and by a margin as bad as against Barnsley or Sheffield Utd. Any fan will tell you that too.

Will be interesting if we do qualify for ucl next season and who we actually sign. Alongside a top finisher I still think we're lacking a world class playmaker. We need both one won't do. We don't create enough chances and we don't have an elite forward to finish of the ones we currently do.

I refuse to throw Tom under the bus what he has done in terms of results so far have been great. I honestly believe he feels he's utilising the squad as best as possible.

I would much rather we play with an extra attacker in a back 4 but we have seen time and time again that our midfield gets over run. So we play a back 3 and have been unbeaten since utilising it, now we can go into selection and what TT got wrong.

But, I'll make the case for the argument that if this game stays 11v11 we don't collapse like we did today. I wouldn't bet on us to lose but if by some miracle we did lose. It wouldn't have been this emphatic. TT could not of envisioned Silva would get sent off.

 

4 hours ago, RMH said:

But that's the thing, this is not a one off. If Sheffield had been more clinical in their finishing, we would have been out of the cup. This has been coming for a while now. I don't think it is only about the coach, this team is tough to motivate and it is proving difficult to make this group of players play together like a proper team, not just to Lampard who was inexperienced, but also to Tuchel.

I agree. This result has been coming for a while. We've been good under Tuchel in a few big games e.g. Athletico, but we've got away with results in a number of games recently where we were poor. Until today our defence had been good under Tuchel and in that respect I suspect today was a bit of an anomaly. But I haven't seen any improvement under Tuchel going forward.

We definitely deserved to lose one if not more out of all the games under Tuchel, so it's no surprise it finally arrived. I think he got the rotation horribly wrong today. Silva hasn't played for a month, has to come back slowly. Werner had a shocking week and rock bottom, should not have played either. I'm not even going to debate other 50-50 selections. Let's hope this is just one of those bad game, and we recover quickly for games next week.

2 hours ago, LongtimerLurker said:

Will be interesting if we do qualify for ucl next season and who we actually sign. Alongside a top finisher I still think we're lacking a world class playmaker. We need both one won't do. We don't create enough chances and we don't have an elite forward to finish of the ones we currently do.

I refuse to throw Tom under the bus what he has done in terms of results so far have been great. I honestly believe he feels he's utilising the squad as best as possible.

I would much rather we play with an extra attacker in a back 4 but we have seen time and time again that our midfield gets over run. So we play a back 3 and have been unbeaten since utilising it, now we can go into selection and what TT got wrong.

But, I'll make the case for the argument that if this game stays 11v11 we don't collapse like we did today. I wouldn't bet on us to lose but if by some miracle we did lose. It wouldn't have been this emphatic. TT could not of envisioned Silva would get sent off.

 

I agree that 11 v 11 would almost certainly have been different. But even 10 vs 11 needn’t have been a collapse and we might have even won bar a couple of unfortunate events. IIRC we had at least one pretty good chance to go 2-0 up after the red card. Didn’t take it and they equalised with what was a bit of a freak route one goal. Then I think the killer blow was the second conceded just before half time. Terrible time to concede as we know, we were left in a position of having to chase with 10 men, leaving us vulnerable to counters ,while they had the momentum and confidence and, to be fair to them, they played the game of their lives and everything worked for them. I’m not excusing our performance, particularly the individual errors that put us on the back foot in the first place, just highlighting that the result shouldn’t be taken at face value, and the catastrophising is OTT -  “OMG how could we lose by 3 goals to one of the worst teams in the league, this is a disaster!” It’s not. 

2 hours ago, Dean said:

I agree that 11 v 11 would almost certainly have been different. But even 10 vs 11 needn’t have been a collapse and we might have even won bar a couple of unfortunate events. IIRC we had at least one pretty good chance to go 2-0 up after the red card. Didn’t take it and they equalised with what was a bit of a freak route one goal. Then I think the killer blow was the second conceded just before half time. Terrible time to concede as we know, we were left in a position of having to chase with 10 men, leaving us vulnerable to counters ,while they had the momentum and confidence and, to be fair to them, they played the game of their lives and everything worked for them. I’m not excusing our performance, particularly the individual errors that put us on the back foot in the first place, just highlighting that the result shouldn’t be taken at face value, and the catastrophising is OTT -  “OMG how could we lose by 3 goals to one of the worst teams in the league, this is a disaster!” It’s not. 

I agree the timing of the 2 goals before ht was terrible. But a team with perosonality and leadership generally deals with this sort of adversity and doesn't collapse. Unfortunately our current squad is lacking in both aspects.