Super Frank Thread

[Jase 43,479]

1 minute ago, Tomo said:

I can't be bothered to go back and source particular quotes but fairly certain the gist of it was I was encouraged by how comfortable we were playing out of the back and in possession (despite the eye pleasing side of things not living up to the hype) and thought it could be really built on on time and let's just say you challenged me on it quite a bit.

Hmmm...

In any case, I did say that their football may be boring and may have frustrated us at one point or another but at least one could see a plan there. But now...?

[Costa19 846]

2 hours ago, Jason said:

Their boring football is one thing but at least one could see what they were trying to do, how they wanted us to play.

Can the same be said about Lampard? We don't know what we're gonna get with Lampard in every match and it's been a long, long time since we had any sort of fluidity in our attack and since we put in a complete team performance. 

The thought crossed my mind yesterday.. Imagine if Sarri had this team for his football when he was here  Would fit his game perfectly with Ziyech, Pulisic, Havertz, Werner etc.

[killer1257 3,282]

The thought crossed my mind yesterday.. Imagine if Sarri had this team for his football when he was here  Would fit his game perfectly with Ziyech, Pulisic, Havertz, Werner etc.

Werner and Pulisic are clearly mo Sarri Ball players. Hazard was also not a Sarri ball player

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[Atomiswave 6,072]

He is under pressure now whether we want to admit it or not, inexperience at such a level can quickly reveal itself on many layers as we are seeing. We need to click and show progress soon or its a wrap.

[Superblue 6,331]

I think it's far too early to be judging Lampard at this stage. 

I think there has to be an acceptance that Lampard has an end plan for this squad. He's brought players in who have clearly been agreed between him and the board who all appear to be on the same wavelength at present, and we've got some real top quality players into the club, some of which appear to have been sold the project by Lampard.

Trying to integrate these new players with no pre season (and what we did have of one was completely disrupted by mass isolations and international football) and a number of players coming back in different phases due to different levels of fitness, injuries, etc was going to be a huge struggle. I don't think it's a coincidence that Wolves and United have both looked really poor since coming back, and City also look undercooked. I think all are suffering for the extensions to their seasons at present.

However I mentioned it last night, following the international break (hopefully coming out unscathed), Lampard has to start focusing on rotating far less, and give the team as much opportunity to develop and build chemistry together as possible. The back line in particular needs a run of games together to build some consistency. If Lampard thinks Silva and Christensen are the first choice pairing then he needs to stick with them and give them chance to develop an understanding together. 

There seems to be over thinking at times by Lampard and at times he just needs to keep things simple. Our run early in the season last year had far less rotation, United's run in the second half of the season was built on very little rotating and Liverpool have shown in the last couple of years the consistency that has been built in this way also.

I think if the same problems are apparent in a couple of months time, then questions do need to start being asked about whether he is the right man for the job in the long term. For now though I think time and patience is required.

[milka 3,308]

 

[Fernando 6,376]

I think the same give it till November. 

But I liked what I saw from Mendy yesterday. 

For me things can only improve from here.

[ZAPHOD2319 3,873]

As a fan, this time of getting all these players on the same page is difficult to be patient. It would help if I could see that there is a game plan being executed.

[Henrique 9,133]

9 hours ago, milka said:

 

LOL

The season just started. The headline makes you think the team is in 7 loses in a row.

[Laylabelle 9,296]

Its the Mail..they love a team in crisis story. 

[Vesper 27,310]

I have been saying to sell Kante, for very valid reasons (and playing him as the sole holder is semi madness)

BUT

rolling with Jorginho as our starting DMF in a 3 man midfield is going to help destroy us

our offense looks beyond dogshit with him slowing us down to a walking pace

and he is dross defensively

all these buys and DMF is still a huge issue

all the unsaleable SHIT (and ultra expensive) buys are catching up to us

 

[Vesper 27,310]

Lampard is struggling to find balance between creativity and control in midfield

https://theathletic.com/2101981/2020/09/30/frank-lampard-chelsea-midfield-balance-shield/

In July, Frank Lampard outlined what he looks for in a midfielder. “If we feel like we are going to have a lot of control, generally I play with midfield players that can play high, can play on the side, and can do the defensive duties as well.” His words were in direct response to questions about why Jorginho, for so long a stalwart at the base of midfield, had fallen out of favour.

Jorginho’s presence in the Chelsea team to begin this season, and against Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday, is a sign that Lampard still doesn’t have the midfield he wants. N’Golo Kante playing just in front of the defence, as he did for the final stretch of 2019-20, is no longer considered a long-term solution. Billy Gilmour is still sidelined, though recovering well from knee surgery. Declan Rice remains, for now at least, a West Ham United player. Five different central midfield combinations have been trialled in Chelsea’s first five matches of the new campaign, but a true balance between creativity and control is yet to be found.

Far from performing badly against Spurs, Jorginho had a trademark game: 120 touches, 102 passes with a 92.2 per cent success rate and even a nerveless penalty in the shootout. There were flashes of the possession interplay with Mateo Kovacic that underpinned some of Chelsea’s best performances without Kante last season, particularly during a first half in which Tottenham offered little resistance. Once the home side ramped up the intensity after the interval, the control the pair had afforded Lampard’s team proved brittle.

Between the 46th minute and the 70th, shortly before Kovacic was replaced by Kante, Chelsea’s share of possession dropped to 46 per cent. Tottenham pressed their opponents high and hard, pushing up wing-backs Sergio Reguilon and Serge Aurier to overload Lampard’s back four, and regularly looked to switch the play quickly into crossing positions. It didn’t immediately yield the equaliser, but it did seize them the initiative; during this stretch they had six shot attempts to Chelsea’s one.

It was not until the 70th minute when Jose Mourinho brought on Harry Kane for Japhet Tanganga, a striker for a centre-back, that Chelsea came back into the game. Mason Mount, isolated from Jorginho and Kovacic for long spells as a No 10, fluffed two great chances to play Timo Werner clean through on goal either side of Callum Hudson-Odoi blazing a shot over the bar — with an unmarked Tammy Abraham screaming for a pass — after racing into the space vacated by Eric Dier’s perilously timed toilet dash.

Wastefulness and poor decision-making in the final third were issues that crippled Chelsea at times last season. Given the quality and extent of the club’s attacking recruitment in this transfer window, it is hard to imagine them having anywhere near as many infuriating experiences up front this time around. More concerning is the apparent ease with which they can still be pushed onto the back foot by increasingly desperate opponents, despite having no shortage of players capable of keeping and passing the ball.

Jorginho saw out the 90 minutes but could find no way to effectively slow Tottenham’s pressure, instead picking up a booking for a foul on Tanguy Ndombele to initiate the sequence that led to Erik Lamela’s equaliser — a goal that highlighted, among other things, the ineffectiveness of Chelsea’s midfield shield.

Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg lines up the free kick just inside the Chelsea half, with Dier a few yards behind him. Werner is alive to the threat of Reguilon advancing on the left flank, with Lampard’s defence staying narrow to deal with Kane and Lucas Moura. Kante is the closest player to Lamela while Emerson Palmieri is higher up, closer to Aurier than the Argentine.

The moment Hojbjerg lays the ball back to Dier, things start to go wrong. Abraham, Mount and Hudson-Odoi make no real attempt to pressure the ball while Kante jogs back into midfield, away from Lamela, with Emerson still too far away from the rest of Chelsea’s defence to pick him up.

As the ball is flighted out towards Reguilon, both Kante and Emerson are too slow to recognise the threat Lamela poses at the back post. He even has time to take a touch in the penalty area before slotting in the equaliser.

Emerson is primarily to blame; he has no business being so much higher up than the rest of the back four when Chelsea are defending a lead late in the game, and he then shows nowhere near enough urgency to recover. But the sequence also underlines Kante’s lack of instincts for tracking opposition runners in his own defensive third. He is the best seek-and-destroy midfielder in the world operating higher up the pitch, but this isn’t really his game. The problem for Lampard is it isn’t really part of Jorginho or Kovacic’s skill sets either.

Rice, a defensive midfielder with extensive experience as a centre-back in youth and senior football, is much better equipped to address that particular need. Do not underestimate just how unpalatable it would be for West Ham owners David Gold and David Sullivan to be seen to be selling their prized asset to Chelsea, and to Lampard in particular, but the question will be asked pretty forcefully in the final days of the window.

Lampard cannot rely on Chelsea prising Rice out of West Ham. The smart assumption is that he will need to balance his team with what he has. That means finding a midfield configuration that he trusts for the most important matches and sticking with it, and perhaps making other tweaks around the edges; aside from Emerson’s mistake against Tottenham, the regularity with which Lampard’s full-backs find themselves stranded ahead of the ball feels like a systemic flaw.

The presence of Edouard Mendy and Thiago Silva should bring a little more stability to Chelsea’s creaky defence, as well as allow Lampard to be more consistent with his selection than last season. But arranging his midfield in a way that maximises his new attacking weapons without leaving his back line exposed might well prove to be the trickier — and ultimately defining — test of his coaching mettle.

 

[Vesper 27,310]

Barkley Makes Way & Mount-ing Pressure on Lampard

 

 

https://theathletic.com/podcast/139-straight-outta-cobham/?episode=46

 

Host Matt Davies-Adams & The Athletic's Chelsea experts, Simon Johnson, Liam Twomey & Dom Fifield, reconvene following Mason Mount's missed penalty and Chelsea's untimely exit from the Carabao Cup...

But has Mount been unfairly criticised? What is Lampard's 'brand of football' and what does Ross Barkley's loan to Villa mean for Loftus-Cheek?

Plus, the guys look ahead to the Crystal Palace game - a side poised to exploit Chelsea's weaknesses - and assess new goalkeeper Edouard Mendy's debut too.

[ZAPHOD2319 3,873]

Blink Blink

56 out of 60

 

[killer1257 3,282]

Barkley Makes Way & Mount-ing Pressure on Lampard     https://theathletic.com/podcast/139-straight-outta-cobham/?episode=46   Host Matt Davies-Adams & The Athletic's Chelsea experts, Simon Johnson, Liam Twomey & Dom Fifield, reconvene following Mason Mount's missed penalty and Chelsea's untimely exit from the Carabao Cup...

 

But has Mount been unfairly criticised? What is Lampard's 'brand of football' and what does Ross Barkley's loan to Villa mean for Loftus-Cheek?

 

Plus, the guys look ahead to the Crystal Palace game - a side poised to exploit Chelsea's weaknesses - and assess new goalkeeper Edouard Mendy's debut too.

At least these guys are patient and know that Lampard needs time

 

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[Jase 43,479]

 

[DDA 9,570]

5 hours ago, Jason said:

 

Legendary. I love Pulisic. The exact type of guy that this club needs. 

[DDA 9,570]

Fair play to Frank. He says it how he sees it. He doesn't bow down to players or other managers whether right or wrong. Reminds me of a certain other manager who is now regarded as the greatest of all time.....