Iggy Doonican

Well that's a relief to us all.

Two ex Chelsea players have got promotion through the play offs in successive seasons as the song says two out of three ain't bad. Doubt either of them will be considered for the managers role anytime soon.

It's too simplistic to say that if you were a great player you'll be just as successful as a coach or manager. In cricket the best coaches have nearly always been average players. Steve Holland didn't play pro football and all English players who had great careers are never good coaches/managers. When Cascarino was at Chelsea he said that even at 35 Hoddle was the best player at the club and technically far superior to the average players he was coaching and he used to get frustrated at their lack of ability. I'm not saying that's been happening with Lampard or JT but a pattern has emerged over the last 30 years with English internationals who've failed as managers and it's a long list. Shilton, Pearce, Bryan Robson, Waddle, Platt, Butcher, Mark Wright, Barnes, McMahon, Peter Reid, Keown, Shearer, both Nevilles. Southgate was a crap manager and got the England job cause there was no one else. Barmby, Ince, Sheringham, Scholes, Wise, Campbell, Woodgate. No doubt Rooney will be given a high profile job in the next couple of years and will ultimately fail.

It's a weird thing to say and he doesn't come out of it well if we won on Saturday the start of the season would have been even earlier with the Community Shield.

I just heard they made a remake of Mr Magoo they got the inspiration after watching Anthony Taylor.

Made me laugh as strides are slang for trousers or should I say pants for all the septic tanks . Good post by the way and I don't disagree with any of it but I'm still not convinced Lampard has the minerals to become a top manager.

Lampard is following the well trodden path of all English managers. Play till the bitter end have a stint in the BT /Sky studio and go into management utterly unprepared. Lampard went to the States for the money when what he and other managers should do is take a year off go and study other managers coaching techniques take a few courses and then go into management. You get the impression Lampard can't take criticism and is very thin skinned and is almost dismissive in interviews. An injury hit squad facing Bayern next week things could get messy. Lampard has had his season ok an odd one in difficult circumstances but it's time fans started judging him on results and not his legacy as a player. You can blatantly see it in posts where fans are reluctant to slag him off and that's understandable to a degree but there's a song with the lyric '' Excuses have their uses but now they've all used up''. As far as I'm concerned it's Joe Bloggs manager not Frank Lampard Chelsea legend.

I genuinely like everybody here. I don't get annoyed by people with opinions who are able to articulate them. We seem to have scared away pretty much all of the people who want to throw insults around, I'm back Greavsie and I agree with you mate best thing about this forum is there's no fence sitters say what you believe and if you ruffle some feathers so fucking what we're Chelsea home to rebels 60's skins, 70's punks, 80's casuals

I'm back from my hiatus for this one post I think it will be enough. Lampard is clueless we all know it and those Lampard apologists time to get your heads out of the sand. His status at the club got him the job and that's keeping him in the job as well. Defeat eleven of the season and 49 fucking goals conceded is unacceptable and no other manager in our recent history would be still employed with a record like that. But he had his hands tied by the transfer ban you might say well fair enough but you should still not be losing to the likes of West Ham twice, Bournemouth I'm not going to go through every defeat and then today being outclassed and Lampard schooled by a newly promoted club. What about the young players he's brought through well what about them ? Mount fairly decent season, James the epitome of hot and cold, Tomori shaky but better than Zouma and the going backwards faster than an Italian tank in WW2 Rudiger. Tammy is not good enough end of. Billy Gilmour still raw and as good as he was against Liverpool and I'm not trying to take anything away from the kid but Liverpool weren't exactly up for it that night they had their eyes on the league and champions league. God knows how the rest of the season might pan out we could win the cup and finish top four or five but it's only papering over the cracks which I suppose is a weird thing to say but there are problems and major ones at that. Lampard is following a long tradition of English internationals who were great players but shit managers they seem to think there immune from criticism because of who they are and Lampard almost has the shrug of the shoulders well what do you want me to do about it body language. Lampard is fortunate and Kepa most definitely is that there's no fans at the matches because the murmurings of discontent would have started Kepa would be getting the ironic cheers everytime he did something right 70 million quid for that streak of paralysed piss is worse than Torres who the fuck scouted this clown. Well that's enough from me I still read TC and you can call me a prick I won't be answering but I hope you and your families are safe and Covid free my best mate was in an induced coma for 38 days thankfully fully recovered. Carefree wherever you may be.

I'm going to go into self imposed exile for a while (or maybe quarantine is more apt with the coronavirus ) so here's my final post on Lampard. I'm not trying to stir up a hornets nest here but in my opinion Lampard hasn't got the minerals to be a top coach. You can argue he was dealt a bad hand with the transfer ban, injuries and the board not sanctioning any buys in January but I think it's etched on his face he realises what a big job he's taken on and he at the moment can't provide the answers. Kepa has gone backwards, he's had six different centre back pairings and none of them look particularly good. Aspi hasn't been great at right back even worse at left back and while none of us thought Emerson was Roberto Carlos but he's been awful. Kante has been shit since his injury and I'm not convinced with either Tammy or Mount their young and could improve but they were playing in the championship last season and at times it shows. I said months ago that he should have appointed an experienced no 2 someone like McClaren dreadful manager but good coach. I really can't see Jody Morris telling Frank what to do and to be honest I don't think Lampard would listen anyway I do think and probably most will disagree that Lampard comes across as a bit pleased with himself. Nine home defeats already and with Liverpool on the horizon it will if not against them hit double figures this season and for a team that went 86 games unbeaten that's an appalling stat. Bottom line is Lampard's status is keeping him in the job I know a lot of fans will disagree and I can understand the reluctance to slag him off but lets be honest anyone else and they'd be gone look at the shit Sarri took. If things don't improve Lampard will be gone in October and talking of going that's me for a while KTBFFH and Carefree where ever you may be.

Tomo I apologise I should know better I've let things become personal which is not on. My outbursts are usually after the game when I've been drinking not a great excuse but I'm old enough to know better. Posters should be challenged on their pov but only on football matters and I've crossed the line. I do have a geezer down the pub sort of pov and it can be a bit raw I'm no shrinking violet and nor are my mates but that's where I should leave it in the pub. We are all Chelsea fans and as one of the old guard I should encourage younger fans not berate them I've let the forum down I'm old enough to know better so it's time for me to self moderate. Sorry Again Iggy.

Again skimming but excuses have there uses and now there all used up.Night night and don't forget to get your mum to tuck you in there's a good boy

Time to use a cliche is not of the essence let's be honest we are miles away from putting in a performance like Bayern did We saw a European powerhouse tonight we are in their slipstream of them and all the top teams in Europe. Winning the Europa League last year as good as it was especially taking the piss out of so many Gooners that's our level. There's a chasm in class between us and Europe's elite and anyone who thinks buying a few players in the Summer will right the wrongs is delusional.

I'm pretty pissed i actually went to the game some of us do I'm skimming this my polItics are RMT rep since 1992 and a Labour party member since 1984 at the height of the miners strike. I'm a shed boy of nearly 50 years you follow Chelsea on the internet that's all you've never been to the bridge if you have it's on your own sitting on your own changing the names on the programme because that just wouldn't do. Post your Chelsea history mate and then I'll post mine and we'll then we'll see who is plastic Argo.

Bad atmosphere tonight really flat pre match in the boozers and in the ground because we all know we just can't compete at this level anymore. Europa league last year turn up usually a comfortable win concentrate on the Sunday PL game. We are miles from competing at the highest level in the premier and champions league Europa league is our level and the sooner fans except that the better. We all expected hands on our hearts to get beaten tonight but the difference between playing the same team against an injury ravaged Spurs and a European powerhouse like Bayern Munich is is frankly laughable.

Again nothing but a apologist fuck off back to the middle class wankers on the shed end forum Argo,

https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2020/feb/25/david-squires-on-you-are-the-var

A mate just sent me this the Spurs match thread is closed so I thought I'd stick it on here. A couple of years old still fucking hilarious though.

You cherry pick all the time and backtrack more than a Tory MP. You have recently said and it certainly sounded that you were contented with dominating possession against Arsenal and running Liverpool and City close. No mention of the wretched performances against West Ham, Newcastle, Southampton, Brighton, Everton a fucking injury ravaged Bournemouth. If it wasn't for the sendings off against Ajax we wouldn't be playing tomorrow and we were lucky to draw against Valencia. The negatives have far outweighed the positives recently but at least we dominated against 10 men you're words verbatim. Everyone wants Lampard and the team to do well but they deserve criticism if things are going badly and I'm certainly not a fence sitter and will continue to post negative replies when they are warranted and not something as wishy washy as at least we gave Man City and Liverpool a good game

We're Chelsea not fucking Bristol Rovers we should give a good account of ourselves that's a given. If Giroud plays tomorrow and Willian instead of Mount then apart from Reece James how is that a team full of youngsters ?.

I've been going to Chelsea for 45 years when you were just a glint in the milkman's eye and have seen us nearly relegated to the third division so I hardly fit the category of spoiled. I've seen some dreadful teams and dreadful Chelsea players in some shithole grounds all over England and abroad the furthest you've been to watch Chelsea is carrying your laptop from your kitchen to your bedroom to do you're geeky musings about high press, pivots, double pivots etc.

You remind me of my son when he first played for his school football team. He'd say we lost 2-0 but we were really unlucky Smithy hit the bar, Jonesy had one cleared off the line we had two disallowed goals. It used to happen quite a lot and I'd just say never mind mate you'll win you're next game. When Chelsea are the better team and lose I take no comfort in that at all it's nothing to feel good about it's the polar opposite. And what happened against Liverpool and City means fuck all tomorrow. Again it's playground analysis it's like a kid saying we beat Spurs yesterday so we'll definitely beat Bournemouth Saturday. Lampard's press conference. '' How do you see tomorrow's game going Frank ?''. Lampard : '' Well we played well against Man City and Liverpool so we'll be fine''. Press : ''But you lost those games''. Lampard: ''But that's irrelevant all that matters is we played well''. Press : So playing well against two English teams in the league means you can equate that to playing against a German team in a different competition much more loaded atmosphere, more intensity and more high profile game '' ? Lampard : Yes of course anyway I've got to go Christine's just rang my dinner's ready.

That made me laugh you sound like Jack from Father Ted