Vesper

Lampard Ready To Axe Defensive Star For Rest Of The Season: Should Chelsea Replace The Spaniard? https://the4thofficial.net/2020/02/lampard-ready-to-axe-defensive-star-for-rest-of-the-season-should-chelsea-replace-the-spaniard/ According to a recent report by Spanish news outlet Cope, Premier League high-flyers Chelsea are said to be considering cashing in on their Spanish shot-stopper Kepa Arizzabalaga after he was dropped from the first-team in favour of Willy Caballero just a few days ago. The Pensioners’ most recent fixture against Leicester City saw Lampard opting to play the Argentine veteran from the start for the first time in the league this season, possibly triggering a bad moment in Kepa’s Chelsea career. It has been claimed that Lampard is keen on a new goalkeeping signing in the summer, owing largely to their current Spaniard’s inefficiency and mistake-prone nature. The report suggests that the Chelsea gaffer may not start Kepa for the remainder of the season and that it’s something he’s been scheming up for quite a while now. It has been reported that the inexplicable £71m price-tag is the only thing that has sustained Kepa’s place in this Chelsea team so far this season and that Lampard has already asked the board to start looking for replacements that they can bring in during the summer. Where Has It All Gone Wrong For Kepa Arizzabalaga This Season? The young Spanish shot-stopper arrived from Athletic Bilbao for a whopping transfer fee, effectively building up such lofty expectations on his shoulders even before he had arrived in London. The price-tag was obviously viewed as extravagant, while his performances during the first few weeks in England wouldn’t have filled the fans with too much confidence either. Despite this, the youngster was given the starting role in Maurizio Sarri’s Chelsea team and continued into the current season as the first-choice as well. There’s no denying that the Spanish custodian has played in some vital fixtures for the Blues, including the Europa League semifinal against Eintracht Frankfurt last season, where he made a couple of vital penalty saves in the shootout. Despite this, things have taken a turn for the worse since the start of the current campaign. He’s looked extremely shabby with the ball at his feet, while the Spaniard doesn’t seem to make saves that should be routine for someone of his high standards. The leggy shot-stopper has struggled to make any memorable saves this season, and continues to boast among the worst numbers of all the keepers in the league. snip

back in the day it was often a madhouse 1984, after we beat Leeds to go back up

the Beasant gene pool must have a large shallow end in terms of GK potential

so you think we would roll with only 3 wingers? or that if we do have 4, that the fourth would be a 32-34yo Willian on a £30m for 3 years contract instead of Boga? and £5m or so that we just flushed down the shitter with letting the turgid Pedro walk on a free just adds to already monstrous losses we have already had and will have the amounts are already jaw dropping (over 300m and counting) and quite likely can go well over £400m if we cock up with the remaining older players On top of that, most all of our older loan army out now is going to end in masssssive fails when the final coin is counted The board is criminally poor, and the blame ultimately is Roman's to bear I hate seeing our once magnificent team being slowly rendered null and void as a future-forward force by a pack of mendacious and inept rotters

lol assclown

I accept that a valid for CF Cavani's Atleti desires bollocksed us in the end, as did Lyon's refusals to sell Dembele Not much we could do about either I still think Mertens rumour was sham, as he is injured and LOVES Naples. No way was he leaving, and I fully expect him to renew soon or by summer.

Also, explain the non-sale of the now-horrid Pedro and then not using the buyback on Boga, which would have net cost only 7-8m total that and LB are inexcusable fuck-ups

do explain LB we had hard offers (Marina bollocksing about with Alonso's price with Inter was FUCKED) for both of ours and clear deals (Telles via RC for one) that could have been done CF I will give you (although I personally would have been all over RM about a loan for Jovic, even with no option at all)

oh, neither do I at all I think £80m for him is madness I was only saying that IF (as the board and Lamps seem to be Chilwell or bust) we fail and then do NOTHING at LB that is a huge fail key I would so so much rather sell or swap the 2 dregs we have now and buy (no order and the Bayern two are pipes dreams) 2 of the following Theo Hernandez Robin Gosens Alex Telles (last summer to buy before he is too old, utter madness we did not sell Alonso and buy him, which was a zero (or near) net cost deal) David Alaba (last summer to buy before he is too old) Alphonso Davies Luca Pellegrini Alejandro Grimaldo (I think he is too pricey (60m euros) for what we would get) Jose Gaya (not even an option as 100m euros is insane) Sergio Reguilón (RM will not sell him unless we dangle Kante, which I would bite their hands off for a Kante for Varane + Reguilón swap) Rayan Aït Nouri 18yo, 2nd best U20 LB on the planet (Davies is top)

I would rather drink antifreeze until my tummy burst

the 3 keys to judge summer 2020 by 1 a fail on Sancho (fail here and it is all downhill form there) 2 a fail on Dembele or (my own injection of an option) Calvert-Lewin, as I (as all know by now) do not think Werner ends up here. If we fail on those 3, then the options really dry up FAST (Lautaro is pipe dream, Shitty will not sell us Jesus, and Raúl Jiménez, who turns 30 next season, is too old for the cash demanded) 3 a fail on Chilwell and if we fail, we then do nothing at all at LB if those 3 things happen we are FUCKED if those all fail and we still, even then (given all that money for the above is not spent there) fail to land Ziyech (or similar) and Grealish (or Maddison), plus Palace will not budge at all on the £80m demand for Zaha (thus meaning ZERO chance we move on him), and also we still make (at that point) no moves at CB and DMF, AND as a cherry on the cake, renew the cuntish Willian on a 2 or even 3 year, £10m per year contract (thus blowing out the dressing room atmosphere wage structure demands) THEN the the fucked part will come viciously hard and come so soon it will make heads spin and minds reel

completely agree

the 4 utter inexcusable games (leaving out many other collapses, including the 2 nil blown lead v SU, the blown 1 1 draw with BHA, the blown 2-2 draw AT HOME versus a 10-man Arse etc etc) were these nil 1, nil 2 games, 3 of them AT HOME all against SHIT dregs if we lose top 4, THESE are the games that did it above all others outfuckingrageously POOR these 12 (or even 10, if we had just drawn at NUFC) dropped points would have 75% (or more) locked up 4th by now to be shut out in all 4, and 3 times at the Bridge is unforgivable

Hard to blame Lampard when the following are simply not anywhere near prime Chels material these are now on the main roster Kepa (this needs to be fixed and SOON, starting with a coaching change) Willy Caballero (ok for now as a backup, but is NOT good enough, not even close, to be a starter) Kurt Zouma (simply piss poor on the ball and makes too many mistakes, I have held my tongue for months, but this is the bottom line for me, not that anything will be done) Andreas Christensen (one word....WEAK) Emerson Marcos Alonso César Azpilicueta (NOT acceptable as a LB, fine as a backup/rotation RB, but is a poor captain as well) N'Golo Kanté (not in his present role, he is crammed into the side and it unbalances us, this will not change under Lamps, as he is not a defensive, counter-attacking manager) Ross Barkley Marco van Ginkel (tragic injuries) Lewis Baker (why is he not sold??) Danilo Pantic (see Baker) Willian (oki as a backup for the next 4 months, but to consider him as our best and main winger, as some have posited, is madness and damning of the level we are at, if we renew him for 2 or even the 3 (!!!) years he is demanding, this shows where we are headed and it isn't pretty) Pedro (is dregs now, he is spent, good servant, but his race is run, it is insane we did not sell him to one of the many teams that wanted him, and then buy the red hot Boga, for a net cost of only £7-8m!!!)) Michy Batshuayi (the death of top 4 hopes if Tammy goes down, utter pants as an all-round footballer) Olivier Giroud (needs to be used as we kept him)

i am not going after Lamps at all (or very little) I think the vast majority of blame belongs on the board and certain players (and no not Mount, I am not on the bash Mason train)

are you kidding???? he fucked and knocked up his neighbour's wife and is trying to skate on paying child support

Yes, but under his coaching a £143m GK has regressed to damn near the worst in the league. If that is not sacking time, nothing is.

Lampard needs to sack Henrique Hilário NOW. EOS

Baba out for the year, Bakayoko out injured now as well, Zappacosta still out with horrid knee injury, might be for the rest of the year, Charly Musonda the same atm Ampadu back to RB where he will play fuckall loan army tatters https://www.football.london/chelsea-fc/players/chelsea-loanees-bakayoko-rahman-moses-17682766 Disaster for Baba: Chelsea left back needs surgery again, on both knees after failed comeback Baba Rahman has been spending the season on loan wtih Real Mallorca, but has been injured for most of it https://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2020/1/31/21116419/disaster-for-baba-chelsea-left-back-needs-surgery-again-on-both-knees-after-failed-comeback

plenty of those littered throughout footie history!!!

The secrets of Fortress Anfield and ‘a pitch as finely tuned as the athletes who play on it’ https://theathletic.com/1570062/2020/02/02/liverpool-anfield-fortress-pitch/ Many dismissed it as a lame excuse when Jurgen Klopp lamented the dryness of the Anfield pitch after Liverpool were held to a dour stalemate by Southampton in May 2017. “I know nobody wants to hear it but I am brave enough to say it. The pitch was really dry,” he declared. “We gave it all the water we had but after 15 minutes it was really dry again with the wind. You could see it… a lot of passes you thought ‘why are they playing this?’ But it was difficult. “In a possession game you need to have the best circumstances, if possible, in a home game especially, but we couldn’t have this. That’s nobody’s fault. It is not what I want. To be successful you have to have a fortress at home.” Klopp felt that Liverpool’s ageing playing surface was holding them back. It was too slow and inhibited their attacking play. Fenway Sports Group (FSG) took action, sanctioning a multi-million pound investment in the club’s infrastructure that summer. To say that the owners have had a decent return on that outlay would be something of an understatement. On Saturday a resurgent Southampton suffered at the hands of Klopp’s juggernaut. A dazzling second-half blitz secured a 4-0 triumph as Liverpool equalled Manchester City’s Premier League record of 20 successive home league wins. “Wow, the Kop was in full voice today,” declared FSG president Mike Gordon as he greeted reporters waiting to speak to the players post-match. Klopp has built an imposing fortress and these days Anfield brings out the best in the Premier League champions elect. The array of improvements made to the playing surface are a key part of that. “A lot of teams come to Anfield and play compact and that means there isn’t a lot of space,” Liverpool goalkeeping coach John Achterberg tells The Athletic. “In the past we struggled against teams who sat back with 11 men behind the ball and we’d drop points. “But the owners made the pitch so much better with the new surface and the water system they had installed. We always have a wet pitch now and that helps the speed of the game so much. “I always used to be worried that on a sunny day we’d struggle because the pitch was too slow to move the ball quick to create things. Now the players know how to break teams down and where to find the solutions.” Liverpool had a new state-of-the-art GrassMaster pitch installed; a hybrid field consisting of 97 per cent organic grass combined with three per cent of artificial fibres. Some 25,000 miles of artificial fibres were stitched into the pitch — the equivalent of the earth’s circumference. Anfield became the first stadium in the UK to fit the Permavoid irrigation system to speed up drainage and allow for the entire surface to be watered in less than three minutes. A new undersoil heating system made up of some 19 miles of pipeline was also put in place to help aid growth and prevent the pitch from freezing. Work was completed in time for the start of the 2017-18 season. Since then Liverpool have played 51 home league matches — winning 42 and drawing nine. It’s now been more than a year since any top-flight team left Anfield with something to show for their efforts. Maintenance of the turf is the responsibility of grounds manager Dave Roberts, who joined the club in April 2016. He previously carried out the same role at Southampton before working for public school Charterhouse in Surrey. Klopp’s attention to detail means that he’s in regular dialogue with Roberts to ensure the pitch is exactly how the manager wants it. “Dave is one of the unsung heroes,” Geoff Webb, chief executive officer of the Institute of Groundsmanship, tells The Athletic. “Pitch technology has moved on massively over the last 10 years and Dave has been ahead of the game on that. He’s a brilliant groundsman and is well-respected by his peers. There aren’t many around with the skill he’s got. “He’s got a very good working relationship with Klopp and that communication is very important in terms of creating a surface that the players really trust and feel safe and comfortable on.” At Melwood, Roberts is tasked with ensuring Liverpool train ahead of home games on a pitch that replicates Anfield in every possible way but at other times he has to adapt. Towards the end of last season, Klopp anticipated Cardiff City boss Neil Warnock would do everything in his power to slow Liverpool down. He therefore asked for the training pitch not to be cut or watered to prepare his players for what they might face in the Welsh capital. His hunch was right. Cardiff’s sprinkler system appeared to have been given the day off but Liverpool ran out 2-0 winners. Anfield is now pristine all-year round. Eight heat and moisture sensors help monitor the best growing environment, while ground staff use 15 grow lights to cultivate the grass. Temperature and humidity can be controlled to speed up growth. “It’s about 10 per cent soil, 90 per cent sand and that pitch is as finely tuned as the athletes who play on it,” Webb adds. “Even the technology behind grass seed is huge. It’s genetically modified for each particular stadium taking into account the environment and things like shade tolerance. “Tests are done regularly and everything these days is data driven. Areas are flagged up and work is carried out. It’s about getting the balance right in terms of stability and drainage. The lighting rigs have made a massive difference as they give you the opportunity to create sunlight and help grow the grass, no matter what time of year it is.” Premier League rules state that match delegates must measure pitches before every game to ensure the grass is no longer than 30mm (1.2in). Anfield is around 23mm (0.9in) — “just about the perfect height for football”, according to Webb. There was no slowing Liverpool down on Saturday as they zipped the ball around at pace and turned defence into attack in devastating fashion during that second-half onslaught. “When my team starts rolling, the power we create in these moments is really incredible,” beamed Klopp. Ten passes and 25 seconds after Danny Ings had stumbled over in the box appealing for a penalty, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain fired home the opener. There were nine seconds between Alisson having the ball at his feet and Mohamed Salah converting Liverpool’s third after a pinpoint pass from the outstanding Jordan Henderson, which skipped perfectly off the turf. The slick exchange between Salah and Roberto Firmino in the build up to the fourth had Anfield on its feet once again. It was another good day at the office for Roberts and his staff. Liverpool have taken 100 points out of the last 102 on offer and have equalled Nottingham Forest’s 42-game unbeaten league run in 1977-78. Now they have Arsenal’s record of 49 from 2003-04 in their sights. Shrewd recruitment has been at the heart of the transformation Klopp has overseen. But FSG have also committed £200 million into the club’s infrastructure with the Main Stand redevelopment, the pitch, the retail store and the new training complex in Kirkby, which will open its doors in July. Where once their surroundings held them back, Liverpool now have everything in place to flourish.

Mertens, Cavani and Rondon: Chelsea stalled striker hunt as club gamble that current squad can secure fourth https://theathletic.com/1576630/2020/02/02/chelsea-striker-mertens-cavani-transfer/?source=dailyemail When the substitutes’ board was raised in the 83rd minute at the King Power Stadium to show Ross Barkley coming on for Tammy Abraham, recent Chelsea history suggested Frank Lampard had picked a key moment in a key match against Premier League top-four rivals to send a political message. It was a day that had summed up the problems that drove Chelsea’s fraught and ultimately failed striker search throughout January. After a litany of missed first-half chances from Abraham, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Mason Mount, only Antonio Rudiger’s first Premier League goals for 15 months prevented Leicester from handing Lampard’s men a ninth loss of the season. This late substitution wasn’t quite Jose Mourinho deploying Andre Schurrle as a false 9 at Old Trafford in 2013 while publicly pursuing Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney, or Antonio Conte pointedly handing an unfit Barkley his Chelsea debut in a Carabao Cup semi-final against Arsenal in 2018 to highlight his lack of squad options. But given the Chelsea head coach’s demeanour only 24 hours earlier at Cobham, the cynic’s interpretation was tempting — even if he later explained: “We have spent a lot of time this week on how we press without the ball and I thought Ross has been playing pretty well recently. It was just a case of bringing him on, [getting] he and Willian in those positions to maybe get a bit more ball because at that point it hadn’t really stuck for us much up there. It was just a choice.” Olivier Giroud did not even travel with the Chelsea squad to Leicester, having trained with his future in the balance on January transfer deadline day. “It was nothing to do with his frame of mind, no,” Lampard insisted. “But he has had a few days where a lot of scrutiny has been on him and around him. I think it was case of travelling without him. “We will all go away for a week away from each other. It’s probably what’s needed for everyone and we will come back and work hard, and Olivier is here. If he shows himself in training — because that is how I pick the team generally — then he will get his opportunities.” Lampard had cut an agitated figure at Cobham on Friday as he admitted that, with almost 12 hours of deadline day remaining, the window was “95 per cent shut” for Chelsea. He even spoke faster than normal, his eyes darting quickly from left to right, any smiles vanishing from his face almost as soon as they appeared. And in his keenness to paint his team as “underdogs” in what remains of the top-four race, his praise of Bruno Fernandes as a “world-class” signing for United and his invocation of “work” as the only solution to Chelsea’s problems, there were ominous echoes of the Conte who became content to use his media engagements to lob verbal grenades on his way to a toxic divorce with the board. But the message here was slightly muddled, the obvious annoyance a little aimless; for Lampard also admitted that he wouldn’t have been satisfied by Chelsea buckling to pressure — both from the management and an expectant fan base — and talking themselves into a questionable deadline-day deal, as United later did with Odion Ighalo. “The reality is I have an idea here as well of where I want to get to and I don’t think any knee-jerk reaction from myself or from the club would have been positive,” he insisted. And the reality of the January transfer window for Chelsea, as it was for other clubs, was a choice between doing something underwhelming or doing nothing. As first reported by the Telegraph, sources have told The Athletic that Chelsea were presented with an opportunity to take Salomon Rondon on loan from Chinese Super League club Dalian Yifang on deadline day. His arrival would have freed up Giroud to leave but would also have meant replacing the man who will likely lead the line for France at Euro 2020 this summer with a striker who scored 35 goals in 140 Premier League appearances for West Brom and Newcastle. Chelsea opted not to go down the route with Rondon that United did with Ighalo, and the episode provided a fitting end to a January window that, having begun with the optimism born of a successful transfer ban appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), ended with as much frustration inside Cobham as played out on social media. Agents had been alerted to Chelsea’s desire to do business in January even before the CAS decision was handed down and sources have told The Athletic that Marina Granovskaia met with the representative of Napoli forward Dries Mertens before Christmas to gauge his level of interest in a January move to the Premier League. Lampard’s interest in Mertens sprang as much from his ability to play in a variety of attacking roles as his elite goalscoring pedigree and there was hope that his expiring contract might present a rare opportunity to acquire a quality forward relatively cheaply. The Napoli chairman Aurelio De Laurentiis quickly shut that possibility down. Mertens is also injured, and three goals shy of passing Marek Hamsik as Napoli’s all-time top goalscorer. It was a non-starter. Chelsea enquired about Edinson Cavani once he made it clear he was unsettled but were only prepared to take him on loan. Paris Saint-Germain wanted a sale and not even Atletico Madrid, the player’s preferred destination, could match the €20 million asking price. That level of expense made no sense for an increasingly injury-prone 32-year-old who is paid more than N’Golo Kante, the highest earner at Stamford Bridge. The only other high-profile striker who actually changed clubs late in the January window was Krzysztof Piatek. Representatives acting on his behalf offered him around the Premier League but Chelsea were not interested in spending on a striker who could not even hold down a regular starting place in a struggling AC Milan side. Chelsea’s long-term targets were not available in January. Jadon Sancho and Borussia Dortmund agreed to revisit his situation in the summer while Timo Werner had no desire to leave RB Leipzig in the midst of a Bundesliga title race and a top-scorer battle with Robert Lewandowski. Wilfried Zaha and Moussa Dembele were both prohibitively expensive, and neither enjoyed unanimous endorsement in the club’s transfer discussions. In this barren landscape, Chelsea were determined not to repeat the mistakes of the recent past — most notably the disastrous summer of 2017, when pressure from Conte played its part in around £55 million being spent on deadline-day deals for Danny Drinkwater and Davide Zappacosta that the club are still reckoning with. Nor was it palatable to allow Giroud to leave without securing a replacement, regardless of his desire to safeguard his starting spot for France at Euro 2020. The optics in particular of sending him to Jose Mourinho and Tottenham, then watching both reel in and overtake Chelsea in the final stretch of the Premier League top-four race, would have been virtually impossible to recover from. So in the end, Chelsea decided to stand put, prioritising the summer over the present. It is a calculated gamble that this squad, managed by Lampard, can get over the line to fourth. If it works, they will be in a perfect position to pursue top-tier names and take the team to the next level. Lampard is invested in that long-term vision but he also knows that, like every other Chelsea coach in the Roman Abramovich era, he is being judged on his results right now. “We are fortunate that we have a nice group of young players at the minute but we have to keep looking forward and we are,” he told Match of the Day after victory over Hull City in the FA Cup. “But for this season, short-term [recruitment] needs to be done. For the bigger picture, of course there is a plan, but for now, when you look at it, we want to finish in the top four. At the minute, it is quite clear to me where we can improve so we have to look to that.” This is the tension that spilled out of Lampard on deadline day and the tension that might have surfaced once more if Chelsea had paid for their missed chances against Leicester. Instead, Rudiger’s equaliser gave him the chance to deescalate the situation heading into the winter break. “It’s gone,” Lampard said of the transfer market. “I am not interested in the window, I am not interested in talking about it. I am interested in the point we got and what we do going forward.” After sitting out the January window, Chelsea will remain a flawed team between now and the summer. Lampard’s decision to drop Kepa Arrizabalaga for Willy Caballero at the King Power underlined that, to achieve this season’s targets, he will need to navigate difficult problems at both decisive ends of his team. But the public attitude of Chelsea’s head coach will be every bit as important in ensuring that he will be the man to oversee the club’s longer-term rebuild.

CIES Football Observatory n°282 - 03/02/2020 Demography Most fielded youngsters https://football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/b5wp/2019/wp282/en/ issue number 282 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the list of players born in the 2000s who played the highest percentage of domestic league minutes during current season. Dejan Kulusevski (Parma, on loan from Juventus) tops the table for the big-5 league players ahead of Sandro Tonali (Brescia), Max Aarons (Norwich) and the 17-year-old French talent Eduardo Camavinga (Stade Rennais). Conor Gallagher (Swansea, on loan from Chelsea) heads the rankings for the second divisions of big-5 league countries. The Spanish prodigy Pedri (Las Palmas) is fourth. Born in 2002, the attacking midfielder has already signed a long-term contract for FC Barcelona. At 19th position is a player born in 2003: Jude Bellingham (Birmingham City). The English midfielder already scored four goals in the Championship. The Dutchman Sven Botman is at the top of the rankings for players from the other top divisions taken into account. The centre back loaned by Ajax to Heerenveen outranks the Brazilian midfielder Gustavo Assunção (Famalicão) and three very young talents: the Czech forward Adam Hložek (2002, Sparta Prague), the Australian midfielder Louis D’Arrigo (2001, Adelaide) and the Swiss defender Leonidas Stergiou (2002, St-Gall). Most fielded youngsters, big-5 leagues Players born on or after 01/01/2000. Season 2019/20, domestic league matches until 27/01/2020. Most fielded youngsters, big-5 league countries second division Players born on or after 01/01/2000. Season 2019/20, domestic league matches until 27/01/2020. Most fielded youngsters, other leagues Players born on or after 01/01/2000. Season 2019/20, domestic league matches until 27/01/2020.