The Skipper

Would be hilarious if he won the CL here instead.

Need to really rest some guys here but we also have big tactical problems so can see Lampard possibly trying some stuff out here. I would like to see something like: Mendy Azpilicueta Christensen Tomori Emerson(?) Kovacic Jorginho Ziyech Mount CHO Tammy Should be enough to win right?

Lampard genuinely isn't helping by more often than not playing him.out wide. Our midfield is so unstable that we can't even afford to play Havertz in his best position right now. In the last few games he's mostly been shafted out wide, where he is usually isolated and doesn't have any runners or options to progress play. Lampard is effectively using him in a role where someone like Ziyech or even CHO would be more effective. He needs to play in the middle of the pitch, so he can get up to speed with how to do this in the Premier League. I would like to see him become more of a midfield general that dictates play, but also be a real threat around the box. He has the talent to be the team's offensive brain but he needs more time in these sort of positions. It's hard because our midfield is truly overrated - we don't really have a traditional DM and our B2B players offer no real Final third threat. I wish Kanté had the ability to really be comfortable sitting in front of the defence and that maybe Kovacic could be the connector, but it doesn't really seem to be that solid of a midfield between them. Same with Jorginho. This means that Kai doesn't have a solid consistent base to play off. This is one of the very big questions Lampard has to solve. I would like to see him try out a pivot of Mount and Kanté some time. Also, Gilmour coming back soon might help.

His rise to the top is so impressive. Glad that we have such a motivated guy as a goalkeeper. It seems like he still has a lot of room to grow, and maybe being at a top club is the last step he needs to catapult himself as a world class goalkeeper. 3 clean sheets in 4 games is a fantastic start and I hope we can continue to rely on him for the rest of the season.

I agree with much what you said, it's certainly a possibility that after making such huge investments, the club are now forced to be a lot more patient; and what more to get the fans onside by having a club legend as big as Lampard as the head coach? It's definitely a big possiblity that the club is gearing towards a softer approach when it comes to bad results and bad spells. However I do think Frank had a good role to play in bringing the players here. Both him and Cech had personal conversations with a lot of our recent arrivals, whom all seem to make a point that Lampard speaking to them helped them in making the decision to join. Combined with the current climate at the club it's inevitable that he should be given a season to finish what he's trying to achieve. To be very crude, if results don't go his way at all, and we reach the end of the season, the club will be in a good position to consider his contract since he'd only have a year left. Essentially, Lampard's future is pretty much in his own hands. He's in the best position any Chelsea manager has been in a long time. Because he's so safe, is exactly why I feel he almost deserves the pressure on him right now. He's said himself he didn't want Chelsea to be seen as an academy club, he wants us to win trophies. He's put that pressure on himself. It's only fair that we hold him to the standard he's set himself.

I genuinely think Frank should be given the season at the very least. He's owed that after bringing many fantastic players to the club. You'd hope that playing with 5 defenders and a better goalkeeper would get us there. It's probably a good step for the teams defensive confidence, and I genuinely hope that this is what Frank was thinking with the way he set us up today and against Sevilla. It's not a long term solution however obviously - at some point he's going to have to figure out how to play our best players together properly. The problem for me is, I can't put my full faith behind Frank as a manager just yet, he's still a rookie who makes a lot of mistakes. What I don't understand is that some seem to think he'll definitely pull through and figure things out, but he has no real track record for us to look back on - he's essentially learning on the job. What I also don't like is that people think Frank is above criticism. Look, I love Lamps, I was there at Villa Park when he broke the record, and he is in my opinion top 3 Chels ever. But that doesn't mean he's flawless. He's also just gone out and spent £200m+. As mentioned before to yourself, it's really not the same as last season where his hands were tied. Naturally when you invest so much you want to see returns. We aren't seeing a resemblance of this yet, we've had a few very very small flashes so far but nothing to keep us optimistic long term. We shouldn't think that because he was one of our best ever that he automatically be a great manager for us either. People are well within their rights to criticise how we lined up today imo. Felt like Utd were there for the taking. Level on points last season, we've invested a lot more than them too. It's not a matter of patience in my opinion when you can't see or don't feel like we're actually headed in the right direction. Now, looking at our next few fixtures we should be favourites. This is going to be a pivotal few weeks for Lampard, because it's not just the fans he needs to keep onside - it's the players too. How many have forgotten what he's promised guys like Werner, Ziyech, Havertz? What actually drew them to Chelsea. All of them mention the style of play and system. What system and philosophy did he sell to them? Because I'm yet to point my finger on it. I genuinely hope I'm wrong and wish Lampard succeeds but he needs to get his vision and this team up and running properly now.

What a dire dire game.

Sorry, I genuinely believe if you spent £200m+ on players you automatically bring pressure on yourself as a manager. Yes, he's going to be criticised a lot more because of this. It's not like last season at all. If the players are playing shit - why are they playing shit? Is the manager setting them up to succeed? Did the manager not sign these players? Can we not ask this question at least?

Who's responsible for how our players setup, who's responsible for coaching players into form? It's not about different managers. You are essentially saying we can't criticise Lampard at all? If that's your stance there's no point in having a discussion.

So you think the solution to bed in these new players is playing the style of football on show in the first half?

So basically what you're saying is that he doesn't know how to coach a real attacking team? It's going to take some time, but he's been a season and a bit in now and there's still no blueprint as to how we're going to play whatever? Do you see this suddenly changing or don't you think it'll be more of the same?

Do you think genuinely Lampard has set up the team well? I'm not Lampard out like that but we can criticise him. Why did we go to spend £200m on attacking talent to play this conservatively and defensively against a team that isn't even that good going forward? Especially with Greenwood, Pogba and Martial out as well? This isn't coaching a defence to play in an attacking philosophy, this is completely changing the very nature of the team. What's the point in signing Havertz for so much if we're just going to shove him on the right, barely get the ball to him? It's like he actually doesn't have a real plan.

Not against teams that traditionally sit deeper tbh. I agree that we should've played Giroud if we were going direct over the top to break United's press which isn't even that good. It would maybe make more sense to have Pulisic and Werner coming off Giroud with this setup.

It's not VAR. It's those utilising the system.

Awful first half. Completely wrong setup from Frank. Giving Utd way too much respect. Not surprised though, given Ole has outsmarted him several times.

From what I know Lamptey actually refused a contract and had six months left on his contract so the club's hands were actually tied. He has also played at RWB for Brighton. Reece James has always been the better talent and we literally have no issues at RB (we have Azpi and James there), I wouldn't bring this as a criticism at the club. Tariq is good but RJ is easily the better talent.

Should've kept Ampadu.

Honestly they should be considering this hard. Kepa has lost all confidence and sucks the confidence out of his backline too.

I actually think Zouma is a better pure defender than Gomez, VVD hides a lot of his shortcomings. Gomez is a nice mobile defender but he doesn't read the game as well as Zouma does I don't think. Sure, he's probably better at defending out wide than Zouma because of his mobility, but Zouma is a far better defender vertically/in the middle of the pitch. Anyway, there isn't much between them. They'd actually compliment each other really well funnily enough. I mentioned this in the SFL thread but apart from yesterday's mishap has Zouma actually been bad/error prone this season? He's actually been incredibly consistent so far this season and has easily been our number one CB (AC and Tomori have arguably made more mistakes than him even though they've played less for example), also I am a little bit worried with maybe how a really physical centre forward could exploit that pairing. Back to Zouma - I feel like people are highlighting this mistake and acting like this is what Zouma has been like all season when that's far away from the truth. Tomori Silva is interesting because Tomori is the CB most like Silva and he could probably learn a lot by playing with him (probably is during training as well) but it's clear to see that we lack an organiser at the back (this is usually Silva - super impressed with how well he commanded the back line against Palace for example - he had the most touches of all players on the pitch). The only other pairing I feel relatively safe with is Zouma Tomori (who ironically were also the best CB partnership last season albeit lack of game time). For me, our CB pairings should look like: 1. Zouma Silva 2. Zouma Tomori 3. Tomori Silva. In that order. Only call up AC or Rudiger if these pairings aren't available.

He probably thought there's no point because Kepa is definitely getting beat lol.

Can anyone who's super critical of Zouma point out to me, apart from yesterday's mistake, Zouma's mistakes this season? Apart from yesterday mistake he's actually almost been flawless. I don't like the narrative that he's been error prone all season when this is probably his first subpar game of the season? I don't understand why he's being put in the same bracket as Rudiger and Christensen.

Not sure we've ever beaten them recently with a 4 goal margin though.

I understand that we have other areas of our game to fix defensively but I think one of the biggest steps is a consistent back four. For me that's Chilwell Zouma Silva James and Mendy. We were missing 3/5 from this so it's not surprising that we weren't as good defensively but Lampard needs to curate a system that works when some of these aren't playing.

I can't remember where I saw this but Palace are great against top 6 teams. They have a better record than anyone bar Liverpool and City over the last few seasons.

Dropping silly points v. WBA and Southampton - Frank can't hide behind individual mistakes anymore. We're playing a system where individual mistakes happen time and time again - you then have to take a step back and look as to how we're harbouring a system that forces so many individual mistakes to begin with. Our set piece defending still seems rubbish for example.