Tomo

Picking out part of my post and ignoring the overall context.

Frank has over egged the chances we've been creating and wasting during the bad results in December however last night it was a legimate excuse (the graph below). People will no doubt counter me saying "oh XG doesn't change things" and in terms of the result you would be right but it's as accurate as you can hope anything to be in terms of foreshadowing the future. For example, according to XG City were going to dominate the league as soon as they replaced Bravo, they were right. Spurs were going to drop like a stone at some point, they were right. We were going to fall after our 15 title, they were right. United were going to fall in Jose's third season, they were right. Emery's spell at Arsenal wasn't sustainable, they were right. Liverpool were not far off a title challenge post 17/18, they were right. Infact I can't remember any times it foreshadowed things inaccurately, not spectacularly so anyway. It's incredibly frustrating that were conceding nearly every chance we concede and waste so many openings, but 99% of the time if you're regularly outperforming or underperforming your XG you eventually even out.

Needs to be looked at with more context. In the context of last night's game obviously it's pointless, but if teams keep being reduced to two shots against us we will win more than not. It's was very much our fault we dropped two points but as I keep saying, calling the overall performance poor makes me think my theory people judge their view on a game by looking at the result and nothing else have legs.

That's easy to say in hindsight but if we go back to August people were taking the piss out of our squad and saying we would be lucky to even make Europe. Arsenal, Spurs, Wolves and even Everton were all widely expected to finish above us.

Levy sacked Redknapp after a 4th place finish, Ramos less than a year after a trophy win, sacked AVB months after a record points haul for them and Sherwood despite his best ever points return. To suggest they were this happy clappy club merely happy to get by couldn't be further from the truth. Now you're changing the goalpost, you said there's been no real decent performance since the international break, that was a point of proving otherwise. As I've already said, when you're starting to build a team around inexperienced players a bit more context is needed. Are you implying we should have the same win or bust expectations that we would have the old guard or even Costa/Cesc/Courtois were here in their pomp? Furthermore CL football isn't as important to players as it use to be, Zlatan, Pogba, Kante, Aubamayang, Pepe, Kovacic, Jorginho, Di Maria, Luiz (twice) all gave up CL football to join teams outside of it. Quite frankly if a player with 13-15 years of his career left is that shortsighted to chose a club on the basis of what could only end up being six games, then meh.

That's the one thing I will say Lamps should have done better on, breaking up the Jorgi/Kova/Mount trio when it was working so well has been a contributor to our fall from grace. Watford away was in my opinion our best PL performance for years (the close final scoreline was criminal injustice) and the catalyst was that trio, it's absolute madness we've only seen it once since.

Also regarding Kepa's stats, in a perverse way they can also be cause for hope if we sort out his replacement soon. Why? Because it means we aren't conceding as many chances as the goal against collum suggests, which means our defensive issues could be a lot more fixable than we think.

I tried to convince myself he's a system keeper and he'd look better once we get better but recently we have been shutting teams out for the most part yet still conceding the few times they venture in our box. It's everybit as bad as the Bravo situation at City at this point. We need to sign another keeper in the next ten days. Given the price tag he'll probably have to get one more chance but we need a solid contingency plan.

Bit of both, i have has shade at me thrown at Willian from both angles, for example I don't think he was as great as made out in 15/16 but equally I've never been in on the mass slating and was probably the only one on his side in that phony war with Conte (although that was more down to the fact I seriously grew to resent Antonio by then because in my opinion he took the piss out of every single Chelsea fan in those last days, especially the ones who went to The Ethiad). I don't think I've ever been so systematically branded both an apologist and a hater of the same person.

There's never been any middle ground with Willian in terms of people's opinions. Never known a player be so overrated and underrated at the same time. People either make him out to be amazing or a Kalou caricature, both equally infuriating to read/listen to.

Alonso always was better, for all his faults he atleast has an upside of so!e substance. He should be in the team till we find a new LB.

At around November in his first season they were struggling badly results wise, Kane was yet to emerge and Alli and Son were still at Mk Done and Leverkusen. His CV prior to Spurs was a solid spell at Saints and getting sacked by Espanol while bottom of the table, that didn't suggest he could have taken Spurs to the heights he did but Levy looked at what he was seeing instead of what went before. The example in reverse would be Jose, has the "CV" but would you trust him with this project? And Pochettino season one actually had less points than Sherwood/AVB just to put that out there. Development of a young side isn't linear, and if I want to mention more since the international break there's Villa and Lillie, two games we dominated and were only kept close due to spectacular keeper displays (Heaton) and dreadful finishing (Lillie). In a season like this it needs to be looked at with more context than league position. For example, dropping the young players, bringing back Giroud, Pedro, Alonso etc and shithouse our way to third or keep going with the youth, have some great games but miss out on top 4 due to the greeness but decent building blocks to go forward never the less? Id take the latter all day every day

If, buts and maybe's work both ways.

The problem is, his technical and tactical play any further than ten yards is so unbelievably bad it's hard to create consistent opening with him leading the line, let alone real chances. For one goal Michy scores he will cock up 10 attacks through basic schoolboy incompetence.

But what could Dortmund point too when they struggled under Klopp initially? What could Spurs point too when Pochettino was struggling badly initially? Sometimes you need to look with foresight instead of hindsight, watch the best games of this season (Ajax away, Watford away, Brighton home, Spurs away, even 3/4, half's against Liverpool one of which we forced who are sadly about to become the best PL side ever into park the bus tactics) and tell me there's no signs of something decent.

I've tried to deny this to myself for some time but we have a ridiculously Impatient fanbase, I'd go as far as saying as bad as Real Madrid's. I very much don't mind the critisism that's fair game, I've been very vocal myself about how annoyed I was the Jorgi/Kova/Mount midfield was broken up so prematurely but the comments that there's been absolutely no signs of a good end product or he hasn't improved a single player is laughable. For example we've won three big away games this season (could say four if you include this very good Wolves side) after not winning a single one for over two years, and all of them were won in big part to tactical decisions by Lampard. There very much has to be evolvement in Lampard's management season by season and if there's not I'll be the first to concede it's not working, but considering the transfer embargo, losing Hazard and trying to rebuild an entire new core of players and despite that we're in 4th, 7 points of last season's total at this stage and 4 in the same fixtures we've played is decent all in all.

There must be a grudge still there because of the contract situation, that's the only thing I can think of.

Sarri sent us to the CL with an even worse squad but you never had a nice word to say about him.

You wouldn't have moaned insessently when he lost to Swansea/Saints and Wolves at home within a week and followed it up shortly after with an away defeat at Hull? You would have stood by him when he was given Karius chance after chance and glorified a home draw with West Brom? I find that very hard believe.

Win the first two season's of Klopp at Liverpool at Chelsea you would be the first to throw your toys out of the pram and say he's not good enough.

Lol Tomori was finding his level as a mid table Championship player before Lampard got hold of him, so much so no one was really bothering following his progress at Derby because they were convinced he wasn't good enough. Mount is a better all rounder although you can argue that has stifled him as a creative player a bit. You only need to look at the comments over Kovacic last season (which alone should have taught a few lessons about patience with players but evidently not) to this to see how much he's improved. Abraham, better all rounder. There's also Bogle and Wilson at Derby, atleast.

You saying he's not improved the young players?

If that was aimed at me i wouldn't, check my posting history, apart from a minor wobble when we lost 4-0 and 6-0 in quick succession I was firmly supportive of Sarri.

As incredibly frustrating as that is it's easily fixable than if we weren't creating chances atall and conceding them at will. There's a reason XG has proved to be a good barometer of what is to come in future times, remember when we were vastly outperforming ours on the way to the 2015 title? We all knew what happened next.

It is ultimately but in terms of one of matches there needs to be a little more context. For example I thought we were quite poor at Turf Moor despite racing into a 4-0 lead, I even thought once we were quite poor in a 6-0 win. Critisizing the finishing and the fact we threw this away is very much fair game, but people calling the overall performance awful backs up my theory that a lot of people base their view of a match just by looking at the score and nothing else.