Blue Armour

The past 20 minutes have little to do with tactics., the players have very clear given up. I think the constant chopping and poor results have worked against Frank, and have given the players ammunition to lose faith. I don't see how we can turn them around after this. The club might think of giving him time because of his stature within the club, but that looks like a dangerous game at this point. Lampard might have set very high standards for himself as a player, but I don't know if he can instill that attitude in others. He was always the more quiet one in the dressing room according to Essien. Not sure if he has the personality to motivate this group again.

Sad to see it come to this. But I think its over. Dream is dead.

I think he has lost the dressing room. The players basically gave up before the first city goal. They stopped pressing. And they've practically let City waltz through for the second.

For now, yeah. But given how we've had matches being cancelled literally less than 6 hours in advance this week, I don't think any match can be guaranteed to happen as planned,

Whatever dude, carry on.

You really are a troll aren't you. Fav player: Kepa Arizzabalaga. Pretty much posting nonsense on every thread and getting away with it because you're 'Japanese'.

Just like with Drogba, always liked watching Chelsea with Hazard, because you would always expect them to pull something out of the hat even if the match was not going well.

No, I don't think anyone can hide behind an excuse.., and if the season goes to shit, no excuse will save the manager. All I'm saying is we can't really do a fair comparison with previous Chelsea managers when the majority of Franks's Chelsea managerial career so far has been in an abnormal 2020, which is weird enough without the football taken into account. Lack of crowds, lack of preseason, compressed fixture lists, those aren't things that those previous managers had to deal with. And this season, even the experienced managers are struggling.

I wish we could assess the manager's job at the end of a normal season. (Which is why I suspect most clubs will be a bit more lenient this season, unless their teams are nailed on heading towards disaster) . Chelsea is NOT the same without its support, and the club has some of the best away supporters in the league. And of course, a full Stamford Bridge is a big difference. Now someone can easily say that having crowds back could have worked against us (just like it did at Everton), but you have to remember some of our best away form happened under Lampard when we were still playing in full stadiums. Sorry @Jason , but that's why I think doing that points per game comparison with other managers right now., is a bit....pointless

Hmm...technically they should be allowed to face us as long as they have at least 14 players (incl. GK) that have tested non-negative. Can understand if they are still uncertain about the numbers and want to prevent infection spread, or if they run out of time to prepare for the match, but anything less shouldn't be cause to cancel (unless the PL itself decides to suspend the season)

I think its better for his health if plays more matches,..its the 'rest' days that we need to be worried about

Could have seen it out. We were in control at that point, but Christensen does what he usually does and wilted under pressure. He's a defender that can do a decent job for 89 minutes, and then completely screw things up in a matter of seconds. I put him and Emerson in the same bracket of weak mentality players, that should rarely start a game. If anything, all he does is keep Tomori from playing.

Disregarding the fact that it's another poor result in a string of poor results, based on this match alone, this performance was better than the previous 4 games. Small consolation, but calling this the worst Chelsea performance ever is some of the most reactionary shit.

Don't care about the FA cup game, but it would be a shame about the City game if it were moved. This as convenient as its going to get facing them. Any reschedule will result in us facing them mid week, and knowing the FA and the broadcasters, they will probably make us play 3 fixtures in 6 days just to face City

We should be able to manage without Ziyech, but his passing range is a lot better than the others. That alone can make up for a lot deficiencies in the team's play, and can be instrumental (ala Fabregas in Mourinho's 2014 Chelsea). The press from our attack and midfield has also been shite this month (other than Leeds), which has led to our defense being more exposed. Fatigue is convenient reason for this, but it seems more complicated than that.

Yeah, that's what I was also wondering. Retain Giroud, swap Jorginho for Werner. Especially since we were chasing a win. I've seen so many Chelsea games in recent years where managers (including Lampard) have thrown on extra forwards in winnable games. Lampard seems to have become more conservative this season. Maybe worried about the team getting hit on the counter, and to be fair, that happened against Wolves, and with Christensen/Rudiger at the back, who knows what would have happened. And, looking at post match interview, looks like Lampard isn't bothered about this result at all. Does this look like someone concerned about his role at the club? Maybe its just because we are not yet at the midway point of the season and others are dropping points, but it does give some perspective on what the club's end-season objectives are. I think a comfortable top 4 finish is the minimum. It maybe early, but we are too off-track at the minute. Anyway, last Chelsea game of 2020. End to a terrible month of football.

Werner needs to be fed quick passes through the channels. I've seen a lot of games (even where he plays on the wing) where he stands on the shoulder of his defender waiting for that through-ball to come. Unfortunately the supporting players don't have either the vision or the passing range to find him in these situations. He usually gets fed the ball in situations when there are defenders in front of him, and he has to make something of it, and that makes him much less useful. Giroud would be more useful (other than heading crosses) if players like Mount/Pulisic linked up with him a lot more in the opponents box. That aspect of our play was a little better today I felt. Instead of lazily going to the wide area first time and whipping in the cross (like against Everton/Wolves), we tried to concentrate play in the middle moving the Villa defenders around, before sending it out wide. That's how the Chillwell goal came about

Yeah well my point is that the formerly 10th place Everton is now sitting in 2nd place. Its not just United who had upswing in form and table position. Granted we should be more stable than those teams., but at this stage of the season you can't call anything.

We should go the whole hog, and play Tammy-Giroud-Werner up front, with CHO, Pulisic out wide, and in the midfield, just Kante.

Ah okay. Even if you think United are getting favorable decisions from VAR, the stats this season are not as skewed as they were last season, and certainly not to a degree where it influenced all their games since Arsenal. Also forget United, what about Everton who beat us when they were lying in 10th place?

Not sure I follow,. What part of Chelsea/United is not on a level playing field? You mean squad strength?

Yes, I got the scoreline wrong. But my point was that they lost. Everyone was praising Arteta ball at the time, and threw Ole under the bus. It took just 3 weeks for people to realize that the result meant nothing in the grand scheme.

Excellent read, and it offers clues on how to figure out that big elephant in the room, which I keep mentioning. Why has our pressing deteriorated so rapidly from Nov to Dec? Its like night and day I think the point regarding this being an avalanche effect is a good one. We basically have overworked a lot of the players by playing them continuously over the previous month, and the effects are being felt in the last few games. I think the decision to go to a 4-3-3 (which I don't think was the original plan, given how we loaned out both RLC and Barkley) and Lampard's persistence with playing 4-3-3, just because it produced a string of good results, have resulted in him playing certain players over and over again without much rotation. This goes for Mount, Werner, Kante and the two full-backs. It might not have been so bad if we had at least one of the 2 loanees with us right now. And maybe you could argue that the Ziyech/Pulisic/CHO/Havertz injuries didn't help. The lack of pressing has also made us a lot more vulnerable in recent weeks. We went from being the team with most consecutive clean sheets, to leaking goals again. Its not really because Mendy became less of a keeper. Its because our back 5 is getting more exposed.

It maybe speculation, but wouldn't be surprised if that were true.

Our press was brilliant against opposition in the November PL games, and even with our B team away at Sevilla. West Ham game and Arsenal had sufficient rest days preceding those games. No excuse for fixture congestion there. Maybe these players aren't physically conditioned well enough yet, and after the flurry of December fixtures, the wheels have started to come off.