Superblue

That midfield has to be incredibly disciplined. City not playing a recognised striker means they'll overload in that area and look to dominate. No need to be trying to overplay. Pulisic and Werner will provide an outlet so at times it doesn't have to be the most accurate ball played out, just anything dropped in behind City's defence will do.

That team is primed to look at hitting City on the counter attack today and the options on our bench look stronger too. The pace of Werner and Pulisic could give them huge problems. If we ever needed Werner to get a goal and hit form it's today because he might not get many chances come his way.

Good chance this might be called off as this seems similar to the situation of Fulham and Burnley where Fulham were still giving positive cases after the Spurs postponement.

A positive result is far more important than a good, strong performance today. We need to keep picking up points and stay within the pack. We've shown against the likes of Man Utd, Spurs and Sevilla that we can sit in deep and defend properly. Unlike those teams though, City will play a more open, expansive game and there will be spaces to exploit on the counter. I think this is the game to play Werner as a centre forward, flanked by Pulisic and either CHO or Ziyech depending on his fitness. It might not be pretty but if we do it right this City team can be 'got at' and we do have attacking players and pace that can hurt them.

I definitely believe the effectiveness of Werner playing from the left is linked to the availability of Ziyech. When Ziyech has played, Werner looks a better player from the left because his strengths of playing there (drifting into the spaces from left to centre) also suit Ziyech being a left footed right sided player who is always looking to cut inside and play a ball through or an inverted cross to the back post where Werner should be looking to get into. Like you said though, in Ziyech's absence Lampard should have addressed this. I think the penny has dropped now, but it took Everton, Wolves and half of Arsenal to realise this.

I don't necessarily think the team has been built in that way, but I think Ziyech's influence is sending the team down that route if Lampard doesn't make some changes.

I do agree with this assessment. It isn't even necessarily the ability of Ziyech that we're missing (although he is a big creative outlet for us), it's the fact that he is prepared to assume responsibility. He has an incredible amount of self-confidence and a touch of arrogance about his play that gives off an aura. It's a small sample size currently but his presence does seem to lift the rest of the team and players around him, almost Cantona-esque. There will be games where things don't come off and he'll look really poor (the Spurs game springs to mind), but it's a big thing that it seemingly doesn't faze him, and all it sometimes takes is getting one of those passes or shots right out of 5 or 6 that wins a game. It's quite a poor position to be in that nobody else in the team seems to be prepared to take that level of responsibility on in his absence. You'd like to think the likes of Havertz, Pulisic, Mount, etc will do over time and with experience.

Is there any reports of who City will be missing due to this Covid outbreak?

I thought so. If Morecambe can't fulfil the game, I think it'll be forfeited in all likelihood.

I wouldn't be surprised if Morecambe are pressured to forfeit the game, much like Leyton Orient did in the league cup. Are there replay's in the FA Cup this season or have they been scrapped? If they haven't then the game can be moved to the space afforded to the replay but if they have, when would this likely be fit back in before the 4th round?

Embarrassing. Seriously embarrassing. Criticism of aspects of Lampard's management at present is all fine and well but it shouldn't be forgotten right now that he is one of the greatest players the club has ever had and anything during this period should never tarnish or warrant disrespect for that. A player that spent 13 years at the club, was a major component in winning a bucket load of trophies and broke all sorts of club and premier league records here. Wasn't given a new contract by Chelsea but is a Man City mercenary?! It's everything that's wrong with the current football fan, and infuriates me because it really makes our club look like a joke when comments like this are chucked around.

It doesn't really matter where they are being brought from, everybody still has to get used to playing with one another. Ziyech and Werner came and trained a bit but they were hardly going to be worked into tactical plans during that time when they weren't eligible to play. The point is it's far more difficult to get patterns of play worked on when we play a game, day after will be recovering, then one day to work on opposition tactics before the next game. Lampard may still not be capable of this even with an opportunity to do so. The games from Everton onwards have been a huge worry.

Hopefully freeing up the wage budget to take Alonso off our hands next month.

On the flip side, it could be Lampard's saving grace having a couple of weeks to properly work on the tactical aspect of this team. I think it is easy to just throw up that £200m was spent this summer and all the players should be able to perform and gel immediately. The lack of pre season this summer gone has probably hurt us more than most due to the high turnover of players. Not having that pre season, and then having little time to work tactically on the team due to playing pretty much solidly 3 times a week since the start of the season makes things far more difficult. Assuming the City and Morecambe games are off now, Lampard has the opportunity to not just turn this season around but start stamping a more long term blueprint on this side. If the results and performances don't pick up following that, then his position could be reaching untenable levels.

I personally think that at the start of the season if everybody was fit, Lampard would have gone 4-2-3-1 with Werner central (Pulisic and Ziyech on the wings) and Havertz in the '10' role. In my opinion that is what he had in mind when making the signings. We may end up going back to that idea, particularly given the poor run of form. However I think after the early season struggles defensively, the 4-3-3 brought far more balance in both areas of the team and up to the Everton game I think the change was fully justified. It questions Havertz role in the side, although I think pre-covid he had a couple of games playing in the midfield 3 and looked like he was coming along nicely. He can play that role in my opinion but needs the time to get used to the pace of the league. I think currently he'd be more suited to playing a '10' role if that was available to him simply because he'd have more freedom to drift and pick up space for himself to operate. Werner is obviously struggling at present and like you and others, I think he should be playing centrally long term. However we were winning games well for a good stretch where he was playing left side and I don't think he was playing particularly poor. It's not necessarily his natural position but at the time Chilwell and Mount were operating a lot more efficiently on the left hand side which gave Werner more freedom to roam centrally. The creativity of Ziyech as a left footed right sided player also played to Werner's strengths of spotting runs from wide to central positions too. Obviously Ziyech being injured hasn't helped, but the likes of Chilwell and Mount haven't been performing as well in recent games either. Pulisic looks like he is starting to hit a bit of form finally after a start-stop season so far, and with CHO back and Ziyech pending, I'm hoping either Lampard plays Werner central or he gives him a couple of games from the bench and brings him on in the last half hour against a tiring team which may work best to getting his confidence back which is clearly shredded at the moment.

I still think Lampard as manager here is difficult to analyse. There's no doubt that he is still raw as a manager and at present we are suffering from a lack of experience on his behalf, like we did at times last season. I do think there are some serious mitigating factors when you consider his time here started with taking on a job where we couldn't buy anybody, yet was losing our best player (and arguably the best player in the league during his tenure here) who had carried a pretty average looking side the year prior. It then led to a pandemic mid-season (and arguably just at a time when we were starting to hit a purple patch of form) which shut football down for months, to then have to contend with a restart with no fans and a number of Covid related considerations to training, preparation, etc. Despite spending some big money this summer, we've also had to try and bed in a number of new players with no pre season and hardly any time to work on that training aspect as we've been playing 3 times a week for most of the season. I think all of the above is a lot for an experienced manager to handle, let alone one with a couple of years. The biggest saving grace for Lampard at present is that no club has really grabbed the opportunity this season to pull away, and we're still very much in the hunt despite a poor run of form. If we'd beaten Arsenal we would be sitting third right now, instead of 8th. The league is still so tight. Spurs are on a worse run than us since we played them, Liverpool in recent weeks have drawn with Fulham, Brighton and West Brom, City struggled early on, United have been extremely fortunate with getting results which their standard of football hasn't deserved. Ultimately I think the jury is out on Lampard. I think it is easy to forget the positives of his time here so far when we've had a really poor run of form. However, such a run (similar to patches last season) has to question his tactics and ability to get the best out of the players at his disposal. I think Werner and Havertz were brought originally with a different idea in mind for Lampard, but he's found a better overall balance with the 4-3-3 during the season which has come at the expense of Werner and Havertz in particular not being utilised in what would probably be their strongest positions. I have no question whatsoever however that Lampard was the right appointment at the time for us. He helped the club reach top 4 last season which I think many didn't expect, whilst also finally bringing through some academy players into the first team and seemingly breaking that ceiling that was once there for academy players to make it here. And from what has been said, he seems to have been a huge draw in convincing the players we signed this summer to join the club when we may not have been as an attractive option previously. I think a base has been created in the last 18 months that he deserves a lot of credit for, moving on from not just Hazard but big dressing room influences which were on the decline like David Luiz, Willian, Pedro, etc and bringing in a much younger, exciting group of players which can hopefully develop into something special. Whether he's the right man to take that group to the next level though at the moment is unfortunately questionable.

I haven't said that he's not. However I'm far more impressed with the standard of football Southampton play under Hassenhuttl given the lack of quality in their squad, compared to the standard of football I've seen PSG play in the last season or two, where I feel they get by more often than not on the ridiculous quality of their forward line. Some of this might be to do with the ego and influence those players have over the team, Neymar in particular. Perhaps PSG was just the wrong club for Tuchel, and the set-up that we have now at the club would be more suited to his strengths. I think over the past few seasons the vast majority of big names and ego's in our club have been moved on and replaced by a core group of younger players with a lot of talent that needs some time and patience developing.

I didn't criticise Tuchel for not winning anything, I simply mentioned that I wouldn't place winning trophies in France as a "big deal". I'm pretty sure he won the cup too with Dortmund in his time there. My arguments against him are more to do that I'm rarely impressed watching PSG play and his last 3 appointments have ended with him leaving under a cloud after disagreements with the board. With the squad we currently have, I'm not sure whether the experience of winning trophies is as big a need as it was 10 years ago. Someone capable of continuing the development of the young talent we have at the club I think is far more important over the next couple of years.

If the club were to move on from Lampard, then I don't think Tuchel would be the right appointment. Winning trophies with PSG doesn't really mean much with the talent in their squad compared to everyone else in France and when I've watched them they rely far too much on individual quality to win games. It should also be noted that reports are he fell out with Leonardo, and also left Mainz and Dortmund after falling out with the board. I don't think the club would tolerate that type of personality at the club. Would the club revert back to type and go for a bigger name manager, or would they look at something a little out the box like they did with Lampard? Someone who I really like is Hassenhuttl. He helped the initial build of Leipzig before Nagelsman arrived, and I enjoy the football Southampton try to play under him despite a distinctly average squad at his disposal. I think with a better crop of players he could actually do some really great work.

The Werner and Havertz situation is far from ideal but I think in Werner's situation playing wide has been more necessary than anything because none of the rest of our wide players can seem to stay fit for long periods and get a run in the team. I think the Everton and Wolves games highlighted that if he's not getting in behind and being forced wider and deeper for the ball then he becomes a far more ineffective player. I think long term he can and will play central in a 4-3-3 system. And if he had scored even 2 or 3 of the good chances he has had in recent weeks I don't think there would be a discussion about this, but his lack of goals is what is creating the topic of discussion. I think Havertz needs time in general to get used to the league, especially the pace of it and lack of time you get on the ball. His confidence and general fitness look shot since Covid. I think he can play in the number 8 role long term, as well as the number 10 role. The problem with switching to a 4-2-3-1 is we seem to experience a huge drop off defensively with a pivot compared to a holding midfielder. For me Havertz was starting to come into his element just before Covid and seemed to have some good chemistry with Ziyech. Werner too I think if playing wide, benefits immensely from Ziyech's ability to pick his runs inside. I don't think we're quite at Hazard level reliance on Ziyech, but there's no doubt that currently he seems to knit our offensive game together and his natural confidence seems to rub off on players around him. I understand Lampard playing 4-3-3 during the Everton and Wolves games. In Everton's case, I think the team had been playing so well and were on such a good run of form that it made sense to still set up in the same formation that everyone had been used to playing, and the Wolves game made more sense with Pulisic returning. I think in both though what was probably more disappointing was that Lampard didn't change during the match. The Everton game in particular we had both Giroud and Abraham on towards the end but still seemed to be set up in a 4-3-3 with Tammy wide. Hopefully with players returning this becomes something of a moot point, but in the back of Lampard's mind you're right he probably does need to have an idea of an alternative system/set-up if something similar occurred again.

This week aside which has been really poor, I'd argue the few weeks prior to that the system was working well and we were playing some really good football and creating a lot of chances. The Leeds and Sheffield United games are good examples where we went behind early in both but it never felt like we were in trouble and we'd have more than enough about us to hit back. I think when everyone is fit, the 4-3-3 works well both defensively and offensively, or do you think there's a better system to utilise? I can understand the questioning behind keeping the same system without a couple of players who help make the system work in this last week but then Lampard took a lot of criticism on this forum last season for chopping and changing on a regular basis with the personnel and formation. The likes of Klopp and Guardiola don't deviate from what they know (the few times Guardiola has he usually gets caught out).

Rubbish performance but about time we played well below standard and still managed to get 3 points. Everyone losing their shit in the last week need to calm down, this last week has shown how tight everything is. Everton have gone from mid table to top 4 and Spurs have gone from top middle of last week to sixth. We just need to keep within the pack and pick up points during this period.

Drogba was bang average the first two seasons, and Costa shut off for one of his three years here. The difference between Werner and the likes of Sheva, Morata and Torres is he doesn't shy away. When they were struggling they were hiding and not getting into the areas for opportunities. Werner doesn't let a miss or poor play deter him and he'll still keep going. The goals will come, I'm pretty sure of it.

According to the Mail hes been playing recently with a troublesome knee injury that may need surgery to sort out.

He needs to be prepared to take on this responsibility. It's easy to say that when he's a young kid less than 18 months into his Chelsea first team career, Lampard wasn't that player in his first year or two at the club and was a couple of years older and far more experienced at that stage too. But he definitely has that in his locker.