Jase

Imagine going from worshipping Fabregas' passing capability - and not to mention, his creativity - to worshipping Jorginho's. How the standards have fallen...

TBF, it's @James who did all the work in getting the forum back up. He deserves all the credit. And not sure who were the people that emailed Jim after the forum went down, asking for the forum back but it's those people that ultimately swayed him to set up a forum again - before managing to restore the old database. Otherwise, Jim and I had a debate whether to get the place back up after some trouble with the last one. 😅

For starters, let's not play the 'I'm a Werner fan' card here. I can understand the criticism about his finishing, touch/control and all but what I don't understand is the nonsense that's being spouted about the position stuff you mentioned. Good players adapt but at the same time, not every good player out there is capable of playing in different roles/positions. It doesn't make them any worse if they can't, like you're trying to make it out to be. You can keep on saying Werner should have done this and that under Lampard but at the end of the day and for the umpteenth time, he is not a winger in the winger role that he was asked to play under Lampard. "but he also had to adapt whilst playing on the left, do a job for the team, a position he has played at times in his career and with the German NT, and he simply didn’t at times." - Playing on the left as a winger and as a left inside forward is completely two different roles! Christ! Are you really that blind to not see what his strengths are and what he was asked to do by Lampard just didn't go together? Also, Azpi grew into the RCB role because Conte worked with him on it. Can you really say the same with Lampard and his coaching after all the problems we saw under him? CHO may yet grow into the RWB role but he has played only 2 games there so far. Remains to be seen if that's gonna be his long term position. "He did it v Newcastle for instance on the left side" - What is that based on? The run to set up Abraham for the second goal? If so, that really doesn't count considering it came in a counter attacking situation. As for the chance he created for Mount at the weekend, how often did you see us find the runners, play balls in behind opposition defence or play in Werner the way we did on several occasions against Sheffield United? Too often under Lampard, we would just indulge in slow, sideway passing and then just get the ball out wide to spam high crosses into the box. Never mind Werner, how is that even playing to anyone's strengths apart from Giroud and maybe Abraham as well? You thought Kante grew into the advanced midfield role? That's your opinion I guess but not sure if the performances really reflected that at all. He has looked decent at times playing there but also totally lost in that role. He is best as a midfield destroyer, as seen in the work he did for Leicester and under Conte. Asking him to try and be attack minded - score goals, create chances for others - was just a waste of his talents. Instead of getting a 100% Kante, a Kante whose obvious strengths can be maximized, we tried to turn into a 50-50 Kante by asking him to do something he's great and something he's not great at.

Think Tuchel might try Werner-Havertz-Mount as the front 3 at some point, especially as he doesn't seem to like giving the opposition a focal point to deal with. On a random note, we're just stupidly overloaded with attacking options right now. It's good to have options but there just seems to be too many to keep happy.

Obviously the likes of Mane, Salah, Firmino aren't over the hill just yet but will be interesting to see this summer if Klopp has that ruthlessness in him to potentially sell one of them and reinvest the money in his squad OR is he going to just stick with them because of what they've done for him in the last 2-3 years. Alex Ferguson was great at rebuilding squads because he knew when to ditch players and refresh the squad. Just like Guardiola at Man City, Klopp is now entering the territory of needing to do that. Can he do it or will he not be able to do it because of the emotional attachment/sentimental reasons? Am sure Klopp also knows that the Liverpool owners aren't just going to splash money freely like City. He needs to sell to buy big.

Agree with your point about micromanaging but the problem with Lampard's freestyle football is that the players did not seem to have a defined role or position under him. It became a case of Lampard just putting players in this and that position and just letting them do their own things, without any obvious tactical plan. It's basically the opposite of micromanaging. There's no balance between the two. It's why as a team, we always looked loose under Lampard. Compare and contrast what we saw under him to what Tuchel said and what we've seen so far under him: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/feb/03/thomas-tuchel-determined-to-get-the-right-tune-out-of-Chelsea “I believe in a disciplined structure,” Tuchel said. “It gives us the chance to play faster because everybody knows where the other guy is. It gives us the chance to give every player a couple of possibilities to choose. When we lose the ball we can start effective counter-pressing. “It’s just to give possibilities and it always stays the choice of the players, what decision they take. Maybe Mason Mount goes for a different solution than Hakim Ziyech on the same position, for sure he will than for Kai Havertz, but I absolutely want that they have all one, two, three, four options to take. There are players that will take the fifth one or sixth one that I don’t even think about.”

Lampard also talked too much about relying on individual quality, the need to show more energy, outrun the opposition etc. He was almost dismissive of tactics on some occasions. That was when the alarm bells really started ringing for me.

I remember they hyped up their recent game at Anfield and look what happened after that. 🤣

Would expect Tuchel to use Mount more intelligently, not just in terms of not overplaying him but also utilize properly tactically.

Exactly. Werner, Havertz, Ziyech all played under managers and at a club, where there is a clear tactical system in place, a clear style of play and they each have a defined role that allowed them to shine in that system. They came here and suddenly experienced something totally opposite in Lampard's freestyle football.

But The Telegraph claimed Chilwell, Ziyech and Werner were Lampard's picks. Regardless though, Lampard bought into those signings and for example in Werner's unveiling presser, he talked about Lampard talked to him a lot, before the signing happened, about the tactics, where he would play, how the team's gonna play etc. Also mentioned he was sent videos and all that too. Can't remember if Ziyech said similar but both he and Werner said they joined the club because of Lampard after his persuasion. Am really curious as to what Lampard said to them because it feels like what he said in convincing them to join us turned out to be totally different to what eventually happened on the pitch.

Havertz may be younger but then, one could argue that he has higher potential than Werner and came on a bigger price tag. Moreover, he was also a goalscorer and goal creator in the Bundesliga. Sorry, I just can't agree with you about the position thing. He started off his career as a winger but he then developed into a left inside forward/second striker and did his best work there. He became one of the most coveted players around not because he did well as a winger but as left inside forward/second striker and he also did not score 90+ goals as a winger either. It's a position on the left side but playing as a winger and as the left inside forward/second striker is totally two different roles. Is it any surprise that he has looked more like himself, more confident in recent games when put in his natural position - e.g. inside forward/second striker - and when we look to play more to his strengths? In that role, we can utilize his pace to get into space, which he likes to do, and then look to score and/or create chances for others (like for Mount at the weekend). In the winger role, it's a different thing altogether because he'll receive the ball onto feet much more often and he's not great at dribbling past players and beat them consistently like a normal winger would. Couple that with Lampard's hit-and-hope crossing, slow passing football, it's little wonder why we had a player who looked totally lost under him. It's about playing to a player's strengths. Imagine you're an attacking midfielder and you're great at what you do and the manager suddenly put you in the defensive midfield role, want you to be a destroyer when you're not good at it and I criticize you for it. Wouldn't that be stupid of me to do that? In fact, it's not only Werner who looked lost under Lampard. So many looked lost under his non-existent coaching. Lampard had all these attacking talents but because he didn't know what to do, we have wasted like half a season going nowhere with them and as a team.

Worked them hard but not worked them smart. Lampard was just always talking about showing more energy, working hard, running more etc.

The second leg will still take place in England, as scheduled.

Yeah and CHO already threw shade at Lampard regarding your last point there...

I don't want to pile onto Lampard here but having read those inside stories that came out after his sacking, it feels like Lampard was only able to motivate those young, English players because of his status and what he achieved as a player. He seemed to rely on that. The academy players look up to him for obvious reasons and he also wanted English players like Rice and Chilwell (not that they are bad players). And then you have the foreign players. While they may also look up to Lampard, they came from a different league/country/culture, don't have that emotional connection and expected something more than whatever basic things that Lampard was doing.

He's Lampard's uncle. What do you expect? This is a classic xenophobic attitude from the English media towards foreign managers. Redknapp conveniently just ignored the work Tuchel did in Germany and the fact that he's had 17 years of experience as a manager compared to Lampard's 2.5 years.

It's probably best that we avoid hiring club legends as the manager in the future. We really don't need this emotional drama of the fans wanting the club to basically fail because they're emotionally attached to that particular manager.

If you say people are too quick to admit they were wrong about Chilwell, then aren't you too quick to basically say "I told you he's average"? Admittedly, he has not been at his best recently but he has nowhere been disastrous and considering the players' form and performance level nosedived for one reason or another under Lampard, I'd wait and see what they can do under Tuchel going forward. I also don't think the back 3 is gonna be a permanent thing under Tuchel and if the club have any brain, they should sell Alonso ASAP (back 3 or not)!

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/Chelsea/thomas-tuchel-frank-lampard-harry-redknapp-b1792693.html “I heard Gary Neville saying earlier they’ve now got another world-class manager coming into the league,” Redknapp told Sky Sports ahead of Tuchel’s appointment. “Who says he’s a great manager? Winning the title with PSG in France doesn’t really make you a great a manager. What does that prove? You’re quite entitled to win that division when you’re managing PSG.”

Brandt to Arsenal? Sancho to Man United? Dortmund might not want to sell Haaland but there's nothing stopping him and/or that pesky Mino Raiola from pushing for a move.