Jase

Have you forgotten our 2017 FA Cup final win over his United? Overall, he has lost 3 cup finals out of 15 (IIRC).

FOR GOD'S SAKE! CAN WE STOP COMPARING LAMPARD'S SITUATION WITH OTHERS AND JUDGE HIM BASED ON THE WORK HE'S DOING!? Just because Solskjaer has turned things around now, it doesn't mean he's the right manager for the long term at Man United. For all we know, United could easily go through their up-and-down period soon again. As for Arteta, he didn't spend 200 million+ on players in the transfer market and Arsenal's expectations are completely different to our expectations. We have different standards than them. And just because they have turned things around, it doesn't mean Lampard will do so here. If people think Lampard deserves to stay, fine but give us good reasons why do you think he should stay. If the best answer people can come up with is by comparing him with other managers, then that says it all because that is dependent on blind hope and not actual confidence that he will turn things around. No one has been able to argue why Lampard deserves to stay by debating the concerns that fans have about him. People are just putting blind faith into him. And also, if people are gonna say Lampard will turn things around because Solskjaer did this and Arteta did that, then one could easily point out that Roman has sacked out of depth managers midway through a season in the past and those decisions have proven right based on how those managers' career went after that - Scolari, AVB, Di Matteo etc - and what we achieved subsequently.

Just throwing out a few reasons (could be any or combination of them): 1. Lampard over trains the players in training, especially during a free midweek, to the point where they are tired mentally and physically come matchday and they don't have the energy to press effectively (or even doing the other things effectively for that matter). I didn't notice it during the game but I heard someone mention it in a podcast that Kante already looked dead on his feet after 50 minutes or so against Man City, he was bending down with the hands already on his knees etc. OR players are already generally tired from the congested schedule anyway but Lampard still wants them to press. 2. Lampard doesn't know how to coach a team on how to press as a unit. Could even include his coaching staff here. 3. Lampard doesn't understand the players' strengths and weaknesses as in who can press effectively and who can't press effectively, who has the energy to press and who doesn't have the energy to press. 4. Lampard is caught up with this idea that pressing equals exciting football, showing everyone else that the team want to play on the front foot etc (there's nothing exciting about it if we can't press effectively) and if we sit back and don't press, it equates to defensive football etc.

The problem with a month ago is that we only beat the bottom half sides. The minute we came up against top half teams, we struggled badly and looked clueless on how to beat them. This is currently our record against top half sides: L 0-2 Liverpool D 0-0 Man United D 0-0 Spurs L 1-3 Man City D 3-3 Southampton L 0-1 Everton D 1-1 Aston Villa We'll never get anywhere near the top or even the top 4 if we don't beat those teams. It's also concerning that the only way we seem to know how to attack against these teams is to spam high crosses into the box. It's rather apt that we are currently 9th in the table and behind all the top half sides that we haven't beaten this season (except Leicester). I really have no idea what our game plan was against Man City. As you mentioned, thought the plan was to play on the break, to use the pace of Werner and Pulisic, going by the lineup but then, we tried to press them high up the pitch and the pressing was all over the place again. Every player was just pressing around randomly and there's no cohesion in the pressing (seeing someone like Kante just charging around aimlessly and leaving his DM space vacated was blood boiling!). Even The Athletic pointed out this issue in their analytical piece today and Sunday's game wasn't the first time it's happened this season, never mind the fact that we're still seeing the same pressing problems from last season. I really want to know what tactical stuff Lampard and his coaching staff do in training. We look so badly coached against the other big sides.

You mean our summer signings?

David Ornstein on Lampard's situation from 1:00 here...

For better or for worse, modern footballers are built differently from the previous generation. It's hard to look at the modern footballers and pick out those who are genuine leaders.

It's funny that no one, including Havertz, seems to know what his best position is.

Werner woes, struggling Kante and poor pressing: what’s going wrong at Chelsea? https://theathletic.com/2303208/2021/01/06/chelsea-lampard-tactics-werner/ Appointing a relative rookie like Frank Lampard creates a dilemma for Roman Abramovich. On one hand, if you appoint an inexperienced manager who is learning on the job, you don’t expect a quick fix — it’s more likely he’ll encounter some poor runs of form, which must be tolerated in the belief the manager will prove successful over a longer period. On the other, if Abramovich pulled the trigger midway through the season and sacked World Cup winner Luiz Felipe Scolari, Europa League winner Andre Villas-Boas, European Cup winner Roberto Di Matteo and three-time Premier League winner Jose Mourinho, then why does Lampard deserve more time than those who have proved themselves at the highest level? With Chelsea currently sitting ninth in the Premier League, discussions about Lampard’s future are inevitable but what have been Chelsea’s specific issues this season? Goalkeeping problems haven’t been resolved Chelsea’s major problem in Lampard’s first season was unquestionably in goal, where Kepa Arrizabalaga endured a terrible campaign. By the end of the season, Chelsea had allowed chances with an expected goals against value of around 41 but had conceded 54 times. That was the largest difference in the Premier League, pointing to Kepa’s inability to keep the ball out of the net. Lampard was desperate to secure the services of a new goalkeeper, particularly after Kepa’s woes continued in the opening games of this season. Edouard Mendy arrived from Rennes and initially seemed to have improved things dramatically — he saved eight of the first nine shots he faced and Chelsea kept five straight clean sheets for the first time in a decade. But Mendy’s form has dropped off since then. He rushed out too quickly for a Patrick Bamford opener in Chelsea’s eventual 3-1 victory over Leeds at Stamford Bridge and then did the same to concede a penalty in the 1-0 loss at Everton. Errors in possession have also crept into his game, notably when almost skewing the ball into his own net on a windy evening at Old Trafford and passing straight to Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette in a 3-1 loss at the Emirates before atoning for his mistake with a decent save. Overall, the statistics aren’t particularly convincing. Chelsea have clearly improved on Kepa but Mendy’s numbers are average rather than spectacular when you assess Opta’s expected goals on target (xGOT) figures, which account for the placement of a shot (as well as where it was struck from). Mendy has conceded 10 goals from positions where you would expect 9.3. He’s ranked ninth in the league for goals prevented (the difference between xGOT and goals conceded) of the 20 regular Premier League goalkeepers. That’s not disastrous but early optimism about Mendy might have been slightly misplaced. This graph shows the number of goals he’s conceded in relation to the quality of shots over the course of his Chelsea career so far and while, in his opening matches, Mendy was outperforming expectations, now he’s slipped behind them. These numbers also don’t account, for example, for that needless concession of a penalty at Everton. That’s not disastrous, of course, and this is a small sample of games, and the margins are thin — but that’s still important, given one extra save can turn a loss into a draw or a draw into a win. Overall, Chelsea have conceded 21 goals having faced chances worth 17.5 xG. Some of this is a hangover from Kepa’s continued presence in goal in the opening matches of the campaign — and Willy Caballero’s only appearance resulted in three concessions at West Brom. Overall, though, the goalkeeper position has remained a problem. Chelsea have gone from the biggest underperformance last season to the second-biggest this season, behind Brighton. Mendy is an improvement on Kepa but for the second consecutive season, Lampard can justifiably be frustrated by the number of goals his goalkeepers have conceded. Kante is struggling in big games Lampard’s switch to 4-3-3 at the end of October reopened the debate about the identity of Chelsea’s holding midfielder. This was originally an issue under Maurizio Sarri, who controversially opted for his old Napoli comrade Jorginho, asking N’Golo Kante to play in more of a box-to-box role. When Lampard played 4-3-3 last season, he often followed Sarri’s approach but since switching to that shape this season, on nine of the 11 Premier League matches, he’s fielded Kante as his defensive midfielder — on the other two occasions, Jorginho has played there, with Kante shifting right again. Neither have performed particularly well this season but Kante’s performances in 3-1 defeats to Arsenal and Manchester City have been particularly concerning. The France international has been sluggish when receiving possession on the turn, sloppy with his distribution and far too clumsy in terms of conceding fouls. That was noticeably problematic against Arsenal when Granit Xhaka stepped up and smashed a resulting free kick home. His decision-making also cost Chelsea a goal against City when he received the ball following a Chelsea corner as the last man back, attempted to find a team-mate and conceded possession. He was bypassed by Raheem Sterling, whose shot bounced back for Kevin De Bruyne to make it 3-0. It was reminiscent of Kante stumbling on the halfway line in a similar situation to allow Arsenal’s Gabriel Martinelli to net an equaliser at Stamford Bridge last season. Jorginho doesn’t offer Kante’s ball-winning skills and has sometimes been criticised for his cautious distribution, but his classic whipped around-the-corner pass assisted a goal for Timo Werner against Southampton (when Lampard was using them together in a 4-2-3-1) and that type of incision has been badly lacking from Kante when playing deep. Kante’s best contributions this season have come when he’s pushed on. He burst forward through Leeds’ man-marking, for example, and created a good chance for Werner when driving forward in the 3-0 win over West Ham just before Christmas, only for the Germany forward to hit his shot against the crossbar. It’s become somewhat sacrilegious to suggest it at Stamford Bridge but Kante might be better used in a more energetic role. Lampard doesn’t seem entirely convinced by Jorginho and Billy Gilmour’s half-hour outing against Manchester City, having been introduced in place of Kante, hints that he might be thinking of someone different altogether. A poorly co-ordinated press In the aftermath of Sunday’s 3-1 defeat against Manchester City, Lampard pointed to the sudden shift in the narrative around his performance as Chelsea manager. “We went 16 games unbeaten (recently). A month ago, everyone was talking about where we were going to go to, where I was going to go…” But Chelsea’s impressive performances in October and November were largely reliant upon the quality of opposition. During their unbeaten run, Chelsea’s victories came against Crystal Palace, Burnley, Sheffield United, Newcastle and Leeds — all currently in the bottom half of the table. Their draws came against Southampton, Manchester United and Tottenham — all in the top half of the table. To put it another way, Chelsea haven’t yet defeated anyone above 10th-placed West Ham. When the fixtures have been more difficult, results have been poor. Of course, to a certain extent, that’s natural, but a common feature of Chelsea’s performance in big games is their lack of organisation without possession, particularly when it comes to pressing in midfield. Overall, pressing across the Premier League has fallen this season. At Chelsea, it’s often seemed like Lampard has asked his players to press but the actual specifics are lacking. Here are three examples from two-goal defeats to Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City. Eleven minutes into the game against Liverpool, Alisson has possession and feeds a pass into Jordan Henderson. No-one is in a position to stop the pass, or to prevent him from turning — but, in that area of the pitch, that’s not a huge problem. The problem, though, comes when he does turn. Then, we discover that all three of Chelsea’s central midfielders — Mateo Kovacic, Jorginho and Kante — are all trying to shut him down but aren’t close enough to actual dispossess him. Therefore, Henderson has time to turn and prod a pass in behind all three… … and onto Sadio Mane, between the lines. Kante desperately tries to get back and stop him, but Mane has the option of a simple square pass to Roberto Firmino. Chelsea were too easy to play through. That has become a common theme of those defeats. Here’s the build-up to the goal scored by Bukayo Saka at the Emirates, which effectively ended that game as a contest. Rob Holding is in possession and Chelsea’s midfielders are again disorganised. Mason Mount is broadly trying to put pressure on Holding. Kante has been higher up the pitch closing down Arsenal’s centre-backs and is trying to drop back and shut down Xhaka — but isn’t in a position to do so — while Jorginho goes racing towards Saka. The pass into Xhaka, in oceans of space, is on and from there, Arsenal build a decisive attack down their right, which is eventually finished by Saka. Again, Chelsea are too easy to play through. Finally, here’s the build-up to Ilkay Gundogan’s opener on Sunday. Again, this pass from Ruben Dias into Rodri is simple. Rodri has started the game nervously, constantly misplacing passes and narrowly avoiding conceding a penalty. A high-energy side would have pressed him relentlessly and created more turnovers. But this time, there’s no pressure on the ball. Rodri has time to amble forward, Kante casually comes out towards him and Rodri is able to feed the ball out to the left, where the goal comes from. The goalscorer, Gundogan, drifts between the lines and wasn’t ever really under pressure before his finish. Lampard can blame individual underperformance in both penalty boxes for Chelsea’s recent slump but he must take responsibility for Chelsea’s openness in midfield. Werner’s woes Chelsea’s attacking issues are best incapsulated by Timo Werner, who has failed to replicate the goalscoring exploits that made him so sought after. First, it’s worth considering that Werner isn’t far away from getting things right. He’s hit the woodwork five times this season, more than any other Premier League player. If two of those five had gone in and he had scored six goals instead of the four he has so far, there probably wouldn’t be so much discussion about his performances. His non-penalty xG per 90 in the Premier League is the 15th-highest in the league at 0.39, yet he’s only scored 0.26 per 90, 43rd-best in the league. There’s more to being a wide forward in Chelsea’s possession-heavy system than scoring goals, though. Considering data from smarterscout, Werner’s ball retention ability as a left winger is rated at just 31/99, indicative of his inability to maintain possession. That’s sometimes forgivable if the player is the only turnover-prone option on the team or is trying high-risk, high-reward passes. Sadly, that’s not a caveat applicable to Werner, who is required to stitch Chelsea’s possession together, with a rating of 93/99 for link play. Combine that with the fact that he rarely looks to pass the ball forward (his progressive passing rating is 21/99) and that he’s relatively inept at progressing the ball too (his xG from ball progression rating is 8/99), and Werner’s overall contributions to the team look very weak. So why is that the case? In a positional sense, Werner did have a tendency of cutting in from the left-hand side for Leipzig, although that was more of a ploy to keep himself out of the eyeline of the opposing centre-back and not where he’d be routinely stationed. Seventy-eight per cent of Werner’s domestic minutes last season came with him playing as a striker, with just four per cent at left wing. Contrast that with his time so far at Chelsea, with 63 per cent of his minutes coming from that left wing position, a quarter of them up front and the rest on the right. A lack of familiarity with the left wing role partly explains Werner’s poor output so far this season but doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s a large and notable difference in how Leipzig last season and Chelsea this season approach games, the former bringing Werner’s strengths to the surface far more than Chelsea’s current system. The style of play Leipzig employed last season was predicated on a speed and intensity that capitalised on transitions to create chances. They averaged fewer sequences of possession that featured 10 or more passes per game than Chelsea, and also a fewer number of those sequences that reached the opposition penalty area or ended in a shot (build up attacks in the table below). Leipzig’s games were far less controlled. There was a higher cadence in terms of how often the ball changed hands between teams, as noted by the higher volume of open-play sequences. They also forced more “high turnovers” than Chelsea, which are open-play turnovers which start within 40 metres of the opponent’s goal. Leipzig’s high-octane style fit Werner’s lightning pace perfectly, with him often having chances either under minimal pressure, with just the goalkeeper to beat, or both. Werner scored nine goals following a carry — dribbling the ball five metres or more — which was the most of any player in Europe last season. Just look at the number of streams from deep into the box in the graphic below. Now compare it to this season in the graphic below. With nearly half the season gone, Werner has not scored after a carry and has only had eight shots, all of which have been from wide in the penalty area. The dearth of chances in central areas shows how Werner has struggled to replicate his Leipzig impact against set defences in the Premier League. This season, Werner’s still carrying the ball at similar rates but it’s the end product of those carries which has changed a lot. Last season, in his smidgen over 11 carries per 90, Werner created, shot and scored at far higher rates than he is doing this season. That’s due to the circumstances that he finds himself in when on the ball: Chelsea just don’t create those transitional opportunities that he thrived on at Leipzig. Underlying statistics are fine but what is Lampard’s long-term plan? Chelsea’s two core issues are the relatively poor individual performances of new attacking signings and the club’s position in the table after some underwhelming recent results. With the perceived poor individual performances, there was always going to be a case of diminishing returns. Playing three players in Kai Havertz, Werner and Hakim Ziyech together, who respectively averaged 0.62, 1.06 and 1.06 non-penalty goals and assists per 90 last season, is always going to lead to a drop-off in the attacking output of each. There’s only one ball, which is why it’s so rare that a team can have an attack consisting of three players putting up such strong individual numbers, unless perhaps you are Barcelona with Neymar, Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi. With all due respect, Chelsea’s new attacking trio aren’t at that level. Inferior individual numbers don’t mean that the team as a whole should be hamstrung; you’d expect Chelsea to still put up good to great xG numbers overall given the shot in the arm of attacking talent. That so far isn’t the case though — the attacking pieces haven’t scaled very well and collectively, are far worse than the sum of their individual parts. Chelsea’s non-penalty xG per game this season of 1.4 is a joint five-season low (alongside 2017-18, when they finished fifth) and represents a large drop-off compared to last season, in which the attack created 1.76 xG per game with a squad that, on paper, was far weaker. Chelsea have bought players who previously produced some great attacking stats but there’s no guarantee they’ll all be able to replicate them. There was always going to be a period of bedding-in required for the new recruits to get accustomed to their new surroundings. So although there have not been any standout individual performances from the new signings, a quick look at the underlying numbers show a team that, despite their eighth position in the table, have the fourth-best expected goal difference (xGD) in the Premier League this season. That’s telling as it’s a good indicator in the long run of how good this team is. Per-game, their xGD is +0.53, ahead of all but Aston Villa (+0.57), Liverpool (+0.8) and Manchester City (+0.88). Splitting that into defence and attack, it’s also evident that Chelsea have had differing fortunes at both ends so far this season. Scoring 28 from 23.9 xG and conceding 19 from 14.8 xG conceded suggests that a slowdown in scoring and fewer goals conceded was always likely in the long run. The rolling xG chart below considers the 10-game rolling averages of Chelsea’s xG for and against. Since last season, the attack has worsened slightly over time (blue line) but the defence has improved (red line). This suggests that up until the City game, their defence this season was at its strongest and most consistent that it’s been for quite some time. Picking up four points out of a possible 18 for any title-challenging team over any stretch in a season is cause for concern but Chelsea’s performances weren’t quite as bad as results suggest. Scoring seven non-penalty goals from 8.5 xG and conceding 8 from 6.1 xG looks a little unfortunate. Fourth-best isn’t the best, though, and for Chelsea, that could prove to be the ultimate reason that costs Frank Lampard his job given the substantial investment that took place in the summer.

Are you really surprised that the English media are finding excuses for Lampard? I mean, The Athletic just published another puff piece to defend Lampard today. The English pundits and journalists have been trying to make excuses for Lampard while they are also the same ones who have tried to hound Solskjaer out of Man United after every bad result. Have yet to see a single good take on why Lampard deserves to stay in the job. No one has debated that by addressing the concerns that most fans have about Lampard. People who are still in the 'Lampard In' camp are preaching patience for the sake of it or going down the blind hope route, with no good points on why he should still be the manager. Maybe Lampard might become a good manager one day but when you look at the managerial career so far, it's kinda crazy how opportunistic or fortunate he has been. He got the job at Derby because his uncle Harry Redknapp knows the owner. He then got the job here because of circumstances - club legend, fans unrest after Sarri, transfer ban - and arguably the only reason why he's still in this job now is because of the lack of a good alternative and he's being given time to turn things around because of it.

Nothing new. He has given the players 1 day or 2 days off this season before, when the schedule allowed it (e.g. after the West Ham game). The main issue is what he does when they return to training. We had pretty much a free week between the recent West Ham and Arsenal games, for example, and look what happened.

Henry Lawrence, Lewis Bate and Valentino Livramento have been training with the first team. So, they could get some game time here. Anjorin might also be in the frame to play, although we already have all our wingers back. Given our recent run of poor form and results, suspect Lampard will go with a stronger lineup than expected on Sunday.

Lampard should probably be a politician really. He tends to say the things you want to hear or always says the right things but then does the opposite with his actions.

Since we are basically in the 'pray and hope' territory with Lampard, I hope that he and his coaching staff will take these two free midweeks to reassess things and try to change things up - the formation, how we attack, how we press etc. If he still intends to stick with 4-3-3, play players in the wrong role/position, keep persisting with what hasn't been working, then the inevitable will come very soon for him. And for the love of god, stop overtraining the players and tiring them out before the match even begins!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/spain_football/article-9115251/Chelseas-FA-Cup-ttie-against-Morecambe-looks-set-ahead-Shrimps-return-training.html The game looks set to go ahead.

They were definitely his signings. It was reported as such after they joined and both even said they joined us because of Lampard, because of the football vision that he sold to them.

Lampard's handling of Tomori is something that hasn't been spoken enough.

Problem with the latter is that even if we perform well at Fulham - but don't win - there's no guarantee that we would carry on performing well in the subsequent games. We would need a 3, 4, 5 consecutive good performances to give us actual hope. From Lampard's perspective, he needs the wins to buy himself time and do whatever the hell he wants to do (only god knows at this point). Otherwise, he's gone. If anything, I'd like to see Lampard at least try changing things up - e.g. a change of formation - because whatever he is doing now is definitely not working as well as it did over a month ago.

Since comparing Lampard with Klopp is a common thing, did a minor digging on how Klopp progressed each season at Liverpool (+ only key signings highlighted): *took over in October* 2015/16 - 8th (60 pts) + League Cup Final + Europa League Final *bought Matip, Mane, Wijnaldum* 2016/17 - 4th (76 pts) *bought Salah, Robertson, Van Dijk (January)* 2017/18 - 4th (75 pts) + Champions League Final *bought Fabinho, Alisson* 2018/19 - 2nd (97 pts) + Champions League Win 2019/20 - 1st (99 pts) Lampard bought Mendy, Silva, Chilwell, Ziyech, Havertz and Werner in the summer and unless we go on some sort of crazy winning run, we look on course for another finish between 60-70 points again or maybe even lower than that! Plus based on current form, it doesn't seem likely we'll go far in the Champions League either while another FA Cup run is no guarantee. We have never gone 2 straight seasons without winning a trophy under Roman.

Let's face it, there will never be another Sir Alex Ferguson at a big club again. Managers don't last more than 3 or 4 seasons at such a club in modern football and if a manager happens to stay that long or longer, there's a high chance that his message, voice etc won't have the same impact on the players as before. We saw it with Guardiola at Barcelona, Klopp at Dortmund and those two seem to be experiencing the same issue perhaps right now at Man City and Liverpool respectively for example. I don't think it's the players who are dictating the manager's fate this time. We no longer have a group of players with a big ego and all that. The main problem we have now is Lampard. It's all good preaching patience and I don't think anyone is against it but we also need to see progression on the pitch. Lampard can't be spending over 200 million on new players and have us doing worse than last season - e.g. being 3 points worse off than at the same stage last season. We are also 18 months, not 18 weeks, into his tenure at the club and we have no real style of play, no identity, no clear tactical idea of what we are trying to do on the pitch. It's alarming to see that our football was more enjoyable in Lampard's first 6 months than all the nonsense thrown up since then. We can't have players like Ziyech, Havertz, Werner, Pulisic etc and then have the team just spam high crosses into the box (I really want to know what did Lampard say to Havertz/Werner/Ziyech when he persuaded them to join us because I don't believe for one second that 'spamming crosses' football is the vision he sold to them). That's not modern football. That's football from the 90s. That's football played by sides like Burnley and West Brom, not a big club with the ambition to win big titles. We also can't be yo-yo-ing between two extremes in our performances after 18 months under Lampard. When we are good, we are good but when we are bad, we are very bad. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground with us. How many draws or defeats under Lampard can we really say "yeah, we played well in that game but were unlucky not to win because we didn't our chances etc"? Granted they aren't wins but every draw and every defeat under Lampard has felt very demoralizing. It always feels like we are going backwards whenever we draw or lose. Lampard said the aim is to close the gap on Liverpool and Man City but based on recent evidence, we look to be even further away from those two and that can't be happening after spending all the money that we have in the summer. On top of that, Lampard's inexperience and failure to react or learn from his mistakes quickly are also proving to be a problem. Inexperience can be excused if that person is a quick learner but Lampard doesn't seem to realize it or capable of it. For example, it's clear that the 4-3-3 hasn't been working for weeks now but nothing has changed. He still tries to play the system, play players that don't necessarily fit the system and just hope it will work. It's maddening. Or another example, we consistently pick up random injuries (mostly muscle related) after a free week and we tend to play badly in games after a free week because Lampard is seemingly overtraining the players but neither he nor his coaching staff seem to be noticing that trend/problem. Lampard has just kept going with it despite the same issue appearing every time. Then there's also the fact that his in-game management is questionable. He doesn't react quickly enough to opposition's tactical changes or when they are dominating us and the team need help/guidance/leadership. His changes lately have also been almost like-for-like, a bit like what Sarri used to do with Kovacic-Barkley sub etc. It's bad enough that Lampard is inexperienced and is facing all this situation and problems the first time but it's also compounded by the fact that his coaching staff are also inexperienced at the highest level. Lampard has no one to fall back on and ask for advice when the going gets tough. Combine that with a young/inexperienced team like ours, it's essentially the blind leading the blind.