Jase

Someone's been really busy briefing the media about Lampard's future... https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jan/04/frank-lampard-to-be-given-time-to-turn-things-around-at-chelsea Frank Lampard is to be given time to prove he deserves to stay in his post as Chelsea’s manager despite growing alarm behind the scenes about performances and the club’s board being alerted to Thomas Tuchel’s interest in the job if it becomes available. Chelsea’s faltering title challenge suffered another setback when they lost 3-1 at home against Manchester City on Sunday, putting Lampard in danger of being sacked before the end of his second season in charge. Although the humiliating defeat by City is unlikely to result in the 42-year-old being dismissed, he is under mounting pressure and the hierarchy could be forced to act if they fear Champions League qualification slipping from their grasp. Tuchel, who led Paris Saint-Germain to the Champions League final last season before being sacked by the French champions last month, has been put forward as a potential replacement. The pressure on Lampard has grown following a run of four defeats in six games, leaving the board increasingly concerned about the team’s lack of progress this season. Roman Abramovich, the owner, gave Lampard over £200m to spend on signings last summer but Chelsea lie in eighth place after 17 games. They are seven points behind Liverpool in first place and, unless their form improves, face a fight to finish in the top four. It is believed Lampard, whose contract runs out in the summer of 2022, retains Chelsea’s backing for now. Conscious of his legendary status at Stamford Bridge, the club would prefer not to act hastily with their former midfielder. Lampard fared well after replacing Maurizio Sarri in the summer of 2019, overcoming a transfer ban to qualify for the Champions League and reach the FA Cup final. He also earned plaudits for promoting Chelsea’s young players. Chelsea are prepared to give Lampard an opportunity to reverse the slide, especially with the top half of the Premier League table so cramped. They are due to host Morecambe in the third round of the FA Cup on Sunday, though the tie could be postponed as a result of a Covid-19 outbreak at the League Two club, before a trip to Fulham on Friday week offers a chance to return to winning ways in the league. Yet expectations are higher this season. Although there is an acceptance that injuries to key players have made the task harder, Lampard’s inexperience has shown at times. He is in only his third season of management – he had a year with Derby in the Championship before returning to Chelsea – and although he still enjoys support from the dressing room his approach has been questioned privately by some players. There is concern that Lampard is yet to hit upon his best starting XI and has struggled to integrate Kai Havertz and Timo Werner following their big-money moves from the Bundesliga. Havertz, who has found it hard since testing positive for coronavirus in November, started on the bench against City, who led 3-0 at half-time, while eyebrows were raised at Lampard’s decision to start Werner at centre-forward instead of Olivier Giroud or Tammy Abraham. Werner has gone 13 games without a goal and rarely troubled City’s defence, while Lampard’s use of Callum Hudson-Odoi was also called into question. There was surprise when Christian Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech, who has just returned from a hamstring injury, started on the flanks instead of Hudson-Odoi, who had impressed in recent outings and scored Chelsea’s consolation after coming off the bench. Chelsea’s approach was exposed by City and it is understood that some within the dressing room believe the team do not have a clear identity under Lampard, who criticised his players in public after the Boxing Day defeat against Arsenal. However, the lack of clear alternatives could buy Lampard time. It is believed Chelsea’s top choice was Mauricio Pochettino before the former Tottenham manager replaced Tuchel at PSG. Tuchel boasts a stronger pedigree than Lampard and took PSG to the edge of European glory before losing August’s Champions League final against Bayern Munich 1-0. Yet while the German has a reputation for playing attacking football, he struggled to cope with the internal politics at PSG. Julian Nagelsmann is another option, though the 33-year-old German is unlikely to want to leave RB Leipzig until the summer. Max Allegri, the former Juventus manager, is also out of work and has been linked with the job. The picture will become clearer in the coming weeks. After facing Morecambe and Fulham, Chelsea will want to see how Lampard fares in league games against Leicester, Burnley, Wolves and Tottenham. The first leg of Chelsea’s last-16 tie against Atlético Madrid in the Champions League next month could also be pivotal in deciding his future.

TBF and as @OneMoSalah mentioned above, it's difficult to have 2 young players - only 1 year separates them - vying for the same position in the defence. Unless, there's injury, suspension or just wanting to rest a player, it's unlikely the manager will ever rotate much in a position where you want consistency in the backline. In an ideal world, the club would have loved to keep both James and Lamptey but Lamptey chose to leave because he knew and saw the club chose James to be our #1 right back for the future. Azpi wasn't the issue or anything since he's already getting on and he's not the future for us. This is always gonna be a problem when we have an excellent academy with all the talented players. We aren't going to be able to play/use everyone and some are bound to slip through the door. Also for his sake, hope it doesn't turn out to be an issue but Lamptey has been struggling with a hamstring problem at Brighton.

Speaking of Werner being used centrally, here's what Lampard said when he was asked about it on Sunday...

Players join us because we are a big side that always look to challenge for titles and win trophies. Even Mount was talking about it over a month ago, about how our aim is to be #1 etc. Would think Lampard's message behind closed doors isn't too dissimilar to what he has been saying in the public. There has been too much self-fulfilling prophecy from Lampard after every bad result. He keeps on saying we are not at Liverpool's or Man City's level and that might be true right now but are the likes of Man United, Leicester, Southampton and Spurs at their level? No but they are much closer to the top than we are and look where United are right now in the table. Can go top of the table with a win next week. Just because we are a work in progress, it doesn't mean we shouldn't embrace the challenge of pushing ourselves beyond the limit or aim as high as possible. Compare and contrast Lampard's approach here to Mourinho's in 2013/14 when we were also at a similar stage of building a new team.

You will support Hasenhuttl for years? How sure are you that you're not gonna turn against him after a run of bad results? Would you have kept him after that 9-0 loss to Leicester had you been a Southampton fan?

If we are gonna go for the new manager bounce, at least maybe hire someone better than Shevchenko? Someone maybe with more experience or at least knows the league as a manager?

Tony Pulis is available.

When you see how Lampard is making us play right now, you can see why the big clubs in England always go for foreign managers and there aren't many successful English managers, because they aren't tactically innovative, not in-tune with modern football and still play football from decades ago.

@Blue Armour You said that our title challenge went up in smoke after Klopp said we are the favorites (or something along those lines)...might have something more to do with our own manager playing down our chances after beating Leeds. Instead of trying to instill belief in the players, our manager tried to manage expectations too much. We might not be the finished article just yet but given the nature of this season, we could have at least given it a good go but alas, we're in 9th and 7 points off the top.

Could have been up there, challenging for the title at the very least but the manager...

Am too mentally drained to argue at this point. All I'll say is if you don't give players the right platform to shine - be it Werner, Havertz or whoever else - then they are bound to fail. It's nonsense if you criticize the manager for poor coaching and then turn around to blame the players as well. This all feels like the Mourinho-De Bruyne situation from years ago. That's assuming Lampard gets the sack but what if he doesn't get the sack? What if we suddenly turn our form around and he stays on? Then what? How are you gonna fit someone like Werner in if we continue to spam high crosses into the box? And mind you, this isn't even just about spamming crosses to the strikers and whoever plays upfront. Take yesterday's game as an example, we even tried to spam high crosses for Pulisic, whose height is only 1.73m, and there are plenty of other examples from past games. Lampard has all these attacking players at his disposal. It's his fucking job to find a way, to find a playing style that suits majority of the players, if not all, and not only 1-2 players like Abraham and Giroud. Otherwise, we might as well start selling the likes of Pulisic, Werner and the other short players in the team and start buying giants!

9th in the table. 3 points behind Spurs in 4th and have played a game more. Also 3 points behind City in 5th and have played 2 games more.

This is basically us right now...

Should Liverpool lose this, United can go top outright on January 12 before they go to Anfield...

Saw this earlier and no wonder he's been out of job.

I think it could be him. The Athletic also reported the same thing about players on the fringes out of the squad being unhappy.

Rudiger? Why would Rudiger even be complaining about the tactics when he's not even playing much?

You could say the same for the rest...

Goal, Telegraph and ESPN all running the same story today - Lampard will be given a bit more time (also note the 4th last paragraph below)... https://www.espn.com/soccer/chelsea/story/4279843/chelsea-prepared-to-be-patient-with-lampard-despite-poor-results-sources

What makes you think Lampard will come out and say that knowing his ego? Since the club are going down the "blind hope" route with him, one can only hope he realizes his mistakes and fixes them ASAP. We face Fulham (a), Leicester (a), Wolves (h) and Burnley (h) this month - and before going to Spurs - and if we don't pick up at least 4 points from the next 2 games or at least 10 out of 12, then I think he would be gone.

Yup, we're going down the "blind hope" route now... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/01/04/chelsea-yet-hit-panic-button-frank-lampard/

We already went with an unknown quantity in Lampard to begin with and it's not working too well. Not sure if it's wise to hire another unknown quantity, even if it's only on an interim basis.