Jase

But the piece just highlights what we already know and saw, no?

https://theathletic.com/2285228/2020/12/27/chelsea-lampard-sacking-arsenal/ See what I mean? That's a piece on yesterday's game, using a few incidents to highlight what went wrong - as if we're all blind and couldn't see - and not much on the bigger questions that came from the defeat.

Is this really what we are now? Just play with a classic #9 and start dumping crosses onto his head? All that money spent and we're playing Burnley-esque football. Why didn't we just hire Big Sam when he was available? Rice is a good player but we are truly fucked if we need a 21-year-old to come rescue us.

I won't be surprised if Lampard starts Havertz out wide again.

It's not speculation. You can easily catch this small little things, especially when they happen too often. And ever wonder why muscle injury is the most common injury under Lampard? It rarely happened under past managers.

But I find it annoying that some of their journalists are like external PRs for clubs. They never say a bad word about managers, always looking for some sort of excuses.

Free weeks are nothing under Lampard. They just give him "opportunities" to overwork the players. Ever notice random injury or two tends to pop up after a free week? Or we tend to put in poor, lethargic performances after a free week?

It's behind a paywall.

Villa's league results this season have been weird. - When they have not conceded, they have won 7 out of 8 games. Drew 0-0 in the other game. - When they have conceded, they have lost 4 out of 5 games. Beat Liverpool 7-2 in the other game.

Fixture congestion, fatigue etc although yeah, we have never been able to press well under Lampard.

When results are going well, Lampard preaches patience with the new players. When results are going bad, Lampard suddenly wants the new players to adapt quicker. (second time he has said this recently) All this while looking clueless on how to get the best out of the 2 biggest attacking signings on the pitch. It was unfortunate that he got COVID-19 but the Havertz situation also needs to be addressed soon!

I was only wondering about it. God knows if Lampard is saying something else behind closed doors. There are far bigger issues, IMO, in the last few games.

Whether Mendy is truly the real deal for us in the long run remains to be seen but he's not the problem right now. There are problems further ahead of him.

It's also around the same we started to play the better sides, if you like, and I don't believe for one second our recent struggles is due to the players losing motivation because they cannot challenge for the title. How many players in the current squad have even challenged for league titles in their career anyway? If anything, these last few games just exposed Lampard's naive tactics, style of play and the inability to get the best out of this group of players.

Who said anything about it being just about today?

The problem with Jorginho is, he is not good enough. He is not good enough when he starts and he rarely even changes games when he comes on as a sub.

Where were you when Jorginho was shit against West Ham?

Nagelsmann won't leave Leipzig midway through the season. Pochettino is going to PSG.

Has anyone noticed that we are behind Villa (on GD), who avoided relegation by 1 point last season, in the table and have played 2 games more?

I'm all for managing expectations, like what Lampard did during our good run especially with the current state of the squad, but is there a case of managing them too much to the point where it does not inspire confidence in the players or make them believe that they can actually outperform themselves?

Even IF we beat Villa and Man City, can we really say with 100% confidence that things are back on track under Lampard? We are 18 months into his tenure and it's still hard to see how will all of this pan out, especially when you see his tactical choices, game management, style of play etc and how long it will actually take for us to challenge for the Premier League and Champions League again. We have been going from one extreme to the next under Lampard. We can look like world beaters in one game and look the like worst team out there in the next. I know bad results are bad results but if you look even at the league draws and losses, for example, under Lampard, there's not really one we can say "FML! HOW DID WE NOT WIN THAT!?", that we were unlucky not to win or that we played super well but drew or lost because of some fluke moments. Every draw or loss has been because of bad performance - e.g. not coping with pressure well and throw away a lead - and every one of them has always left a bad taste. Even coming back in the 3-3 draw against West Brom this season felt and still feels deflating because it's West Brom.

We have a somewhat young and inexperienced team but at the same time, we also have a young and inexperienced manager. It's a case of the blind leading the blind. The more things progress, the more it feels like Lampard is like what Ranieri was to us back in the early 2000s - someone who helped set up the foundation of a great team before a better manager came in, took the team to the next level and made it world class.

Kneejerk? It's most definitely not kneejerk when you see all the issues we have had under Lampard. Sure, we have had some good runs but games like today just reinforce those issues and issues that Lampard shows no sign of fixing.

But he wasn't as polished back then as he is now? I also remember Man City play with 2 strikers upfront at times back then, with Aguero slightly behind Dzeko IIRC. Can't be bothered to debate about whether Werner is in the "world class" category right now but there sure is hell a reason for why he was the second best striker in the Bundesliga behind Lewandowski in the last 2 years or so and why he was one of the most coveted players around last summer. He did not score all those goals and become wanted by the biggest clubs around by fluke.

So? That again feels meaningless when the game was already gone by then.