Jase

But it's the second season under the same manager, not a new one.

We have really become Liverpool's bitches in the league in the last 5 years or so, especially at home since 2014/15: D 1-1 L 1-3 L 1-2 W 1-0 D 1-1 L 1-2 L 0-2 Our league record at Anfield is only marginally better during the same time period: W 2-1 D 1-1 D 1-1 D 1-1 L 0-2 L 3-5

This week. They play Leyton Orient on Tuesday, some Macedonian club on Thursday, Newcastle on Sunday. They also have Man United away on that weekend of the League Cup 4th Round.

It is "strange" that we are so wrapped up with the idea of our wingers/wide players needing to track back into our own defensive area when those at the likes of Man City and Liverpool do not really do that.

From my FM20 experience, I can tell you that combo works.

It probably was against Brighton as well. We tried to do the same but with Loftus-Cheek instead on Monday.

Mind you if we get past Barnsley, the 4th round (potentially against Spurs) is on the following midweek. We need to be careful with the team selection, especially when we also have the league games to win.

It is almost bizarre to see us go from having a defined style of play, an identity to almost nothing in months or a year basically under Lampard. In the first half of last season, we looked exciting and had an identity in terms of how we want to play. We wanted to play on the front foot, press from the front, dominate possession and the opposition. We had the likes of Jorginho, Kante, Mount, Kovacic controlling the midfield and Pulisic, Willian, Abraham, CHO contributing in attack and we looked fluid, threatening and exciting. But somewhere along the way and I do not know if it was because of the pressure from bad results or Lampard's lack of experience, we started to revert to type, to our old selves from years ago with pragmatic football or to a more one dimensional play. In the early months of this year, our attacking player amounted to nothing more than James dumping crosses into the box most of the time. And after the restart, it basically became "give Pulisic the ball and hope for the best!" a la the Hazard days. We basically became a one man team again. We did not play any of the football that we saw in the first few months of the season. Lampard suddenly also started changing the midfield around - Kante going into the lone DM role, Jorginho being ditched (and suddenly being back in the team again) and just have Kovacic and whoever to fill out the midfield roles. What exactly is our style of play going forward? What exactly does Lampard actually want us to play? It is only two games into the season and circumstances may not have been favorable but there does not seem to be a clear identity or style of play that we want to implement. We have looked somewhat lost or caught up between different approaches. If we really want to be successful again and close the gap on Liverpool, Man City and even some others around Europe like Bayern, then we need to have a defined style of play, a clear identity. You look at Liverpool, Man City etc and you can tell and see how they play. They may make tactical tweaks against different teams but they have a defined style of play and they impose that on the opposition. They also have a consistent team selection and players know their role within the team. We do not have that. There are just too many changes and even uncertainty in the team. We need to have that certainty, we need to go back to what Lampard were trying to do at the start of last season and not flip flopping around so much. If not, we are not going to get to where we want to be and whatever grand ideas that Lampard has will just fall to pieces.

But it's mostly the same players we had and competed well last season...oh for god sake, never mind...

The lack of intelligence or bravery of our midfielders or even defenders today to not play the ball over the top for Werner to run into is maddening. Even if they don't succeed, at least that intent might have scared Liverpool off and forced them to drop deeper and thus maybe would have allowed us more room to play with from the back. Fabregas would have had a field day playing with someone like Werner upfront. If only we could go back in time and put Fabregas in this team!

Three stages of us under Lampard so far - Youth FC ➡️ Christian Pulisic FC ➡️ Timo Werner FC.

I don't disagree with Tomo's stance. I just didn't like how passive we were today. Am fine with playing on the counter against Liverpool but we gotta show a bit more ambition than we did and better execution than lumping balls to Havertz and hoping Werner do something on the break. It's not rocket science.

Who is to say Werner won't score every penalty between now and the end of his career?

That is just an assumption, not a guarantee. Pretty sure Tomo meant we have a defined style of play and stick with it through thick and thin as opposed to chopping and changing the style of playing from one game to another.

He has missed only 2 penalties for us - one today and the other in the League Cup final penalty shootout. If anything, it's his style that maybe doesn't fill one with the greatest of confidence. Scoring 10 out of 14 penalties is hardly a bad record, is it? It's not like Lampard did not miss a few penalties in his career. Same goes with Hazard.

That lineup would have Havertz as the No.10 and Mount and CHO as the wingers. Of course, we don't know how that might have panned out but we would have likely given Liverpool more to think about than what we eventually put up. We didn't exactly play on the front foot all game in that cup game. We were also playing on the break but with far more attacking intent and threat against them. What did we have today besides Werner and to an extent Havertz?

No one is asking us to go gung-ho on Liverpool them but is it asking too much for a bit more attacking intent? And since playing offensively or defensively makes no difference at the moment because of the individual mistakes, yeah, might as well have a bit more of a go.

We didn't always passively shithouse our way to a result and I don't think anyone is saying that approach under Mourinho or Conte was enjoyable either.

If we are gonna lose, then we might as well go down swinging. There is a lot of ifs and buts there. Maybe we have different definition of "competing" here. Restricting the opposition while setting up to counter attack is one thing but have a go at the opposition, have a clear idea how to go about hurting them on the counter attack. We did the former well but did we do the latter right? Are you gonna tell me lumping long balls up to Havertz was a legitimate plan? Other than that, the plan was hoping Werner did something. Otherwise, nothing was coming from Mount and from the midfield as well as the full backs.

No one is asking Havertz to score or assist in every game, especially not at his point, but at least let him feel comfortable, build his confidence by playing him right. Last thing we would want is, before he even settles, we destroy his confidence because he's not able contribute to the team. Granted it wasn't a full strength Liverpool XI back then but it was still close to being that, we played Gilmour, Barkley, Kovacic, Willian, Pedro and Giroud against them in the FA Cup and won with a very good performance. Not saying we would have won today but would say a front six of Kante, Kovacic, Mount, Havertz, CHO and Werner not have able to produce a similar kind of performance at the very least?

That game or the away game but the point is, we showed that we can compete with those teams in a game, without our new signings last season. So, it doesn't make sense to suggest that missing some players meant that we should be forgiven for being so passive today.

But is it really BS to suggest that maybe playing Havertz in his best position would have helped us and him? At least "make" him feel comfortable that he is able to contribute to our attacks - be it creating chances or scoring goals. Instead, we played him upfront and treated him almost like a target man. Playing CHO or Barkley doesn't mean we would have to go gung-ho. It just means we would have more attacking threats that we had today because really, before we went down to 10 men, what were we really creating going forward? Can't remember the move but I remember Alisson had the ball, passed it to Henderson who had no one around to pressure him and was given the freedom of Stamford Bridge to pick out the pass.

If only...........

I find this somewhat amusing. Yes, we were missing several players and it wasn't our ideal starting XI but barring Pulisic and Willian as well as the new additions of Werner and Havertz, this is pretty much the same team that played well - much better than today, even before going down to 10 men - against Liverpool (except the game at Anfield) and Man City last season. Are you seriously saying that Pulisic being out and Willian no longer here has changed our approach this much?