Can you folks just spare us this doom and gloom posts already? There have been so many in recent weeks! The season hasn't even started - hell, pre-season hasn't even started - and people are already predicting all kinds of disaster for the coming season!
Maybe you have been away for some time and have not been reading the thread but lots of people have raised the reasons - valid reasons TBF - on why we shouldn't hire Lampard now and I think we all know he is a risky appointment, riskier than most. He might not do well or hey, he might actually do well...who knows for certain at this point! But at the same time, if you are not at the very least interested or intrigue by this new (or unusual) direction the club are seemingly taking, about next season, then maybe you should find something else to do. If we had appointed someone like Javi Gracia, Max Allegri or Laurent Blanc, it would feel like we're just going back to the same old, pragmatic route that's gotten us nowhere in the long term! For the first time in ages, the club look like they might have set out a plan, a clear direction they want to go in - hire someone with football knowledge for a position at board level (Cech), get a manager who is going to integrate the youth players (with the transfer ban, this seems like something the board are heavily insisting on, going by the various stories out there), get a manager - a young manager, an unknown quantity - who is going to continue the playing style Sarri was brought in to implement. Said it in a recent post, it's time the club press the reset button - the transfer ban might actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise - rather than stick a band aid and just go through the motion like we've done for years! If we have to take a step back to take two-three steps forward, then so be it. Never mind the trophies, if Lampard can help rebuild the squad, integrate the younger players into the team, build a platform from which we can improve on in years to come, then I think he can be considered a success.
Do you even actually watch our youth players play consistently or are you just generalizing it without any points to back it up?
Yes, in an ideal world, we should be competing for every major trophy every season - the Champions League, the Premier League - but in case you haven't noticed, we haven't been GREAT for years now and are nowhere good enough to challenge for major honors on a consistent basis. The recent years' plan of buying random players, hiring different kind of managers with different ideas has got to stop somewhere. It's time we actually have a plan and go from there, which we certainly seem to be doing this time. As I said above, if we need to take a step back to take two-three steps forward, then so be it (Liverpool, Spurs did that years ago and look where/how they are now). The sooner people readjust the expectation levels, lower them a little, on the club in the next 2-3 years, the better.
Are you really suggesting we should hire a manager just because he outplayed another manager? EVERY manager can get outplayed by another manager! If we're going by that logic, we should have hired Wenger to replace Conte since he got the better of Conte on so many occasions!
And speaking of Bielsa, I'm not sure why people are obsessed with him. Has anyone actually noticed that he has rarely been linked with the major clubs? He has been getting jobs in the 2nd/3rd tier clubs for years now. He's a difficult character to handle and his teams have tended to "crash" in the second half of the season - happened with Athletic Bilbao, Marseille, Leeds. Furthermore, if people said our squad isn't suited to playing Sarri's football, imagine the same lot trying to play Bielsa's football and the club can't even sign anyone this summer! The results will be even worse than with Sarri last season!
Sarri lost 11 games last season, had us suffer some of the worst and embarrassing results ever (remember the 0-6 at City? or the 0-4 at Bournemouth?) but Roman never pulled the trigger, did he?
Sure, he fired Di Matteo few months after winning the FA Cup and Champions League but what people seem to constantly forget is that Roman was never convinced about him to begin with, he didn't want to give him the permanent manager role but there weren't other alternatives, fans were clamoring for Di Matteo to be given the job. In the end, Roman did so and given Di Matteo's subsequent jobs' failures, perhaps Roman had a point to doubt to begin with...
This idea that Roman happily sacks managers is blown out of proportion. Out of all the managers, only Ancelotti arguably didn't deserve to be sacked but the rest, there were certainly good reasons to do so and in recent years, Roman has given the managers time/chance to turn things around, before ultimately left with no choice. Mourinho only got the sack in December, even though it was clear for months he needed to go. Conte was only sacked because he practically 'gave up' after December in 2017/18. With Sarri, the Roman didn't even pull the trigger despite some embarrassing results and in the end, he decided to leave on his own accord when the club would have been okay with him keeping him. So really, who's to say that Roman will just happily sack Lampard if we lose a couple of games?
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