🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Frank Lampard

[Laylabelle 9,711]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

"One of those days"........

Not sure that's how I'd describe it..

[Superblue 6,372]

10 hours ago, DDA said:

You see Ole G Solskjaers success is secretly down to the fella who was Alex Ferguson's number 2. That man is a G. When he goes, watch Solskjaers managing career be exposed. He also has a ridiculous squad in comparison to ours, wether they like to admit it or not. Pogba and Fernandes on paper are better than any offensive midfielders we have. That's including Kova. Maguire for all the stick he gets is a decent defender, not World Class but better than the dross we have. Then you look at their 'youth'.... I'm starting to think ours has been massively overrated by the media. For me Odoi if fully fit and functional could still go on to become World Class but Rashford and Greenwood are miles ahead of anyone else... yes Greenwood too. That young lad is making Bambi look soo bad. Frank needs reinforcements yes but he also needs to tweak his backroom staff as some have mentioned. I would love to see Terry come in and work on our defence. I'm not saying he is a miracle worker and would fix it over night, if at all because it isn't just bad players, it's the system and how we transition... we definitely need to buy but surely his experience could help. It would be harsh to compare Frank with OGS at this stage and if you look back at OGS time at United, he has had some bad spells when they looked shocking... a few signings later they look a real solid side now. Hopefully Ziyech, Werner and whoever else comes in will do the same for Frank. All in all, Frank has done a decent job... he has made rookie decisions but he is intelligent enough to learn from these mistakes and grow as a manager. At least we have shown signs of what we can do on form and those signs were very good indeed. It's easy to forget thr good stuff that Frank has done when we play soo badly like today but hopefully we get big signings in defence and GK and see what Frank can do next season. 

United had the opposite problem to us earlier in the season in that they looked toothless in attack and were struggling to break teams down. They've gone and addressed that by buying a £60-70m attacking midfielder, whilst also getting Pogba fit. That's over £150m of elite attacking talent they've added to that team that was struggling. Solskjaer had a good chunk of last season to assess the squad and this season has spent over £200m on the squad.

I think we need to see how Chelsea and Lampard are going to address this over the summer. We've looked rubbish defensively since moving to a back 4 last season under Sarri and just look at the personnel. Rudiger, Alonso and Emerson were all signed under Conte for a back 3 system. Christensen had his maiden breakthrough season in the team in a back 3 that I think masked his weaknesses, and Azpilicueta has had a major positional change. That leaves 2 academy players and Zouma who has been out on loan the last couple of seasons (i.e. not deemed good enough). Last season we looked so open then, and those defeats to the likes of Spurs and City highlighted that because you could see it from a mile off. Sarri was able to play in a safer, more defensive manner later in the season and grind out wins in a much duller way because we had an elite talent like Hazard to carry the attacking burden and Loftus Cheek either come into his own or hit a purple patch of goalscoring form. Without those two players to rely on this season I think Lampard has had to open us up to be able to attack and create more and I think that has been justified by how poor we are at expected goals and conversion rates and how many chances and shots we need to score. 

I cannot believe that Lampard will be prepared to go into next season without significant changes to our defence and potentially keeper. We haven't been linked much to players in this area of the pitch (except Chilwell) but I don't mind that. In recent times deals have only been leaked when they are pretty much being finalised (Pulisic, Werner, Ziyech) so the lack of rumours I think ironically may bode well.

On the subject of youth, Greenwood I think will be a superb player in the future. He just seems to have 'it'. However he is no doubt in a great run of form but will almost certainly have stages in his early career where he'll struggle and then question marks will be asked of him like our own yoth have experienced this season. Also if United buy a new right winger (Sancho?) then Greenwood is back to being a sub for the time being which could stunt development.

Rashford has been playing now for over 4 years in the United first team and there have been a number of goal droughts and poor form that he has suffered in this time. In my opinion he is only now in the last 6 months starting to add a consistency to his game that will take him up a level. That is where some patience I think needs to be afforded to some of the academy players for us. It's a massive learning curve in the Premier League and even more so in a side which should be up there challenging for the top 4 and beyond. I've seen enough from them all that they can be good, solid squad players here for years to come and definitely in Mount, James and Tomori I feel they all have a lot of potential to reach much higher levels than they are currently at. It's hard to remain patient during a testing time when there is a lot at stake this late in the season but I do believe the club as a whole will be better served next season for this experience.

[Tomo 21,751]

12 hours ago, DDA said:

You see Ole G Solskjaers success is secretly down to the fella who was Alex Ferguson's number 2. That man is a G. When he goes, watch Solskjaers managing career be exposed. He also has a ridiculous squad in comparison to ours, wether they like to admit it or not. Pogba and Fernandes on paper are better than any offensive midfielders we have. That's including Kova. Maguire for all the stick he gets is a decent defender, not World Class but better than the dross we have. Then you look at their 'youth'.... I'm starting to think ours has been massively overrated by the media. For me Odoi if fully fit and functional could still go on to become World Class but Rashford and Greenwood are miles ahead of anyone else... yes Greenwood too. That young lad is making Bambi look soo bad. Frank needs reinforcements yes but he also needs to tweak his backroom staff as some have mentioned. I would love to see Terry come in and work on our defence. I'm not saying he is a miracle worker and would fix it over night, if at all because it isn't just bad players, it's the system and how we transition..

Terry is currently overseeing the worst defense in the league.

Funny you mention Rashford because he required years of patience to get to this point.

[MoroccanBlue 5,399]

Makes me miss Sarri's post match pressers when he threw those twats under the bus and rightfully so. 

A period of consistency is apparently too much to ask for our players. 

[OneMoSalah 9,089]

1 hour ago, Tomo said:

Terry is currently overseeing the worst defense in the league.

Funny you mention Rashford because he required years of patience to get to this point.

Tbf I think Rashford showed plenty under van Gaal and even Mourinho playing from a wider position that our guys haven’t in terms of affecting games. In the same way Sterling did for Liverpool. Okay his final ball is maybe more consistent/better and his finishing is better now but hes more experienced. In my eyes, his general play was always good at United and he wasn't exactly inconsistent bar his finishing and final pass but with young attacking players those things are to be expected regardless of their talent. The other aspects of his game were always there and clear to see, his pace, his willingness to take players on, to always be positive, they were there when he started playing and are still there now. Now he has obviously been shifted back into a more central position where he was originally started under Van Gaal to greater effect. 

[Jase 43,479]

 

[Special Juan 28,730]

Like I have said, it's spaghetti junction selection and that is where the consistency issues come from

[MoroccanBlue 5,399]

Personally, I just think they aren't good enough. 

Cautious possession protected them last season. 

[Supermonkey92 1,428]

Personally, I just think they aren't good enough. 
Cautious possession protected them last season. 

Plus the midfield of Kante and kovacic either side of jorginho protected the cbs when we didn't have possession

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[MoroccanBlue 5,399]

That being said, we need to continue with the same back line until the rest of the season. Maybe rest Dave for Alonso against Norwich.

Play a back 5 against Wolves 

[ZaynChelsea 423]

Now you lot are ofc turning on Lamps again. He made mistakes but he doesn‘t strike me as someone being stubborn or toxic when we lose. Arteta, Mourinho, Solskjaer haven‘t really Hit the ground running either. Give him a chance - Frank has a concept and has made very promising signings so far. Klopp wouldn‘t have fixed the defence without VVD either.

To the haters: Who do you want to bring in for him? Conte as an experienced manager who is toxic af and chased away our best striker since Drogba? F**k off! Or another decoraed youngster like AVB? Destroying our current concept? 

Get a grip ffs.

[Magic Lamps 11,692]

3 minutes ago, ZaynChelsea said:

Now you lot are ofc turning on Lamps again. He made mistakes but he doesn‘t strike me as someone being stubborn or toxic when we lose. Arteta, Mourinho, Solskjaer haven‘t really Hit the ground running either. Give him a chance - Frank has a concept and has made very promising signings so far. Klopp wouldn‘t have fixed the defence without VVD either.

To the haters: Who do you want to bring in for him? Conte as an experienced manager who is toxic af and chased away our best striker since Drogba? F**k off! Or another decoraed youngster like AVB? Destroying our current concept? 

Get a grip ffs.

I agree. We have to allow Lamps some leeway here. He lost our by far best player. Our best players like Azpi, Willian (yes sadly) are all a year older or often coming from a bad injury like Rüdiger, RLC. still he managed to integrate a couple of (more or less talented) youngsters, had a fucking transfer ban, got extensions of CHO, Tomori, Mount, pitched Werner and Ziyech to come here and on top of that managed to get us almost as many points as we had last season. He has his mistakes which are particularly annoying but I think he has at least fulfilled expectations (mine was 6th place) given his mammoth task. Nothing but respect for how he handled it characterwise with serenity and professionalism. He is not the finished article as a manager and neither we are as team.

[NikkiCFC 8,516]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

 

Azpi Zouma Rudiger Alonso played just two games? 

Liverpool and Everton back to back wins before the break. And two clean sheets.

Wonder why Lampard did not continue with them...

[OneMoSalah 9,089]

53 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Azpi Zouma Rudiger Alonso played just two games? 

Liverpool and Everton back to back wins before the break. And two clean sheets.

Wonder why Lampard did not continue with them...

He seems to have an instinctive thing for changing the team. Particularly to get Reece in at RB and moving Azpi over, which has happened a lot. Or changing the MF to get Kante in. 

[Superblue 6,372]

I feel in the latter period of this season, when fit, Lampard seemed to be settling on a partnership of Rudiger and Christensen and they did seem to be playing quite regularly together. Whether this is the best partnership of course is debatable.

The problem is neither have repaid that. Both have been culpable for errors and goals conceded.

I completely agree on the notion that you should have a settled back four or at least two or three in the defence playing regularly in the same position but the players we currently have aren't justifying that.

I saw enough from Tomori earlier in the season to believe there is quite a bit of potential there and some real solid attributes to his game. I think with a real good leader alongside him he should be the one to try and move forward with if he is or can get back fit. The problem currently however is none of the other three centre backs are stepping up to be a leader in that defence, likely because they are far too worried about their own game and deficiencies.

[Blue Armour 4,711]

Whatever Lampard does to try and remedy the defense, I hope he realizes that chopping and changing the lineup for the sake of it, is not the solution.

You'll risk alienating yourself from the players and it's all downhill from there, usually, once that happens.

[Jase 43,479]

 

[communicate 2,703]

8 hours ago, OneMoSalah said:

Tbf I think Rashford showed plenty under van Gaal and even Mourinho playing from a wider position that our guys haven’t in terms of affecting games. In the same way Sterling did for Liverpool. Okay his final ball is maybe more consistent/better and his finishing is better now but hes more experienced. In my eyes, his general play was always good at United and he wasn't exactly inconsistent bar his finishing and final pass but with young attacking players those things are to be expected regardless of their talent. The other aspects of his game were always there and clear to see, his pace, his willingness to take players on, to always be positive, they were there when he started playing and are still there now. Now he has obviously been shifted back into a more central position where he was originally started under Van Gaal to greater effect. 

So it is easier to incorporate young attacker to a team. United is playing 'youth', only Greenwood is truly young. The rest are experience professional. 

 

[OneMoSalah 9,089]

8 hours ago, communicate said:

So it is easier to incorporate young attacker to a team. United is playing 'youth', only Greenwood is truly young. The rest are experience professional. 

 

Maybe it is easier to integrate young attackers yes but they still their own issues.

I feel for the other positions it is slightly harder for young players because if you make a big mistake in goal, in a back 4 or in central midfield they can be more likely to lead up to a chance or goal being conceded and these things can knock a player, ie: Andreas after his mistake v Barca under Conte. Sure attackers can have this but you always feel in the right team they will always get another big chance and then people forget that miss or this miss etc but as a GK or defender particularly these things aren't forgotten as quickly.

I mean even established players in those positions, look at Jamie Carragher and Richard Dunne, both had long PL careers with varied levels of success but people still remember Dunne more for scoring the most own goals in the PL more than what he actually carved out which was a decent career. Carragher will be more remembered again for a few own goals and being made a right cunt of by Gianfranco Zola near a corner flag by opposition fans. David Luiz for the titles he’s won throughout his career, will likely always be remembered for his bad performances at club level and in particular than Brazil Germany game as opposed to the outstanding season under Antonio Conte or good performances he had with Benfica against Liverpool and some at the beginning here with Carlo.

Also, the thing with United is that they have a real tradition of bringing through youth over the years and it is something engrained into the clubs DNA so to speak. Similarly like Ajax. We have to try go down that route, then maybe people will change their opinions towards it a bit and accept their will be issues with young players as there always are.

Regardless though you need high standards as well good pros/players in and around these young guys to guide them, bail them out or tell them to get the finger out. Especially at the likes of a club of our stature where the history of the Roman era has been built on winning trophies. Being young shouldn’t necessarily mean they are immune to criticism but it has to be construction as opposed to plainly over the top. 

[Supermonkey92 1,428]

I have no problems with not being a big team that develops youth consistently. Its rare, I'm more interested in being successful. We were successful without doing it. Real Madrid, Juventus and Bayern Munich don't do it. Especially Munich, they just buy the best German players once they've had time to develop. City dont do it. Man United only do it when they aren't challenging. Liverpool rarely do it (one main youth product who's world class? No shit!) Barcelona dont do it. They had a ten year golden patch.

 

I honestly don't care about having half a team of youth products. I won't a team that is good. As good as it can get. That takes money, we are developing a brand so that we should consistently have the money to build a good team.

 

Youth is a bonus.

 

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