Super Frank Thread

[1905didierblue 748]

4 minutes ago, killer1257 said:

Why did Christensen play? He did not bring any stability at all.



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I think tomori was very poor against city. 

True that Andreas was not any better today. Let's hope rudiger is back soon.

[Jase 43,479]

2018/19 Derby County (all competitions)
Played - 57
Goals Scored - 90
Goals Conceded - 70
Clean Sheets - 14

2019/20 Chelsea (all competitions)
Played - 21
Goals Scored- 47
Goals Conceded - 32
Clean Sheets - 4

[Jase 43,479]

Inside Chelsea: 'This wasn't about football any more - this was family.' How Lampard fell out with West Ham

https://theathletic.com/1415029/2019/11/28/inside-chelsea-this-wasnt-about-football-any-more-this-was-family-how-lampard-fell-out-with-west-ham/?source=shared-article

Frank Lampard faces West Ham United for the first time in his managerial career at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, and history suggests it is unlikely to be a loving reunion.

Almost 20 years on, Lampard’s decision to leave West Ham for Chelsea in the summer of 2001 can still be regarded as one of the most acrimonious divorces in the history of English football. There is so much lingering bad blood on both sides that it’s hard to imagine a time when they were united.

In the 1990s, the Lampards were Upton Park royalty. Frank Lampard Snr played his entire 18-year professional career at West Ham after coming through the club’s academy, and scored one of the most iconic goals in their history — a diving header to beat Everton in extra-time of a FA Cup semi-final replay in 1980. West Ham went on to beat Arsenal in the final.

You won’t see Lampard Snr at the London Stadium these days, though. He didn’t even show up in March when the East Stand was renamed in honour of his former team-mate, Billy Bonds. He stopped going to Upton Park long before it was demolished, making an exception only to watch his son play against West Ham for Chelsea. Normally a stoic presence at matches, he openly and pointedly celebrated in the directors’ box when Lampard scored there for the first time against West Ham in January 2006.

“His dad was West Ham through and through,” Harry Redknapp, Lampard’s uncle, tells The Athletic. “At that time, if you’d have cut him, he’d have bled claret and blue. And in all the pictures I’ve got of Frank as a kid at home, he’s wearing a West Ham kit. He loved the club, so it was a shame.”

To understand why the Lampards cut themselves off from West Ham after 2001, it pays to read Totally Frank, the autobiography Lampard released in the summer of 2006. Published five years after he joined Chelsea, it details at length the grievances that turned him and his family so drastically against a club that was once central to their lives.

Lampard paints a picture of relentless abuse inflicted by a vocal section of West Ham supporters who were convinced that his progress into the first team as a raw teenager had been unfairly accelerated by the fact that his father was the assistant manager and Redknapp was the boss.

At matches, he recalled regularly hearing shouts of “Sit down, fat boy” and “Go sit down with your daddy” from behind the West Ham dugout when he left the bench to warm up. As an 18-year-old, he saw himself frequently referred to as “son of” when he browsed online fan discussion threads.

Lampard’s weight was a popular topic. He readily refers to himself in the book as a “chubby kid”, and the perception spread that he was lazy.

“He wasn’t this lean and ripped Cristiano Ronaldo figure, but then again who was?” says Scott Minto, who was Lampard’s team-mate at West Ham. “I remember he used to put the cones down after training and do bits of running, he knew what he had to work on.

“Frank was a strong footballer. Perhaps people didn’t look at him and think he was absolutely ripped, but he was fit and he could run.”

Nevertheless, the idea of “Fat Frank” took hold among those West Ham supporters already inclined to see the worst in Lampard, eventually becoming the basis for a popular chant once he had left for Chelsea. But in the beginning he found himself a target primarily because of who he was, not how he looked.

“There was a conspiracy theory among them that the manager (Redknapp) had been putting me on late in games to get me appearance money because I was his nephew,” he wrote. The whispers of nepotism at Upton Park persisted after his debut in January 1996 and, according to Lampard, “spread around the ground like a cancer” whenever he or the team struggled.

“Mum had got it in the neck from fans who sat around her in the directors’ box,” he wrote. “My sisters had to endure it at games and in the street. When they went out on a night, there would often be some bloke or other come up to them and make a comment about West Ham and ‘Your bloody dad and your brother’. They were just expected to take it on the chin. Why?

“It got to the stage where I didn’t have to be among (the fans) to feel their anger. It seemed to follow me around: at home, in the street. I was aware of it when I closed my eyes to go to sleep at night and it was still there when I woke in the morning. It got so bad that I would dread driving to and from the ground on matchdays.”

Redknapp even had to deny accusations of favouritism towards Lampard in conversation with Terence Brown, West Ham’s chairman at the time. Then there was the famous confrontation at the club’s fan forum in 1996, when a supporter asked Redknapp why other academy prospects had not been given a chance instead and name-checked Scott Canham, who had just left for Brentford.

“I sat there thinking, ‘What the hell?’” Lampard wrote. “The guy was entitled to his opinion, even if I thought he was out of order; what really pissed me off was that not one other fan who was there said a thing to counter him. I had become sceptical about what was thought of me but I was still a West Ham player and deep down, I believed we were all in this together — all fans.

“Surely I deserved more of a chance than this guy was willing to give? I was just a kid but already, I wasn’t good enough.”

A layer of irony was added to this particular accusation of nepotism when it later emerged that the man who had stood up happened to be Canham’s uncle.

“We could see the talent Frank had,” Minto adds. “I felt sorry for Harry and Frank (Snr). There were very good players sitting on the sidelines but they (Redknapp and Lampard Snr) were getting stick for something they could see and believed in, whether Frank Jnr was part of the family or not.

“With Rio Ferdinand, it was obvious he was going to become a world-class player. With Frank Jnr, it wasn’t. He went on to become one after he left. Frank Snr and Harry saw the work ethic in him as a kid and knew the mentality, which not all managers get to have with their players. They knew he didn’t just have the ability but the character and mental strength to become a top player.”

It’s also fair to point out that West Ham fans didn’t speak with one voice when it came to Lampard. “It was great to have him in the team and I thought he was fantastic,” Gary Lawrence, a season ticket-holder of 30 years, tells The Athletic. “He scored great goals. I remember seeing him interviewed and he represented the club really well. I don’t know anybody in my circle of friends who was signing up to the nepotism thing, because you could see he was a young player. He never did anything other than give 100 per cent.”

But the fan criticism was too loud and persistent for Lampard to ignore and, when West Ham sacked Redknapp and his father in May 2001, his mind was made up. “My gut feeling was simple: get out, get out as quickly as possible,” he wrote. “This wasn’t even about football anymore; this was family.”

Lampard claims Brown called a meeting, offered him a new contract and asked if knowing who the new West Ham manager was might change his mind. “I don’t give a fuck if you get Fabio Capello; I’m leaving,” he replied. Glenn Roeder was appointed a month later.

The striking thing about Totally Frank more than a decade later is the strength of the anger that courses through Lampard’s words whenever he talks about his boyhood club. “The truth is that my family have no feelings for West Ham now,” he wrote. “What happened was an attack on all of us. It went beyond football and invaded our lives without consideration or mercy.”

His revelation that he enjoyed hearing West Ham had lost during his early years at Chelsea went down particularly badly in east London, as did his accusation that supporters had celebrated him breaking his leg against Aston Villa in March 1997.

“He felt that West Ham fans were applauding him going off, when in fact fans just applaud someone going off on a stretcher (out of respect),” Lawrence insists. “He seemed to be looking at it through a prism of paranoia. Had he not said the things he said in his autobiography, I think the ill feeling would have dissipated.”

Instead, the antipathy intensified. Lampard’s first trips back to Upton Park as a Chelsea player were toxic affairs, his every touch booed and abuse raining down from all sides. His mother, concerned for his well-being, pleaded with him to tune it all out, only to be told that he couldn’t.

“My first years going back there, I wanted to do so well to prove them wrong because they were giving me so much stick that I didn’t produce,” Lampard said during a discussion on BT Sport in December 2017. It took him seven matches to score against West Ham; the half-volley at Upton Park in January 2006 that his father celebrated.

“I would like to come back and get a bit of respect,” he said afterwards. “But not many give me that here, so I’ll just carry on working for Chelsea.”

Lampard’s transformation into the greatest goalscoring midfielder of his generation at Stamford Bridge hardly helped matters. “He became the player that Harry said he would be,” Lawrence says. “Part of the antagonism is that West Ham realised that, but didn’t necessarily want to admit it. I think Frank relished coming to Upton Park and scoring and being on the winning side.”

Six more goals against West Ham followed, along with a straight red card at Upton Park in March 2008 following a clash with Luis Boa Morte. Lampard was incorrectly judged to have pushed the Portuguese midfielder in the face, and his three-game ban was rescinded on appeal.

For a while, it seemed that time was slowly healing old wounds. Lampard went back to Upton Park with John Terry and Joe Cole for the testimonial of legendary West Ham academy boss Tony Carr in 2010, wore claret and blue once again, and was applauded onto the pitch when his name was announced. “I think they even sang his name at one point,” Lawrence says.

But in March 2013, when he nodded in his 200th goal for Chelsea against West Ham at Stamford Bridge, he celebrated with Terry in front of the away fans in the Shed End and was showered with coins.

It seems there are many among West Ham’s hardcore support whose stance will never soften. “He’s a bit of a pantomime villain these days,” Lawrence says. “A lot of the people there wouldn’t even necessarily have been going when he was playing for us. It’s one of those inherited hatreds that persists over generations.”

Whether he likes it or not, Lampard will be central to issues surrounding the behaviour of supporters at Stamford Bridge on Saturday — and not just because of the abuse he has traditionally suffered from West Ham fans.

Chelsea supporters immortalised his 200th goal for the club with a song that refers to West Ham as “pikeys”, a term legally defined as racist towards gypsies and travellers under the Equality Act of 2010. The song has regularly been heard home and away in recent years.

“If there’s a song that has offensive words in it, then of course I don’t want to hear that, and that’s me saying that as a big Chelsea man who really appreciates the support I’ve had over the years,” Lampard said when asked about the song earlier this season.

It is understood that Chelsea will issue a message ahead of the match warning their supporters to be on their best behaviour and specifically warning them not to sing discriminatory songs.

Lampard will be hoping that Saturday’s game passes without incident of any kind and that, for once, Chelsea against West Ham will be about more than him.

“He’s done nothing wrong,” insists Redknapp. “Hopefully, there are more sensible people than the mindless ones and he’ll get a good reception on Saturday.”

[Jase 43,479]

 

[Vesper 28,795]

4 hours ago, Jason said:

Inside Chelsea: 'This wasn't about football any more - this was family.' How Lampard fell out with West Ham

https://theathletic.com/1415029/2019/11/28/inside-chelsea-this-wasnt-about-football-any-more-this-was-family-how-lampard-fell-out-with-west-ham/?source=shared-article

 

 

great article I highly recco 

[Vesper 28,795]

One third of the season done, biggest questions on the roster going forward list

Backup GK Willy Caballero (He turns 39 in the second month of next season)  Replace, it is so easy to find an okay backup, so should be zero drama

CB Andreas Christensen  Sell (especially as Barca wants him, I think we can get close to £40m  or so, which completely covers buying Ake) He just has not progressed enough to warrant being an everyday EPL starter IMHO 

CB Zouma Keep (he has dome enough to win me over, and he is a beast and seems to finally have his pace back from that horrid knee injury (he and Emerson took forever to fully heal) He still is NOT an every game starter but deffo has a role to play

LB Alonso SELL SELL SELL!!!!! IF he and Emerson are our two LB's next year, there is going to be BIG trouble, it is a massive weakness on our team. I detest Alonso (we all know this) I cannot take another year of this entitled turtle.

LB Emerson Keep as a backup, but he is NOT good enough to be our starter, I will argue all day and night with anyone who thinks he is, he has been poor for most of the season, and against Valencia he was arguably our worst player (until Bats came in), LB is the one position we have zero great players at. (Well, technically we have NO traditional DMF on the whole squad, but apparently Lamps doesn't care)

RB Azpi Keep (we will not sell him anyway, he is going to just be run down and eventually let go on a free in 2 or so years)

CMF/AMF Barkley SELL SELL SELL!! What a waste of talent and flesh, SMDH Gallagher is ready to replace him IMHO (when Conor is not playing DMF), and we have Gilmour too at CMF

RW Pedro I would sell him this January IF we get a decent offer, he is spent and our backup emergency options are better than he is now We simply must upgrade at RW.

RW Willian Renew (I know a shock, but no way will we drop the quid to buy TWO RW'ers, it just isn't happening) Plus he is superb on defence still and provides balance. He has been the biggest surprise on the team in terms of veteran players.

CF Bats Sell him this summer, he simply is never going to be a Chelsea type striker we need under Lamps (he was SHIT v Valencia) He is either SHIT most times, or gets poachers goals (rare but important, but not important enough to piss away £30-35m or so on)

CF Giroud Sell him this January, it is clear Frank has no use for him and he deserves better, I would SO much rather see him come into a game than Bats, no clue why Lamps refuses to use him. He is still superb at holdup play and is a fucking warrior. I will miss him, like I miss Fabregas now (even though Cesc's legs were SHOT, I still think we could have used him over Barkley as late game door unlocker.)

 

Bonus

FFS SELL THE DREGS OUT ON LOAN

 

 

 

[killer1257 3,282]

This loss is on Lamps. Mount has been underperforming for a while now and he gives him again a chance. Horrible decision.

Pedro is not good enough anymore.
Giroud is Giroud. Can't expect him to be on Tammys Level. I just hope Tammy is not out for too long



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[NikkiCFC 7,944]

10 minutes ago, killer1257 said:

This loss is on Lamps. Mount has been underperforming for a while now and he gives him again a chance. Horrible decision.
 

Tbh he was benched two games before, rotation is needed. 

[killer1257 3,282]

Tbh he was benched two games before, rotation is needed. 

In Mounts Current form, I would rather give Billy G. a chance

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[MoroccanBlue 5,297]

This board should already be tapping up transfer targets for the summer. 

 

[1905didierblue 748]

9 minutes ago, MoroccanBlue said:

This board should already be tapping up transfer targets for the summer. 

 

Totally agree. 2nd striker and lb. Needs must.

[MoroccanBlue 5,297]

Just now, 1905didierblue said:

Totally agree. 2nd striker and lb. Needs must.

RW should be the utmost priority. 

[Jase 43,479]

13 minutes ago, killer1257 said:

In Mounts Current form, I would rather give Billy G. a chance

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But they aren't even the same type of player. We don't need another Jorginho right now! 

[killer1257 3,282]

But they aren't even the same type of player. We don't need another Jorginho right now! 

Billy G. used to be a no. 10 before Lamps came in.
Billys dribbling and passing Skills are way superior than Mounts. But Mount used to be a better goal scorer.

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[OneMoSalah 8,776]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

But they aren't even the same type of player. We don't need another Jorginho right now! 

Billy can play higher up too but hes not the right option either. Just depends. I think Mount is becoming a bit jaded, hasnt scored in how long and his last assist was vs Burnley and while thats not a fair representative of his performances, hes played a lot of games this season. When Ruben comes back he will be a big plus.

[NikkiCFC 7,944]

6 minutes ago, OneMoSalah said:

 and his last assist was vs Burnley

Only assist this season. 

[Fernando 6,455]

Yeah I thought we was toothless after Jorginho left. 

The problem we have is that after Jorginho we don't have a better option. He is the only one who is creative. 

After that the false 9 shows how woeful we are in the striker department. 

My priorities continue to be striker and cb, Lb. 

I might add now a replacement to the Jorginho. We don't have a replacement for him. No one can help us control the game like him. 

[Fernando 6,455]

20 hours ago, killer1257 said:

This loss is on Lamps. Mount has been underperforming for a while now and he gives him again a chance. Horrible decision.

Pedro is not good enough anymore.
Giroud is Giroud. Can't expect him to be on Tammys Level. I just hope Tammy is not out for too long



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I would have giving him a chance. The problem was subbing Jorginho and not him. Other than that for rotation it was perfect to start him. But the issue is the striker department.