Super Frank Thread

[Tomo 21,681]

11 minutes ago, Superblue_1986 said:

I agree.

After the game, although Souness was very complimentary he did say that there would be more difficult tests and he's completely right.

This does though have a bit of a feeling to Conte's first season when we switched to a back 3. Immediately something just clicked after that but because we beat some of the fodder at the foot of the table it was being relatively dismissed outside of the club. But the momentum that was building could be seen. That season we were almost not taken seriously enough until it was too late and we were tanking away with the league.

I'm not saying we'll do the same this season as that but it does feel like we're quietly going about our business very much under the radar, looking very dangerous in attack, whilst solid and organised in defence and midfield and we're building some momentum.

Would be typical if it does as i have to attend a wedding on the weekend of our last home game

It would proper blindside me if it actually happens though, i had us as a title contender the minute Conte was announced back then and was 90% sure we had it after the United/Saints/Everton games but it genuinely isn't crossing my mind as a possibility this time tbh, i still feel we need time to properly gel, 

[Bosnian Blue 2,471]

Still remains to be seen if Lampard now keeps playing the same formation or does he switch again to a back 5 or something like that vs the bigger sides.

Otherwise the decisive moment of the season could be that last 15 minutes of the Krasnodar game.

[Superblue 6,331]

13 minutes ago, Tomo said:

Would be typical if it does as i have to attend a wedding on the weekend of our last home game

It would proper blindside me if it actually happens though, i had us as a title contender the minute Conte was announced back then and was 90% sure we had it after the United/Saints/Everton games but it genuinely isn't crossing my mind as a possibility this time tbh, i still feel we need time to properly gel, 

Consistency will be the biggest question mark this season that hasn't been answered yet. We had a run early last season after a shaky start and the wheels suddenly came off.

I think we have much more quality and experience this season to hopefully prevent that from happening, but winning the league will be a big ask. We'll see, I'm fairly optimistic so far that we could have a very good season, and build well on last year.

Again comes down to injuries and form deeper into the season, but I see us as a bit of a dark horse for the Champions League too. Again, definitely not favourites but i think if we continue to develop as the season progresses we'll be a side in the knock outs (assuming we make it to that stage as expected) that no one will want to play. It would be beautifully ironic if we did with Thiago Silva here after all the failed years he had with PSG.

[Azul 1,615]

My dream is coming true and that's Lampard massively improving as a manager. We are seeing a pattern of play and everything coming together. Even though the criticism was fair, I still believe he deserves massive respect. 

Before this season, I was struggling to see what our identity was but now I can clearly see where we are heading. There's nothing better than seeing our club hero succeeding as a manager . Let's hope he continues this, and also performs against the bigger sides. That's what matters at the end of the day.

[Tomo 21,681]

37 minutes ago, Superblue_1986 said:

Consistency will be the biggest question mark this season that hasn't been answered yet. We had a run early last season after a shaky start and the wheels suddenly came off.

I think we have much more quality and experience this season to hopefully prevent that from happening, but winning the league will be a big ask. We'll see, I'm fairly optimistic so far that we could have a very good season, and build well on last year.

Again comes down to injuries and form deeper into the season, but I see us as a bit of a dark horse for the Champions League too. Again, definitely not favourites but i think if we continue to develop as the season progresses we'll be a side in the knock outs (assuming we make it to that stage as expected) that no one will want to play. It would be beautifully ironic if we did with Thiago Silva here after all the failed years he had with PSG.

I agree with that it's not so much winning it but a deep run will be such a boost going forward, we need to start chalking quarter and semi appearances back on the board as a minimum.

That's why finishing top is crucial in my opinion, avoiding Bayern (along with City and Liverpool) in the RO16 will be massive.

[Ledg 639]

19 minutes ago, Tomo said:

I agree with that it's not so much winning it but a deep run will be such a boost going forward, we need to start chalking quarter and semi appearances back on the board as a minimum.

That's why finishing top is crucial in my opinion, avoiding Bayern (along with City and Liverpool) in the RO16 will be massive.

I agree but one correction - we can't play with Pool and City in the RO16 anyway.

[Tomo 21,681]

9 minutes ago, Ledgi said:

I agree but one correction - we can't play with Pool and City in the RO16 anyway.

Yeah that's what i meant we'll dodge Bayern aswell as those 2.

[Henrique 9,133]

After that horror show against a mediocre United I'm surprised about the teams performance and results in last games. Most important than that: Lampard finally found the ideal defense. No more Kepa shitshow, and the constant changing in the back 4 line. 

[blu35_army 550]

the next 8 games before boxing day is more crucial and a real tested for Lampard's 4-3-3 :

Newcastle (A) - PL
Rennes (A) - UCL
Totscum (H) - PL
Sevilla (A) - UCL
Leeds (H) - PL
Krasnodar (H) - UCL
Everton (A) - PL
Wolves (A) - PL

we play almost one match in 3 days,,so squad rotation should be considering as a main tactic. CHO, Azpi, Emerson, Rudiger and even Gilmour should start in that period especially against Rennes or Krasnodar. only negativity is we didn't have backup for Mendy right now, we can't take a high risk again for playing kepa.....

 

 

 

[bigbluewillie 1,805]

my assessment of the game, although well please with the result and the performance up to a point.

Werner should have had another hat trick as against Krasnodar, terrible misses.

We're still giving the ball away too easy so many times, and the ball control at times is appalling.

We really need to get these issues sorted out, if we want to challenge for the title next season, and to continue to improve this season.

[Jase 43,479]

8 hours ago, blu35_army said:

the next 8 games before boxing day is more crucial and a real tested for Lampard's 4-3-3 :

Newcastle (A) - PL
Rennes (A) - UCL
Totscum (H) - PL
Sevilla (A) - UCL
Leeds (H) - PL
Krasnodar (H) - UCL
Everton (A) - PL
Wolves (A) - PL

we play almost one match in 3 days,,so squad rotation should be considering as a main tactic. CHO, Azpi, Emerson, Rudiger and even Gilmour should start in that period especially against Rennes or Krasnodar. only negativity is we didn't have backup for Mendy right now, we can't take a high risk again for playing kepa.....

IF all goes well in the Rennes and Sevilla games, am sure there will be heavy rotation against Krasnodar and it's also worth pointing out again that we will have a free week in late December - just before the Christmas period - after getting KOed from the League Cup. 

[Strike 6,960]

Unfair criticism earlier and undue praise now I think. Still long to go before I am convinced by this improvement but glad to see the signs are very much there now 

[Strike 6,960]

1 hour ago, Mana said:

I strongly disagree with that, the prior criticism on Lamps was fair. Good on him turning it around, but I feel the criticism was justified. 

We have driven through this long bumpy road for months and now we have finally driving on the smooth part. And while we are on the smooth part, we have yet to be properly tested.

Newcastle will be the first real test for me. Stand tall with a victory on a ground that we only won once since 2012.

Hardly any pre-season, constantly changing backline, Kepa.

[Stats 6,980]

12 minutes ago, Mana said:

"Hardly any pre-season" - So did 19 other clubs in the PL. In fact we are one of the lucky ones who had a couple of friendlies while others had 1. If this was Lamps' first season, then you have a strong case here but it's not.

"Constantly changing backline" - This is mostly Lamps' fault, nobody else's. Only player injuries or absences you can't say it isn't. Also again, 2nd season now - we shouldn't still have to see constant changes back there.

"Kepa" - Fair enough, but I felt like Willy would had been a better option or a youth keeper. I know Willy is poor as well, but it was a matter of principle.

Yep, so did 19 other teams also, however we bought so many new players who have never  played before so it was not surprising that the team looked a bit lost, the first few games. We bought more players than most teams so to get that understanding was going to take time, due to lack of pre-season.

[Jype 6,398]

1 hour ago, Stats said:

Yep, so did 19 other teams also, however we bought so many new players who have never  played before so it was not surprising that the team looked a bit lost, the first few games. We bought more players than most teams so to get that understanding was going to take time, due to lack of pre-season.

And most of the other 19 teams did in fact have a better pre-season. All mid-table or bottom clubs started their holidays in July as soon as the PL season ended so they returned to training around mid-August and even had time to play a few friendlies. Of the other top-6 clubs Liverpool played three friendlies+CS and Tottenham had four friendlies as well as some EL qualifiers to build match fitness early on.

Only the Manchester clubs had an even shorter pre-season due to playing in CL/EL longer but then again they started their league season a week later than others to make it more 'fair'. I wouldn't use shortened pre-season as an excuse for bad results or performances but it's certainly played a part in some of the silly results we've seen across the PL.

As for Chelsea, I said it in the beginning of the season that I'll start judging the team when the initial injury problems were cleared and the new guys have had some time to get settled. It took a bunch of games for players like Chilwell, Pulisic, Ziyech to even start playing after their injuries, Mendy/Silva didn't feature in the early games at all and Werner/Havertz were/are still finding their feet in the PL. After integrating Chilwell, Silva and Mendy in the starting XI, the team have looked a lot more solid defensively and I think Lampard deserves some credit for that.

All things considered I'd say the season has gone pretty well so far. Top of the CL group with no goals conceded and 3 points off the top in the league is a situation I'll happily accept to be in for the November international break. After the internationals are over it's going to be a busy schedule for the next few months and it's nice to see the team are building a bit of good form going into it. The next ten games before Christmas are going to be really important in determining how the season will go. 

[Fernando 6,375]

3 hours ago, Mana said:

I strongly disagree with that, the prior criticism on Lamps was fair. Good on him turning it around, but I feel the criticism was justified. 

We have driven through this long bumpy road for months and now we have finally driving on the smooth part. And while we are on the smooth part, we have yet to be properly tested.

Newcastle will be the first real test for me. Stand tall with a victory on a ground that we only won once since 2012.

Criticism was ridicules, because you don't learn. It's always the same, always. Don't take too serious the beginning part of the season. Especially a coronavirus season and a squad with many new players. 
It takes a while. 

That's why any serious student of futbol will know that the real team will start establishing themselves after having a couple of months working together. Hence why I always said November-December time frame is key to see the progress. 

How many times season after season you seen a team like Everton do great at the beginning of the season, everyone is praising them to the heavens and then skid of course come November-December time frame? 

I still don't understand how you guys can't see that season after season? I mean for crying out loud people go nuts over a pre season game at times here......

[robsblubot 3,212]

5 hours ago, Fernando said:

Criticism was ridicules, because you don't learn. It's always the same, always. Don't take too serious the beginning part of the season. Especially a coronavirus season and a squad with many new players. 
It takes a while. 

That's why any serious student of futbol will know that the real team will start establishing themselves after having a couple of months working together. Hence why I always said November-December time frame is key to see the progress. 

How many times season after season you seen a team like Everton do great at the beginning of the season, everyone is praising them to the heavens and then skid of course come November-December time frame? 

I still don't understand how you guys can't see that season after season? I mean for crying out loud people go nuts over a pre season game at times here......

that is indeed what happens in the the vast majority of times when a team acquires a few players significantly changing the starting XI.

I think I've seen, maybe a couple of times where the players just "clicked" and started playing together right off the bat, and it likely because they were experienced players.

I think most of us were worried about Lampard's (seemingly) inability to correct the defense. Mendy corroborated a lot of opinions here that one of the biggest problems we had was indeed kepa. If you go back his thread, I was never a fan (to say the least), but his recent form was a constant liability.

[Tomo 21,681]

10 hours ago, Mana said:

"Hardly any pre-season" - So did 19 other clubs in the PL. In fact we are one of the lucky ones who had a couple of friendlies while others had 1. If this was Lamps' first season, then you have a strong case here but it's not.

Yeah and everyone suffered for it, look at the bizarre results not just in the PL all around Europe so far, even Bayern have took a hammering.