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Chelsea didn’t track or press. Now Lampard faces his toughest period yet

https://theathletic.com/2285228/2020/12/27/chelsea-lampard-sacking-arsenal/

FRANK-LAMPARD-CHELSEA-e1609054137332-1024x684.jpg

If this latest shambles of a Chelsea performance could be summed up in a single sequence, it was the passage of play that led to Arsenal’s third goal.

Bernd Leno rolled the ball out to Mohamed Elneny, who got the ball back under half-hearted pressure and moved it on to Rob Holding, who could have been forgiven for not believing his eyes when he looked up to survey his options:

Arsenal-Chelsea-12.png

None of the four Chelsea players in his immediate vicinity were in a position to get close to him, but nor were they blocking any of his likeliest passes into midfield. Bukayo Saka showed for the easy ball, while N’Golo Kante’s push upfield had left Granit Xhaka in a sea of space. Jorginho was so far behind the pair of them that he barely makes it into the shot above.

Holding opted to play it to Xhaka and, in the process, took half of Chelsea’s outfielders out of the game. Xhaka navigated Jorginho with a simple one-two and played it to Hector Bellerin, who advanced on the visiting defence with Christian Pulisic in his wake, Emile Smith Rowe to his right and Saka to his left. The ball ended up at the feet of Saka via Smith Rowe, and then in the back of the net via Saka’s mishit cross.

Arsenal-Chelsea-13.png

Within the space of 13 seconds, Arsenal went from one penalty area to another at a fairly leisurely pace without even as much as an attempted Chelsea tackle. The finish was obviously fortunate, but look again at the screenshot above: if Saka’s connection goes to plan and he delivers a dangerous cross, the alternative result is still a dangerous two-on-two aerial battle created with no defensive resistance.

“When you attack games like we did — attack is the wrong word — things like the Saka goal happen, because you don’t deserve luck,” Frank Lampard said.

Lampard is adamant that Chelsea’s problems were not rooted in his tactics, but in the application of his players. “Not good enough on the basics — sprints, pressing, running, speed of pass and trying to play,” he added. “All the basics were wrong.”

It is a bold argument for any manager to make publicly, one that leaves room for accusations of dodging responsibility from supporters and also risks alienating the dressing room. There were, however, signs from the earliest moments of the game that Chelsea simply were not going to offer the level of effort and intensity required to match a more youthful Arsenal side playing with desperation.

Here, in the first minute, Bellerin plays the ball inside to Saka on the Arsenal right. Timo Werner’s job as the left winger — leaving aside for a moment the question of whether he should be a left winger — is to track the Spaniard’s forward run, particularly because he can see that Ben Chilwell is occupied with Saka:

Arsenal-Chelsea-1.png

He does not, and the result is that Saka plays an easy pass to the overlapping Bellerin and Chilwell has to recover to try to block the cross:

Arsenal-Chelsea-2.png

Bellerin’s cross gets past him and reaches Martinelli at the back post. Chelsea are hugely fortunate that he shoots rather than laying the ball off to Smith Rowe, and that he misses the target.

Arsenal-Chelsea-3.png

Barely a minute later Chelsea’s passivity became glaringly obvious again. Xhaka receives the ball on the halfway line with space to advance into and virtually the freedom of the Emirates Stadium to decide what he will do once he gets there:

Arsenal-Chelsea-4.png

Chelsea allow him to carry the ball all the way to the left side unchallenged. Pulisic and Mateo Kovacic are neither pressuring the ball nor blocking any passing angles, and there is an obvious opportunity for Xhaka to set up an overload of Reece James with the help of Martinelli and Kieran Tierney, who is already on the move:

Arsenal-Chelsea-5.png

He takes it and while James is able to recover, he is forced to concede a corner that Arsenal did not have to work particularly hard to earn:

Arsenal-Chelsea-6.png

Werner and Pulisic offered very little by way of protection for Chilwell or James — a particularly big problem, considering that Arsenal’s two most threatening players were Tierney and Bellerin. Here, in the sequence that led directly to the penalty, Werner does not even seem aware of where Tierney is:

Arsenal-Chelsea-9.png

Xhaka slips in Tierney, Werner does not react and James is forced to rush out to deal with the danger. This time he overcommits, gets beaten and ends up bringing the Arsenal man down in the box:

Arsenal-Chelsea-10.png

On the rare occasions they did decide to pressure the ball, Chelsea’s efforts were uncoordinated and ineffective. Just look at the space Holding has to play beyond the two-man press of Mason Mount and Tammy Abraham into the feet of Saka here, initiating the sequence of play that leads to Kante fouling Saka and conceding the free-kick that Xhaka curls into the top corner:

Arsenal-Chelsea-11.png

It is possible that fatigue is a factor. Four of Chelsea’s outfield starters — Werner, Kurt Zouma, Mount and Kante — had played more than 1,500 minutes across all competitions before kick-off; in contrast, no outfield player in the Arsenal squad had reached that mark. Much was made of Lampard’s men outrunning Leeds United this month but all of the four performances since have been lethargic, including an unconvincing win over West Ham that did not merit the 3-0 scoreline.

Lampard’s job is to manage his squad through this testing run of fixtures. Werner looks badly in need of a break, mentally as much as physically, and Callum Hudson-Odoi was the only bright spark against Arsenal. Why he has not been given more of a chance becomes a more salient question with every new underwhelming display from the starters.

But this alarming dip in form raises bigger questions. Liverpool can put Chelsea nine points adrift of the title conversation by beating West Bromwich Albion, and the next two visitors to Stamford Bridge are a buoyant Aston Villa — with only 48 hours recovery time — and a Manchester City team who appear to be finally hitting their stride. Two more performances like the last four will only embolden those who are voicing their doubts about this team’s broader prospects with Lampard in charge.

Lampard encountered adversity during the winter last season, punctuated by a demoralising 2-2 draw with 10-man Arsenal at Stamford Bridge in January. But that was adversity minus expectation; the stakes this season are much higher and regardless of where the public blame lies, the manager always has more to lose than his players do.

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19 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Chelsea didn’t track or press. Now Lampard faces his toughest period yet

https://theathletic.com/2285228/2020/12/27/chelsea-lampard-sacking-arsenal/

FRANK-LAMPARD-CHELSEA-e1609054137332-1024x684.jpg

If this latest shambles of a Chelsea performance could be summed up in a single sequence, it was the passage of play that led to Arsenal’s third goal.

Bernd Leno rolled the ball out to Mohamed Elneny, who got the ball back under half-hearted pressure and moved it on to Rob Holding, who could have been forgiven for not believing his eyes when he looked up to survey his options:

Arsenal-Chelsea-12.png

None of the four Chelsea players in his immediate vicinity were in a position to get close to him, but nor were they blocking any of his likeliest passes into midfield. Bukayo Saka showed for the easy ball, while N’Golo Kante’s push upfield had left Granit Xhaka in a sea of space. Jorginho was so far behind the pair of them that he barely makes it into the shot above.

Holding opted to play it to Xhaka and, in the process, took half of Chelsea’s outfielders out of the game. Xhaka navigated Jorginho with a simple one-two and played it to Hector Bellerin, who advanced on the visiting defence with Christian Pulisic in his wake, Emile Smith Rowe to his right and Saka to his left. The ball ended up at the feet of Saka via Smith Rowe, and then in the back of the net via Saka’s mishit cross.

Arsenal-Chelsea-13.png

Within the space of 13 seconds, Arsenal went from one penalty area to another at a fairly leisurely pace without even as much as an attempted Chelsea tackle. The finish was obviously fortunate, but look again at the screenshot above: if Saka’s connection goes to plan and he delivers a dangerous cross, the alternative result is still a dangerous two-on-two aerial battle created with no defensive resistance.

“When you attack games like we did — attack is the wrong word — things like the Saka goal happen, because you don’t deserve luck,” Frank Lampard said.

Lampard is adamant that Chelsea’s problems were not rooted in his tactics, but in the application of his players. “Not good enough on the basics — sprints, pressing, running, speed of pass and trying to play,” he added. “All the basics were wrong.”

It is a bold argument for any manager to make publicly, one that leaves room for accusations of dodging responsibility from supporters and also risks alienating the dressing room. There were, however, signs from the earliest moments of the game that Chelsea simply were not going to offer the level of effort and intensity required to match a more youthful Arsenal side playing with desperation.

Here, in the first minute, Bellerin plays the ball inside to Saka on the Arsenal right. Timo Werner’s job as the left winger — leaving aside for a moment the question of whether he should be a left winger — is to track the Spaniard’s forward run, particularly because he can see that Ben Chilwell is occupied with Saka:

Arsenal-Chelsea-1.png

He does not, and the result is that Saka plays an easy pass to the overlapping Bellerin and Chilwell has to recover to try to block the cross:

Arsenal-Chelsea-2.png

Bellerin’s cross gets past him and reaches Martinelli at the back post. Chelsea are hugely fortunate that he shoots rather than laying the ball off to Smith Rowe, and that he misses the target.

Arsenal-Chelsea-3.png

Barely a minute later Chelsea’s passivity became glaringly obvious again. Xhaka receives the ball on the halfway line with space to advance into and virtually the freedom of the Emirates Stadium to decide what he will do once he gets there:

Arsenal-Chelsea-4.png

Chelsea allow him to carry the ball all the way to the left side unchallenged. Pulisic and Mateo Kovacic are neither pressuring the ball nor blocking any passing angles, and there is an obvious opportunity for Xhaka to set up an overload of Reece James with the help of Martinelli and Kieran Tierney, who is already on the move:

Arsenal-Chelsea-5.png

He takes it and while James is able to recover, he is forced to concede a corner that Arsenal did not have to work particularly hard to earn:

Arsenal-Chelsea-6.png

Werner and Pulisic offered very little by way of protection for Chilwell or James — a particularly big problem, considering that Arsenal’s two most threatening players were Tierney and Bellerin. Here, in the sequence that led directly to the penalty, Werner does not even seem aware of where Tierney is:

Arsenal-Chelsea-9.png

Xhaka slips in Tierney, Werner does not react and James is forced to rush out to deal with the danger. This time he overcommits, gets beaten and ends up bringing the Arsenal man down in the box:

Arsenal-Chelsea-10.png

On the rare occasions they did decide to pressure the ball, Chelsea’s efforts were uncoordinated and ineffective. Just look at the space Holding has to play beyond the two-man press of Mason Mount and Tammy Abraham into the feet of Saka here, initiating the sequence of play that leads to Kante fouling Saka and conceding the free-kick that Xhaka curls into the top corner:

Arsenal-Chelsea-11.png

It is possible that fatigue is a factor. Four of Chelsea’s outfield starters — Werner, Kurt Zouma, Mount and Kante — had played more than 1,500 minutes across all competitions before kick-off; in contrast, no outfield player in the Arsenal squad had reached that mark. Much was made of Lampard’s men outrunning Leeds United this month but all of the four performances since have been lethargic, including an unconvincing win over West Ham that did not merit the 3-0 scoreline.

Lampard’s job is to manage his squad through this testing run of fixtures. Werner looks badly in need of a break, mentally as much as physically, and Callum Hudson-Odoi was the only bright spark against Arsenal. Why he has not been given more of a chance becomes a more salient question with every new underwhelming display from the starters.

But this alarming dip in form raises bigger questions. Liverpool can put Chelsea nine points adrift of the title conversation by beating West Bromwich Albion, and the next two visitors to Stamford Bridge are a buoyant Aston Villa — with only 48 hours recovery time — and a Manchester City team who appear to be finally hitting their stride. Two more performances like the last four will only embolden those who are voicing their doubts about this team’s broader prospects with Lampard in charge.

Lampard encountered adversity during the winter last season, punctuated by a demoralising 2-2 draw with 10-man Arsenal at Stamford Bridge in January. But that was adversity minus expectation; the stakes this season are much higher and regardless of where the public blame lies, the manager always has more to lose than his players do.

 

Excellent read, and it offers clues on how to figure out that big elephant in the room, which I keep mentioning. Why has our pressing deteriorated so rapidly from Nov to Dec? Its like night and day

I think the point regarding this being an avalanche effect is a good one. We basically have overworked a lot of the players by playing them continuously over the previous month, and the effects are being felt in the last few games.

I think the decision to go to a 4-3-3  (which I don't think was the original plan, given how we loaned out both RLC and Barkley) and Lampard's persistence with playing 4-3-3,  just because it produced a string of good results, have resulted in him playing certain players over and over again without much rotation. This goes for Mount, Werner, Kante and the two full-backs. It might not have been so bad if we had at least one of the 2 loanees with us right now. And maybe you could argue that the Ziyech/Pulisic/CHO/Havertz injuries didn't help.

The lack of pressing has also made us a lot more vulnerable in recent weeks. 

We went from being the team with most consecutive clean sheets, to leaking goals again. Its not really because Mendy became less of a keeper. Its because our back 5 is getting more exposed.

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Fixture congestion, fatigue etc although yeah, we have never been able to press well under Lampard.
Pressing is difficult as a team you really have to work on it. We have never been a good pressing team we have players that can press well individually like mount and kante

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Remember the winning run we had during last season's September-October period and then the results and performances just went south after that? 

EqPA1dHWMAEGu6C?format=png&name=large

Same thing seems to be happening this again. We had that long unbeaten run but it's now suddenly 3 defeats in 4 with 4 consecutive poor performances (5 if one were to include the dead rubber against Krasnodar).

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Imagine having all these talented players and going for Allegri. Are you out of your minds?
This is true, especially considering the fact that we have some amazing youth players right now, but Lampard also does not give them chances that they deserve.

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24 minutes ago, Mana said:

Lampard needed years before we can consider him. We brought him in wayyyy too early as predicted. The bad awful mistakes just keep happening and it’s crystal clear after the Arsenal game, it will never change.

At least for a good number of years. He needs to go back to Derby (if they take him back) and show he can do it with them. Take them to the PL and beating big sides.

Because this club at the moment is too big for him. This next sentence sums up Lampard: Out of his depth.

He’s going to get sacked next year. It’s inevitable now it’s just when.

This is it. I dont understand why he came at the time he did! Was it to win fans over with look we've hired a legend or just general lack of options. He shouldve been in as a assistant manager to someone with way way way more experience. Its not working. In some games it has but majority you can see the obvious cracks that once appear he doesn't seem to be able to fix.

Think be summer now...even if reach top 4 especially if limp over the line again. Be surprised if mid season but never know...

Just a mess

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Feels even worse a day after, no fucking excuses, I dont wanna hear it. This was utter trash to such a degree that im willing to bet the players have stopped giving a fuck, something has happened.

We got fucking LUBRICATED by an absolute garbage of a broken Ars team and they still made us look like fools all over the pitch. You must question that.

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https://m.bild.de/sport/fussball/fussball-international/fc-chelsea-pleite-beim-fc-arsenal-england-kritik-an-havertz-und-werner-74632800.bildMobile.html

Hefty criticism of Lamps by German media. Blaming him rightly for Werner‘s and Havertz‘ performance. Also talking about Tuchel‘s interest. 
 

LAMPARD OUT

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https://m.bild.de/sport/fussball/fussball-international/fc-chelsea-pleite-beim-fc-arsenal-england-kritik-an-havertz-und-werner-74632800.bildMobile.html
Hefty criticism of Lamps by German media. Blaming him rightly for Werner‘s and Havertz‘ performance. Also talking about Tuchel‘s interest. 
 
LAMPARD OUT
What a BS article. Lampard is playing a 4-3-3 for a while now. He is not changing the system too often. He also only switched from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-3, which is not that big of a difference. But what Bild does not say is that PL might be a better league than Bundesliga [emoji23]. Kai used to be really good as a false 9 and right winger, but now according to the article, he is only a playmaker in the CM role? In a 4-3-3, he is playing in the CM role, but Bild does not mention it lol.

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13 hours ago, ZaynChelsea said:

Both of them don‘t exist

BILD mentioning in an article that Chelsea is an option for Tuchel and the Club tried to get him in the past 

I don't want tuchel, he is another Sarri. 

I still remember how his team throws away a game to Barcelona. 

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13 hours ago, Jason said:

Nagelsmann won't leave Leipzig midway through the season.

Pochettino is going to PSG.

Dang I just read that about Pochetino well naggelsmam is the man. We can get him in the summer. Just continue with Lampard until the summer. 

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Why do so many of You want these coaches that haven't won f*ck all.

Poch for example is currently a better coach than Lampard for sure and He improves sides but the fact remains He's won Sweet FA.

I accept even the likes of Ferguson had to Win a first trophy and maybe Poch could come here and Win something but I don't think any coach should be cutting their teeth on the job.

Unless We're going for proven winners of big trophies to take Us over the line what is the point.

Unless it's an Allegri, Jose, Pep, Klopp, Conte or Carlo it's just another Coach to improve Us over a few seasons and hand the reins over to a Winner.

I'm sorry but Our standards are at a massive low if We're eulogising over Nagelsmann, Poch and f*cling Tuchel.

All decent coaches that are Philosophy Coaches, not Win at all Cost Managers.

KTBFFH!!

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