Super Frank Thread

[robsblubot 3,504]

5 hours ago, Vesper said:

Pulisic is a starter for the US team, and the best American footballer on the planet. Pedro has 64 caps for Spain. Both our GK'ers are starters, at least part-time, for their national teams. RLC, Mount and CHO both play and/or have started for England. Omeruo and Baba and Moses  and other loan army members start for their national teams. Hell, Zouma has even started a game for France and had 5 National team trophies. Bats starts for Belgium. Even Tammy has twice been called up for England. Zappa and Emerson for Italy, etc. Hell, Bakayoko has played for France, lolol.

The only 3 players on the 25 main roster who have no international senior call ups are Cumming, Reece (soon to change), and Kenedy (he would be a starter for over 100 nations.)

Yup.

I’d not mention smaller national teams though. Being a starter for USA or Nigeria  means nothing at this level. Esp in the conditions the teams are in atm.

So, mostly I made my point against the majority of pl sides, but against the top clubs we are indeed lacking. That’s why United were more clinical. We have nothing like martial or rashFord at this time. We have potential, but not the final product.

we have to hope some of these potentials deliver very very soon tho.

[OneMoSalah 8,776]

In all fairness in regards to what Mourinho said about Mount and Abraham being too inexperienced for a game of that magnitude wasnt actually that out of order.

The 2nd half Mount and Abraham offered next to nothing (Barkley off for Mount I felt was a mistake looking back on the game) and Abrahams rather poor attempt at holding up the ball, looking for a foul where a more seasoned player would of likely stayed up, started off a move than ended in a goal although its not directly his fault as it was littered with team and individual errors which relates to the next thing Mourinho said. Mourinho was also right about not defending or pressing as a block and too much space between the lines, as he put it. Interestingly enough, not seen many complaints about that, both comments I felt were very true and a nice change from what usually comes out on sky sports.

If anyone else said it bar Mourinho it wouldnt of been as much of an issue I feel personally. The thing is with Mourinho's general knowledge of the game will be overlooked by our fans purely based on what happened in his last year here. 

For sky sports its a very good appointment as a pundit, I think he will give better insights than Carragher and Neville, who are already pretty good.

[Jase 43,479]

1 minute ago, OneMoSalah said:

In all fairness in regards to what Mourinho said about Mount and Abraham being too inexperienced for a game of that magnitude wasnt actually that out of order.

The 2nd half Mount and Abraham offered next to nothing (Barkley off for Mount I felt was a mistake looking back on the game) and Abrahams rather poor attempt at holding up the ball, looking for a foul where a more seasoned player would of likely stayed up, started off a move than ended in a goal although its not directly his fault as it was littered with team and individual errors which relates to the next thing Mourinho said. Mourinho was also right about not defending or pressing as a block and too much space between the lines, as he put it. Interestingly enough, not seen many complaints about that, both comments I felt were very true and a nice change from what usually comes out on sky sports.

If anyone else said it bar Mourinho it wouldnt of been as much of an issue I feel personally. The thing is with Mourinho's general knowledge of the game will be overlooked by our fans purely based on what happened in his last year here. 

For sky sports its a very good appointment as a pundit, I think he will give better insights than Carragher and Neville, who are already pretty good.

It wasn't out of order but it was typical of Mourinho to go after the young players and not the more experienced ones for letting the team down by committing stupid mistakes at the back. The player that he mentioned that was the most hilarious, IMO, was Christensen. I mean sure, Christensen didn't have a perfect game but he's only one year younger than Zouma right now and yet, Mourinho didn't mention Zouma. Why? Zouma arguably had a worse game than Christensen. 

[the wes 7,212]

 

[OneMoSalah 8,776]

15 minutes ago, Jason said:

It wasn't out of order but it was typical of Mourinho to go after the young players and not the more experienced ones for letting the team down by committing stupid mistakes at the back. The player that he mentioned that was the most hilarious, IMO, was Christensen. I mean sure, Christensen didn't have a perfect game but he's only one year younger than Zouma right now and yet, Mourinho didn't mention Zouma. Why? Zouma arguably had a worse game than Christensen. 

Yeah thats true. I thought Christensen was the best defensive player on the park for us despite playing average. Didnt think Emerson was that good defensively despite looking decent going the other way (dont think Emerson is good enough or ever will be for where our club aspires to be) and Azpi and Zouma sucked big style.

Think maybe his comments regarding Mount and Abraham were also maybe regarding starting them in such a game when he had Giroud and Pulisic on the bench who are experienced at a higher level too. It was brave from Frank, regsrdless of Willians injury and Christians lack of PL experience and weve all expected and hoped for the use of younger guys in games but Man United turned Arsenal, who played a younger team, over 8-2 with Wenger under Ferguson and he got slaughtered for it as well. Im sure on here back in 2011 there was plenty of it going about and saying why did Wenger persist with so many youngsters in such a high magnitude game despite having more experienced players on the bench. Its swings and roundabouts, Chelsea getting beat 4-0 by United was always gonna be a issue, regardless of team. Mount and Abraham struggled 2nd half to impose themselves in the game and maybe a more experienced manager would of withdrawn them earlier or not have subbed Ross. Who knows. I dont think Jose was out of order to suggest in a game of that magnitude that maybe the 2 of them could have been changed. I think if we had Willian fit he would of played ahead of Mount anyway with Ross inside. Even if the experienced players havent performed well, theyve been there and know how to do it, I dont think you can underestimate experience going to the likes of Old Trafford, Anfield, Etihad etc. The Liverpool game will be interesting, I do hope we see 2 wingers and only 1 number 10 then.

[Jase 43,479]

Just now, OneMoSalah said:

Yeah thats true. I thought Christensen was the best defensive player on the park for us despite playing average. Didnt think Emerson was that good defensively despite looking decent going the other way (dont think Emerson is good enough or ever will be for where our club aspires to be) and Azpi and Zouma sucked big style.

Think maybe his comments regarding Mount and Abraham were also maybe regarding starting them in such a game when he had Giroud and Pulisic on the bench who are experienced at a higher level too. It was brave from Frank, regsrdless of Willians injury and Christians lack of PL experience and weve all expected and hoped for the use of younger guys in games but Man United turned Arsenal, who played a younger team, over 8-2 with Wenger under Ferguson and he got slaughtered for it as well. Im sure on here back in 2011 there was plenty of it going about and saying why did Wenger persist with so many youngsters in such a high magnitude game despite having more experienced players on the bench. Its swings and roundabouts, Chelsea getting beat 4-0 by United was always gonna be a issue, regardless of team. Mount and Abraham struggled 2nd half to impose themselves in the game and maybe a more experienced manager would of withdrawn them earlier or not have subbed Ross. Who knows. I dont think Jose was out of order to suggest in a game of that magnitude that maybe the 2 of them could have been changed. I think if we had Willian fit he would of played ahead of Mount anyway with Ross inside. Even if the experienced players havent performed well, theyve been there and know how to do it, I dont think you can underestimate experience going to the likes of Old Trafford, Anfield, Etihad etc. The Liverpool game will be interesting, I do hope we see 2 wingers and only 1 number 10 then.

It's easy to sit here and criticize Lampard after the game why he played Player X, Y, Z. If we had taken our chances in the first half, then the game would have been completely different, we might have won and we would probably be praising Lampard for putting out that lineup.

As you said and Lampard himself alluded to, we have players injured and players who are not fit yet. So, what did you really expect him to do? Some might say we shouldn't have played the young players but if this is the route we're gonna go with, then might as well have them play and learn from experience from the start. This might be contradicting but it was only United after all, even if it's at Old Trafford, first game of the season and all that. They aren't great. If it was Man City or Liverpool, then maybe you could make a case of going more pragmatic.

The bigger issue for me is the team's structure. No coherent shape from back to front and the disjointed pressing. If we have a solid organization, then what happened yesterday wouldn't have happened and it would give the players a platform to perform. It didn't look like we prepared for the game well, from a tactical point of view. 

[Supermonkey92 1,428]

The bigger issue for me is the team's structure. No coherent shape from back to front and the disjointed pressing. If we have a solid organization, then what happened yesterday wouldn't have happened and it would give the players a platform to perform. It didn't look like we prepared for the game well, from a tactical point of view. 

Spot on. It was like that in our last preseason match (the 2-2). Sort this out and We'll be fine. But it's pretty fundamental and without it we are fucked



Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

[OneMoSalah 8,776]

16 minutes ago, Jason said:

It's easy to sit here and criticize Lampard after the game why he played Player X, Y, Z. If we had taken our chances in the first half, then the game would have been completely different, we might have won and we would probably be praising Lampard for putting out that lineup.

As you said and Lampard himself alluded to, we have players injured and players who are not fit yet. So, what did you really expect him to do? Some might say we shouldn't have played the young players but if this is the route we're gonna go with, then might as well have them play and learn from experience from the start. This might be contradicting but it was only United after all, even if it's at Old Trafford, first game of the season and all that. They aren't great. If it was Man City or Liverpool, then maybe you could make a case of going more pragmatic.

The bigger issue for me is the team's structure. No coherent shape from back to front and the disjointed pressing. If we have a solid organization, then what happened yesterday wouldn't have happened and it would give the players a platform to perform. It didn't look like we prepared for the game well, from a tactical point of view. 

Again it is easy to do. I agree. The first half as you said, if we took our chances or the final pass was better, the likes of Tammy, Mason and Frank would be getting huge praise. 

And with the ban, injuries etc yeah using younger players is going to be common this season, no doubt, a 4-0 beating off United as well as possibly another similar result if we play anywhere like that defensively against Liverpool who are arguably the best counter attacking team on the planet though can make or break youngsters. I do think though, in the first half, both played well enough and generally the team played well bar the penalty incident and maybe 10 mins after that. I can see Mou's point although wouldn't necessarily agree not starting them was the issue, perhaps in the second half they could have been changed earlier. I don't think anybody can safely say subbing Barkley off and keeping Mason on who was very very anonymous 2nd half was the right move and thats me being brutally honest. Giroud offers more of a target man than Tammy I feel too but Lamps made the change not too soon after anyway. 

True but United played on the cohnter attack, Liverpool like mentioned above, best counter attacking team in the world (for me) will exploit us time and time again if we give them that same chances or more.

I'd like to see us better as a collective, the defending and pressing in blocks comment for me is bang on the money. Pressing is pointless unless the whole team do it, teams can beat presses, players like Pogba can ping passes through the lines, Henderson, Fabinho etc all can too so we need to do it all together and keep the distance between the midfield and backline small to recover the ball. For all of last seasons difficulties I think under Sarri our press was very effective at times and maybe with the change of shape and manager it will take time to build it up again. I think in the modern game you need that, as most good teams are very happy to build up in their own half, even the not so good ones. 

Fair enough we wont always play United or Liverpool or City but theres no doubt the smaller teams will have looked at that game and though well if we can even get one or two of those big chances against Chelsea, we fancy a chance. Personally the defence is gonna be a bit all over the joint still, based off pre-season not just the game yesterday, Rudiger back in is a big plus as well as Kante but still with Azpi and Emerson being advanced theres huge spaces there for players to exploit and isolate the CBs. 

 

[Atomiswave 6,072]

The media along with pundit can suck it.....claiming utd  destroyed us.....destroyed us my ass. We gifted them the goals and on another day 2 of them wouldnt count. Sure we are a huge work in progress but destroyed? Fuck them and the horse they came on.

[Jase 43,479]

1 hour ago, OneMoSalah said:

Again it is easy to do. I agree. The first half as you said, if we took our chances or the final pass was better, the likes of Tammy, Mason and Frank would be getting huge praise. 

And with the ban, injuries etc yeah using younger players is going to be common this season, no doubt, a 4-0 beating off United as well as possibly another similar result if we play anywhere like that defensively against Liverpool who are arguably the best counter attacking team on the planet though can make or break youngsters. I do think though, in the first half, both played well enough and generally the team played well bar the penalty incident and maybe 10 mins after that. I can see Mou's point although wouldn't necessarily agree not starting them was the issue, perhaps in the second half they could have been changed earlier. I don't think anybody can safely say subbing Barkley off and keeping Mason on who was very very anonymous 2nd half was the right move and thats me being brutally honest. Giroud offers more of a target man than Tammy I feel too but Lamps made the change not too soon after anyway. 

It didn't help that the 3rd goal went in so soon after the 2nd. Lampard made the changes just before the 60th minute (IIRC) but we suddenly found ourselves 3-0 down out of nowhere and everything just went flat after that. That's where keeping things tight could have been beneficial. 

[Laylabelle 9,351]

Was annoying how predictable it was. Soon as they made the run said to my mum here we go 2-0 and there it was.. Hopefully won't continue from last year good first half and fall apart after 

[Vesper 28,796]

9 hours ago, Jason said:

It didn't help that the 3rd goal went in so soon after the 2nd. Lampard made the changes just before the 60th minute (IIRC) but we suddenly found ourselves 3-0 down out of nowhere and everything just went flat after that. That's where keeping things tight could have been beneficial. 

that 3rd goal was indeed the kill-shot 

[robsblubot 3,504]

On 8/12/2019 at 1:45 PM, Jason said:

It didn't help that the 3rd goal went in so soon after the 2nd. Lampard made the changes just before the 60th minute (IIRC) but we suddenly found ourselves 3-0 down out of nowhere and everything just went flat after that. That's where keeping things tight could have been beneficial. 

That’s actually the main argument for starting the best players even if they are not 100% and then deal with the subs as needed.

start with the most senior players to avoid situations like that. Then add youngsters for minutes and for mixing things up.

no, nothing is a sure thing, but things are more likely to happen with the senior players since they already happened for them before. For ex, giroud is more likely to score at this level than a youngster who never scored at this level. Giroud would have been more likely to have scored that sitter. Tammy lowered his head and hit it. not great technique tbh. All these small decisions are likely to have influenced in the outcome and the final score line. 

No one wants a return of of the lack of youth development from mourinho era, but imo nobody forced frank to use so many youngsters in a single match, against a top club in their turf. Agree or disagree, that was a questionable decision, and one which did not quite work.

another thing I can add is that it is a very common tale with overly young sides: they have the impetus, the work rate, sometimes even play well and look good, but lack the finishing touch and make too many small mistakes that hinder the team. And they are usually more likely to choke under stress, of say, having to chase a result after conceding early. Again, for obvious reasons... I mean it should be obvious.

[Tomo 21,733]

11 hours ago, Robchels said:

That’s actually the main argument for starting the best players even if they are not 100% and then deal with the subs as needed.

start with the most senior players to avoid situations like that. Then add youngsters for minutes and for mixing things up.

no, nothing is a sure thing, but things are more likely to happen with the senior players since they already happened for them before. For ex, giroud is more likely to score at this level than a youngster who never scored at this level. Giroud would have been more likely to have scored that sitter. Tammy lowered his head and hit it. not great technique tbh. All these small decisions are likely to have influenced in the outcome and the final score line. 

No one wants a return of of the lack of youth development from mourinho era, but imo nobody forced frank to use so many youngsters in a single match, against a top club in their turf. Agree or disagree, that was a questionable decision, and one which did not quite work.

another thing I can add is that it is a very common tale with overly young sides: they have the impetus, the work rate, sometimes even play well and look good, but lack the finishing touch and make too many small mistakes that hinder the team. And they are usually more likely to choke under stress, of say, having to chase a result after conceding early. Again, for obvious reasons... I mean it should be obvious.

Not really sure where the argument we used so many youngster's is coming from.

We used two, United used one (yes AWB cost a bomb but he's still quite young and inexperienced) and actually their overall starting lineup was younger (although Azpi and Pedro likely shot our average age up).

There's many reasons we lost 4-0 on Sunday but starting Mount and Tammy wasn't one of them.

[bigbluewillie 1,859]

I thought we played some really nice stuff, and I know it don't mean anything about the result but we came out tops on the stats, possession, shots, shots on target, etc.

I really don't know what some of you are expecting, the knockers and doubters, yeah alright we got hammered, but ffs it was the first game of the season, Jose got hammered 5-0 with Real against Barca in his early games didn't stop him winning La Liga

So for fuck sake get off the blokes back and get on the real supporters wagon and support the guy and the team, i'm fed up reading what will happen if results continue like this, dah dedah dedah.

For you that are doom and gloom, enjoy the ride and leave Lamps alone, oh and that cunt Sutton can keep his mouth shut he knows fuck all about Lamps or CFC 'cos he was shit here anyway.

That's it there I've said. rant over.

In Lamps we trust.

KTBFFH

[BlueLion. 21,491]

People are still hyper-analysing even the most microscopic of minutiae with the United game - the simple fact is our finishing was woeful and we were extraordinarily unfortunate. We were superb for the first 60 minutes, with United scoring two fortuitious goals down to lapses in concentration. But for more clinical finishing, we could and should have scored three or more on Sunday. Conceding two goals in two minutes is enough to knock any team, from that point on we allowed our heads to drop and from then on it was a case of how ever many United really wanted to score. Even their fourth goal was a mammoth deflection. 

It was one game; to some extent a free hit for Frank in getting one of our biggest away games of the season out of the way. It was never a 4-0 game - there is precious little between the two teams. The concern for me is our striking options are absolutely terrible. No disrespect to Tammy, but the step up from the Championship is huge, at Villa he was being given the chance to be their main striker whereas he will be perpetually rotated this season. I like Michy but is he a 20-goals-per-season striker? Nope. Giroud is never going to be a massive goal-getter, though I like his link-up play and for that reason I'd play him in the majority of the "big" games from this point onwards. 

One game doesn't make or break a season, let's move on.  I don't know how many of you heard Klopp's press conference yesterday, but he was very complimentary of our team and actually of our performance on Sunday, he called it a false result and expects us to challenge for the top four again. He has no need to blow smoke up Lampard's backside, and he is one of the few managers that generally speaks with integrity. 

[Tomo 21,733]

6 minutes ago, BlueLion. said:

People are still hyper-analysing even the most microscopic of minutiae with the United game - the simple fact is our finishing was woeful and we were extraordinarily unfortunate. We were superb for the first 60 minutes, with United scoring two fortuitious goals down to lapses in concentration. But for more clinical finishing, we could and should have scored three or more on Sunday. Conceding two goals in two minutes is enough to knock any team, from that point on we allowed our heads to drop and from then on it was a case of how ever many United really wanted to score. Even their fourth goal was a mammoth deflection. 

It was one game; to some extent a free hit for Frank in getting one of our biggest away games of the season out of the way. It was never a 4-0 game - there is precious little between the two teams. The concern for me is our striking options are absolutely terrible. No disrespect to Tammy, but the step up from the Championship is huge, at Villa he was being given the chance to be their main striker whereas he will be perpetually rotated this season. I like Michy but is he a 20-goals-per-season striker? Nope. Giroud is never going to be a massive goal-getter, though I like his link-up play and for that reason I'd play him in the majority of the "big" games from this point onwards. 

One game doesn't make or break a season, let's move on.  I don't know how many of you heard Klopp's press conference yesterday, but he was very complimentary of our team and actually of our performance on Sunday, he called it a false result and expects us to challenge for the top four again. He has no need to blow smoke up Lampard's backside, and he is one of the few managers that generally speaks with integrity. 

Thing is i actually think Michy could be a 20 a season striker. The problem that comes with Michy isn't goals it's the fact that his overall game (both technically and tactically) further than 10 yards from goal is so unbelievably bad that 20 or even 30 goal season can't make up for those flaws.

The Norwich replay under Conte in the FA Cup summed him up in a nutshell, scored a well taken goal but was also the reason we couldn't sustain any attacking momentum.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

1 minute ago, Tomo said:

Thing is i actually think Michy could be a 20 a season striker. The problem that comes with Michy isn't goals it's the fact that his overall game (both technically and tactically) further than 10 yards from goal is so unbelievably bad that 20 or even 30 goal season can't make up for those flaws.

The Norwich replay under Conte in the FA Cup summed him up in a nutshell, scored a well taken goal but was also the reason we couldn't sustain any attacking momentum.

He can't possibly be a 20 goals a season striker with our current squad and style of play. Stick him in City's team and he'd easily do that, because they play with genuine width and stretch the pitch, creating crossing opportunities. We don't play that way, so whilst I accept he has the talent to be a goal-getter, he won't do it at Chelsea. I just wish he'd be given a fair chance because I feel like we're all judging him on a string of substitute performances. The odd game where he started (I'm thinking Brighton away, 2017/18 where we won 4-0 - he didn't score but was the best player on the pitch), he looked fine.