Super Frank Thread

[communicate 2,703]

On 12/8/2019 at 2:43 AM, Mana said:

When I’m seeing Ole beating City at Etihad...makes you wonder...

Why couldn’t we beat City? We have yet to beat a top 6 side this season.

United has better front line than us. As simple as that. I have no idea why but this city team look absolutely porous, so easy to play against. 

[communicate 2,703]

2 hours ago, Tomo said:

The bit I love the most is how many people said they'd be patient and happily accept midtable if we play academy players and are showing promise? Yet we're doing both of those currently in the CL places and people are losing their shit.

As I said yesterday I don't think the winning run helped things, a bit like last season's unbeaten start it gave out the false narrative that we're title challenges when it was never a realistic possibility which in turn (in my opinion) has some people genuinely believing that this is a title winning team in a catastrophic slump instead of a young team and a club in a cultural reboot having inevitable ups and downs.

It's part of the reason I was worried about the appointment as much as I wanted it, fan expectation is just far too high.

I don't think my expectation is high. Lamp has done very well in term of table position. He has far exceeded many people expectation while incorporating youth, that something that need to be praised. 

Having said that, Lamp game management and selection has been a bit questionable. Some of the problem that we have this season does not come because we have young team.  

[Jase 43,479]

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2019/12/09/lampard-seeks-consistency-with-lessons-learned-rapidly

The head coach spoke immediately after the game about the sloppy nature of goals conceded and although it is clear the current Chelsea side is a work in progress with plenty of young players involved among more experienced heads, there is only so much leeway that can be given.

That is a point he makes as he looks again at the weekend setback.

‘They have to get used to it quickly,’ Lampard states. ‘I can give them a tiny bit of room maybe for the youth of some of the team but at the same time, they might be young but they are not silly.

‘They know physical contact happens in games like the Everton one. The game gets broken up, the ball goes direct into your box, it is another thing to deal with and we just have to deal with it better.

‘There are home truths all the time, whatever game you play,’ he adds, ‘and players consistently need to hear that. I have a good bunch and in the Premier League with the competitive nature of it, there are going to be difficult patches and times when you lose games. It is certainly not the end of the world but it is important that we take on board lessons from games like Saturday and West Ham, because we had a week when we were poor, fantastic, and poor again, so that lack of consistency is not going to get us where we want to be.’

[Jase 43,479]

6 hours ago, communicate said:

United has better front line than us. As simple as that. I have no idea why but this city team look absolutely porous, so easy to play against. 

Really? It's easy to get carried away by United's results against the big teams but let's not forget, United have struggled against the smaller teams this season. If you look at the goalscoring numbers of the players, they aren't much different from ours.

The one thing United are doing better than us is having a solid/defensive shape, which gives them a chance of getting results against the better teams. Only 4 teams have conceded less than them in the league and their expected xG against is one of the lowest, according to a stat I saw recently. 

[BDTips 34]

Frankie is the man!
It's December, we are in the top four and one step from the second round in Champions League, a success so far.

No transfers, with so many inexperienced young people, some out of date ...
But he has been able to get the best out of his squad.

He has an offensive idea of the game, which comes from the beginning of the season, has not changed the script after any negative result.
He has balls!

A lot of people said that Chelsea's squad was rubbish, that we were going to be in eighth place, stupid things of that kind.

Just as many players are young and learning, Frankie is taking the first steps,..

We have to support, not criticize, mistakes are common but there has been more good news than bad.

There are defensive problems, things to improve, of course there are. And everyone will do everything to improve.

Let's support them! I am sure we will be proud at the end of the season.

Frankie and these young people are passionate!

[BDTips 34]

On 07/12/2019 at 6:43 PM, Mana said:

When I’m seeing Ole beating City at Etihad...makes you wonder...

Why couldn’t we beat City? We have yet to beat a top 6 side this season.

United is a counter attack team.
And they are very good at it.
But a big team doesn't play like this or win championships like that.
They have stolen points from big clubs and lost a lot more against small teams because they don't know how to play anything else.

We have a more positive and risky idea to play.
We have a team in formation, taking the first steps, it does not reach maturity in 3 days.

But we have an idea for the future and for success.

Don't see things from such a short perspective.

[Fernando 6,376]

On 12/7/2019 at 3:36 PM, petre.ispirescu said:

I don't. 

If you ask me I think we must buy two towering centre backs before doing any sort of deal. 

I was watching some experts talk about rotation and they all said 'If you want to rest players you always rest the midfielders or the attackers, back line always stays put no matter what'. 

Look at Klopp's last matches, he's rested every single midfielder and attacker, but never his defenders. 

Frank must build a very solid defence and then we're good to go. If you ask me Reece James should be the only actual defender starting next season, too. The left back should be a Chilwell type of full back and the CB pairing should be an imposing and calm one, the type of Gimenez-Godin partnership. 

Zouma I think has reached his max level and he's not good enough, Christensen is too soft and surely this must be Azpilicueta's last season as a starter. The fact Lampard keeps chopping and changing at the back makes me think he does not trust them that much, hence must invest massively in that area. No reason to have ballers up front if defenders can't even do the basics. 

Manchester City interested in rivalling Chelsea to sign Bournemouth's Nathan Ake

Manchester City are interested in a January deal for Bournemouth's Nathan Ake - despite a contract clause seemingly putting Chelsea in pole position to bring him back to Stamford Bridge.

 

Seems like we are going to get Ake. 

Said it before, the "easy" buy for CB would be Ake. 

But I also would like someone else. Let's see what we do. 

[Vesper 27,310]

2 hours ago, Fernando said:

Manchester City interested in rivalling Chelsea to sign Bournemouth's Nathan Ake

Manchester City are interested in a January deal for Bournemouth's Nathan Ake - despite a contract clause seemingly putting Chelsea in pole position to bring him back to Stamford Bridge.

 

Seems like we are going to get Ake. 

Said it before, the "easy" buy for CB would be Ake. 

But I also would like someone else. Let's see what we do. 

here is your complete double CB AND CF answer (by summer for sure if not all in January, which maybe a bit tough, especially the WC CB part but also the CF part if we go for Werner over Håland)

 

[communicate 2,703]

22 hours ago, Jason said:

Really? It's easy to get carried away by United's results against the big teams but let's not forget, United have struggled against the smaller teams this season. If you look at the goalscoring numbers of the players, they aren't much different from ours.

The one thing United are doing better than us is having a solid/defensive shape, which gives them a chance of getting results against the better teams. Only 4 teams have conceded less than them in the league and their expected xG against is one of the lowest, according to a stat I saw recently. 

Against defensive team I absolutely agree, they looked awful. They have no midfield and no fullback and no between the line player but against team that will give them space behind, they are better. Rashford and martial are absolute terror on counter attacking situation. I will take Rashord + Martial over Tammy + Puli right now against team with space behind. Against City, you can see how easy we can run at their backline, we are just not that clinical. That is normal though, young frontline. 

I also agree that defensively they are better than us. I watched 3/4 of their games early in the season. They looked very solid.

[BDTips 34]

4 hours ago, Mana said:

But losing at home to a crap West Ham and putting out wrong team selections is not seeing things from a short perspective.

Yes we are in 4th place and that’s a blessing, but that blessing can be easily get taken away if Lampard and the squad don’t put their act together.

We have dropped the most points out of everybody in the top 6 (+Leicester) in the last 4 games.

Before the beginning of the season everybody put us out of the big6. 

You are in the top 4, even having this negative sequence of results.

Once again, we have a young team and coach, everyone is learning and that includes making mistakes.
Patience is required.

The team is very tired too.
There are players who are accusing this fatigue in the last games.

So far I can only praise and be proud of Frankie and these young people!!!

The team needs our support.
At the end of the season a balance is made.
And if things are so bad, Frankie will have to leave.
But I hope and believe that I will feel so or more proud at the end of the season.

[Tomo 21,681]

2 minutes ago, Mana said:

“It’s the hope that kills you”.

If Chelsea were 10th place right now, with no hope of getting the top 4 spot, I would have completely written this season off and not be this anxious and pissed off.

But because we have a good gap between us and the other chasers, it will me be embarrassing to let it slip from here.

Lampard has given us huge hope we will be playing CL next season. He has the January transfer window now to make some critical changes.

We once had a 10 point gap over everybody. We should be able to cross over the line. If we don’t (especially now we have January), questions definitely need to be answered.

I don’t want us o become another Ole and Ljungberg with the “give him time” BS. Only give him time, when it’s the players letting Lampard down time and time again while Lampard was flawless. And no, Lampard isn’t flawless at the moment.

The reason why give him time sounded ridiculous with Ole is he was showing no real signs and had United on their worst run for decades. His one off big game results are buying him time now but make no mistake without them he'd be gone and while James and Rashford's pace on the counter is perfect for big teams who open up, it's the opposite when they face teams who sit back and frustrate them.

With Lampard and the team so far there has been some genuine positive signs we're well coached and heading in the right direction. We don't out football Ajax in Amsterdam if we're poorly coached, we don't play like we did in the second half against Villa if we're poorly coached, we don't play like we did in the first 80 minutes against Watford if we're poorly coached (would have been about 0-5 or 0-6 if it wasn't for Foster), we don't completely wipe teams out to the point they may as well have removed Kepa's goal like we did against Palace, Brighton and Newcastle if we're poorly coached. The patterns and style we play with takes some serious quality coaching.

Unless we go on a relegation run and/or start playing stale rubbish unsustainable football over a long period Lampard will get time and rightly so.

[Strike 6,961]

6 hours ago, Mana said:

But losing at home to a crap West Ham and putting out wrong team selections is not seeing things from a short perspective.

Yes we are in 4th place and that’s a blessing, but that blessing can be easily get taken away if Lampard and the squad don’t put their act together.

We have dropped the most points out of everybody in the top 6 (+Leicester) in the last 4 games.

The selections seem to have been forced on Lamps. He mentioned Tomori has been carrying a hip niggle for a while. Maybe that's why Zouma and AC got games? Emerson had a bad showing at City and Azpi started in his place. 

I think there has been good coaching to get us from Sarri's plodding football to the football we see now and the dip in recent results cannot understate that we have made very good progress under Lamps. He is certainly no Ole or Ljungberg and seems to have a clearer idea of how he wants his team to play. The goals we are conceding are completely avoidable and not pointing to a structural issue with the team.

[Superblue 6,331]

It should also be noted that whilst United look far more solid than us at present, they have had the luxury of spending the best part of £140m in the summer on 2 new defenders. 

[Tomo 21,681]

Games like tonight are why i think Lampard is going to be a top manager.

You don't create the amount of openings we did tonight if you're not very well coached. The only thing we've got a problem with systematically is set pieces, things like open play defending and decision making in the last movement will improve once we get better personel in.

[Strike 6,961]

13 hours ago, Superblue_1986 said:

It should also be noted that whilst United look far more solid than us at present, they have had the luxury of spending the best part of £140m in the summer on 2 new defenders. 

Wan Bisakka is a good buy. A Right-back who lets very little past him and is technically good. I think he is the 3rd RB in the league after Trent and Ricardo Pereira who are both ridiculously good. But we do have James so not overly concerned with missing out on AWB.

[Vesper 27,310]

12 minutes ago, Strike said:

Wan Bisakka is a good buy. A Right-back who lets very little past him and is technically good. I think he is the 3rd RB in the league after Trent and Ricardo Pereira who are both ridiculously good. But we do have James so not overly concerned with missing out on AWB.

the EPL has 6 of the top 10 RB's in the world atm (soon 7 hopefully with Reece) but only 2 of the top 10 LB's (soon hopefully 3 IF we snag Telles in January)

and 2 of the top 3 fullback pairs in the world 

1 The Bindippers    Robertson/TAA  (best LB AND best RB in the world IMHO atm, on the same team, grrrrrrrrr)   (absolutely SHIT for depth though, truly fucked atm, no LB (34yo CMF Milner is their emergency backup, lololol)  and no RB backups at all IF Gomez is playing CB, as Clyne blew out his knee)

2 Bayern   Alaba/Kimmich (they have another top 3 in the world LB too in Lucas Hernandez, as well!  BUT, atm NONE of those 3 are even playing at fullback!!, lolol) Alphonso Davies looks to be a superb teen LB conversion as well (which would give those cunts THREE WC or potentially (in Davies) WC left backs!!!! PLUS they have a near WC RB in Benjamin Pavard as well, and he ALSO often doesnt play there a lot, lolol It is madness! On balance, Bayerns fullbacks BLOW even the dippers away, but that is to do with sheer numbers, in terms of tossing out only two, I would have to give the edge to the scousers, MAYBE. That said,I have never seen a team THAT deep with truly cracking players at fullback, they have FIVE, with 2 of them being top 3 LB's in the world, and then a top 2 in world RB (Kimmich), plus a top 10 RB (Pavard) plus Davies will be a top 5 LB in the world in 3 or so years at the rate he looks   I AM SOOOOOOOOOO JELLY  Bayern have other issues though, mostly managerial and huge injury problems atm and they REALLY need a DMF upgrade

3 Leicester Chilwell/Ricardo (almost worse depth than Victimpool, but at least they do have one of each, even if one is utter shit (Fuchs) and the other is a 21yo rookie (James Justin)

[Nero 1,794]

[Vesper 27,310]

9 minutes ago, Patrick Bamford said:

Matthew McConaughey