closed Brighton 1-1 Chelsea

[MoroccanBlue 5,382]

3 minutes ago, BlueLion. said:

The mentality of the players is poor. It is the job of the manager to manage and motivate them. When you have Zouma reportedly coming out saying the players find it hard to get motivated, that highlights the problem. The substitutions were poor today. Pulisic was by far our most lively player, and we lost all drive in midfield after Mount went off. Kovacic, Kante and Jorgi clearly cannot operate in a three against a four-man midfield. Tammy had a shocker yet he played the full 90 minutes. We praise Lampard - and rightly so - when he makes ballsy decisions (i.e. Emerson vs Arsenal), so he equally deserves criticism for poor substitutions. 

The fact the players keep making the same mistakes emphasises the fragile confidence of the team. We haven't won back-to-back games in three months. There is something seriously wrong (people need to stop using the transfer ban and "the youth" as an excuse) and the manager must bear some responsibility. 

I firmly believe this 'lack of motivation' stems from up top and the countless chances we miss. It's pathetic especially when you compare our decision making to say the likes of City and Liverpool. But then again, compare the quality and experience and there is your answer. 

 

[Muzchap 8,966]

2 minutes ago, BlueLion. said:

The mentality of the players is poor. It is the job of the manager to manage and motivate them. When you have Zouma reportedly coming out saying the players find it hard to get motivated, that highlights the problem. The substitutions were poor today. Pulisic was by far our most lively player, and we lost all drive in midfield after Mount went off. Kovacic, Kante and Jorgi clearly cannot operate in a three against a four-man midfield. Tammy had a shocker yet he played the full 90 minutes. We praise Lampard - and rightly so - when he makes ballsy decisions (i.e. Emerson vs Arsenal), so he equally deserves criticism for poor substitutions. 

The fact the players keep making the same mistakes emphasises the fragile confidence of the team. We haven't won back-to-back games in three months. There is something seriously wrong (people need to stop using the transfer ban and "the youth" as an excuse) and the manager must bear some responsibility. 

The reason we haven't won back to back is because we are an AVERAGE team.

I honestly can't believe people don't realise this 🤔

I keep looking around for Rick & Morty - I must be in a parallel universe 🤣🤣🤣

[Ryebread 22]

Just now, Muzchap said:

Ok what would you have done differently.

It's fine to criticise, but what would you have done?

 

I would have left Mount on. I wouldn't have put CHO on.

Well, Pulisic seemed a bit off pace due to his recent lack playing time but, honestly, had 3 good chances and they seemed to be building just as he was pulled off. So the CHO substitution didn’t come off. Although Mount didn’t do much, the Kovacic sub ended up being a negative. It’s a young team, So inconsistently is expected. I just hope the attitude and morale is kept high in the team by Frank. I hope it’s youth and inconsistency and not morale rot or negativity. 

[Azpinator 2,325]

Just now, BlueLion. said:

It's the same squad, minus Hazard. 

People need to stop making out like Lampard is managing the same players he had at his disposal at Derby. We are the Europa League winners and, minus one player regardless of how good he is), it's the same squad, arguably better when you consider the young players who have come in and forced mediocrity out of the starting eleven. 

I strongly disagree. Not to mention that this season we have Zouma, Tomori, James, Pulisic, Mount, Batshuayi and Abraham. None of them played for us last season.

[Atomiswave 6,117]

3 minutes ago, Muzchap said:

It's the same players? So what do you expect? You do know the definition of insanity 🤣🤣🤣

Blue lion explained it to a tee further up. Lokk I know we are Young, I know we have not a very good squad, but can they do better? Def they can. They look clueless too often, looks confused. He needs to change it up, needs to fire their asses, needs to motivate the shit out of them. Hopefully it will change.

[Superblue 6,372]

1 minute ago, DDA said:

By the way, I'm not knocking Tammy.. he has been a revelation up top and he is only going to get better.

I'm aware of that, the point I'm trying to make is a wider one. 

Tammy is similar to the likes of Mount, Tomori, Pulisic, though with inconsistency etc. He has had games recently where there's very little space and he's struggled. He has to learn to adapt to those situations and that comes with experience, but the problem is we have no viable alternative to him. Similarly we have no one that can play the role that Mount plays, with CHO struggling our options drop off after Pulisic and Willian, Zouma is the alternative to Tomori, etc. 

The squad just isn't strong enough at present to withstand when the first XI or 14/15 players in the squad aren't at it.

[Muzchap 8,966]

1 minute ago, Ryebread said:

Well, Pulisic seemed a bit off pace due to his recent lack playing time but, honestly, had 3 good chances and they seemed to be building just as he was pulled off. So the CHO substitution didn’t come off. Although Mount didn’t do much, the Kovacic sub ended up being a negative. It’s a young team, So inconsistently is expected. I just hope the attitude and morale is kept high in the team by Frank. I hope it’s youth and inconsistency and not morale rot or negativity. 

Yeah CHO was a bad move and Kova.

Problem is we have inexperienced players and inexperienced manager- it's a perfect storm. 

I have hope it will play out OK next season with some quality additions (2 or 3)... 👍👍👍

[Laylabelle 9,535]

9 minutes ago, Muzchap said:

It's the same players? So what do you expect? You do know the definition of insanity 🤣🤣🤣

That they'd learn how to defend a corner or free kick

[Atomiswave 6,117]

4 minutes ago, MoroccanBlue said:

So what should he have done? Mount was losing the ball just as much as anyone? Adding Kovacic was the right move in my opinion because not one player bar maybe Kepa and James can hold their head up high today. Dreadful from everyone. 

Then he needs to straight them out, we cant use this excuse all the time.

[Muzchap 8,966]

1 minute ago, Atomiswave said:

Then he needs to straight them out, we cant use this excuse all the time.

How? 

[Muzchap 8,966]

1 minute ago, Laylabelle said:

That they'd learn how to defend a corner..

You can either defend or you can't.

We can't 👍

Not many teams can 👍

[communicate 2,703]

12 minutes ago, Superblue_1986 said:

The problem is the lack of alternatives we have. Beyond about 14-15 players our squad is not great and there are a couple of areas in our strongest XI which are weaknesses to boot too. When Tammy has had a few games struggling, there isn't a good enough alternative off the bench or to start in front of him. When Mount has struggled, the obvious alternative to his position is RLC who's injured. Hudson Odoi is the 3rd choice winger and is struggling. Our options at present just aren't good enough.

We're pretty lucky to be honest that some of these young players stepped up earlier in the season to put us in the position that we're in because I wouldn't envisage Giroud or Bats having scored the goals that Tammy has, or Tomori stepping in when the alternative was a Christensen and Zouma partnership which looked atrocious in the first games.

We have decent squad. Not title challenger squad, I thought not good enough for top 4 this season but the youngster has shown that they are pretty good so yes maybe top 4.

I don't like lamp squad utilization. Giroud and Pedro can ber very useful today. Lamp has pretty much freeze Giroud out and have not played michy as starter. That IMO made no sense. 

[Azpinator 2,325]

6 minutes ago, BlueLion. said:

There is something seriously wrong (people need to stop using the transfer ban and "the youth" as an excuse) and the manager must bear some responsibility. 

Those are actual reasons not excuses. No team has won the PL without any transfer activity nor with a notably young team.

[chippy 342]

19 minutes ago, Muzchap said:

Challenge for the title? 

I honestly wish we had started this season worse than we did.

We are punching above our weight at the moment.

We are probably the 7th-10th best team in the league.

We can be better than that and worse - depending upon the inconsistency of the players.

Titles will be 5 years away minimum...

If Frank is going to be a top manager, with a lot of money and  the right signings, he should be able to make us challengers for the start of the 22/23 season. 

 

[communicate 2,703]

6 minutes ago, Muzchap said:

The reason we haven't won back to back is because we are an AVERAGE team.

 

I think it is more on player taking season off especially Hazard. We are team build for Hazard, if he struggled we struggled.

[Laylabelle 9,535]

Just now, Muzchap said:

You can either defend or you can't.

We can't 👍

Not many teams can 👍

Nope 29 goals against so far we really cant.  Especially if so many are scored by opposition the same way.

[Atomiswave 6,117]

Just now, Muzchap said:

How? 

Play the right formation vs the right oppnent, make sure tactically we are sound, practice the lazyness out, practice corners and setåieces at both ends, motivate them more. Stop chopping the team all the time. Make sure they give their all cuz in epl its war, you cant afford to have so many mistakes and bad days and then live to tell about it. Besides we are not paid millions to sort it out. But I do give that the board in their wisdom have utterly killed this team. We are just not very good but we can def be more consistent, tactics alone will do alot, man-management will do alot.

[RoyalBlues 4,050]

At least we get one point though. 

[Atomiswave 6,117]

1 minute ago, RoyalBlues said:

At least we get one point though. 

Yup and could have easily lost too if not for Kepa.

[Superblue 6,372]

Just now, communicate said:

We have decent squad. Not title challenger squad, I thought not good enough for top 4 this season but the youngster has shown that they are pretty good so yes maybe top 4.

I don't like lamp squad utilization. Giroud and Pedro can ber very useful today. Lamp has pretty much freeze Giroud out and have not played michy as starter. That IMO made no sense. 

But that is the whole point. You've just said yourself that you didn't think we'd be good enough for top 4 this season. A lot of people didn't so overall our season hasn't been anywhere near as bad as most are making it out to be.

We've been inconsistently in and out of top 4 in recent seasons and last year we sneaked 3rd but lost our one world class attacking player whilst the teams who finished mere points behind us in United, Arsenal and Spurs all strengthened in the summer and had the added advantage of not changing managers. We've been inconsistent in the last couple of months but no different to all the teams mentioned above which is why we're ahead of them all. We are exactly where we should be and deserve to be at present which is challenging for top 4. Until we can strengthen a couple of areas and the younger players develop a little more, we're not going to be any higher or better off in the table.