Don't disagree. The way I look at these things, my first consideration if the team is giving up too many goals is to look at the midfield. A midfield that is inadequately preventing penetration of the final third will bring too much pressure on the back line. Hence, too many goals. IMHO, Kante needs to move to the central defensive position and stay there, patrolling in front of the back line. That's where he made his name in this game.
I def. agree, he's been a positive so far in his early days at Chelsea. However, I think he has more to offer. And bringing in greater competition will force that out of him. I will not shy from it. He either becomes great, or could stay very good. I think he's very good now, but to be great and get to that next level, a bit of very high level competition might help.
I think the YA forum would benefit from having a subforum dedicated to play by play and analysis threads for matches that YAs play on TV. This occurred to me as i read the last few pages. Thoughts? @bungadiri ? Lampard was one of those rare players who thrived on playing almost all of almost every match. From 2002 though 2007, 6 seasons, he played in either 37 or 38 league matches every year. The year he missed he played 35. He broke 50 appearances every year of those 6 except 1. That year he played in a mere 48 matches. (Taken from Wikipedia, FWIW.). And he was averaging around 10 caps a year in that period. So he thinks that’s normal. But it’s not normal. He was a rarity. Most players can’t do that. If Frank doesn’t figure that out, there’s going to be a ceiling on his managerial career. He’s going to continually bench tired players who he thinks are in a bad patch, replace them with inferior players until THEY break down, then go back to the first option. Lather, rinse, repeat.
They lost at home to a former relegation candidate: Lampard is having a hard time beating bunkers --and weaker teams bunker at The Bridge. So the problem seems to be that they are vulnerable to counters. The crucial players in stopping counters are the SBs and the DM. Emerson, Azpi, Kante. Pulisic was neither a plus nor a minus. CHO was a minus.
What so weird is Chelsea's defense was a problem in September, and then here, in December... it's still a problem. Who could have guessed?
What's weirder is that they thought Rudiger returning from injury would solve it, but today he was arguably the worse of the 3 CBs.
Ummm he just had a great match against Tottenham a few days ago. He’s coming back from injury in his second game, he needs time.
My point is Rudiger is not going to solve their D problem. They need more than that. And I think it's beyond the players.
I'm not sure it's "just" a man-power issue - although that's part of it and Rud getting up to speed might help, but to give up the amount of goals Chelski and Spurs do, your attack has to be extra-effective. Not sure the current balance is ideal for Chelski.
Frank seems not to know how to take advantage of the extra defensive attention CP was receiving the last 5 appearances. When defenses key in a player because he presents the best attacking threat with the ball, that ought to create opportunities. These young guys seem clueless about how to exploit that. That’s a managerial issue.
Well, the player ratings for the Southampton game are rather interesting. I suggest a comparison of the Sun's ratings with those of Football.London. Did they watch the same game? From the Sun: From Football.London (also, scroll down the Football.London page to see the fan player ratings):
I have my doubts that your average british rag reporter is any more "knowledgeable" about futbol than your average Bigsoccer aficionado wannabe.
"Never threatened" and "no real impact" are very close, though. Mount was ok, and except for The Sun mentioning the FK, both seem to say he was good at first and faded later. A fair assessment.
I want to agree but will need to watch replays to see if the opposition is actually marking CP out of the game or it is simply that the Chelsea attack is so lacking in imagination. If CP is being ganged up on, there should be space opening up elsewhere (perhaps explaining why Willian et al on the opposite side seems to be getting more space to work with ?). Young, inexperienced players and formation "experimentation" is not helpful to developing chemistry in the attack.
Last time I checked "never" threatened doesn't mean taking a shot that the keeper forced wide for a corner. Puli was was 'meh', but 'never' and 'no real impact' are exaggerated terms imho.
What's happening is that the attack is not funneling through CP. I don't think he has that many touches when he was on. Not sure if it was by design, or his mates are not confidence enough to get him the ball, or the defense are closing down passing lanes to CP. I think probably a mixture of the latter two.
In my view, Pulisic's play has trended downward since Lampard started playing him more centrally as a second striker. I'm not surprised at the downturn given I've always viewed him more effective as a winger in space cutting inside, instead of starting from the inside to begin with. But I found it odd that Lamps moved him into a different position right as he was breaking out. But the team's problems are more defensive than offensive. The most expensive goalkeeper of all time is very poor, and the centerbacks aren't much better. I'm not sure what talented centerbacks are on the market but they need a couple 60 million pound CBs asap.
I would have agreed with you if you said this 2-3 months ago. Now their offensive is also struggling (big time). Did you know they failed to score a goal in 3 of their last 4 home games against the bottom half/relegation teams? The game against Southampton, they managed a total of 3 (yes 3) shots on goal despite a 66% possession. That's extremely poor. They have zero offensive productivity. Lamp and his staff has lots of work to do I am afraid. They have more than enough talents to win against bottom half teams, especially at home.
That's a fair point. But at least their offensive has potential to string together some blistering games. I can't recall a single dominant defensive performance by Chelsea, let alone multiple in a row. But I agree that there are problems throughout the team.
CP touches vs southampton. CP touches vs southampton. https://streamable.com/yz4nh He did threatened and forced a good save from the keeper.