2022/23 Frank Lampard

[ForeverBlue92]

I agree with this but I’m not necessarily sure it’s that the group of players that can’t do it, more the players he’s got playing each individual role. I said repeatedly in the summer that I wasn’t sure that lampard and thelwell had decided what they were actually looking for us to do, and I think that’s been proven correct. I feel like they were originally recruiting for a 352 and then very quickly changed to a back 4 and it’s meant the whole set up doesn’t really work. We’re using gueye as a 6 who picks the ball up and moves it round and he’s quite simply not capable of playing that role. The balance isn’t right and I feel a big part of it is because they didn’t really know what they were aiming to do.

Which is why things wont improve until Thelwell gets to bring in his own manager.

 

[davek]

I worry we don’t have the players for Martinez. McCarthy was absolutely brilliant in 13/14, I don’t think people realised how good he was at the time (I certainly didn’t). We’ve not had a centre mid who can touch the engine he had since.

We certainly don’t have offensive players as good as Lukaku Mirallas Barkley Naismith and Deulofeu. We had Jelavic as back up that season, he’d walk into this team now.

Jags Distin Stones with prime Baines and Coleman available.

The playing squad are just nowhere near the 13/14 crop. I never used to be a massive fan of Barry as he got exposed if McCarthy wasn’t there but at least on the ball you could trust him in possession. I don’t trust a single midfielder we have to manage a pass off the defence safely now.

What you get with Roberto Martinez teams are goals. He's an attacking coach and attacking coaches get their reward in this league. You have to know what you're doing setting up to play that way, and Lampard isn't the man to do it. There's no way RM would have entered into a season without a very handy striker. Lampard did exactly that (with no help from his DoF and having to sell Richarlison).

If we had cash to buy a couple of attackers I'm pretty sure that with a decent CB pairing like we have we'd pile up more goals than concede them. I take your point about a screening player like McCarthy being fundamental to his way of setting up and we dont have one, but we were going for top place finishes back then and it's mere survival now...and who's to say RM wouldn't get a tune out of an old war horse like Gueye in the way he did with Barry?

I'd rather we stick with Lampard and hand him his chance to get this right, but RM back would do the trick for us and get us to safety.

 

[m hart89 efc]

He said something yesterday that really worried me. Basically that we were favourites for relegation at the start of the season. He was almost talking about us as if we were just promoted and hadn't spent any cash.

Like don't get me wrong, this is a poor team, but I found that very surprising, too far and a bit indicative of how he sees this team. As it seems to be how he is setting us up. Like we are a Norwich and if we can grind out 0-0's that's a great achievement.

We weren't favourites for the drop at the start of the season, I think we were like 5th favourite to go down with the bookies. I do completely accept we have lost Richarlison, but we have added to CB's with great PL experience, a midfielder who also has lots of PL experience and another midfielder who has a lot of talent. So there is some upside to what we have done.
I just worry that's the message he's giving to the players, that we are just looking to survive and it kind of shows. It's one thing to say we are primarily looking to survive, but to say we were favourites for the drop, just felt too far to me. I don't think Benitez would have got away with saying it.

I noticed this also and immediately thought back to Phil Neville and Moyes dumbing down expectations to make their own ‘achievements’ look better than they really are.
I also didn’t agree with his assessment of the Leicester game last week, we were awful, like really bad, and his assessment was we missed our chances and they took theirs and we played ok. He’s feeling the heat in my opinion and knows he’s under pressure and the fact we’ve not had a reaction in the two games since, we’ve actually gotten worse, tells us his days could be numbered.

 

[davek]

Thats was a great season but did he build on that? We were awful for his next two seasons

Relatively so.

 

[dannyboy]

I think the fans like him, he says the right things and likely there is a genuine connection there as we know that’s a big thing, we all want him to succeed, but there comes a point where we will want to be in the PL more and if results make that a viable choice, he will be gone, my take is he deserves half a season, so another 4 games, if we are on 20points + i think he stays. If we are below that, we have an inevitable decision I feel.

Few red flags to my eye, one is whatever about results, performences have gotten incrementally worse from Utd on onward really, Palace the exception, week to week I’m not seeing change, variance of improvement.

Secondly it’s increasingly clear we are telegraphed, managers know, play to deep banks of four and Everton aren’t scoring. The team to my eye look like they have lost all confidence of trying to score themselves.

Thirdly I think the manager want to playa certain way, pocession based football, out from the back and between lines - it’s not working with these group of players, they aren’t good enough. I think he’s going to have to have a good long refection and compromise on a dogmatic approach to his philosophy Vs results, because unless the latter start to come, he will be out of a job.

I feel our expectations as fans are very low this year, we just want to be competitive and safe, both those things are far from certain based on recent results and performences, if I’m being totally honest at the moment, am I confident in not being beaten by the three teams below us, I’m not and I find it hard to think of three worse teams on recent form. We could just be bad or does a better manager get better results with this group…..I think we’d all loath another reboot. I know I would.

My worry with Lampard is that he's limited as a coach. He needs to be more pragmatic without reverting to that ultra defensive approach we had last season that got us over the line. If he goes down that route again, we'll be relegated. It's too early in the season and we don't even look capable of nicking a goal.

The last few weeks have shown we are one of the worst teams in the league and we arguably have one of the worst managers. It's going to be a huge effort to get us finishing above 3 teams this season. There are no shockingly bad teams like in previous years. If there is one, it's probably us. How many others would get turned over by Bournemouth twice in a week?

 

[Lanolin]

What you get with Roberto Martinez teams are goals. He's an attacking coach and attacking coaches get their reward in this league. You have to know what you're doing setting up to play that way, and Lampard isn't the man to do it. There's no way RM would have entered into a season without a very handy striker. Lampard did exactly that (with no help from his DoF and having to sell Richarlison).

If we had cash to buy a couple of attackers I'm pretty sure that with a decent CB pairing like we have we'd pile up more goals than concede them. I take your point about a screening player like McCarthy being fundamental to his way of setting up and we dont have one, but we were going for top place finishes back then and it's mere survival now...and who's to say RM wouldn't get a tune out of an old war horse like Gueye in the way he did with Barry?

I'd rather we stick with Lampard and hand him his chance to get this right, but RM back would do the trick for us and get us to safety.

Last year we only scored 5 less goals than we did in Martinez’s second season when he had lukaku, Barkley, deulofeu, mirallas etc. People mistake him not being able to set up a defence with him being able to organise an attack. He’s just a crap manager.

 

[blue to the bone]

DOMINIC KING: Everton's problems run deeper than the manager

DOMINIC KING: Here we are at this stage again - a woeful Everton performance, an awful result, a furious set of supporters and apologies from the players. It is a wearily familiar pattern.

www.dailymail.co.uk

King briefed by the club so.
No change yet

 

[Leylo]

Which is why things wont improve until Thelwell gets to bring in his own manager.

To get a tune out of maupy ?

 

[davek]

Last year we only scored 5 less goals than we did in Martinez’s second season when he had lukaku, Barkley, deulofeu, mirallas etc. People mistake him not being able to set up a defence with him being able to organise an attack. He’s just a crap manager.

Scoring wasn't the issue last season. Conceding was. More goals conceded in a season since the 1970s. Scoring IS the issue this season though.


Crap manager my arse. Top 5, two mid-table seasons, two domestic cup SFs.

 

[Neiler]

I agree with this but I’m not necessarily sure it’s that the group of players that can’t do it, more the players he’s got playing each individual role. I said repeatedly in the summer that I wasn’t sure that lampard and thelwell had decided what they were actually looking for us to do, and I think that’s been proven correct. I feel like they were originally recruiting for a 352 and then very quickly changed to a back 4 and it’s meant the whole set up doesn’t really work. We’re using gueye as a 6 who picks the ball up and moves it round and he’s quite simply not capable of playing that role. The balance isn’t right and I feel a big part of it is because they didn’t really know what they were aiming to do.

It’s a fair point and one I’d be open minded about mate. The philosphey and approach isn’t working. I agree I was full sure we were recruiting for three at the back, in what ever configuration. I’m not actually critical of the players we brought in even though midfield I think has been hyped more then it has achieved, while we looked very shaky at the back in the last few games. So in a way I think your right its not all the players.

Were I think we badly misjudged and stating the obvious is in creativity, I’m not even talking about strikers, as I am confident given the right threat and creativity even with this system we could get results. We overestimated DCLs fitness, we overestimated young Flash‘s form for his development, we overestimated McNeill and what he would bring and trusted Gray too much. The combination of that has blunted us. On a side note we underestimated how much we relied on Richarlisons innititive, penetration and threat. It’s compounded by our selling and players lost in the last two windows, we’ve lost any threat, guile, creativity and penetration. It’s not strikers we need IMO it’s creative players. That’s the imbalance to my mind, I wouldn’t even sign another striker. Be a wide forward or a 10.

To my mind we underestimated what we lost and over estimated what we kept in the creative positions. Just my opinion.

 

[Lanolin]

Scoring wasn't the issue last season. Conceding was. More goals conceded in a season since the 1970s. Scoring IS the issue this season though.


Crap manager my arse. Top 5, two mid-table seasons, two domestic cup SFs.

Oh I hadn’t realised it was you I was replying to. Yeah you’re right, he’s a phenomenal manager. What a career he’s had.

 

[dannyboy]

It’s a fair point and one I’d be open minded about mate. The philosphey and approach isn’t working. I agree I was full sure we were recruiting for three at the back, in what ever configuration. I’m not actually critical of the players we brought in even though midfield I think has been hyped more then it has achieved, while we looked very shaky at the back in the last few games. So in a way I think your right its not all the players.

Were I think we badly misjudged and stating the obvious is in creativity, I’m not even talking about strikers as confident given the right threat and creativity even with this system we could get results. We overestimated DCKs fitness, we overestimated young Flash form for his development, we overestimated McNeill and what he would bring and trusted Gray to much. The combination of that has blunted us. On a side not we underestimated how much we relied on Richarlison innititive, penetration and threat. It’s compounded by our selling and players lostin the last two windows, we’ve lost any threat, guile, creativity and penetration. It’s not strikers we need IMO it’s creative players. That the imbalance to my mind, I wouldn’t even sign another striker. Be a wide forward or a 10.

To my mind we underestimated what we lost and over estimated what we kept in the creative positions. Just my opinion.

Richarlison gave teams something to think about. We've completely lost that within the squad. If you're an opposition player against us, you know you should be winning your personal battle against your opposite number.

Imagine the Bournemouth centre halves seeing Maupay start. The same with McNeil if you're playing full back. You know you can get on the front foot and push us back.

 

[Neiler]

Richarlison gave teams something to think about. We've completely lost that within the squad. If you're an opposition player against us, you know you should be winning your personal battle against your opposite number.

Imagine the Bournemouth centre halves seeing Maupay start. The same with McNeil if you're playing full back. You know you can get on the front foot and push us back.

He brought, penetration and innititive, he wound lads up, unsettled thing and penetrated into the box. We lack that leadership and innititive in the front positions now.

We’re just easy to play against because we don’t create and we’ve nothing special. Bourmouth for example, very simply just played two deep banks of four, waited for a break and scored more. Leicester were a different strong they have wonderful attacking players, Madison, Tielemans, Barnes - it’s what we need.

It’s very easy to draw to draw or win against Everton, Bourmouth are nothing special and mallard us twice playing as above, very simply.

 

[TheBigIguana]

It’s a fair point and one I’d be open minded about mate. The philosphey and approach isn’t working. I agree I was full sure we were recruiting for three at the back, in what ever configuration. I’m not actually critical of the players we brought in even though midfield I think has been hyped more then it has achieved, while we looked very shaky at the back in the last few games. So in a way I think your right its not all the players.

Were I think we badly misjudged and stating the obvious is in creativity, I’m not even talking about strikers, as I am confident given the right threat and creativity even with this system we could get results. We overestimated DCLs fitness, we overestimated young Flash‘s form for his development, we overestimated McNeill and what he would bring and trusted Gray too much. The combination of that has blunted us. On a side note we underestimated how much we relied on Richarlisons innititive, penetration and threat. It’s compounded by our selling and players lost in the last two windows, we’ve lost any threat, guile, creativity and penetration. It’s not strikers we need IMO it’s creative players. That’s the imbalance to my mind, I wouldn’t even sign another striker. Be a wide forward or a 10.

To my mind we underestimated what we lost and over estimated what we kept in the creative positions. Just my opinion.

The error was believing Gordon could be a natural Richarlison replacement when in the real world he's barely a PL player. But I also believe we thought he was only a step down at worst which is true, but one step down from average is going to be a problem and we didn't appropriately rate Richarlison as average either. At some point you have to be able to figure out what you have and properly value and use it.

 

[Leylo]

Scoring wasn't the issue last season. Conceding was. More goals conceded in a season since the 1970s. Scoring IS the issue this season though.


Crap manager my arse. Top 5, two mid-table seasons, two domestic cup SFs.

Honestly tho if he came back his philosophy was to pass pass pass we can't string 3 passes together and we've got 2 no nonsense center halfs who have for most games been doing a decent job. They would suffer in that system and I think they might be are only hope of survival imo.. were in a different place with this squad yes it's a grim one