2021/22 Frank Lampard

[Simon baker]

To be clear, i'm not saying he needs to a pick a formation and stick with it rigidly no matter what, I'm saying that I can understand that if you're a limited player like Kenny then playing left back, right back, centre half, left wing back and right wing back in the space of a month might mean that you struggle to remember exactly what's being asked of you in any given situation and lead to hesitation and confusion. If you're Godfrey then playing full back, then central in a 3 and then central in a 2 in your last 3 games the same might happen. It's not an excuse, if they were really good players it wouldn't matter, but they're NOT really good players, and I can't help thinking that simplifying what we're asking of them might help them. Most of their good performances in recent years have come when keeping it very simple and playing to instruction, i'm not sure that's a coincidence.

I think we need to just copy carlo 4 centre half’s at the back for now. Mina should be fit for last 6 league games branthwaithe can play until then.

Midfield 3

Gordon DCL richarlison

Hopefully we can limp over the line to the fifth consecutive year of the biggest summer transfer window of our history.

If they appointed Lampard over Benitez last summer regardless of his unknown managerial level Guehi and Gallagher possibly Borja may well have all played for us this season and we would be safe.

 

[NathDogg]

He's tried being nice and blowing smoke up their hoops and they've shat on him from a great height, as they have consistently with previous managers.

I'm all for him calling out their lack of bollocks to the international media and trying to embarrass a reaction out of them, sad thing is I'm not sure they give a flying one and so we see no change, if he selects the usual suspects again.

He should just bin them off now, they have had plenty of chances to show they care and they clearly don't.

Tactically he is as least trying to get us playing football, unlike the fraud he took over from, but he does need to be more pragmatic.

I'm sure he's not instructing the players to stop pressing together, to switch of when marking on corners or to shitout of tackles all over the park cos they're scared to get hurt, which is exactly what we did after townsend went off injured - they were doing all of that for the first 20 mins yesterday then just gave up.

The third goal is laughable from us, halfarsed tracking and all switching off.

The palace subs like Hughes came on and just worked harder than us - they wanted to win more than we did, and are not afraid to take a kick.

Gallagher is a great little player, but he's not afraid to get caught or then give it out in tackles - we have players hiding in plain sight afraid of their own shadows. Palace weathered the storm and then earned the right to play and we had no answer with those cowards in white.

He does need to end his obsession with 3/5 at the back, at least with the frauds he has currently available.

I could get behind and understand a team playing 3 at the back with branthwaite, Mina and Godfrey playing in it, and Patterson and mykolenko at wing backs, but I can't understand a back three with Keane, holgate and Coleman/Godfrey, with Kenny or Gordon at lwb - that will never work, and hasn't when we've tried it.

For now, as under Carlo, 4 at the back with Godfrey at lb is the way we need to go, and put more bodies in midfield to protect them and be compact, to drag us out of the crap were in - he has to be more pragmatic due to the situation, but I'm all for tactical flexibility and trying to change things from him when he has to - we've had managers who were so stubborn they just didn't even try.

 

[Billy Dean]

But he did do a good job, he did get us 8th, every manager since has been worse, we sacked the last manager we had that actually performed for us

Didn't Silva also finish 8th in the 18-19 season before the board shafted him in the transfer market?

 

[4737carlin]

Not sure if i have managed to do this correctly and upload the pic of the tweet, but expected goals whilst not a perfect metric is a very good metric all the same and that is frightening. I agree what someone said above that Lampard may not be the whole problem but he is certainly part of the problem, he had a suspect track record before coming into the club and that has not improved. Anybody at Southampton will vouch Everton probably away lightly that day, I really fear for us as we are getting massively out played by midtable teams.

Our last 5 league games, we have lost 4 of them and won 1:

0 2 v Southampton
0 1 v Man Ciy
0 5 v Spurs
0 1 v Woles
1 0 v Newcastle

Thats ONE goal on 5 games and 11 in, in the cup we have won 2 0 and lost 4 0.

In the last 7 games Rondon has scoed twice and never been seen since, Iwobi got a special goal and was dropped for the next game.

 

[banno]

But he did do a good job, he did get us 8th, every manager since has been worse, we sacked the last manager we had that actually performed for us

Not really. The team he had was much better than we have now and even though not great was most defo a mid table team regardless.
He had a good start against lowly teams then the pieces started falling off for him. We did beat who we expected to beat so 8th was about par even with his anti-football

 

[4737carlin]

Didn't Silva also finish 8th in the 18-19 season before the board shafted him in the transfer market?

Yeah TBF

 

[GrandOldTeam]

Not sure if i have managed to do this correctly and upload the pic of the tweet, but expected goals whilst not a perfect metric is a very good metric all the same and that is frightening. I agree what someone said above that Lampard may not be the whole problem but he is certainly part of the problem, he had a suspect track record before coming into the club and that has not improved. Anybody at Southampton will vouch Everton probably away lightly that day, I really fear for us as we are getting massively out played by midtable teams.

Not surprised - this was after Spurs;

For the second time in three Premier League matches, they were unable to find the target with a single shot. Before this, they had managed to muster at least one shot on goal in each of their last 80 games.

 

[blueblueskies]

He's tried being nice and blowing smoke up their hoops and they've shat on him from a great height, as they have consistently with previous managers.

I'm all for him calling out their lack of bollocks to the international media and trying to embarrass a reaction out of them, sad thing is I'm not sure they give a flying one and so we see no change, if he selects the usual suspects again.

He should just bin them off now, they have had plenty of chances to show they care and they clearly don't.

Tactically he is as least trying to get us playing football, unlike the fraud he took over from, but he does need to be more pragmatic.

I'm sure he's not instructing the players to stop pressing together, to switch of when marking on corners or to shitout of tackles all over the park cos they're scared to get hurt, which is exactly what we did after townsend went off injured - they were doing all of that for the first 20 mins yesterday then just gave up.

The third goal is laughable from us, halfarsed tracking and all switching off.

The palace subs like Hughes came on and just worked harder than us - they wanted to win more than we did, and are not afraid to take a kick.

Gallagher is a great little player, but he's not afraid to get caught or then give it out in tackles - we have players hiding in plain sight afraid of their own shadows. Palace weathered the storm and then earned the right to play and we had no answer with those cowards in white.

He does need to end his obsession with 3/5 at the back, at least with the frauds he has currently available.

I could get behind and understand a team playing 3 at the back with branthwaite, Mina and Godfrey playing in it, and Patterson and mykolenko at wing backs, but I can't understand a back three with Keane, holgate and Coleman/Godfrey, with Kenny or Gordon at lwb - that will never work, and hasn't when we've tried it.

For now, as under Carlo, 4 at the back with Godfrey at lb is the way we need to go, and put more bodies in midfield to protect them and be compact, to drag us out of the crap were in - he has to be more pragmatic due to the situation, but I'm all for tactical flexibility and trying to change things from him when he has to - we've had managers who were so stubborn they just didn't even try.

Agree with this, we look more defensively sound with 4 at the back than 5. We don't currently have the players with the ability to make it work. Whether it be right back or left back or wing back, Kenny should be nowhere near the team. Don't think its any coincidence that when he didn't paly (Newcastle) we looked so much better as a defensive unit.

 

[GrandOldTeam]

Tactically he is as least trying to get us playing football, unlike the fraud he took over from, but he does need to be more pragmatic.

This made me smile mate.

You're not wrong.

But for me, him being pragmatic is doing the opposite of what you want.

We're in a relegation scrap. He's asking a squad devoid of confidence to play/press like Man City/Liverpool - "enjoy the ball"

Easier said than done.

Pragmatic first, that's playing deep, being hard to beat and hoping for a break/set piece goal to get us a point or a miraculous win away from home.

Work on the bigger picture in the summer.

 

[Lanolin]

You are probably right and if you are right then those players have no place in professional football at this level.

That's the point really, they don't. There's a very good argument that a fair few of our players genuinely just aren't PL level, and even looking at the better ones, very few of them have a record of actually excelling at this level.

I've said a few times, most clubs in our position would appoint a firefighter to 'steady the ship'. Those managers usually go back to basics straight away, play simple football, drill everybody to within an inch of their life on exactly what they need to do, play a low block back 4 and aim to be difficult to beat, work on set pieces. That's it. There's a reason why that is the default decision in this position, it's because it's what works best with limited players and players lacking confidence. It's why the likes of Moyes and Allardyce have been so (relatively) successful with that type of team. We basically couldn't take that option because of past mistakes, so we've gone down a different route. That's fine, but like I say, there's a reason most teams don't do that, and we should be careful that we don't stray too far away from that idea for now because there's only so many times you can lose 4 and 5 nil and shrug it off.

 

[NathDogg]

This made me smile mate.

You're not wrong.

But for me, him being pragmatic is doing the opposite of what you want.

We're in a relegation scrap. He's asking a squad devoid of confidence to play/press like Man City/Liverpool - "enjoy the ball"

Easier said than done.

Pragmatic first, that's playing deep, being hard to beat and hoping for a break/set piece goal to get us a point or a miraculous win away from home.

Work on the bigger picture in the summer.

Yeah, I see what you mean.

I suppose it does mean sacrificing some of trying to play out and press high up and just be organised and compact.

They should want the ball though and look to run off it and give options - I see very little of that, so do we need to go direct and just play rondon and DCL up top, and move Richy back in a 442?

I also really meant pragmatic with his obsession with 3/5 at the back tho, it just doesn't work with the players he has available.

Like you say, he needs to do whatever he has to do to get us safe, even if it means sacrificing some of his football principles, and then start again and sorting it all out, as soon as we are safe/end of the season.

 

[MACCA75]

If I am right not sure if Rudiger played that often under Lampard…

Yeah he fell out with him didn’t he. Thiago Silva then.

 

[Gwladysstreetlad]

This manager sees his contract out one way or the other (which is only two full seasons once this season is over anyway). Even if we go down this season and then have a poor first season in the championship he still gets to see the 23/24 season and his contract out as far as I'm concerned. I've had enough of the endless cycle of hiring and firing managers while the players doing the most damage continue to destroy the club. This manager gets a chance to build is own team and purge the losers from it. No more letting the wage thieves win anymore.

 

[neil999]

I think arteta is a great example of a coach doing things that look weird but given time work

 

[MACCA75]

This made me smile mate.

You're not wrong.

But for me, him being pragmatic is doing the opposite of what you want.

We're in a relegation scrap. He's asking a squad devoid of confidence to play/press like Man City/Liverpool - "enjoy the ball"

Easier said than done.

Pragmatic first, that's playing deep, being hard to beat and hoping for a break/set piece goal to get us a point or a miraculous win away from home.

Work on the bigger picture in the summer.

The main problem here is that we are absolutely awful at set pieces. Losing James, Gylfi and Digne has probably cost us 5 or 6 points from corners alone. Gordon and Gray take terrible corners.