2022/23 Frank Lampard

[kenada_blue]

The fact that you’re repeatedly putting must win in quotations marks when it isn’t even close to being what was said is quite telling.

Must win or big game - same thing. Connotes some sort of importance that there's something to lost or gained from it. Fans are gonna be on his back. We'll be bottom 3 if it continues etc etc.

Next week Palace at home will be another "big game" won't it

 

[Nymzee]

I dont like 3 at the back personally but Thelwell wrote a book on the 352 and utilised 3 at the back at Wolves. We either give the DOF full control or we carry on from where we left off with Brands having part control and part not.

Maybe Long term when Dominic Calvert-Lewin is fit he'll switch to 352 with Maupay up top alongside Dom but that would mean Mykolenko needing to be dropped as he offers little going forward and Vinagre is a LWB by trade not a LB which Myko is.

If that doesn't happen... then we're back to square one with the manager and DOF doing their seperate things which wont yield success in the long run.

I might add here though that at NYRB they didn't play with a back 3 in his two years as DoF.

Also, at Wolves, his first year as DoF they didn't use it, it was only the season after when they appointed Nuno that they switched to it. He might have wrote a book on it but it seems like he's not obsessed with that system if the players don't fit.

 

[Lanolin]

Must win or big game - same thing. Connotes some sort of importance that there's something to lost or gained from it. Fans are gonna be on his back. We'll be bottom 3 if it continues etc etc.

Next week Palace at home will be another "big game" won't it

They’re not the same thing at all. The derby is always a big game, it is pretty much never ‘must win’.

For me the Newcastle game isn’t really a big game in itself but IF we lose then yes the palace game becomes a big one. Not season defining, not a 6 pointer, not ‘must win’, but it takes on an extra level of importance. 4 defeats on the trot becomes a problem, and if that happened there’s a genuine chance we’d be in the bottom 3 after a decent chunk of games. Pretending that’s not an issue and wouldn’t lead to a change in the mood is just plain daft.

 

[Nymzee]

 

[ForeverBlue92]

8th-12th should be the aim this season which he's on course to potentially achieve should we take points from the teams we should be beating "on paper".

However the fans saying midtable is an "excellent achievement" are embarassing themselves.

Prior to last season (which we all know was disappointing) we've finished 10th, 12th, 8th, 8th, 7th the past 5 seasons in which we weren't great in any of them.

1 bad season out of 5 doesn't mean we should start viewing finishing 13th as some kind of "success". Maybe had we not brought in Coady/Tarks/Onana/Gana there could be a point to it but ultimately Richarlison aside the team is much more solid than the one that ended last season with players like Patterson and Garner still to only get better.

 

[Nymzee]

8th-12th should be the aim this season which he's on course to potentially achieve should we take points from the teams we should be beating "on paper".

However the fans saying midtable is an "excellent achievement" are embarassing themselves.

Prior to last season (which we all know was disappointing) we've finished 10th, 12th, 8th, 8th, 7th the past 5 seasons in which we weren't great in any of them.

1 bad season out of 5 doesn't mean we should start viewing finishing 13th as some kind of "success". Maybe had we not brought in Coady/Tarks/Onana/Gana there could be a point to it but ultimately Richarlison aside the team is much more solid than the one that ended last season with players like Patterson and Garner still to only get better.

"excellent achievement after what happened last season"

You purposely cut his sentence in half for some reason

 

[Drico]

I've been accepting mediocrity for 35 years. The idea that we should be accepting a relegation battle as mediocrity is laughable. That's not mediocrity. That's complete and utter failure.

I'm not blaming the manager for this, by the way. He's not the fundamental issue. Managers have little control over all of this. With us, it's abysmal recruitment, horrific governance, and self-satisfied incompetence mixed with venality, naked self-preservation, and utter contempt for the fans that has led us to this lamentable nadir.

 

[Nymzee]

I've been accepting mediocrity for 35 years. The idea that we should be accepting a relegation battle as mediocrity is laughable. That's not mediocrity. That's complete and utter failure.

I'm not blaming the manager for this, by the way. He's not the fundamental issue. Managers have little control over all of this. With us, it's abysmal recruitment, horrific governance, and self-satisfied incompetence mixed with venality, naked self-preservation, and utter contempt for the fans that has led us to this lamentable nadir.

No one is doing this.

 

[Drico]

No one is doing this.

I should hope not.

 

[Nymzee]

I should hope not.

So why you talking about a made up thing then

 

[BlueToff]

8th-12th should be the aim this season which he's on course to potentially achieve should we take points from the teams we should be beating "on paper".

However the fans saying midtable is an "excellent achievement" are embarassing themselves.

Prior to last season (which we all know was disappointing) we've finished 10th, 12th, 8th, 8th, 7th the past 5 seasons in which we weren't great in any of them.

1 bad season out of 5 doesn't mean we should start viewing finishing 13th as some kind of "success". Maybe had we not brought in Coady/Tarks/Onana/Gana there could be a point to it but ultimately Richarlison aside the team is much more solid than the one that ended last season with players like Patterson and Garner still to only get better.

If we finish 13th this season it's relative success.

Anything more than a relegation battle is an improvement.

I think we have enough in our squad as it is to do that.

If we want to be safely mid-table/pushing top half, we need to get 1-2 quality forward players in Jan.

 

[MikeH72]

"excellent achievement after what happened last season"

You purposely cut his sentence in half for some reason

? ? ?

 

[Drico]

So why you talking about a made up thing then

We already have people saying 15th will be a "success", that "one position higher than last season" would be a success. It's nothing of the sort. It's bare survival. It's pandering to the low standards set by the board. The sooner people start moving beyond their need to protect the manager and put proper pressure on the board the better. Instead, they were bought off by the board's "face" appointment last season. Just as Moyes was a tool of Kenwright, Lampard is a tool of Moshiri. Managers at Everton are largely superfluous and are used as human shields for the chancers above. The big "debate" on here is about Lampard - but he's really beyond the point. It's Moshiri and Kenwright who dictate our performance on the pitch. People going on about "accepting mediocrity" - whether that is a "mid-table" position or lower - are playing along with the incompetents above. It lets them off the hook and condemns us to ever-increasing irrelevance.

 

[Nymzee]

We already have people saying 15th will be a "success", that "one position higher than last season" would be a success. It's nothing of the sort. It's bare survival. It's pandering to the low standards set by the board. The sooner people start moving beyond their need to protect the manager and put proper pressure on the board the better. Instead, they were bought off by the board's "face" appointment last season. Just as Moyes was a tool of Kenwright, Lampard is a tool of Moshiri. Managers at Everton are largely superfluous and are used as human shields for the chancers above. The big "debate" on here is about Lampard - but he's really beyond the point. It's Moshiri and Kenwright who dictate our performance on the pitch. People going on about "accepting mediocrity" - whether that is a "mid-table" position or lower - are playing along with the incompetents above. It lets them off the hook and condemns us to ever-increasing irrelevance.

But 15th isn't a relegation battle so no one is accepting of a relegation battle if they find 15th to be a success after last season

 

[Dymak]

Mid-table is a very ambiguous target that could conceivably entail anything between 6th and 16th.

I can’t agree that finishing one or two places above last season’s 16th place in 15th or 14th, and replicating the crap performance of Villa and Brentford last season, would represent any great deal of improvement. It would mean that we are getting had off by the opposition more often than not.

Let’s face it, it would actually be quite hard to be as monumentally crap as we were last year. We really should be looking at achieving more than slightly less crap than last year’s disaster. That’s not real progress, it’s a continuation of being badly crap.