2022/23 Frank Lampard

[davek]

It’s down to key errors as well.

Gueye’s sloppiness has seen us punished twice. Iwobi trying to dribble past the best defensive mid in the world. Coleman refusing to challenge a back post header last night. Kane’s dive against us. Gray and Onana missing the target against Spurs.

At the moment we’re getting killed for nearly every single mistake we make. We give the ball away and before we know it someone is curling in a worldie.

The manager can only do so much. We’ve had chances and good positions in all games but we’re being edged out because the forward players don’t have enough conviction with their chances and we’re being ruthlessly punished at the other end.

We’ve probably given away less chances in the three losses than some teams give away in a whole game that they end up winning.

Stop the errors in possession and take a chance or two against Palace and we’re not losing.

Lampard needs a turn in luck as well. Would be nice if an opposition striker put a chance wide for once against us rather than this run of perfect finishing we seem to have against us.

I think the errors mount up when your team is not getting goals. If we struggle to create and score, midfielders try to do too much and defenders become tentative.

The manager's error has not been so much his preparation for games or tactics but his failure to spend cash well (McNeil after Richarlsion went was a calamity) and demand reinforcements up front. If you're a manager of Everton and you look at your team for the next 4/5 months before the window opens again and you feel that Rondon + Calvert-Lewin + Maupay is going to be ok and get us out of a hole then that is a serious error of judgement.

 

[CrabbyPaddy]

I don’t really understand that. Surely the wide players in the front of a 433 are by definition wingers?

442 or 352 you’re playing with wide midfielders as opposed to wingers.

By definition they are, but technically I don’t think that’s the case.

Using the s**** across the park as an example, I wouldn’t consider the likes of Salah, Mane and Jota etc as wingers. I think the 433 system suits left and right sided forwards (for example Richy) rather than wingers.

To me, Gordon and Gray would be classed as wingers because as soon as they receive the ball, they run to the byline and try to find DCL. On the other hand, a forward would primarily be trying to score or least find a way to.

I think that’s our problem, we’ve no threat from the channels. I honestly think 442 would suit our set up more than 433 at the moment due to personnel.

 

[davek]

A sign of improvement would have been gaining a point last night. If we could not win the game, then don't lose it. You can't take each game in isolation like that though either but they add up over the course of a season.

This team puts extraordinary pressure on itself to win particular types of games - mostly at home against sides outside of the Top Six, and this weekend is another case in point for that.

We have to be nicking points elsewhere, like last night as we sure as hell aren't going to win all of the "must-win" fixtures, and we haven't already.

I see a slight improvement relative to last season but only slight, and part of that is still dependent on other sides being relatively weaker than last season.

There isn't any real concrete evidence of a sustained, progressive improvement at all though, one that can be relied upon and gives us performances and results with a relative degree of consistency, assuming we are a lower-half side. You could argue very justifiably that such a side can therefore expect 0 points from the last three fixtures but I would disagree with that. 2 points or even one would be better than nothing. It's what keeps the total ticking over and doesn't turn the weekend into another nerve-jangling cup-final of sorts.

Newcastle last night apart from a 15 minute spell before the break were pathetic. They were there to be beaten not just to take a point off.

They wanted that game to end at HT because they were clueless and had nothing else to offer. We dominated long spells of that game because Newcastle stood off us, but we had no intelligent movement to exploit it.

 

[derek duvall]

We had this conversation the other day. There are very few 'must win' games at any stage of the season, but it's not difficult to understand that the longer you go without putting a good run of results together, the more pressure will build. 2 wins out of 11 isn't good, it's very much in 'questions are going to be asked' territory, at some point those questions have to be answered, by winning games and getting points on the board.

I can't stress enough, I would only sack Lampard if things look seriously dire, because I think more upheaval is the last thing we need. I don't agree with just constantly defending everything he does and making out like everyone who isn't convinced is a bedwetter though, because I think at the moment the best you can say about the job he's done overall is that it's 'OK'. There are positives for sure, and if he can put some good runs together then that will obviously change, but currently the narrative that he's doing a really special job is genuinely bizarre.

Excellent post

 

[chazzle_dazzle]

We had this conversation the other day. There are very few 'must win' games at any stage of the season, but it's not difficult to understand that the longer you go without putting a good run of results together, the more pressure will build. 2 wins out of 11 isn't good, it's very much in 'questions are going to be asked' territory, at some point those questions have to be answered, by winning games and getting points on the board.

I can't stress enough, I would only sack Lampard if things look seriously dire, because I think more upheaval is the last thing we need. I don't agree with just constantly defending everything he does and making out like everyone who isn't convinced is a bedwetter though, because I think at the moment the best you can say about the job he's done overall is that it's 'OK'. There are positives for sure, and if he can put some good runs together then that will obviously change, but currently the narrative that he's doing a really special job is genuinely bizarre.

This is a good post mate.

I think it’s fine to criticise lampard too without wanting him sacked, for example I do find his ingame management and subs particularly baffling at times, but at the same time we can’t blame him for players being awful.

He should be praised when he gets it right, but in reality he’s done a alright job and nothing more. My worry about him when we were getting him was would he be a good enough tactician and mix things up when it’s not going right.

 

[Stevie Nicks Bootleg]

They were away from home though. It was only Forest at home that we really missed an opportunity.

Well if that's the case then we play 3 out of 4 of those teams at home in the 2nd half of the season, which i'd prefer anyway.

The time to worry is when we’re losing to bottom half teams at home as they’re absolute killers for us. Losing to top half teams away, whilst painful, is really not what our survival is going to be based on.

It doesn't necessarily work like that though- our record vs the rest of the bottom 8 last season, was actually very poor and hardly the key reason we stayed upc, (whereas we had a half-decent record vs four of the top 6). Same as this season, your post earlier about teams below/around us will be losing to all the top teams won't happen either and hasn't (that's why Leeds & Soton beat Chelsea, Villa drew with City, Bournemouth drew with Newcastle, etc- there'll be loads more results like this from now till the end of the season).

 

[derek duvall]

There’s signs of improvement no doubt. We knew work was needed at the top end of the pitch and that hasn’t changed. If i was Lampard I’d be looking at a formation or personnel change in midfield to give us a bit more going forward. Maybe try McNeill Maupay or Iwobi in the ten behind Dominic Calvert-Lewin with the wingers outwide.

We can’t be so fickle though that a few games ago this bloke was walking on water and because he’s lost to United Spurs and Newcastle (two of them away) he’s suddenly useless and we’re getting relegated? We can’t be this knee jerk.

The fixtures came at a bad time for us and these double header away games hack me off when you see other teams get to build momentum with two easy games at home. I’ve alway said they’re unfair and we’re seeing more and more of them cropping up in the calendar.

We really needed a few games against the teams around us at home to build some confidence but aside from Forest it’s been top 6 sides at home along with West Ham.

We’ve taken points in games against Leeds Brentford West Ham Southampton so there’s no reason why we can’t start picking up some points out of the fixtures we have coming up.

We just need a flaming day off from playing the top 6 or difficult away games back to back and eroding all confidence from a fragile group.

Beat Palace and we can stop panicking. Fixtures have not been kind though. We were a lower end bottom half team and this difficult start has probably just drained all confidence away (we’d have even had Arsenal away in there as well if it wasn’t postponed). There’s a lot of teams worse off than us who have had far worse results than us and I can’t see any of them picking up points away at Spurs Newcastle or at home to Chelsea Liverpool United.

Blaming the fixtures?! We had Villa, Forest, Brentford and Leeds and in succession. That was our chance to get decent points on the board and build confidence but we got a 3 points out of 12.

 

[Sharpies volley]

Newcastle last night apart from a 15 minute spell before the break were pathetic. They were there to be beaten not just to take a point off.

They wanted that game to end at HT because they were clueless and had nothing else to offer. We dominated long spells of that game because Newcastle stood off us, but we had no intelligent movement to exploit it.

This is spot on. Again we shoot ourselves in the foot. We'd quietened the crowd, were controlling the game, Onana falls over, they go up the other end, Mykolenko is static and doesn't close Almiron down allowing him to pick his spot. They score and we control the game from then on without creating one single chance. It's utterly frustrating.

 

[LocalNative]

This is spot on. Again we shoot ourselves in the foot. We'd quietened the crowd, were controlling the game, Onana falls over, they go up the other end, Mykolenko is static and doesn't close Almiron down allowing him to pick his spot. They score and we control the game from then on without creating one single chance. It's utterly frustrating.

Think the fact it then took 70mins for us to make a change compounded the misery altogether. Even then it was all like-for-live changes, rather than really throwing the kitchen sink at them we settled for a 1-0 defeat.

 

[Sharpies volley]

I'd seriously consider playing 442 on Saturday. Back 4 how it is. Play Gueye and Onana in the middle with Mcneil wide on one side and Iwobi wide the other, both playing as wide midfielders rather than out and out wingers that way they'll nullify their wingers and are able to come inside to support the midfield 2. Then DCL and Maupay up front to give their defense something to worry about. Back to basics.

 

[davek]

This is spot on. Again we shoot ourselves in the foot. We'd quietened the crowd, were controlling the game, Onana falls over, they go up the other end, Mykolenko is static and doesn't close Almiron down allowing him to pick his spot. They score and we control the game from then on without creating one single chance. It's utterly frustrating.

They managed to turn up the heat for a few minutes before HT, stretched us, and the game was over. We could have played for another 90 minutes and not mustered a decent chance.

That cant be right.

 

[Stevie Nicks Bootleg]

This is spot on. Again we shoot ourselves in the foot. We'd quietened the crowd, were controlling the game, Onana falls over, they go up the other end, Mykolenko is static and doesn't close Almiron down allowing him to pick his spot. They score and we control the game from then on without creating one single chance. It's utterly frustrating.

They allowed us the ball in the 2nd half and got the cigars out after about 46 minutes.

 

[ClausThomsen]

The reason XG annoys me personally is that people use it instead of watching games because they want to seem all knowing.

I was surprisingly impressed with the commentator Townsend last night because he had clearly watched us play and knew what Onana was all about for example.

So often I get into conversations with people who think they know what we are because of statistics and it’s just not the same as watching the game.

This season, versus last, the biggest improvement I’ve seen is that apart from versus Brentford, I’m not scared when we defend, especially from set pieces which were all terrifying last season. You don’t get that secure/nervous feeling from stats, only from actually watching the game. The other big difference is that without Richie we have no X factor up top and create nothing and other teams are happy to sit off because they know we won’t break them down.

That’s a conversation I like to have, not ‘oh have you seen we have a better defending xG and worse attacking xG compared to last season?’. I do data analytics in my job not for my hobby!

Precisely why I say there's a context for it. It's the same as people seeing we conceded fewer goals than other teams and deciding Lampard had made us a defensively sound unit - misinterpretation of or misleading statistics.

 

[Billy Dean]

People will think we should expect to beat most teams, and to an extent they're right to do so. It was always going to be a difficult game but we need to be careful that we don't extend our 'expected losses' to cover half the league and that's the way it's going. 7 teams is more than a third of the league, writing off games against all of them is just not acceptable, and will almost certainly lead to relegation.

Nobody suggested we should walk all over them. They're a decent side, but they're not so good that we shouldn't expect to go there and cause them some problems. Your carefully curated stats were quick to mention them not losing to City but the fact that Palace and Bournemouth got draws there was conspicuous by it's absence.

It isn't half the league. The last 3 games have been against top 6 teams.

 

[zook]

He has to play someone at full back who's willing to actually go forwards.

The combination of Mykolenko and Coleman has been absolutely horrendous since Patterson's injury.