Chelsea 2020/21 - General discussion

duffer

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People are clogging up the Pulisic and various other threads with speculation and nonsensical player comparisons.

If we get a goalie and maybe 2 defenders (on top Ziyech & Werner), I think we'll see a huge improvement on this last season.
 
Squad definitely seems top heavy atm.
 
Too early for a title challenge but i think we will have enough for comfortable top 4 playing some incredible stuff en route.

Hopefully we can right the Wembley wrong in the cup like we did in 2018.
 
I think we'll still struggle defensively still next season, can't see us getting near City or Liverpool, depressingly. Both will surely get 95+ points if they play to their potential. Hopefully Havertz is coming to as another attacking option, in which case it's essential we get a LB as top priority as well as swapping Kepa out for a new GK.

Chelsea goals for the season have to be 3rd and a trophy for me, assuming we get those players in.
 
We're gonna win the quadruple mate. It's our fecking year.
 
Same targets as United this season really. 80 points, get to the CL knockouts and win the FA or League Cup. I think both of those are achievable for either team given what we have seen this season and the transfers that both are making and have made. Both teams need to make similar improvements too in the defence and keeper so it will be intriguing to see if they end up addressing that weakness. I think you could probably get into top 4 again with what you have but those improvements absolutely need to be made to make a title challenge. In a similar limbo stage that Liverpool were pre VVD.
 
I think they will have very good season, Lampard wants his team to play attacking football, adding players like Werner, ziyech and possibly Havertz, plus players like Pulisic would be too much for many teams. Even if one or two of them have bad days, other 2 can win the games.
 
I don't think their defense needs the overhaul many are suggesting. Yes Kepa needs to go, and there's room for a better left back than Alonso, but I think with a better keeper, more protection from the midfield, they will be fine. It's just hard to evaluate that back line when they had a broken sieve behind them.
 
Lampard is such a moaner. Lost the FA Cup final because of two hamstring injuries caused by too much football. Gooners didn’t have any hamstring injuries though. He moaned about Bruno being ‘very clever’ well he should know as he used to fall over in a strong breeze in the area. Depends if he falls out with Abramovich at some point, which is possible, if are to progress especially losing the experience of Pedro and Willian. I wouldn’t be surprised if Willian rejoined Jose at Spurs.
 
The Telegraph today reckons Lampard has to sell to fund any defenders, and that’s before the goalkeeping issue is sorted. Big issues for them, nice to see...
 
roonster09 said:
I think they will have very good season, Lampard wants his team to play attacking football, adding players like Werner, ziyech and possibly Havertz, plus players like Pulisic would be too much for many teams. Even if one or two of them have bad days, other 2 can win the games.
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The thing I'm most looking forward to is potentially no longer struggling to break down stubborn teams who park the bus for 90 minutes. I'm anticipating the biggest improvement we make to be in that regard, with the signings we've made plus Havertz.

I think we'll address the defence, but even we don't, and we only change the keeper, if we learn to put teams away when we have them on the ropes instead of letting teams hang around [been a big problem for us this season], the defence won't be under such pressure to defend a narrow lead or a level score for 90 minutes.
 
roonster09 said:
I think they will have very good season, Lampard wants his team to play attacking football, adding players like Werner, ziyech and possibly Havertz, plus players like Pulisic would be too much for many teams. Even if one or two of them have bad days, other 2 can win the games.
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The only thing you could say is that as its basically a whole new attack, it could take them time to gel.

There's also a chance at least one of them doesn't adapt to the PL (though not sure which one that would be... I currently expect Werner to score about 50 goals)
 
duffer said:
People are clogging up the Pulisic and various other threads with speculation and nonsensical player comparisons.

If we get a goalie and maybe 2 defenders (on top Ziyech & Werner), I think we'll see a huge improvement on this last season.
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What's the expectation for 20/21?
 
UNITED ACADEMY said:
What's the expectation for 20/21?
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A big improvement on this last season.

Far fewer goals conceded, a few more goals scored and closer to the top spot.

League position is a difficult one. If Liverpool, Man City and Man United all get 90 points and we get 89 and finish 4th, you could argue that's no improvement.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
The only thing you could say is that as its basically a whole new attack, it could take them time to gel.

There's also a chance at least one of them doesn't adapt to the PL (though not sure which one that would be... I currently expect Werner to score about 50 goals)
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Yeah that can be the case too, maybe Lampard will play couple of them in the attack alongside Pulisic.

Btw yeah this is assuming everyone will adapt to new league, country, team and manger.
 
WeePat said:
The thing I'm most looking forward to is potentially no longer struggling to break down stubborn teams who park the bus for 90 minutes. I'm anticipating the biggest improvement we make to be in that regard, with the signings we've made plus Havertz.

I think we'll address the defence, but even we don't, and we only change the keeper, if we learn to put teams away when we have them on the ropes instead of letting teams hang around [been a big problem for us this season], the defence won't be under such pressure to defend a narrow lead or a level score for 90 minutes.
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As usual FBs play important role in unlocking these stubborn defenses, one of the reason why Liverpool are so good.
 
duffer said:
A big improvement on this last season.

Far fewer goals conceded, a few more goals scored and closer to the top spot.

League position is a difficult one. If Liverpool, Man City and Man United all get 90 points and we get 89 and finish 4th, you could argue that's no improvement.
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I think next season will be exciting and difficult to call if Chelsea and United strengthen adequately in the window. Liverpool and City look untouchable but I think City are within reach, they don't look as dominant as they were two seasons ago.
 
They're definitely adopting the Klopp fix the attack first and ignore the defence till later tactic but tbf there's a lack of decent defenders out there and literally every team in the PL bar Liverpool will be competing for those who are even half decent given everyone bar Liverpool have the same need

Chelsea's goal next season will be the same as ours, up the level of consistency and record a higher points tally and try to win a trophy along the way, neither side are ready to challenge for league titles
 
Gazza said:
Do any of the Chelsea fans want to post predicted/potential XIs for your lot next season?
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Hard to say before the squad is finalized. Word is though that Lampard has told Werner that he'll be playing up top instead of from the left, which makes sense given Pulisic is undroppable. May make

Would expect some variant of 4-3-3 though:

Pulisic - Werner - Ziyech
Mount-Kante-Havertz
Tagliafico(?)-Gimenez(?)-Zouma-James
Onana(?)
 
duffer said:
A big improvement on this last season.

Far fewer goals conceded, a few more goals scored and closer to the top spot.

League position is a difficult one. If Liverpool, Man City and Man United all get 90 points and we get 89 and finish 4th, you could argue that's no improvement.
Click to expand...

That would be a very silly argument.
 
I’m gonna go against the grain and say i think despite the signings they will be off the pace compared to City, Liverpool and Utd. I think their signings are exciting and have room to grow but it’s very unlikely such wholesale changes will have a massive impact right away. I think out of the three, Havertz will be class, Ziyech will also have a decent impact and I think Werner will be the one that struggles.

Chelsea have shown that they are suspect at the back and to be honest I haven’t seen anything from Lampard to think that he’s a great manager. Overall they will probably beat this seasons tally and finish in the top 4 but I predict they will be some way off the front runners.
 
charlenefan said:
They're definitely adopting the Klopp fix the attack first and ignore the defence till later tactic but tbf there's a lack of decent defenders out there and literally every team in the PL bar Liverpool will be competing for those who are even half decent given everyone bar Liverpool have the same need

Chelsea's goal next season will be the same as ours, up the level of consistency and record a higher points tally and try to win a trophy along the way, neither side are ready to challenge for league titles
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I think a proper goalkeeper will be a huge boost to the defence and points wise.
Kepa is histroically statiscially bad.
 
Interested what they do at Full back. Obviously need more commanding options at CB and keeper. Was going to ask the Chelsea boys what's happened to Christensen? Looked good when he broke through under Conte and was getting linked to Barcelona back then but hardly seems to start now.

Would say though if they can secure Havertz that is arguably signing of the summer. I expected every single major club in europe to be in for him as I rate him that highly. He'd be fantastic at Man. City imo so huge coup of Chelsea do sign him.

Probably more of the season next season and closing the gap on top 2 although can't be conceding 50 + goals again, they're at the Liverpool in 16/17 stage currently.
 
FootballHQ said:
Interested what they do at Full back. Obviously need more commanding options at CB and keeper. Was going to ask the Chelsea boys what's happened to Christensen? Looked good when he broke through under Conte and was getting linked to Barcelona back then but hardly seems to start now.
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Obviously not a Chelsea fan but my amateur opinion is he seemed to be doing well, then made the mistake against Barcelona a couple of years ago and struggled since. Either that or he was never all that to begin with but Chelsea fans will have a better idea.
 
Damien said:
Obviously not a Chelsea fan but my amateur opinion is he seemed to be doing well, then made the mistake against Barcelona a couple of years ago and struggled since. Either that or he was never all that to begin with but Chelsea fans will have a better idea.
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Thats exactly what happened.
 
FootballHQ said:
Interested what they do at Full back. Obviously need more commanding options at CB and keeper. Was going to ask the Chelsea boys what's happened to Christensen? Looked good when he broke through under Conte and was getting linked to Barcelona back then but hardly seems to start now.
Click to expand...
Damien said:
Obviously not a Chelsea fan but my amateur opinion is he seemed to be doing well, then made the mistake against Barcelona a couple of years ago and struggled since. Either that or he was never all that to begin with but Chelsea fans will have a better idea.
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Conte dropped him immediately after that game, and never gave him another chance. It was his first real error of the season, if I remember correctly, but he was, imo, brutally punished for it.

Conte left at the end of that season, replaced by Sarri who proceeded to completely ignore him for a whole season. He's hardly had any consistent playing time since early 2018 until Lampard reluctantly turned to him for help.

My honest opinion of the guy is that he's a pretty decent defender. I projected him to be a star, but a combination of his own shortcomings and suffering quite harsh management by Conte and Sarri he has stagnated badly, and he's made zero improvement in 2 years.

He's my favourite of our current CB's but I have been pretty vocal about the fact that I think he should leave Chelsea for the sake of his own career.
 
duffer said:
A big improvement on this last season.

Far fewer goals conceded, a few more goals scored and closer to the top spot.

League position is a difficult one. If Liverpool, Man City and Man United all get 90 points and we get 89 and finish 4th, you could argue that's no improvement.
Click to expand...

There is a poster called bond in this forum who keeps using league position to determine improvement. Don't be the guy.
 
The squad with one or two defensive additions, which I’m sure would be added, would be good enough for a title challenge. But is the manager tactically strong enough?

That’s the same doubt I have for us as well.
 
Nickelodeon said:
The squad with one or two defensive additions, which I’m sure would be added, would be good enough for a title challenge. But is the manager tactically strong enough?

That’s the same doubt I have for us as well.
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Depends what the points tally is. Liverpool have averaged what about 98 points over the last two seasons although they will surely drop more points next season now they've won the league. Man. City had similar for their two title winning seasons and went down to 81 points this season which would still have won many leagues in 90s and 00s.

If title winner is between 85-90 points next season it's possible Man. United or Chelsea could get within 10 points of that. Anything above 90 and both need fantastic starts to the season to stay in touch.

Man. United with their fantastic run from Mid Feb only got to 66 points in the end so shows the scale of the task and how many points they dropped in first half of the season.
 
Think Chelsea, along with United, will cement their place in the top 4 next season. Don't think either team will be in a title challenge but the gap to 5th will be bigger.
 
WeePat said:
Conte dropped him immediately after that game, and never gave him another chance. It was his first real error of the season, if I remember correctly, but he was, imo, brutally punished for it.
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He didn't get dropped which was part of his problem, he was persisted with for the next month or so, was responsible for the winning goals we conceded at OT, The Ethiad and was a mess at home to Spurs.

He should have been taken out of the firing line for a while, constantly being played while he was costing us games was doing no one any favours.
 
Gazza said:
Do any of the Chelsea fans want to post predicted/potential XIs for your lot next season?
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Total prediction and hypothetical based on certain scenarios

Onana/Pope

Azpi Zouma (insert name) Chilwell/Tagliafico

Kante Kovacic/Mount

Ziyech Havertz Pulisic

Werner

Emerson/Alonso, Kepa, Willian, Pedro, Bakayoko, Drinkwater, Zappacosta, Moses, Batshuayi, Kenedy to leave for sure. Either sold or loan
 
FootballHQ said:
Interested what they do at Full back. Obviously need more commanding options at CB and keeper. Was going to ask the Chelsea boys what's happened to Christensen? Looked good when he broke through under Conte and was getting linked to Barcelona back then but hardly seems to start now.
Click to expand...
Damien said:
Obviously not a Chelsea fan but my amateur opinion is he seemed to be doing well, then made the mistake against Barcelona a couple of years ago and struggled since. Either that or he was never all that to begin with but Chelsea fans will have a better idea.
Click to expand...

Christensen is an odd one. Based on the stats and the eye test, he seems to be above average at just about everything a CB needs (especially on the ball where he's genuinely excellent). His problem is he is almost guaranteed to make a catastrophic error or brainfart at least once a match - this is exacerbated by a tendency to shrink from big moments and an utter lack of consistency. My take is that he's more or less actually what the media thought David Luiz was when he arrived in England.

Overall though I think he's better than Rudiger and would prefer to keep him in a vacuum. That said, Rudiger may be important to help our incoming German(s) settle (especially Werner as they're friends from their time at Stuttgart), Christensen would likely fetch a higher price, and I think between the two Rudiger is better suited to a role off the bench. For me Zouma is the one to hold onto.
 
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