Since we bought gana, garner and Onana our core formation has been 4 at the back with 3 in front. We shifted to 3 at the back v spurs during the game.
I would say those 3 players (and tarkowski and coady) have had a significant impact on our preferred formation and tactics. And those players were only available at the end of the transfer window.
Since then we’ve played 7 games. Won 3, lost 3 and drawn 1.
A) id argue that 7 games isn’t enough to implement changes to approach given the change in personnel and preferred formation.
B) even if it were enough, the 3 games we lost were not games we should be upset at losing given where we are (spurs and United are miles ahead and Newcastle at away is a tough fixture - look at their record over the last 12 months)
Effectively, we are quite clearly a work in progress, have had significant changes to personnel which has had an impact on preferred formation which in turn has meant limited real world experience (Ie matches) of implementing preferred tactics and approach.
To even compare the team now to the beginning of the season, let alone lampard’s entire reign, is useless if you ignore the context and clear shifts in circumstances (Ie ‘regime shifts’).
It’s especially ridiculous to ignore the context of where we were when he came in. He’s even said explicitly that he couldn’t work on the things he wanted to last year because we were in a relegation battle. So he’s only really started this year and even then it’s been impacted by personnel changes.
