2022/23 Frank Lampard

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In Coady and Tarks we have 2 kinda old school defenders.

As a lad you are taught to get rid, I think thats a factor, im sure they are both telling people to just get rid, hence the rise in conceded corners.

As long as we continue to defend them, its not an issue.
They are solid defenders but even more important I think both are leaders.

For the last few seasons we were a club with few leaders and the team reflected that. Coleman apart I can't really think of anyone that could be relied on to drive the team forward and for other players to look up to.

Coady and Tarkowski both offer that leadership.
 
They are solid defenders but even more important I think both are leaders.

For the last few seasons we were a club with few leaders and the team reflected that. Coleman apart I can't really think of anyone that could be relied on to drive the team forward and for other players to look up to.

Coady and Tarkowski both offer that leadership.
I just love the way Tarks will go to battle for any and all his team mates.
 
Same with us really.

We have conceded 1 more goal than Arsenal currently.
We're scoring enough right now that we can grind the points out, if we keep defending like this. They're not. Getting blanked four times in seven times out is scary stuff. We're at least getting on the scoresheet against the non-Sky-6 clubs, and if a club does that consistently and defends well things turn out fine.
 

The season we finished 4th we only scored 45 but only conceded 46.

Saints who finished 20th that season also scored 45.

Be nice to score more but defence comes first. Keeping it tight means we only need 1 goal to win a game.
I don't think this is a good way to think about the underlying math. It would be easier to explain if I could talk about partial derivatives and probability a bit, but you'll fall asleep or walk off if I do, so I have to take a stab at it in plain English.

Zero goals conceded probably keeps you up even if you never score. In general, adding goals when you're barely conceding does more work than being tighter at the back, since a win is worth two extra points. It doesn't much help if you just pile on against weaker sides you already scored against, though. The only goals that actually matter are the tying one, and the winning one. The rest provide no points return. They just break ties in the points standings at the end of the season.

Not scoring a lot and not conceding much exposes you to less risk of variance than scoring loads and conceding loads, but that isn't necessarily a good thing since a win counts three times as much as a draw. This is why there's more or less a minimum threshold for scoring goals in order to stay up, unless the defense is very stingy indeed.

The result is that a club needs both, and that it's often easier to stay up as a Leeds last season scoring north of forty but horking up almost twice as many, than it is to stay up as a Burnley that scored eight fewer but vastly outperformed Leeds in their own end. If you don't score, you're depending on either other clubs being abject at the back or being a little lucky in the fixtures the goals land in, in order to stay up.

Once you jump over the minimum scoring threshold, yes, adding defense tends to result in more points. The first problem is jumping over that scoring hurdle, though.
 
The thing that gives me confidence in Frank is listening to him on the High performance podcast. I recently had a bit of time on my hands and listened to his initial appearance on the podcast from about 3 years ago when he was at Chelsea and his follow up during the post season this year.

Have to say he comes across as a guy that has learned and evolved massively from one podcast to another and I think that is all you can ask of a manager at his stage. He has surrounded himself with top coaches and brains who can guide him on various things but he seems like an intelligent guy that gets the players perspective (which is huge in modern football) and he is working on himself as much as others around him.

If I had one criticism so far it would be the tactical subs but I think his in game management will improve as he knows more about our squad and more about what each player can bring us from the start or off the bench
This is what I believe - FL has not previously had the opportunity to bring in with him who he wanted as backroom staff and/or it was forced upon him and/or he did he did not have the funds or clout made available...except at Chelsea but I think he was expected to simply step in and utilise the squad he had.

I think if he had been given more time and the manner he was bringing on younger players he may have been a success. However, Chelsea want it all and want it now.

We have given him an opportunity to build something akin to his own ethos hence it's now down to him...and I sincerely hope he is here for the long term
 

Does it matter if we concede corners if we defend them like iron? It's hard to say if we're just getting lucky on the sample size, or if we're simply an unusually well-organized and disciplined defense against set pieces.

I don't think it's realistic to expect that we're going to completely boss midfield with Iwobi, Gana and a 21-year-old starter in Onana. Official league stats from the website show that Chelsea earned sixteen with Jorginho and Kante (with no Gana and Onana not even yet a thought), West Ham earned 14 with Rice and Soucek, Liverpool earned nine and Villa earned eight. The remaining three fixtures, against midfields we should boss (even without Gana) resulted in nine corners total.

That's a total of 56 by my count, by the way. It's high by league standards, but it boils down to us having two big outlier games against strong midfields, and in one of them we sat back and defended for our lives all game with no recognized striker on the pitch. As we start playing more of the weaker midfields, the average rate at which we have conceded corners should start to decline.

I hope you are correct as we go forward. I was brought up on the first line of defence being the centre forward - having to defend 56 or 66 corners in 7 games is not a good stat - thankfully the defence has dealt very well.

They should not have had to deal with that many however!
 
On another point mate - WHU certainly have more quality up top however...

I would have Pickford over their keeper

Our defence is better than theirs and the stats show it.

Onana/Gana/Iwobi better than their midfield who Rice aside aint up to much - Soucek is getting pelters from their mob in recent weeks.

Overall we're the stronger side which is testament to a fantastic job Big Kev Thelwell did in the summer.

No Keane/Coleman/Gomes/Kenny holding us back - time to look forward.

I would go one step further and say we're 1-2 attacking players away from being in a position where we should be challenging for those top 7 spots.

Superb avoidance of giving ‘Fronk’ any credit whatsoever, bravo sir ???

You must have been gutted he got that first win Sunday, as you’d have been straight on bleating about how much pressure he’s under.
 
Superb avoidance of giving ‘Fronk’ any credit whatsoever, bravo sir ???

You must have been gutted he got that first win Sunday, as you’d have been straight on bleating about how much pressure he’s under.

Why would I give credit to the manager for the DOF doing bits in the market ?

Lampard just needs to keep getting 3 points thats his remit as the manager.
 

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