For me personally, it would have to be pretty bad for Lampard to get sacked, a lot worse than now and if I were in charge, I'd be giving him three years, so another season after this one and then see where we're at. The recent form is frustrating but the way this league is going a string of good results would probably put us right back up there.
Lampard’s biggest problem is getting any consistency going. Looking back, any bad run of form resulted in Lampard changing things. We’ve seen changes to different shapes, 3 at the back, 4/3/3 or 4/2/3/1 variants, these system changes were often combined with new players coming in, squad players that hadn’t played much, coming in with a new system to give us fresh impetus to get going again. Is that sustainable though?
I’ve always said on here that after a while, opposing teams at this level clock onto playing patterns, themes and styles and as a season passes, this makes matches more difficult. I saw someone say on social media the other day, that if we think our current attacks are predictable and cross, cross, cross. What must the scouting networks and coaches of other Premier League teams see?
What’s the answer then? Does Lampard need to change it again? No. For me, what’s more important is finding that fresh impetus with the same system. Just because the opposition knows your identity and playing style, it doesn’t mean you can’t keep evolving and improving that style and keep the players ticking over. You can try different things within that system, new moves, use different players, look at the opposition’s weaknesses etc.
Firstly, tactically on paper Lampard could improve some selections within the system. Werner left-wing? Kovacic playing the attacking midfield role? We’ve seen also seen too much of Kovacic, Jorginho and Kanté playing together and as I’ve said before that is never a good thing. The two attacking people midfielders need to be able to play at pace, run at people, play between the lines, pick a pass, take a shot, Havertz and Mount can do a lot of that but Kanté and Kovacic can’t. Why play them there then? For me, there’s always a direct correlation between the amount Kanté, Kovacic and Jorginho play together and the passiveness and predictability in our football.
Tactically, those personnel choices are alarm bells for me however more importantly fresh impetus can be given in other ways, man-management, motivation, squad management, better analysis of the opposition etc, there are a million ways it can be done and that’s why Klopp is such a good manager for example. A lot of people are criticising Lampard tactically at the moment but more important perhaps is Lampard’s management of the players. Players in wrong positions, Werner playing every minute of every single game in a position that’s more demanding, his failure to use certain players that he sweeps aside for too long, last season the constant changing of the centre backs, Mount’s mismanagement with position and game time. If you want to play two attacking midfield players, why the hell is Barkley out on loan? Why can’t some of the youth players be used more when we’re missing players in certain positions? His stint at Chelsea so far has had a lot of those decisions, he simply isn’t getting the best out of some of these players because at times he mismanages them. It’s not just Werner and Mount, there are other significant examples.
For me, our football goes stale, not always because it’s a tactical thing, it’s the fact that the players are mismanaged as well and it’s a lot more difficult to get that fresh impetus and to keep players ticking over when that happens.