- 3 years ago
Another defeat for Chelsea sent them crashing out of the Champions League against Real Madrid. But was there evidence in the performance that Frank Lampard might have finally cracked their problems?
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00:00 Chelsea are out of the Champions League and heading towards the end of the season, they
00:07 only have one win in their last eight.
00:09 That's bad.
00:10 And Frank Lampard as a manager only has one win in his last 17.
00:14 That's also bad.
00:15 But in both his squad selection and the way the team approached the game, there were signs
00:19 against Real Madrid that they might have finally turned the corner.
00:22 Hello there everybody, Adam Cleary, 442 here, and I know they got beat yet again, but I
00:28 can't get this thought out of my head, right, that Frank Lampard might actually be a genius.
00:34 All right, so before I absolutely blow your mind with this, I do think it's important
00:39 that at first we all agree, you and me out there in internet land, what Chelsea's best
00:45 team is.
00:46 Now I've gone with Kepa in goal here because to me, he's occasionally quite a good goalkeeper,
00:49 but also more importantly, occasionally very funny.
00:52 Now in fullback, I think everybody agrees that Chelsea look a lot stronger when they've
00:55 got Rhys James on the right and Chilwell on the left.
00:58 They seem to really get the best out of the system.
01:00 But then both Kukerea and Azpilicueta, they bring a lot of experience on the one hand
01:03 and a lot of directness on the other.
01:05 And then in the middle, despite his age, I think you've got to go with Thiago Silva.
01:08 He's just got too much class, too much experience.
01:10 Wesley Fafan is probably one of the most exciting young defenders in Europe.
01:13 And then we got Badia Shelly and also Koulibaly because why not?
01:17 I'm just going to push these two up here because they're getting a bit crowded there.
01:19 Now Chelsea already looked a lot better since N'Golo Kante returned to the team, so we'll
01:23 get him in there.
01:24 And I think Enzo Fernandes has probably been the best signing of the last 12 months.
01:27 Kovacic has obvious pedigree, so we'll get him in there.
01:29 And Ruben Loftus-Cheek can play pretty much anywhere these days.
01:32 But to me, he's still a centimetre at heart, so he can go there.
01:35 Now obviously a box midfield is the trendy thing that City and Arsenal are doing this
01:39 season.
01:40 But I've always said this, why have a box when you can have a heptagon?
01:42 So we'll get Mason Mount here on this side, David Zakaria here and Conor Gallagher there.
01:47 And this will just form this seven-sided, unbeatable passing unit.
01:52 And in the wide areas, personally my pick would be Zietch and Pulisic on the right over
01:57 there.
01:58 And that leaves you with João Felix and Mudrick playing off the left.
02:00 And I know the narrative is that Chelsea are a little bit light in the forward department
02:04 this year, but I remain convinced that we can just get them in some sort of Mighty Ducks
02:07 style fly-in B with Aubameyang and Sterling and Havertz and whoever the fuck else they've
02:13 got.
02:14 They'll be okay.
02:15 Now, if you're looking at this starting line-up and you can see one glaring, obvious reason
02:19 why you wouldn't be allowed to field that, then congratulations, my friend, you are one
02:24 step ahead of Chelsea's billionaire owner, Todd Bowley.
02:27 You see, the thing about Todd Bowley, right, is have you ever seen the movie Speed?
02:32 Well, if not, then in the movie Speed, a very bad person puts a bomb on a bus and tells
02:37 the people on the bus that if they don't go at least 50 miles an hour, the bomb will
02:41 blow up.
02:42 And my only explanation for Todd Bowley is that a very bad person has put a bomb in him
02:46 and told him that unless he spends $1 million every single day on football player transfers,
02:52 he will explode.
02:53 Now, you might think that's a very silly thing for me to say, but let's just look at two
02:57 undeniable scientific facts here.
02:58 Firstly, if we look at the amount of money Todd Bowley has spent on transfers at Chelsea
03:02 and divide that by the amount of time he's been there, it does come out at about $1.5
03:06 million per day.
03:08 And secondly, he has not exploded yet.
03:12 So yes, that might be quite a silly thing to say, but I ask you honestly now, is it
03:16 any more sillier than whatever other explanation there is for this?
03:21 And I've just realised I've still somehow left out Trevor Chalaber.
03:24 Right, anyway, enough of the foreplay.
03:25 Why is Frank Lampard a genius, Adam?
03:27 That's why I clicked on the video in the first place.
03:29 Well, I'll just demonstrate.
03:30 So yes, they got beat against Real Madrid last night.
03:33 Fair enough.
03:34 But what Frank Lampard did basically was he just went, "F*** this!"
03:40 And instead he had them set up like this.
03:41 We had Kepler in goal.
03:42 Yep, very good.
03:43 Fofana, Silva, Chalaber.
03:44 Excellent.
03:45 And then we had Chris James, Kovacic, Fernandes and Kukurea.
03:48 Fine.
03:49 Kante and Gallagher.
03:50 Excellent.
03:51 And Havertz up front.
03:52 Bingo.
03:53 Now, one very interesting fact about this is that Chelsea this season have spent over
03:55 £210 million on attacking players, and they went into this game where they needed to score
04:01 at least two goals minimum and put precisely zero pounds of it on the pitch.
04:07 Now, I, as I'm sure many others did, found that quite hilarious and interesting and tweeted
04:11 to that effect, but watching the game it became very apparent very early on that Lampard had
04:16 actually got this bang on.
04:18 Now, what I mean by that is for all the accusations levelled at the Chelsea team, not caring,
04:22 not putting the yards in, just not looking interested, one thing this team has in abundance
04:26 is players who, quote unquote, "don't let you down".
04:30 Like Fofana's an excellent young pro, works his arse off, Silva's won pretty much everything
04:34 there is to win in football, he's a model professional, and Chalaber occasionally gets
04:37 accusations of not quite being good enough, never accusations of not trying hard enough.
04:41 Rhys James is the very heartbeat of this team and arguably its future captain, Kovacic
04:45 is a machine, quite frankly, Fernandes has definitely been the best buy they've made
04:49 over the last two years, and Kukerea, yes, he's prone to the odd comedy moment, but he
04:53 definitely does work hard for you.
04:54 Conor Gallagher's work rate means he's absolutely brilliant at winning the ball back
04:57 in the final third, and Golo Kante improves absolutely any team he's in ever, and Kai
05:01 Havertz was also there.
05:03 And just to highlight, these are all the players in this XI who Lampard had previously worked
05:07 with the Chelsea and obviously understands and trusts.
05:09 So why is this important, I can hear you asking, don't you internet nerds like to sit there
05:13 with your tactics board, love talking about extra men and possession and numbers and all
05:17 this stuff, and yeah, we do, they do make a difference, but first and foremost, you've
05:21 got to have players who are willing to play for you.
05:23 And the problem that Graeme Potter had, obviously, was he was thinking about the long term, he
05:26 wanted to be at Chelsea for years and years and years, so that meant keeping the dressing
05:30 room happy, regardless of who was in it or how many people were in it.
05:33 But Frank Lampard doesn't have to think about the long term for even one little second,
05:37 he just has to think about the rest of this season and thus the long term happiness of
05:41 expensive footballers is totally irrelevant to him.
05:44 He basically has to identify 10 or 15 players who are going to need to be moved on in the
05:48 next few transfer windows, and what more genius way of doing that than to pick a side in your
05:53 biggest game of the season that basically said, I don't care who you are, or what your
05:57 reputation is, or how much you cost, or how good you're meant to be, I'm just going to
06:01 pick a load of hard workers.
06:02 And I mean, it genuinely nearly worked, this team was incredibly devoid of air quotes,
06:07 attacking threat, but they had more of the ball in Real Madrid, they had more control
06:10 in Real Madrid, they created more chances than Real Madrid, they for a while created
06:14 better chances than Real Madrid, I'm pushing it slightly there, they ran further than Real
06:18 Madrid, they genuinely, very nearly, beat Real Madrid.
06:21 And of course Chelsea's story this season has been, oh yeah they create loads of chances,
06:24 they just don't take them and they give away a bad goal, but that is not what this game
06:28 felt like.
06:29 Chelsea have never felt like they were in control of those games despite all the chances,
06:32 whereas against Madrid, Madrid by the way, they genuinely felt like they had a really
06:37 good handle on it.
06:38 A win, lose or draw, that's the standard this team has now set, Lampard will probably go
06:41 largely unchanged at the weekend because the idea is, look, if you want to get into this
06:45 side, you're going to have to work as hard as the players that are in it.
06:48 And if that means that loads of really expensive, high reputation footballers are going to be
06:51 spending the next few months kicking around Chelsea's training park with a bottom left
06:55 hanging out and concy on the phone to their agent, then fine, so be it.
06:58 Like, if you've got to get rid of some people, you might as well get rid of the really expensive
07:02 footballers who can't even be bothered to work hard enough to unseat Conor Gallagher.
07:06 I don't even know why I said that, I actually really like Conor Gallagher.
07:09 And yeah, in the long run, that probably does mean they're going to have wasted a lot of
07:12 money on certain players, but if there's one thing we should have learned about Todd Bowley
07:15 already, it's that he has no problem wasting a lot of f***ing money.
07:20 Look, it's a massive cliche, okay, but just go with me on this one.
07:23 Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.
07:26 And that Chelsea team was about as devoid of talent as any have been this season, but
07:31 for the first time, not devoid of hard work.
07:34 And that, my very good friend, is why I think Frank Lampard might be a genius.
07:39 Maybe.
07:40 I mean, they'll probably still get beat at the weekend and I will look very silly, but
07:43 anyway, let me know what you made of it in the comments below.
07:45 Of course, don't forget to like, share and subscribe.
07:46 Welcome to the 442 YouTube channel, it's really good, I'm having so much fun.
07:50 Please do hit the subscribe button.
07:51 We're growing every single week, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but until
07:55 the next video, which will literally be tomorrow, I'll see you soon.
07:58 Goodbye!
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