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Has Lampard been as excellent as many people suggest?


Sexydadbod

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I’m. not why the hang up on the conparsion with GRs team. FL has come in and is having to rebuild, let’s not forget that last seasons team was a million miles away from promotion getting battered in both legs. GR brought in short term signings with the intention to gain promotion, it was a short term strategy that failed and has left FL to pick up the pieces.

Could he have done better, of course, is he doing a good job, IMO yes.

 

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23 minutes ago, LeedsCityRam said:

Bit of inconsistency there - are pundits saying he's doing an excellent job or are they saying he's merely meeting expectations? Or are you talking about the fans also?

Most on here expected a season between 7th & 12th and wanted a side that played more attractive football. They also wanted the average age of the squad lowering. Lampard has achieved all of these despite being an absolute rookie in management & thrown in a decent Cup run & some excellent League results to boot - its a clear 7.5/10 for me. Not excellent but certainly impressive.

Also am pretty sure this thread wouldn't have appeared after we beat Norwich 4-3. Perspective is all important in assessing the season so far, not just one rotten performance.

 

Sorry, should have made that bit clearer. What I meant is that pundits are saying that he’s done an excellent job for getting us into the play offs and playing excellent stuff when the reality is that we have been very inconsistent and not half as pretty as they suggest. Also, we have been getting in and around the play offs the last 5 years anyway so to attribute that solely to Lampard isn’t fair to some of our previous managers, when the same pundits suggested that we should have been in the play offs anyway(when our previous managers were here).

Also, I haven’t based this on the Leeds performance alone, I’ve been pretty consistent throughout the season in saying that our performances haven’t been great but for a select few.

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All he needs to do is play 4-2-3-1 with Tom and Evans in the holding positions and everything will be fine. It's like he's deliberately ignoring you.

When your nemesis Bris wrote this season off in July/August time, he would never believe that we would be 6th place 4 games into the 2nd half of the season after playing 4 of the top 5 twice. And his predictions nearly always came true.

When you play a lot of kids, you get inconsistent performances.  Who would have thought it.

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2 minutes ago, ariotofmyown said:

All he needs to do is play 4-2-3-1 with Tom and Evans in the holding positions and everything will be fine. It's like he's deliberately ignoring you.

When your nemesis Bris wrote this season off in July/August time, he would never believe that we would be 6th place 4 games into the 2nd half of the season after playing 4 of the top 5 twice. And his predictions nearly always came true.

When you play a lot of kids, you get inconsistent performances.  Who would have thought it.

If you actually read Bris’ thread, which was a bit click baity, he said that our season would have been over before it started only if Vydra had not been sold as Lampard wouldn’t have been able to sign his own players.

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I think people over exaggerated the Rowett ball thing, wasn’t great but wasn’t as bad as people made out, we still scored goals and we were more solid which people had been crying out for. It certainly worked first half of the season, though we had some luck in matches - 3-0 boro and 5-0 Hull being scorelines that didn’t reflect the matches. However we already had an aging side with no dynamism in midfield, he made us less dynamic with the Huddlestone signing, and we ran out of steam massively. The key question is where would last seasons squad have taken us this season with Rowett at the helm. My guess is we’d be around where stoke are and fans would be calling for Rowetts head.

Lets see where we are end of the season but with the appointment of Lampard I fully expected we’d be making slight steps back or standing still to move forward. I see what he’s trying to do, I see the youth being given the opportunity and I’ve seen good signings for the future in Marriott and Holmes. I’m bought in and considering this is his first season in management he’s doing a good job, much better than Rowett at stoke, Karanka at Forest, Smith at Villa 

Let’s see where we finish but anywhere in the top 10 fighting for the top 6 to the end is par, top 6 is good, promotion is outstanding. My fear is if we finish top 6 and don’t go up, a premier league club will have seen enough to take a gamble on him and he’ll have a decision to make, does he stay backing himself in another summer of financial constraints to improve the squad and the likes of Bogle and Lowe to improve again, but risk damaging his reputation if we can only be mid-table next season, versus moving to the premier league where he will have cash to spend and the bottom 6 clubs being much of a muchness being not much better than the top of the championship giving him a decent chance to get premier league survival on the CV. Risk there is if it goes wrong after a few games he risks being sacked, but he’s still employable in the championship (eg Jokanovic).

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Was doing better than expected but the test of his mettle is coming- just one win in how many games? Our traditional slump has started, injuries are biting, there seems to be an aversion to some senior players who could help. 

In old terms he passed his 11+, struggled with his SATS and O levels are on the horizon overt the next few games!

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25 minutes ago, McLovin said:

Sorry, should have made that bit clearer. What I meant is that pundits are saying that he’s done an excellent job for getting us into the play offs and playing excellent stuff when the reality is that we have been very inconsistent and not half as pretty as they suggest. Also, we have been getting in and around the play offs the last 5 years anyway so to attribute that solely to Lampard isn’t fair to some of our previous managers, when the same pundits suggested that we should have been in the play offs anyway(when our previous managers were here).

In fairness, I think I mis-read your original post & your point about pundit expectations of Lampard v previous managers

I would say though that Lampard should be judged more 'sympathetically' with him being a very inexperienced manager - incidentally, that should have also applied to Clement (and Wassall). The likes of Rowett, Pearson & particularly McClaren should always have been held to a higher standard.

In terms of style, think the majority seem to enjoy the football his teams play compared with previous years. Its true that Rowett's teams scored more but it was often 'sucker-punch' football which whilst effective, was wildly unpopular here. Lampard's team aim for possession based football with purpose - at our best, we've been able to do that but do accept we've been reliant on individual flashes of brilliance & that its been more sporadic than the norm. I don't think its realistic to expect that level of consistency at this stage in his managerial cycle though.

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I think an indicator of some sort of progress is if you froze the league table right now and we entered the play-offs then I'd believe we had a chance, albeit a small one. Last year I never felt we had one, even after the first-leg when we scraped out a win but largely defended for our lives as I recall.

Also, I've fundamentally enjoyed watching the team more this year. Have there still been some dark and depressing days? Absolutely. I still feel positive about the future of this team as long as the finances will allow the new faces we need in the summer.

It must be incredibly difficult starting out in management. If you come in to the first team as a youth player, have some great games then start to struggle a bit then you'll normally be brought out of the line of fire for a bit to reflect and recuperate. No such sanctuary for a manager, he'll have learnt so much already this year and he seems like an intelligent guy to me. Hopefully we'll see the benefits next season, if not sooner.

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1 hour ago, LeedsCityRam said:

Bit of inconsistency there - are pundits saying he's doing an excellent job or are they saying he's merely meeting expectations? Or are you talking about the fans also?

Most on here expected a season between 7th & 12th and wanted a side that played more attractive football. They also wanted the average age of the squad lowering. Lampard has achieved all of these despite being an absolute rookie in management & thrown in a decent Cup run & some excellent League results to boot - its a clear 7.5/10 for me. Not excellent but certainly impressive.

Also am pretty sure this thread wouldn't have appeared after we beat Norwich 4-3. Perspective is all important in assessing the season so far, not just one rotten performance.

 

This, in bloody spades. Thank you for saving me the effort! It's all about expectations for me and Frank and the team are making a pretty good fist of a tough job thus far. My only criticisms would be we need to show more self-belief on occasions and we certainly need to find a higher level of consistency. 

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The comparison with Rowett last season is fair enough, but I always felt that was all Rowett was capable of, he was given a remit to develop the club for the long term, bring through academy players and play a good style of attacking football. None of these he did. 

This season Lampard has roughly matched Rowett's points from last season, but I feel he's looking more long term and that this is only the beginning of a longer term process, developing our own players, playing a good style of football, augmenting our own developed players with quality loans etc. 

I wasn't expecting us to roll over the league this season, we were always waiting for this summer to clear the players out from all the other previous manager's mistakes, So I'm happy to wait and it's interesting to see how it's developing, mistakes, poor performances are all part of that.

I also believe that if and when we do go up we'll be in a better position to compete in the Prem due to Lampard and Morris's reputation in the game will help us attract better players, and playing a better brand of football will give us a better chance of establishing ourselves.

It's all opinions though, and I appreciate that not everyone will feel this way, but I urge everyone to at least give them a chance and not pile on too much pressure at this point of the season like we seem to do every year when the slightest thing goes wrong.

 

Frank's a winner, I'm confident he'll get it right if we give him a chance.

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He's doing OK. Not as good as Bielsa, but better than Karanka and Rowett. He holds himself very well, is clearly intelligent and well-respected, and I suspect he will come good given time though this is maybe more hope than expectation. 

Anybody saying he is doing an excellent job are likely to have done it after a win, and anybody saying he is not doing so well is likely to have said it after a defeat. Just filter these reactionary opinions out and ask yourself how have we done overall and do you expect us to improve?

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51 minutes ago, NottsRam77 said:

I completely agree with your post mate 

just something that made we think that u put

a succession of managers wasting millions 

tbf and if one was being critical, Frank has spent 7-7.5m quid on two players u mentioned in there, waghorn and Jozefzoon.

both in their late 20’s, while I like both and have been left wandering why waghorn especially hasn’t been given more of a run, u could argue that’s a hell of a lot of money on two players that I’m sure frank will admit are not having the impact he might have hoped for and add to the pile of “indifferent “ buys from our club 

lol overall I’m happy with things and will back him and his policies but managers are judged by their signings as well as results obviously 

You could argue his signings have been meh overall  

Keeping Vydra and not buying Waghorn, Josepzoon and Evens would have made us a better team. I don’t think Frank had any choice over Vydra going and I suspect with his lack of experience of this division and knowledge of our squad, possibly wasn’t fully involved in the signings. I’m sure he okayed them but doubt he scouted them. Now he has a proper idea of the squad and what is needed at this level, future signings will be 100% his responsibility. Fully agree with your Waghorn point, for me he needs to start every game when fit and if we go 2 up top, move him there with Marriott instead of bringing Nugent on and bring on another winger. We need all the scoring threat we can muster at the moment because we don’t look like we can stop letting goals in 

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 I like the look of what Frank's trying to do even though we aren't there yet.

I don't like sit back, absorb, counter attack tactics. The tactics Rowett used all game every game in all situations. Boring. 

I go to football for entertainment and I have more faith in Lampard delivering it than Rowett. Just personal opinion 

Has he been excellent? Depends what you expected. I kind of eexpected this. We look naive. New manager innit?

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The area where he's lacking, for me, (and I acknowledge all the good points), is in his much touted winning mentality. I don't see it. We're too soft, almost directionless at times. 

There has been the emphasis on work rate, but that's not quite the same thing as determination and fight. It appears when we're on a big stage, or chasing an important game, but is otherwise AWOL. He's not succeeded in building a team spirit imo, and that is nothing to do with the quality of players at his disposal. 

Frank seems frustrated, peevish almost, when we don't play well. I do wonder if it's because he hasn't had to deal with the limitations of operating at this level before. The novelty of being a new manager is wearing off, and he wants the next hit, which isn't grinding out results in the second division. 

I'm only speculating, thinking aloud, but I have the image of a dissatisfied posh kid, given a fiesta at 17 and promised a porsche when he's 21. Probably doing him a complete injustice, but he needs to start pimping the fiesta and get donutting it around the car park of Wetherspoons if he's ever going to be ready for the porsche. 

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For his first job in management, he is doing a great job, he has to balance the books which no manager since Clough had to do, he is bringing through some great young players, we are more exciting to watch, the wage bill is slowly going down, and we get great media coverage, which Mel will be loving, and I believe, we will be premier league in the next 3 years if he stays.

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Lampards done a decent job, no more no less. He’s reduced the average age of the squad under limited budget (raising funds through sales) and has removed the negative mentality. The philosophy is better and he has us 6th, about where expected. But we don’t look to have any discerned style like we’d been promised, certainly doesn’t seem like good football to me, even if it isn’t defensive. He hasn’t really improved on problems from early season either, like defensive organisation, stopping crosses, retaining possesion etc. He needs to start showing progress before he’s considered anything other than another average manager IMO. Has to get more out of what he’s bought in, and make sure there’s no more waste of money players. We have to set up better in midfield for pretty much any of this to happen as well.

In short Lampard has been average, as was Rowett. Rowett had a negative plan that wouldn’t work long term but he executed it well. Lampard has a better plan but it’s been poorly executed and translated to the pitch thus far

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