Lampard has the higher ceiling. This was his 2nd season as a manager period. Ole is a decade in and prior to that was a youth coach
Frank Lampard | Former Chelsea manager
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Defence is a lot easier to fix than attack. It seems a good strategy to build from the front (like Liverpool and City) and then sign a couple of players to plug the gap at the back (Van Djik, Allison for Liverpool and Laporte for City). They've still got Kante as well, who if they can keep fit is a huge makeweight in the defensive half.
That's a great point.
Lampard probably needs help in the defensive coaching part.
Anyway, having watched them a lot this season, I felt they badly missed Kante. That is probably why their CBs appear so exposed. Jorginho doesn't fill Kante's void; he's neither adept at defense nor at speedy counterattack.
I think Chelsea going from 3rd best to 12th best in the defense is down to Kante's injuries, coupled with Azpilicueta's slowing down.
Kante has been poor/average for two season now. Since the world cup he has hardly perform the way he used to.
I dont know what happened to him but I dont think he'll reach those levels again, specially now that Chelsea will have all that talent in midfield there will be little room for players not performing.
Interesting point, this is a situation where my eyes and the statistics don't agree. Stats say Kepa should be doing much better, when I actually watch the games I see multiple defensive mistakes and it's pretty hard to ever actually put Kepa solely at fault. Always defensive and tactical or positioning errors from others as well.
Going all the way back to first game of the season which lost 4 0 to Utd. Zouma gives terrible pen away, second is header 3 yards out, third one on one from counter, 4th takes a huge deflection. Set the tone for conceding loads of goals all season.
Looks like Kante might be asked to play lone DM in a midfield 3 next year that will try to hold a lot of possession, that isn't his position and he could struggle. He's not looked great mainly since Conte left mainly because we're not playing a system that suits his style of play.
That's exactly what I saw. I had an argument/discussion about it with one of Chelsea fans in this forum, he denied it. Kepa is terrible but in reality the defenders are also as terrible as Kepa. Obviously it can still be improved with coaching.
As was pointed out earlier in the thread, all the defensive players and Kepa the same as the season before where we had joint 3rd best defensive record in the league (despite conceding 10 of those in just two matches...). We also have loads of depth in defense except for at LB, with Ampadu and Tomori needing minutes if we want to develop them, both potentially excellent defenders.
Difference is style of play and tactical. Also think this has just been a freak season for us defensively at times, when you look at xg in the away games against Utd, Liverpool when we conceded 4 and 5 respectively or the 2 2 with Arsenal at home and then watch the games, xg doesn't really compute what has happened well at all.
And as was pointed out multiple times, it's not that we think Chelsea's CB's are world class. No-one's claiming that. It's assertion in bold that you keep getting push back on.
I'm not sure where I said Chelsea fans think CB are world class. I basically said both Kepa & your defenders are equally terrible, some Chelsea fans that denied it was trying to tell me that Kepa was much more the problem than the defenders.
Kepa this season has recorded the worst save % in Premier League history (730th out of 730!)
Here are the best ever:
Here are the best ever:
I'm saying if you had just said Chelsea's defence is poor, there would be little to no push back because we all broadly agree they aren't great. When you say the back 4 and Kepa are equally terrible, that's the specific point people disagree with, and it has been demonstrably illustrated further up the thread multiple times how much of an outlier he is in this team.
I pretty much made my point reasonable enough when I bold the original poster today. " when I actually watch the games I see multiple defensive mistakes "
That's exactly what I saw from watching Chelsea games this season. People can talk about Kepa stats or xGA stats. But with Lampard's style, his team tends to take high possession in the game, result in rarely conceded lot of chances. This same style is actually hiding the truth behind that xGA stats.
I don't know why people keep repeating this when it is not true. Chelsea concede the fewest chances in the league after Man City. And the quality of those chances is not higher, it is a lot lower than the ones Liverpool concede for example. Kepa is 20th for post-shot xG by a country mile.
You're not reading mate.I don't know why people keep repeating this when it is not true. Chelsea concede the fewest chances in the league after Man City. And the quality of those chances is not higher, it is a lot lower than the ones Liverpool concede for example. Kepa is 20th for post-shot xG by a country mile.
How is that countering my argument when I mentioned Lampard's Chelsea team tends to make high possession in the game, result in rarely conceded lot of chances? This same style is actually hiding the truth behind that xGA stats. You even brought in Man City which even strengthened my point, Pep plays total possession football.
This type of football can help xGA stats a lot but doesn't avoid defenders to make mistakes.
In such cases, at any other club, there would be questions asked of the manager as to why they didn't use the 2nd choice keeper. Unlike most smaller clubs, you have a more than capable backup.Kepa this season has recorded the worst save % in Premier League history (730th out of 730!)
Here are the best ever:
Kepa has been a horrible GK, but questions need to be asked of Lampard as well in that case
To be honest, I didn't quite understand "result in rarely conceded lot of chances" and thought it was some sort of typo. Do you mean the style they play rarely results in conceding a lot of chances? Then I misunderstood it.
But I still don't see how it supports your point. If the defenders were indeed making a lot of mistakes, Chelsea would concede a lot more shots and would have a higher xG against. But they don't. The post-shot xG literally measures the goalkeeper's shot-stopping ability by looking at the likelihood of the goalkeeper in question saving a shot based on where it ended up. And Kepa is the worst in the league by far. It is explained here: https://www.footballcritic.com/feat...-why-is-it-different-from-expected-goalsc/773
Our second choice is 38 year old Willy. Our 3rd choice is a Bradley Collins, who is nothing special at all. His options were not great and to dump the most expensive goalie in history without giving him chances to turn his form around would've brought on just as much criticism.
If we go into the next season with Kepa and he's just as shit, Frank takes the blame. Hard to blame him for inheriting the worst three goalies (as a group) in the league.
Wow that's a pretty shocking stat for a Top 4 keeper. Easy fix for Chelsea though. He needs binning swiftly.
Kepa and their defenders are all terrible, which has been heightened this season by the style of play. It they think changing Kepa is the solution to their defensive issues, they're in for a surprise.
It won't turn us into 1990's AC Milan but it will be an improvement.
Conceded little chances.
This is just an example, conceded 25 chances of the high expected goals from 60 chances sounds low xGA but if those 25 chances were involved from defensive mistakes of the 50 goals conceded then that low xGA isn't really telling the truth story about your defenders.
I've read people on here (you?) suggesting that changing him will save you 12-15 goals a year. That's not going to happen.
All metrics suggest that this is what is going to happen. Kepa's post-shot xG is 10 below average. He's 20 behind Lloris and Leno for the season. So with either of them in goal we're looking at 20 conceded goals fewer. An extreme example and I don't know if these numbers are anywhere near to their career averages (probably not) but it shows just how bad Kepa has been this season and that the defense is not the issue.
A 38 year old Willy 
You're comparing them to Lloris and Leno who overachieved by 10 odd goals. Assuming that this new GK comes in, he'd probably save you 10-12 goals, but that's assuming you give similar quality chances away.
At the end of the day, you conceded 8 goals off counters (most in the division), 14 off set pieces (7th most in the division) - and irrespective of how straight forward that save looks, more often than not, it's your defence that is responsible for that. And I'm certain a good chunk of your xG difference would be coming from counters and set pieces
I didn't say that. Quote whoever did if you want to talk about that.
Replacing a shit keeper with a decent keeper will improve a team. That's it.
I have said it a number of times now but the quality of chances argument is moot. Post-shot xG looks at the probability of a shot from the position it was taken to the position it hit the target. The latter is ignored by normal xG which is why the post-shot stat is great for assesing goalkeepers. The PSxG actually makes Kepa look better as Chelsea have conceded quite a few screamers (Zaha, Keita) that would have a very low expected value making the fact that Kepa failed to save them even more evident.
With regards to setpieces, this video speaks for itself:
Also look how slow he is to react to van Dijk's shot. In this situation he both gave away a decent xG chance and on top of that would have underperformed saving it had it been on target.
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I get the post shot xG data, but the thing is most models consider the position from where the shot was struck, body part used to hit the ball and scenario - as in open play, corner, etc. Most of these models do not consider whether the shot was off a counter, or open play.
If your GK is ending up in a lot of 1v1 situations, as he would be as you do concede a good chunk of shots via counters, you can't blame Kepa for conceding those. And obviously, your post shot xG would go down as well, as the attacker isn't under pressure from a defender or someone
Most of those bolded players are youth players that got their debuts for Chelsea under Lampard. Mount and Abraham were playing for Derby in the Championship last season. At the start of the season, their squad depth looked tripe. If you looked at that, did you really think Abraham, Mount, Tomori, Gilmour, Cheek, James, and Odoi were part of a good top four squad? These players are only being considered better now, but not at the start of the season.
The opinion of depth is being given after the matter. I think people are looking at it in hindsight for those players. The same would be the case for Greenwood and Williams.
Sometimes you have to create your own depth. You could ask: could Solskjaer have given more chances to other youth players to create more depth in the squad?
This was the actual team that Lampard took over beneath. People are arguing that their squad was better than ours when Lampard took over, but I think it is nonsense. It is only his introduction of youth players that have created depth.
Kepa. Caballero
Azpilicueta
Rudigar. Zouma
Christiansen.
Alonso. Emerson
Jorginho.
Kovacic. Barkley
Kante Loftus-Cheek
Pulisic. Pedro
Willian CHO
Giroud.
StatsBomb's model (where my numbers are from) is incredibly refined and accurate. They take things such as number of defenders and defensive pressure on the ball into account. Even the vision cone of the goalkeeper!
This is why you use Statsbomb instead of Understat - Statsbomb takes all of this and more into account.
The shots you concede have a post shot xG of 0.35 - which is the 2nd highest in the league. While it's not a defence of Kepa having let in 9.2 additional goals than expected, it's stupid to expect a new GK would end up with a positive differential if on an average the shot faced has more than 1/3 chance of going in.
And on a non xG data front, you've conceded 11 goals from corners - irrespective of what the xG of those shots was, that's on your defence and not GK!
How on earth has Lampard been nominated for managed of the year just seems ridiculous. Surely by any metric Ole has been better especially considering the position we were in when Mourinho left.
Where was he nominated?
I saw it on the Premier League Instagram I think.
1) I don't see any correlation between chance of going in and having positive differential. They could have a post-shot xG of 0.5 and the keeper could still over- or underperform. It seems that stat only ranges from 0.28 and 0.36 in the league so it's not like Chelsea are such a huge outlier. Kepa was also ranked 36/38 for post-shot performance last year and 35/50 the year before for Bilbao.
2) You can't just make a definitive statement like that and leave out the expectation of the chances going in. If Chelsea's opponents scored those 11 goals from an xG of say 4, then that would be very much on the goalkeeper, wouldn't it? I haven't seen all of those goals but I do remember corners where Kepa was definitely at fault, akin to the clip of the van Dijk chance earlier.
You're interpreting this stat wrong - you're looking at post shot xG per shot on target. This is a way to measure the extent to which opposition finishing had an impact. This metric is more or less independent of the goalkeeper. It means that Chelsea's opponents finished at a high rate, but extrapolating that to imply that the defense was at fault is unwarranted - the whole point of post-shot xG is that the defending isn't included in the calculation.
Also I just fundamentally disagree re: corners. Kepa has made fewer punches than any goalkeeper in the league. If the defence is being forced into 1v1s unnecessarily because the goalkeeper is stuck on his line, where does the fault really lie?
There were no nominations for the LMA award and there's also no nominations for the Premier League award for Lampard.
1. 46% correlation between the two metrics this season. Last year was close to 0, 39% in the season before. Just think about it - If I'm facing tougher quality chances, it's more likely that I'd concede more goals. And in xG terms 0.08 is a pretty big difference at a per shot level.
2. Set piece goals are in 90% cases down to defensive tactics. I remember bashing Mou and then Ole for this and the season for that is this can be solved. Either clearly define responsibilities of each player or more sessions on that.
Opposition finishing does not have an impact, from where the opposition took their shots, the scenario and the body part used are the determining factors here. It quantifies the quality of shot the GK faced and a higher number means that on an average the shots Kepa faced were from positions where its more likely to score from as compared to other teams.
Again, I do find his goalkeeping comical at times and do believe that replacing him will mean that you'll concede atleast 5-10 goals less, but you're in for a shock if you believe that you believe that Azpi, Rudiger, Alonso and Zouma can make you title contenders (and I like Azpi and Rudiger, but they aren't that good).
For your second point, Kepa has stopped 7.2% of the crosses faced. This is better percentage than Ederson, Dave, Lloris, Leno and Schmeichel. I'm sorry I couldn't find the punches data available anywhere. And also, I'm sorry if the GK is facing a 1v1 situation, it's hardly ever the GKs fault unless his distributtion was that poor
And