Laughable Chimp

You would've said the very same thing had we gained 0 points since lockdown. In fact, I'm pretty sure you're been saying it this whole time, even before the last 2 matches. Well, not exactly the same. You would've said something along the lines off, "this squad is the reason we're getting 0 points and no where near survival, Smith has done admirably to even get them to this point in the first place". I don't believe there is any reasonable scenario post-lockdown that could've happened that would lead you to say otherwise. Pretty much whatever happened, you would've still said the same thing above. Since you could always blame any deficiencies in our performances and results on the squad. And its frankly impossible to definitvely prove how much is on the players and not on the manager. To put it bluntly, whatever happened, you would've been pro-Smith the entire way. The fact that we're in "touching distance" of the average amount of points required for survival(we're not really tbh), isn't the reason you want to stick with Smith next season. Especially considering you were arguing to stick with Smith even before our last 2 matches when getting to 36 points seemed impossible in light of our form.

Samatta is(probably) the better goal scorer but that says more about Davis than it does Samatta. Davis contributes a lot more in the buildup of a chance. Fine margins between the two right now. As much as I think Samatta is crap, right now we need a finisher. Our finishing since the restart has been absolutely abysmal. And as crap as Samatta is at it, he's still probably better at finishing than Davis.

This sucked. I think I'm in the fully accepting relegation camp now. Honestly, doesn't feel so bad. The biggest reason I dread relegation was because we'd lose our best players but seeing the performances of some of our so-called "best players" recently, can't say I feel too bad about it. A lot of our current crop will stay with us and I'm curious and dare I say excited to see how they'll do in the Championship.

Samatta had been disposessed 3 times that first half. More than any other player in the pitch.

Trez has to come off here. He's been dreadful this first half. But Smith never makes half time subs anyway

I mean, we paid like, only 5m less for him and that's before he had a season of PL football under his belt. I think we can get 20m plus for him.

We're not going to sell this guy only 6 months after we bought him.

1.83m or 6 foot. Decent height but isn't exactly a giant.

Yeah, on whoscored they rate Hause as clearly our best defender over everyone else which I assume to due to the insane amount of aerial duels he wins. I always found it curious how he often gets slated here in spite of it. Not saying whoscored is right, just found it interesting. We have a couple of players in our squad who have some pretty insane stats in certain areas that rarely get talked about. That said, a big reason why he wins so many is likely because of how often we are on the back foot. I suspect if they did something like percentage of aerial duals won he's stats wouldn't look as high as that.

first off, no he isn't. Wesley's difference between xG and actual goals scroed over actual goals scored is still higher than El Ghazi's. Which means by this metric, he is a worse finisher. Secondly I don't think using percentages over absolute values is wise in this case. Mostly because it makes comparison between players with 0 goals impossible. You can't divide by 0 and many of our players have not scored yet. Lastly, I get all my stats for xG stuff from understat. I didn't link them because I'm on my phone but if you want to check it yourself, sure.

I think the overall stats are heavily skewed because of the fact thaf he played for us more in the Champ where we are going to win a lot more than in the PL(as shown by the fact that we actually won more PL games where Elmo didn't start than where he was involved in). I think the PL win ratios are a lot more important than the overall win ratios and should be bolded at the bottom instead. You'd probably find similar stats if you did the same for any player right now who had a big hand in our Championship promotion season.

Overall, not just in the video, not as many as people think he does. The worst finisher in our club is actually Wesley so far based on differences between xG and actual goals scored in the box.

Who would you have in starting lineup other than Conor? Our other midfield options are Nakamba, Lansbury and Drinkwater. Technically, we could move Grealish into CM but I'd rather keep him on the wing and that forces us to play El Ghazi. Perhaps play Elmo on the wing and move Grealish to CM?

Because he did look good when he first came in. And part of it was probably because some of us were desperate to see him succeed to show how much better he was than Wesley. I'll admit, I was one of them. That said, he has been absolute dog shit this last couple of weeks, at a time where we really need our strikers to not be absolute dog shit. Whether he'll improve eventually, its too soon to tell. But the early signs are not looking good. I genuinely think Wesley is better than him at this point, although not by much.

Being in a CL team isn't really a mark of quality tbh. The variation in quality is massive and you could make a case that the Belgium league isn't even Championship level

Gayle has been averaging something like 140 minutes per goal in both the PL and the Championship. Man was a goal machine in the Champ. Just has never been able to replicate that in the PL

Wow, I'm convinced!!

Thing with Rodgers is if you swapped their first half of the season form with the second half you wouldn't see a sniff of anyone complaining. Fans' memories are very short I guess.

I think we'll probably break even on these guys tbh. The money we spent on them is nothing in the grand scheme of things and I don't think they've done too bad overall. Certainly can see a PL club thinking they might be worth a gamble to plug a couple of holes in the squad.

Why do I feel like he is going to be our new Alan Hutton?

Conor, Mcginn and Luiz is our midfield starters til the end of the season imo. We simply can't afford to lose his set piece ability, even if he is shit at everything else.

The best worst player ever we've ever had.

Yeah, no. They're currently 3rd place. Yes they've played a game more but they could very well finish 3rd by season's end still. And they've done it despite spending vastly less than their rivals, both in terms of spend and net spend. There is no way you look at that and you think he's been doing just as bad as Smith, regardless of your opinion of Lampard as a manager in general. Like, I'm not exactly sure what more did you reasonably expect Chelsea to do this season considering their circumstances and how seemingly untouchable the top 2 are.

Nah,not having that. He wasn't worse than any of the other strikers we have right now. I don't really care that much about effort as long as they still bring the goods. And Kodjia wouldn't be the first "lazy" striker to be able to do a job. Too bad he was never given the chance to even try. Its why I defende Hourihane so much on here. Other people see a midfielder who lacks energy who rarely gets involved in open play. I see a midfielder who has one of the highest expected assist rates in the entire PL and our only danger on set pieces.