« SAMI MOKBEL AT STAMFORD BRIDGE
THEY say football can put years on you. Judging by last night’s team selection Frank Lampard doesn’t necessarily believe that’s a bad thing.
During the most crucial four days of his reign, the Chelsea manager’s decision to lean on his senior players represents something of a change in direction.
Against Tottenham on Saturday, the average age of Chelsea’s starting XI was 28 years and 171 days, the oldest team Lampard has selected in the Premier League thus far — and he stuck with the same side last night. In contrast, in their 1-0 win at Ajax in October — arguably Lampard’s most impressive night since returning to the club — the average age of his team was 25 years and 71 days.
After this comprehensive defeat, Lampard will feel like he’s aged three years overnight.
His decision to name an unchanged team was understandable given the 2-1 win over his old boss Jose Mourinho. And for 45 minutes it worked a treat as Chelsea’s old guard used every trick in the book to keep Bayern at bay.
Mateo Kovacic gave Kingsley Coman the warmest of Stamford Bridge welcomes with a sharp rap on the back of the ankle inside the first 15 seconds.
Moments later, Olivier Giroud won a free- kick backing into Jerome Boateng when referee Clement Turpin should have awarded Bayern the foul. A little later, Willy Caballero perched patiently on the deck, much to the visitors’ frustration, for treatment to delay a Bayern corner. Streetwise to say the least.
Yet, when the Germans shifted through the gears in the second half, Chelsea couldn’t live with them. That’s not to say Lampard’s players — young or old — let him down. Any team of any age could have crumbled at the nature of Bayern’s blistering attacks.
This loss said far more about the gap Chelsea must bridge if they are to return to the upper echelons of European football. On this evidence it’s going to be a very long road back.
With games against Liverpool and the second leg at the Allianz Arena on the horizon, it’ll be interesting to see how Lampard’s team selections continue to evolve.
This isn’t by any means the end of Chelsea’s refreshing commitment to youth. Lampard’s faith in the swaggering clutch of academy talent who have carried Chelsea’s fight this season is immovable.
Indeed, in among the thirtysomethings last night, Mason Mount and Reece James — certainly in the first half — looked like they hadn’t given the intimidating task of taming Bayern a second’s thought. Totally unfazed, totally undaunted, totally at home on the Champions League stage.
The pending returns to fitness of Callum Hudson- Odoi, 19, and Christian Pulisic, 21, will apply an even more youthful complexion to Lampard’s selections.
But, as the business end of the season beings to unravel, Lampard’s recent reliance on experience is perhaps telling.
Giroud, at 33, was selected ahead of the fit-again 22-year-old Tammy Abraham, the club’s top goalscorer this season. Caballero, 38, kept his place ahead of the world’s most expensive goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga, who is 13 years his junior. Marcos Alonso, 29, was picked ahead of 25-year-old Emerson Palmieri at left wing-back.
There was no place at all in the squad for central defender Fikayo Tomori, whose performances at the heart of Chelsea’s rearguard earlier in the season earned him an England cap.
Lampard will argue that the absence of some of his fledglings has been enforced. That’s accurate to a point: Hudson-Odoi and Pulisic were both unavailable.
But you get the impression Lampard’s recent ploy of fielding older teams isn’t born of necessity. He knows precisely what it takes to get over the line on nights like this. You can’t put a price on experience.
In the end, though, the margin between Bayern and Chelsea was sizeable.
Too sizeable for Chelsea to carry any realistic hope of continuing their European journey this season.