MY JOB TO LIFT BLUES

Lampard is learning a lot about his young players and admits he must pick them up after dismal run

FRANK LAMPARD accepts it is his job to lift his Chelsea players again – having hung them out to dry for the Boxing Day defeat to Arsenal

There is no respite for him or his team as they head into tonight’s trip to Villa Park on the back of three defeats in the last four games.

L ampard ra i s e d eyebrows with his criticism of his men following the 3-1 defeat, but the former England midfielder was adamant the ultimate responsibility lies with them.

He said: “The players have to make it different. The message is clear. The basics are to run and to sprint and the players have to do that on the pitch.” The one silver lining to the current run of results is the Chelsea manager feels he is discovering a good deal about his squad.

“I learn about the players and the players have to learn about themselves,” said Lampard. “Some of them are young and some of them are new to the Premier League and these tough times are things we will have to go through. “When you lose a couple of games things become a lot tougher and the only way out of it is to fight and work hard. That’s what I will be instilling in the players – that idea – because it’s the only way that you get out of what’s a difficult little period for us.” Although Chelsea beat West

Ham 3-0 a week ago, they had lost their previous two matches, at Wolves and Everton.

Despite the current poor spell, Lampard remains convinced that he has what he needs within his squad to rebuild and turn Chelsea into genuine challenger for the top of the table.

He said: “It’s a case of staying strong mentally and bringing back the good basics to get you back on that run, because we have a talented squad.

“There’s a lot of uplift in it but you have to keep hitting and hitting the basics day in day out. The few defeats we had recently are because we dropped off.

“The players have dropped off a level. My job is to pick it back up.”