Ruislip & Eastcote & Northwood Gazette
BLUES MAKE HARD WORK OF KNOCKING HULL OUT OF CUP
BOSS LAMPARD SAYS CHELSEA MADE HARD WORK OUT OF WIN
BOSS Frank Lampard told the BT Sport cameras he sounded like “a broken record” after Chelsea became the only west London club to reach the FA Cup fifth round by winning 2-1 at Hull City.
However, it was once again the story of missed chances when the Blues could have won far more handsomely and Lampard knows he must find the answer, as it is a problem that threatens to undermine the club’s progress and, in particular, their top-four challenge in the Premier League.
“The good news is we are in the hat,” he said. “The bad news it was a small story of our big season.
“When a team [Hull] aren’t playing so well and when we are in control of the game we should be doing better. When we play well we are a good team, but we haven’t got a finish so it allows teams to stay in the game until the 94th minute, so we cause our own problems on that front.
“It’s difficult for me, because we work a lot on it. We have people in front of goal on a matchday, but it’s not coming off for us. We have to keep working on that because that’s going to define you.
“We are always dominating possession and having 10 to 15 shots at goal, but we are not making that count in terms of goals and firm results.”
Michy Batshuayi (6) and Fikayo Tomori (64) were the Chelsea players on target.
Championship outfit Brentford made changes and went out of the competition 1-0 at home to Premier League Leicester City.
“I’m proud of the team,” boss Thomas Frank told the club’s website. “Especially with the performance they put out there.
“We went 1-0 down after four minutes through a bit of Premier League brilliance with a beautiful pass, although maybe we should have done better inside the box.
“After that we put so much intensity into it and so much effort, but we were also brave on the ball, we wanted to play. We wanted to play forward and we pressed high. We did everything we want to do as Brentford Football Club.
“In the second half we stepped it up and we should have had at least a draw and perhaps we should have won this game.
“We created chances. We dominated 30 minutes of the second half.
“We got some very good answers from a lot of the players who haven’t been playing that many minutes so far this season. More or less everybody stepped up from the first second. That was impressive and I was pleased with that.
“The fans were amazing and we showed why Griffin Park was a special place to play and what a difficult place it is to play for an opponent. The atmosphere was amazing.”
Fulham were made to pay for having Tim Ream sent off early in the match as a much-changed Manchester City side romped to a 4-0 win on Sunday.