Lampard calls social media to account after abuse of Zouma

Chelsea looked to be up and running under Frank Lampard after last weekend’s victory at Norwich, but another newly promoted side handed them a reminder yesterday that a youthful team is always a work in progress. And this was Chelsea’s youngest ever starting XI in a Premier League match.

At half-time it was Tammy Abraham’s game. The striker was left out of Gareth Southgate’s England squad, but made his point here with his third and fourth goals of the season, both opportunist strikes after defensive errors.

However, Chelsea made their own mistakes at the back and a resilient Sheffield United made them pay by taking their first point from a big six team, if Chelsea still count as such, that is. Poor defending presented Callum Robgoalkeeper inson with his first goal for Sheffield United and after 89 minutes, Kurt Zouma flicked Robinson’s cross past his own goalkeeper.

With depressing predictability, Zouma attracted racist abuse on social media just as Abraham had after missing a penalty in the Super Cup shootout and Lampard again challenged the platforms to stamp out the problem.

“We have to look at social media and the platforms and give them some accountability, to actually have people registered who can be chased down,” Lampard said. “Until we get that, we are all going to get tired talking about it because if there’s no culpability then anyone can say anything to anyone.”

Lampard was more understanding of individuals in his back four. “It’s not defence, it’s conceding as a team,” he said. “We conceded because we switched off in a game we should be comfortably seeing out, and that is no disrespect to Sheffield United. I couldn’t care less that we’ve got our youngest team in Premier League history. We’re just at a moment now when we obviously need to stop conceding so many goals.”

Chelsea went ahead when United Dean Henderson fumbled a header by Abraham under pressure from Christian Pulisic, the ball breaking for Abraham to put it back into the empty net. Abraham doubled Chelsea’s lead after Jack O’Connell and John Egan both went for a straightforward high pass from Jorginho, the ball again falling kindly for Abraham to score.

But the visitors were back in the game in the opening seconds of the second half. Chelsea fell asleep at a throw-in on their right and United leftback Enda Stevens was allowed to carry the ball forward unchallenged. When he crossed low, Robinson was unmarked to score with a first-time shot. With three minutes left, Robinson hit an inswinging cross from the left, debutant Fikayo Tomori did not react and the ball found its way into the net off a combination of Zouma and Lys Mousset.