Chelsea’s best players against Sheffield United were the youngsters
NO
Frank Lampard resisted the convention that states young players will always make mistakes and only through experience will they learn the art of defending a lead under pressure.
‘I don’t want to say that,’ said Lampard. ‘We are having those issues. It is not just the young players. It is all of us. Everyone has different reasons. Young players have to grow up and older players worry about themselves as well as helping others.’ There is plenty for Lampard to digest as the premier League breaks for international football after four games, with Chelsea mid-table and leaking goals.
They will return to tackle tricky fixtures against Wolves and Liverpool, split by the first Champions League game against Valencia. The tests are about to become harder but there is so much goodwill behind Lampard’s efforts to promote young, homegrown players and offload some of the expensive misfits who have been sitting around at Stamford Bridge. against Sheffield United, in fact, the glaring individual errors were made by the visitors and some of Chelsea’s better performances came from their younger players.
Tammy abraham scored two more goals, taking his tally to 30 since the start of last season, and is growing in confidence. Christian pulisic opened very brightly before fading, mason mount flickered and Fikayo Tomori was the best of the back four.
If Lampard could be criticised, it was for a showy substitution which seemed to play to the mood of the crowd by sending on Billy Gilmour, 18 years old and supremely talented, for his debut when the Blades were threatening.
abraham and mateo kovacic were replaced by Gilmour and michy Batshuayi, as if the manager was anxious to prove exactly how much faith he has in the next generation.
Gilmour did nothing wrong, and Lampard claimed kovacic was exhausted and he simply changed one for one in midfield, but two points vanished when kurt Zouma deflected Callum robinson’s cross into his own goal in the 89th minute. It was the ninth goal
conceded in four league games this season and it was tempting to wonder if the presence of an experienced central defender such as Gary Cahill or even david Luiz might help in these situations.
Or whether it might even be useful to throw on someone such as Tiemoue Bakayoko or danny drinkwater for 10 minutes to congest the midfield and stifle a game.
But the decision has been taken to move on from all that under Lampard.
The transfer ban is a watershed at Stamford Bridge and the stance has proved incredibly popular among the supporters because it has been great fun and genuinely exciting to see abraham and mount step up so impressively.
Identity has been restored, Chelsea are entertaining, although at the same time the balance is clearly not quite right in Lampard’s team.
They are vulnerable in defence but to switch tactics or formation in an attempt to pack protection into midfield will curb creativity up front and thus hinder the development of the most promising young players — abraham, mount and pulisic. Lampard prefers to fight fire with fire, to be on the front foot, dominate the ball and score enough goals to overwhelm frailties at the back.
When he spoke of the ‘warning signs’ he noticed in the first half against Sheffield United, despite leading 2-0 at the interval, it was concern that his players were ‘too slow in possession’ and invited Chris Wilder’s team back into the game.
The Blades deserve credit, too. They have taken their ambitious style with two up front and overlapping centre halves into the top flight and players such as robinson, who responded to missing a sitter in the first half by scoring one and making another, are seizing their chances.
‘I do get that bit of apprehension because of where we’ve been,’ said Wilder. ‘But hopefully this will be a day we can look back on and say, “We’re here and we deserve to be here and we’re going toe to toe with teams in this division”.
‘We’ve got young players like Callum robinson, Ollie mcBurnie and dean Henderson who are trying to forge careers in the premier League.’
Chelsea, meanwhile, can look forward to the return of two key defensive players. n’Golo kante and antonio rudiger are close after injuries and will help the cohesion, add character and improve stability.
‘kante will help because he is worldclass, we all know that,’ said Lampard. ‘He is obviously a big plus for us. rudiger will be fit after the international break.’
and as good as the Chelsea kids are, a couple of wise older heads can only help the Lampard revolution.