Honeymoon is over as Lampard worries pile up
Coach wants Chelsea to be ‘braver’ after toothless display, by Tom Morgan at Stamford Bridge
Unlike other former playing greats in management, Frank Lampard is too kind in nature to adopt the Glenn Hoddle approach of lacing up the old boots and firing off 30-yard screamers at training today to show his players how it is done.
Lampard refused even to discuss his own playing achievements on Saturday, realising it was the last thing Willian, Mason Mount and Christian Pulisic needed to hear after another worryingly unimaginative Stamford Bridge display – this time leading to a 1-0 defeat by injury-ravaged Bournemouth.
Earlier, however, the head coach’s twitches from the touchline had said it all. During the countless times play broke down in the final third, Lampard would spin on his heels, muttering under his breath. The area of his greatest playing expertise is suddenly where Chelsea are now desperately falling short.
From ruthless to toothless in the space of little more than a month, and Lampard says he must make his players more brave “collectively and as a group”. “On a day like today you do need players who can maybe break that moment, that half-chance,” he said. “The whole stadium felt like it was slightly flat; sometimes you say, ‘OK, the responsibility is on the player.’”
Lampard said it had been previously “clear we are creating too many chances we are not taking”, but on Saturday all too few openings were created by the likes of Pulisic, Mount and Willian.
It says it all that last year, in the same fixture at Stamford Bridge, Eden Hazard was more effective than those three combined. As well as scoring Chelsea’s second goal in a 2-0 victory, the Belgian dominated the final third, with 57 passes on target and nine dribbles. In contrast, Mount, Pulisic and Willian managed just 52 successful passes altogether, three dribbles and a solitary effort on target.
Lampard has always maintained his young players can only take him so far and he has told Roman Abramovich he will need to spend