Frank Lampard believes the poor start Chelsea and several other top Premier League sides have made this season is down to a short pre-season, as well as limited time on the training pitch.
Chelsea’s uninspiring 0-0 draw at Manchester United on Saturday means the Blues, despite spending over £200m on new players in the summer, have won just two of their opening six league games.
But, of the traditional ‘big six’ sides, Chelsea are faring better than most.
United are languishing down in 15th, Manchester City are 13th while Tottenham are 11th. Many have blamed a lack of fans for creating less pressurised situations and enabling freak results, like Aston Villa’s 7-2 win over Liverpool – an opinion Lampard shares.
“The fans are a factor, but I don’t know why, it certainly feels like a factor,” Lampard said.
“We went to play to Arsenal in the FA Cup final a week after the season ended. A lot of the other teams finished their season when we played Wolves.
“Then we went to Munich one week later [to face Bayern] and then the lads had shy of two weeks off. We come back in and we had double figures in isolation for two weeks.
“So it is not easy. I hate excuses because you only want to move forward, but we had new players coming into the team.
“Football is all about relationships on the pitch. It is always about the timing of the pass one forward wants, whether you go inside, or you come on the outside.
“Those sorts of things are what you work on the training pitch.
“We are now working on them in-game to try and get a lot of improvement. It is normal for results to be affected when you are talking about teams you expect to be at the top.”
Lampard also defended new striker Timo Werner’s start to life in England.
The Germany international offered very little as an attacking force at Old Trafford, having been similarly ineffective in the Champions League against Sevilla in midweek.
“I am very happy with Timo,” Lampard added. “If you go back to the game before, he scored two goals and Kai Havertz scores a goal. I am least worried about the front end of the pitch with the players that we have there.
“It is normal that it will take some time for relationships [to build]. For when we have got to put the ball in behind, the ball into feet, clearly these things are going to take time to build.”
Chelsea face their first Champions League away trip of the season on Wednesday when they fly out to Russia for a tie with FC Krasnodar.
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/2HqFEjn
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