Frank
Lampard sat down with Jamie Redknapp in the Sky Sports Match Zone to open up
on his Chelsea philosophy ahead of Sunday's match against his former manager
Jose Mourinho, live on
Sky Sports.
Lampard will take his young Chelsea side, who are currently fourth in the
Premier League but on a run of three defeats from their last four, to
Tottenham to face Mourinho's rejuvenated Spurs live on Sky Sports Premier
League from 4pm this Sunday; Kick-off at 4.30pm.
The Blues, and their manager, have enjoyed plenty of praise for their
performances despite a summer transfer ban imposed on the club, and Lampard
sat down with Redknapp and Sky Sports to assess the season so far - and what
he's trying to get out of his fledgling squad.
You've had 17 games as Chelsea manager,
how's it going?
Good, could be better. We had a difficult start, which I expected and is
understandable because you're trying to get different methods across and
work hard in pre-season. The good run we had felt great, they used a lot of
the messages we were trying to get across and the players controlled a lot
of games and were getting wins.
Then recently, we've had a tough time. It's something I expected and it's a
challenge. Sometimes you find out more about yourselves in those periods and
we're in that phase.
So far you've been beaten by Everton, West
Ham and Bournemouth, teams that play with a low block and packed defences.
What have you found difficult about that?
That's probably where we've had our problems recently, particularly at
Stamford Bridge where our home form has not been great, the teams have set
up with a low block and how we've tended to be, which is what we regularly
play with, is having two wingers and the striker with Tammy (Abraham) there
generally.
We've changed a little bit for different games and that generally depends on
personnel and that's whether you decide to put Mason (Mount) in the No 10
role and give them a problem behind their midfield or you go either side and
you try and get behind them slightly to the side with one pivot behind.
What I don't mind is having this fluidity with how we play. With the
midfield players we have, they have the ability to play in different
positions. The problem we've had recently, which has been the disappointing
thing from my point of view, is that there have been two lines and you have
to break the lines.
At times, that means making run after run, making them from behind and it's
easy to get into a safe phase of playing in front of that block. I'm not
saying we've done that all the time but when we're breaking those lines, you
have to be relentless.
You mentioned about your players being
brave with passing last week...
We talk about the youth in our team and that can be understandable sometimes
when a game gets a bit hard, particularly when you're at home and the fans
expect to see a low block. They expect to see us create and in some games,
we have created a lot, but in the last game against Bournemouth, it's the
one where I said we hadn't created enough. We were safe and we played in
front. What we're also trying to do is get our full-backs in to play.
We all know that in modern football, the full-back is the fancy thing and
Liverpool have probably set that tone in the last two years with the amount
of assists they're getting from out wide. So we do ask for that if Willian
does want to end up in the inside pockets, which we're very happy and
comfortable for him and (Christian) Pulisic, Callum (Hudson-Odoi), Pedro,
those kind of players to be there.
Can we join in and when we're joining in, can we then become that two again
when you have a little bit of security because you're happy to let the
full-backs push on.
Losing Eden Hazard, does that put pressure
on the likes of Christian Pulisic or Willian to do something special?
It does and not just them, (Mateo) Kovacic is one to mention as well because
he's taken up all of those roles and been really good for us this year. The
biggest gripe we would have with ourselves is that if you look at our
season, in lots of games, we see a lot of the ball and have control in
certain games.
Then you look at how clinical you were in certain areas where football is
won and lost. We've been given away goals we're not happy with at times, but
I think in modern Premier League football, it's getting harder to keep clean
sheets.
If we are creating and getting balls into the box, the longer you don't take
those chances, you give the other team the feeling that they're in the game
and I think that's part of the reason for the recent losses that we've had.
Your away form. You controlled things at
Man City, but will it improve with being more clinical in front of goal?
Yeah, without a doubt. I wouldn't say it's a hard thing to coach, I'm not
taking it away from myself, but we do a lot of work on finishing and the
player I was, my thing was repetition and practise is the only thing that's
going to make me score on Saturday. I felt like practice made me lucky and
made me better. In this period, we do have to relentlessly push. Can we be
clinical?
Man City is a perfect example of our season on the negative side because you
go 1-0 up against one of the best teams in the country, felt like we were
really in charge of the game, had another one or two decent chances and 2-0
makes it a completely different game.
Then they score, and talk about making my own luck, De Bruyne scores off a
deflection and then we go 2-1 down at half time and then it's a really
difficult match. You come away from it saying we played well but we didn't
win, that's not what we want to be but that's part of the process as well.
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