Blues manager Frank Lampard has explained that he will not judge his Chelsea players on one game as they prepare to face Premier League champions Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
Chelsea head into their clash with the blue half of Manchester this weekend having won six Premier League matches in a row and only Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Manchester United have beaten the West London outfit on the road this season and that defeat came on the opening weekend of the Premier League back in August.
Ever since then, Chelsea has lost only to Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool in the league at Stamford Bridge, and City is still reeling from their 3-1 defeat to the Reds just before the international break.
Lampard has described City and Liverpool as having set the benchmark for his players to aspire to but also stated that he would not be tearing up the gameplan that has been working well for him and the club as a whole in recent weeks.
In a conversation with Soccer Saturday, the 41-year-old Englishman revealed that he will not judge his team by just one game against arguably the best team in England, “We are playing Man City and I’m not going to judge us right now on that one game, I will judge us over what we’ve done until now, how we keep improving, how we work and where we go over a bigger period. We know that when you go to Man City or any of these big teams that you can lose, but what you must do is give everything and not roll over, no matter what happens, and you must fight until the end and give everything you can as a team.”
Lampard also admitted that he would like to stick to his gameplan and play attacking football but also defend well against a team that can score goals at will, “We won’t change our plan hugely. Some people ask if we’re going to go there and defend or can we go and attack but you’re going to have to defend, it’s all about how well you do it and it’s going to be a huge part of the game.”
Chelsea has the chance to move into second place on the League table if they beat Manchester City on Saturday, depending on how Leicester City fare against Brighton in the other fixture.
