Chelsea coach, Frank Lampard has hailed the performance of his French defender, Kurt Zouma in the 3-1 win against Leeds United.
The 26-year-old defender gave Chelsea a deserved lead with a powerful header in the second half after Olivier Giroud scored the equalizer. The goal means that he is currently the highest scorer as a defender in the English Premier League twice as many as the others.
Zouma’s impact in the Chelsea backline, as well as the goal-scoring instincts, has been praised highly by Lampard. At one point, Zouma was competing with Werner as Chelsea’s top scorer.
The French defender has been consistently used by Lampard in the back four throughout the season. He featured in all the 11 League matches, missing just one and formed a solid partnership with Thiago Silva in the meantime.
Tottenham although reclaimed the top position in the league table yesterday, Zouma’s performance helped the Blues to keep more clean sheets than any of the previous seasons so far. Zouma has four goals this season and the board thinks that the presence of Thiago Silvhas helped him a lot.
‘He’s playing really well this season,’ Lampard said of his French defender as per Chelsea’s Official website. ‘The way we’re playing as a unit right now and defending as a team helps raise standards but Kurt has to take all the credit for his individual development.
‘He had injuries and went on loan a couple of times but he trains so well, he doesn’t miss a day, he wants to do extras and be better. Those things for me are absolutely fundamental for a player to improve and right now the level he’s playing at week-in, week-out is brilliant.’
‘The eye-catching thing is the amount of goals he’s scoring from set-pieces,’ continued Lampard. ‘For me, that’s just him going up more confident and with more belief in himself. He’s always had size and spring but now you’re seeing him in all parts of the pitch being a real threat aerially and doing his job.’
‘Thiago Silva being next to him is a great standard-bearer when he looks left and sees him. As a unit, we look stronger and Kurt has been a big part of that. That’s why I’ve been so positive that he will be a big deal for me here and he’s showing that in terms of how he’s playing so I’m delighted with him.’
Lampard has drilled his defensive department so much that the improvement is massive as compared to their conceding 54 goals in the last season.
Not only Chelsea was vulnerable in set-pieces but also they leaked goals when the opposition made counter-attacks. The new Chelsea defence has found consistency and a solution to defend against counter-attacks. No wonder why they have kept so many clean- sheets this campaign so far.
