Chelsea coach, Frank Lampard lashed out at his players’ laziness and accused them of giving up their match to Arsenal in the 3-1 defeat at Emirates stadium. He criticized the way of approaching the game in the first half against the Gunners.
Alexandre Lacazette scored from a penalty to give his team a lead early in the match while Granit Xhaka’s incredible free-kick and Bukayo Saka’s goal put up a 3-0 scoreline. Tammy Abraham although netted one late but that was too late for his team to think of a comeback.
Lampard said his players produced their worst performance of the season in the first half against Arsenal, where they conceded goals to Alexandre Lacazette and Granit Xhaka before Bukayo Saka added a third in the second half.
‘Not good enough first half, better second half but too much to do at that point,’ was Lampard’s basic assessment of his own side after the game. Not good enough on the basics – sprints and pressing and running, speed of pass and trying to play and make angles, all the basics were wrong,’ said Lampard as per the Chelsea’s Official Website.
‘I am not sure if complacency is the right word but there was definitely a lethargic approach to the first half that no matter whether you were playing Arsenal in a tough moment who have got quality players, or any team in the Premier League, you can’t turn up like that.’
‘I am concerned about what is at the bottom of it but I am not sure it is definitely complacency. The fact that actually matters is that if you come and play slow, on and off the ball, you have a big problem trying to get a result. The message was clear before the game, we had to attack it in the right way and we didn’t.’
‘The goals not going in is certainly something an attacking player gets judged on and I could have made more subs,’ he responded, ‘but I felt I had to make subs in those two areas to inject energy.
‘Timo today wasn’t giving us enough with or without the ball and some of it we have to give him time because it is a different league but also we have to get there quickly, so we’ll see about his tiredness. I will have a conversation with him but it was a decision I just felt I had to make. I had to make changes to try to change the cause of the match.’
Lampard even answered questions arising on his team’s German striker, Timo Werner. The coach said that he saw the ineffectiveness of Werner in the first half with and without the ball, so he benched him. He thinks that weariness has certainly a role in his gameplay and the energy was needed to go for the next half.
He seemed very worried about his team’s intensity of playing and to be honest he knows that the reason lies in the congested fixture of the Premier League. Not only the coach, but the fans were also very disappointed with their team’s performance.
