Frank Lampard's HONEST review of Chelsea's struggles

Great to have you with us, Frank. Thank you. Did you envisage a start like this for Chelsea after such a dramatic overhaul? Again, more spending this summer. I'm not completely surprised with some of the difficulties. I think, having lived it first hand at the end of the season, I think I came into a club where I think it had probably been eight months of results you don't expect from Chelsea. And that's working with two, in my opinion, very good managers, top managers in Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter. So I think you could see, I felt I could see some of the issues there, which was some issues probably with confidence from results. When you're at Chelsea, if you don't win, that builds that nervousness. And maybe some motivation amongst the squad, which I think was probably through having such a big squad. Unprecedented numbers, you know, and it was spoken about a lot. So a lot of players, I think, felt that their time was up at Chelsea or it was coming or maybe Chelsea were going to move them on. So I lived that feeling. So I think you have to obviously affect it, affect it by hiring a very good manager, I think, in Maurizio Pochettino. And then recruitment. So there's big, big changeover, but there is no magic wand as such in football. The Premier League is the most unforgiving. So when you make so many changes, will it settle? There are so many variables to that point. Now, I probably expected a bit more in terms of points. I think they would have expected them from the way they play to a degree. But I never felt it would be an instant turnaround. I think there's a lot of work to be done. Let's get into the nuts and bolts of exactly what has happened this summer, then, starting with the players, the major departures from Stamford Bridge. We've listed them in order of age descending, and you can see from that just a huge amount of experience leaving the club in one fell swoop. Was that always the plan, did you feel, Frank? Well, I mean, I wasn't privy to the whole plan. I think it was a slightly moving pieces at that time. And you never know, you know, where players will they move or they stay somewhere on longer contracts than others. But you did have a feeling that at some point there's almost half the squad were in that kind of middle ground of where they go. So I think that's clear. This has been done now. It's a strategy and it's the way it's gone. And I agree in terms of when you look at the impact of some of the players we're talking about here. N'Golo Kante, Kovacic, Mason, Mount Carhabit. They've been kind of in the central to a lot of what Chelsea have done good before this period where they won the Champions League and competing for top four regularly. So I think, you know, I understood that there would be big change. I think if you lose experience, and this is probably the question over the strategy of the summer, if you do lose that experience and you know you're losing it, if you want to transition and you want to rebuild and you want to sustain performance, improve performance. I think the balance of probably replacing experience like for like is an important thing. And I think what they've done is go for more potential, younger players. And I think so you have to give that element of time for the manager to put it together and for the players themselves to develop. So that's probably part of the part of the picture, part of the reason why we're seeing where they are in the league right now. Yeah, big fees. But again, 25 downwards. So it's a collection of young players, many of whom untried and tested out of the leagues they've been playing. There are some exceptions to that, like Moses, Moses Caicedo, Cole Palmer, Robert Sanchez. Are we looking at this the wrong way, do you think? You know, is this something that we should be looking at in three to five years to judge whether this has been successful and do have they anticipated the pain that they're going to have to go through in the short term, do you think, to get to where they want to be? Yeah, I think potentially. I think whether you're looking in the right way or not, I think that is a strategy. And I think you, I think there'll be an awareness of that. We're working towards something. You know, the longer contracts, developing these players to perform for Chelsea and improve themselves and the manager, obviously, to work with them, improve them. But you're coming with a team of Chelsea that have been used to winning for 20 years. I'm not sure Chelsea always had an absolute philosophy, style of play. We look at Manchester City, Liverpool. I think it's been really definite over the years of Chelsea. I think there's been more of a powerful team at times, big hitting individuals that had real impact, input in games. You know, Eden Hazards, you know, Diego Costas, Diego Drogba, John Terry, you name them. So I do think when you've lived that for 20 years of Chelsea, you have to understand that whilst you may have a plan, you do have to win now because it helps everybody. It helps confidence within the club. It helps the manager because the manager needs wins to keep implementing what he's doing. So I think, you know, that's when I talk about the balance of it and where it feels maybe it might be out. But of course, as this goes on, you may see these players develop quickly. You may see different results. At this moment, it's obviously been a tough start. Just one win so far for Chelsea. Now they'll point to injury suspensions as well too tonight. But we had a bit of fun today trying to work out if everybody was fit and available. That's a big if for Chelsea because some of these are long term injuries, the likes of Wesley Fofana, what that best 11 might look like. So we sort of ended up like this, Jamie. We might have gone with a Badia Shiela instead of a Thiago Silva or potentially a Colwell. But I suppose the question really is, if that's the best team, what's the best they could hope for? As you said, Dave, you very rarely get your best 11 on the pitch. They have suffered from injuries. But if they were to get that team on the pitch regularly, I still think that's a team who at best are fighting for the top four, fighting for those top four positions. We know the Premier League's really strong, but if you're telling me that is Chelsea's best team after you've spent a billion pounds, that team would still need at least four players, and I mean top players, to go in if they had any chance of catching Manchester City. The goalkeeper is not good enough. The centre forward's not good enough. They need a centre back and probably another midfield player. And to think Chelsea have spent over a billion pounds and they still feel like they're half a team away from competing for the Premier League title, it's flabbergasting. Do you agree? Well, I think to follow on from what I'm saying about players developing their prospects, you look at Modric there, Jackson. I think previously in Chelsea times, you would have seen players of that type arrive, talents arrive at the club, that came into a club that had a spine or had stability within it. And I think at that point, these players have time. I think they can almost look around the dressing room and see players that have been there and done it and won it, learn from them and improve. Now, I think to go along with what Jamie's saying in terms of can they compete at the top, have they got the players within that squad that they can rely on? They can go, OK, we're going to follow that mode and that will be where we get to. So I do see what Jamie's saying. I think the best teams that win things will have big players at both ends of the pitch. I know we're going to go on to talk about XG soon. And I think when you look at that, you go, OK, Raheem Sturgeon has scored a lot of goals in the Premier League. I know his start at Chelsea has not been perfect, but you know what output you're going to get from him. When you look at the rest of the attacking areas, because we know that's where they may be falling short so far this season, they haven't had players that you can go, you look at the good Liverpool teams in the last years or Manchester United, there are goals there, there are goals there. So that needs to come and develop and it's not happening at the moment.