Yet it is alarming that, with almost a week to work with this bloated group of players before each of the last three matches, he has been unable to find at least 11 of them capable of producing a truly competitive 90-minute performance.
In the second, there were ripples of disdainful laughter from the home fans as the visitors laboured on the counter-attack - the polar opposite of the anxiety they have so often felt in recent weeks.Īfter the match, Lampard spoke at length about Chelsea failing to execute “the basics”, as well as reiterating his belief that a lack of physical conditioning is part of the problem.
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Barely a minute later on the opposite wing, Raheem Sterling used his body smartly to roll Ben White, advanced into the Arsenal half and then played a pass behind Ben Chilwell as the full-back underlapped at full speed without a backward glance.Ĭhilwell brought the only good save out of Aaron Ramsdale before Chelsea’s defence caved in, and the gleeful Arsenal supporters behind the dugouts spent much of the remainder of the first half singing ‘Super Frankie Lampard’ as the visiting manager stood at the edge of his technical area with a face of thunder.
On the right flank, Madueke slipped the ball infield to N’Golo Kante and darted in behind Oleksandr Zinchenko hoping for a return pass, only to throw his arms up in frustration when the Frenchman immediately turned and played backwards. In the first half, Chelsea’s lack of cohesion was painfully glaring. Noni Madueke, handed his first start since February 18, was the only player to earn Lampard’s public praise and scored a deserved first goal for the club - but only once Arsenal had grown comfortable to the point of complacent in their lead. Lampard changed things up again, abandoning the “big energy” selection that had made Real Madrid uncomfortable at Stamford Bridge but rendered Chelsea even more toothless than usual against Brentford, and shifting to a more expansive 4-3-3.įor the competitive portion of the match, it did no good on his first start since January 5, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang touched the ball just nine times, four of which were kick-offs, and was hooked at half-time. Yet this Chelsea have established themselves as the antidote to every team’s confidence crisis except their own. Last week, Brentford had arrived at Stamford Bridge on a six-match winless run in the Premier League. Play like that, you get what you get.”Īrsenal have frittered away leads in recent weeks, the mental and physical burden of holding off Pep Guardiola’s relentless Manchester City side finally manifesting on the pitch. Passing short, passing to ourselves in a bad position, not playing longer, not making forward runs, things that we talked about. We didn’t restrict space between the lines, we didn’t get the line up as much as we wanted to, we didn’t pressure the ball, we didn’t make contact with Arsenal players. Things we spoke about before the game defensively we didn’t do. “We were nice to play against in every way, nice off the ball, passive. “The first-half performance was not good enough, in every way,” Lampard said afterwards. Frank Lampard’s side were perfectly cast as the comic relief in a dire opening 45 minutes that saw Martin Odegaard score almost exactly the same goal twice, and Gabriel Jesus sweep in a third after a shambolic scramble in the six-yard box. “They want us to be the clowns in the circus,” he had told his players in the dressing room before the game.īut any such fears Arsenal supporters arrived with were founded on a memory of Chelsea, not the dishevelled reality. Two years earlier, those who travelled to Anfield revelled in a wild-eyed Jose Mourinho roaring and beating his chest after sucker-punching Liverpool and Steven Gerrard to end their 11-game winning streak and all but hand the Premier League title to Manchester City. Coming back to draw 2-2 against Spurs in May 2016 at least ensured the worst season of the Roman Abramovich era ended with something to cheer. When not winning trophies themselves, Chelsea have taken great relish in shattering the dreams of their rivals.
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