Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard were opponents in the Premier League and teammates for England. The two legends found common ground trying to explain Chelsea’s inexplicable transfer activity.
Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard are moving together through their post-playing careers. Gerrard has taken his first coaching role, while Lampard is still a few years away from his. But both are BT Sport match-day pundits, and both are trying to make sense of Chelsea’s summer transfer window.
As we are always keen to point out, Frank Lampard is a bona fide genius. When he has trouble understanding something, it may just be beyond the reach of human comprehension.
Lampard pointed to Chelsea’s handling of Nemanja Matic as the most baffling move of the summer. From both a tactical perspective and the simple idea of not selling a star to your rivals, Lampard does not see his former club’s logic.
"It was a strange one. He was such a huge part of Chelsea’s play last year alongside Kante at the base. He let the wing-backs fly on and he allowed Pedro and Willian freedom to go forward. – Daily Mail"
Matic’s absence was particularly conspicuous in Chelsea’s inability to control the midfield space against Arsenal. As Lampard noted, Matic’s presence along N’Golo Kante enabled the wing-backs and the wingers to attack freely. Cesc Fabregas can create the scoring opportunities going forward, but only if the play is already moving in that direction.
Chelsea did not have that sense of organization in the Community Shield. Once Tiemoue Bakayoko joins the squad he will reassert that midfield dominance, but will likely need some time to come up to Matic’s level. Eventually, Bakayoko, Kante and Fabregas will be a powerful midfield trio. But until then, Chelsea will feel Matic’s absence.
Steven Gerrard also criticized Chelsea’s lack of foresight in their midfield transfers, but focused his sights on the younger players the Blues cast off.
"They bring four players in, one of those is a goalkeeper, and they let seven or eight go. Nathaniel Chalobah, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Nathan Ake – for me, all of those are good enough to be in Chelsea’s squad. – Express"
The tactical implications of Chelsea’s transfer activity are so obvious that Gerrard concluded Chelsea excluded Antonio Conte from their decisions. This is the likeliest explanation, although the most troubling for Conte’s stability and the long-term success of the club.
Conte gave Michael Emenalo a no-eye-contact left-hand mini-handshake en route to receiving his runners-up medal. Not that Conte is ever in a good mood to received a participation prize instead of the real thing, but the manager made no effort to conceal his frustration about events beyond that afternoon at Wembley.
Next: Chelsea player ratings: Flat performances all around in Community Shield
Or perhaps he made a Herculean effort at concealing his frustration. Walking to the second-place podium is a walk of shame for this manager in particular, who clearly recognizes that Chelsea are not on the path to more trophies. Steven Gerrard is right in saying “you can’t have any sympathy with Chelsea,” but you have to empathize with Antonio Conte right now.