Chelsea: Winners and losers in the squad upon Frank Lampard’s arrival

3. Losers: Jorginho

Many have attempted to identify what exactly is Jorginho’s role as a midfielder. Being neither a master of passing nor a particularly skillful midfield destroyer, Jorginho’s lack of statistical contributions have led many to question the purpose of having him in the team.

If anything, Jorginho comes across as a deep-lying, defensive playmaker who tries to impact the game both going forward and in defence. The problem is, however, he is not particularly good at either. Lampard’s system cannot be good news for the Italian “regista” (honestly, still don’t know what that actually means).

Moving forward, Lampard would preferably employ both Mason Mount and Ross Barkley (considering Loftus-Cheek’s injury). The English duo are much better at driving the ball forward into the opposition third than Jorginho.

This would leave a final defensive midfielder spot up for grabs between N’Golo Kante and Jorginho. It is more than certain who wins that one.

Following his stellar season at AC Milan this season, Tiemoue Bakayoko could be an even better fix as a backup in the central defensive midfielder spot than the £57 million Italian himself.

All things considered, while the transfer ban would most certainly mean the club would not be looking to move Jorginho on this window, unless the Italian can somehow dramatically up his defensive or attacking game, it will not be long before he is out of the door at SW6.

4. Losers: Christian Pulisic

A player who would be more affected by a series of unfavourable circumstances than not being a “Lampard-esque” player, Pulisic could be an unfortunate loser upon his arrival at Stamford Bridge.

Arriving against a backdrop of the club losing its best player to Real Madrid as well as its best youth prospect in years to injury (Callum Hudson-Odoi), Pulisic would arrive to unnecessarily high expectation amongst the fans. These factors, coupled with a shortened pre-season due to his involvement with the United States national side in the Gold Cup, mean Pulisic would be fighting against the tide right from the get-go.

Frank Lampard’s lack of opportunity to work with the promising American international for long in preseason should hint at a Pedro – Willian duo starting for the Blues out wide against Manchester United on the opening day of the new season.

A victim of an unfortunate set of circumstances, Christian Pulisic would still no doubt be on the shorter end of the stick come 11 August and would have quite a battle to get to where most people think he belongs.