Chelsea: Rivals’ injuries a warning sign about Lampard’s weakened Blues

Early, significant injuries at Manchester City and Liverpool are another warning to Chelsea and Frank Lampard not to repeat his predecessor’s mistakes.

Antonio Rudiger and N’Golo Kante will be game day decisions for Frank Lampard, who said both are fit and training with the team but may not yet be match ready. Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ruben Loftus-Cheek are making steady progress in their recoveries, but both will still be October (optimistically) additions to Chelsea’s lineup.

Meanwhile, two of Chelsea’s top rivals are already down crucial players for several months. Leroy Sane suffered an ACL injury under a tackle from Trent Alexander-Arnold in last weekend’s Community Shield. Manchester City said Friday he could be out until March. Also on Friday, Liverpool goalkeeper Allison Becker buckled on his plant foot lining up for a goal kick and came off in the 39′. The only word so far is of some kind of calf injury.

Becker’s injury, like Hudson-Odoi’s and Loftus-Cheek’s, was a non-contact injury. As we discussed at length in May, non-contact injuries can happen by freak chance, but many factors increase an athlete’s risk for them: loading, fatigue, recovery, previous injuries.

Injury prevention and mitigation is a major challenge and priority for every coach. Players are lucky in these odd-numbered years to have a “full” six weeks away from club training without having to worry about international duty (except for the early June Nations league). But that is barely enough time to recuperate to a baseline level of readiness before being right back in the grinder of training, travel and – soon enough – competitive matches.

Last season at Derby, Lampard had a small squad, requiring him to concentrate playing minutes in a relatively small cadre of players. His second- and fifth-most used players (Fikayo Tomori, 4,811 minutes; Mason Mount, 3,838 minutes) are now with him at Chelsea. Mount, more so than Tomori, can expect a heavy workload this season.

Frank Lampard took over a broken squad, with many of the uninjured players carrying risks over the summer from last season. He has more players at his disposal, but few are “intact” and he also has an additional high pressure competition: the Champions League.

Like every manager, Lampard will have to balance the pressure and desire to advance in four competitions against his squad’s physical condition and need for rest and rotation.

Lampard’s squad is in a weaker physical condition than many others’, though. He has three usual starters (Rudiger, Kante and Willian) entering the season on the injury bubble, and two more who will re-enter the squad midseason. He may be tempted to bring Kante and Rudiger, in particular, back into the regular XI at the first possible opportunity, especially if early results do not go Chelsea’s way. If he feels himself leaning in that direction, Jody Morris should sit him down to watch the first 10 minutes of the 5 May game against Watford.

Frank Lampard obviously wants to win every game. In another refreshing contrast to his predecessor, he has no interest in aiming for top six or top four and would rather be counted out than acquiesce to those predictions.

But these early few Premier League games and UEFA Super Cup are not worth many more games in the Premier League, Champions League and domestic cups. Lampard will not only need his best players during those more consequential periods, but he will need as much as his squad available as possible for those more congested periods.

Losing a player to injury has ripple effects throughout everyone else’s fitness. Not only does the club lose the injured player’s services, but other players have to take on more stresses and loading as they pick up that player’s minutes. The coach loses rotation opportunities, and the minutes concentrate even heavier on the remaining players as one after another comes out of the lineup.

Liverpool’s and Manchester City’s players have much the same amount of loading on their bodies as Chelsea’s. They play a similar number of games in all competitions and have a similar high percentage of internationals. And now those two clubs will go through the opening stage of the season without key players, like Chelsea.

Frank Lampard has to do his best to ensure Chelsea does not lose any more players to injury. He cannot do everything, but he can do more than his predecessor. It’s a low bar, but he has to clear it.