Chelsea: Lampard must now work outside of the limits he set on the squad

Frank Lampard’s decisions in the first two-thirds of the season set some pretty narrow boundaries on what he can do for the final third. Chelsea may be relying on the players Lampard would rather do without.

One of the more ignorant replies from run-of-the-mill Chelsea tweeters (as opposed to the distinct beast that is ChelsTwit) to our articles and tweets goes along the lines of “Stop dwelling on the past. Move on will ya! Focus on the future and support the lads!” Those are often the same people who say we are among the worst fan blogs on the web, a title many of us wear proudly precisely because most fan blogs deliver the complete vacuum of context that our respondents desire. We’re not sure how we’d analyze the present or look ahead without the past, but taking in all the context and having a long memory what analysts and pundits – as opposed to thirsty banality merchants – do.

So if you want to understand Reece James’ and Tammy Abraham’s contract talks, you have to follow all the threads of the Callum Hudson-Odoi situation last January. If you want to understand what happened in the 10′ against Manchester United on Monday you have to know what happened in the 10′ against Watford in May. And if you want to navigate from the game against Manchester United to the upcoming games against Tottenham, Bayern Munich and maybe all the way to Wolves, you have to start somewhere between mid-August and mid-November.

Lampard thought he could get through the season with just Tammy Abraham as his starting striker. After the ban was lifted in November, he thought if he needed help at No. 9, Chelsea could buy one in January. He thought he wouldn’t need anything major from Olivier Giroud or Pedro.

He thought Chelsea would always be able to score more goals than those they concede, and therefore conceding goals was acceptable if not desirable. Perhaps following from that, he kept N’Golo Kante in a more advanced role with Jorginho as the deep-lying midfielder and did without anyone who could be considered a defensive or holding midfielder.

He was wrong, or, at the very least, he lost every one of those gambles.

Chelsea do not need a striker to lead the line. They need a striker who can start a game match fit, with the confidence and technical sharpness that only comes from regular, successful match play. They need a striker who can finish a decent percentage of the many chances Chelsea create. In simple analytical terms, someone who they can expect to score the expected goals: a basic task for a striker on top-four team, but one clearly absent from the only top-five team underperforming their xG.

Against United, they needed a striker who knew what the players around him were going to do on the ball so he could make the appropriate off the ball runs. They needed a striker who kicked the ball with confidence, knowing that confidence is a prerequisite to power and placement.

Chelsea do not have that player, not because Michy Batshuayi and Olivier Giroud cannot be that player and not because Chelsea did not buy that player; but because players do not manifest those qualities when they have less than 700 minutes for the season come mid-February.

Olivier Giroud did much better than Batshuayi against Manchester United, despite having fewer than half as many minutes. Part of this may be experience: Giroud has been “that striker” for so much longer than Batshuayi that he loses less through enforced atrophy. That, and he’s just a better overall player.

Chelsea could have had Giroud start against Manchester United in Tammy Abraham’s absence, but they didn’t because of the choices Frank Lampard had made throughout the season. Now, after the glaring contrast between the two on Monday, Lampard will either turn to Giroud from the start or further bring the doubts about his judgment upon him if he persists with Batshuayi.

On the subject of experience and being “that player” for so long – and, while we’re making comparisons, also being a World Cup winner – Pedro played his first complete Premier League game since matchweek two on August 18. It was only his fourth complete game in all competitions.

Despite his age and disuse, he showed minimal effects of either. Lampard gambled that the adjusting Christian Pulisic and the recovering Callum Hudson-Odoi would intertwine their paths to the best XI over the course of the season, and would both be in the mix for the final run-in. Instead, both are injured and Pedro will now carry the pressure of Chelsea’s vanishing margin in the top four.

Rather than tighten up the defence through midfield by having N’Golo Kante drop deeper to a more protective position, Lampard counted on Kante’s superhuman engine to cover defence while contributing to Chelsea’s offensive possession-oriented scheme.

Instead of easing Billy Gilmour into the first team or experiment with Reece James or Cesar Azpilicueta as a defensive midfielder, Lampard left Marcos Alonso on the bench, Jorginho as the (chortle) defensive screen and N’Golo Kante up the pitch. Right up until the moment when Kante was off the pitch in the 10′ against Manchester United.

Gilmour is now training full-time with the first team, whatever that means. He scored a goal for the Development Team about an hour before Kante came off at Stamford Bridge. Will he be ready, if necessary, in any of the upcoming games? He has even less experience – this season and overall – than Michy Batshuayi. For all of his technical and tactical precociousness, will he really know how to handle having Willy Caballero behind him? Does anyone?

Mason Mount came on for N’Golo Kante, meaning Mount has now appeared in 36 of Chelsea’s 37 games in all competitions. What will happen if anything happens to Mount? Ross Barkley is in the same position – acute and chronic – as Michy Batshuayi. Both are routinely slated by fans for their performances, but can anyone fairly expect better of them when assessed in the context we are supposed to ignore?

Chelsea built a comfortable margin in fourth place over the first half of the season. While Tottenham, Arsenal and Everton brought in new managers (two of which are serial winners, including contributions to Chelsea’s trophy case), the Blues one-by-one lost their most important players.

While Jose Mourinho, Mikel Arteta and Carlo Ancelotti bring coherence and forward momentum to their clubs, Chelsea are dealing with fragmentation as everything they came to know falls apart, both in its construction and its results.

Many times over the last two seasons, Eden Hazard single-handedly bailed out the Blues. In his absence, Chelsea are struggling truly as a team.

The irony if that if any player is going to emerge to put them back on course, it will be one of the players who was excluded from a role in the initial build-up.