Chelsea: Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba can inspire Frank Lampard

Chelsea manager Frank Lampard will have his work cut out for him to fit every good player into an XI. Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka can inspire one duo.

More so at Derby County than at Chelsea, fans liked to compare Frank Lampard’s style to the managers he played under. On paper at least, it appeared as though he shared the most with Carlo Ancelotti.

It is understandable as to why. The club’s most successful season at the time (and perhaps ever) came with the Italian in charge. In 2009/2010, Lampard scored his highest amount of goals in the Premier League. Didier Drogba did the same. Both were aided, in part, thanks to the usage of another striker on the pitch in Nicolas Anelka.

With Timo Werner joining the club for the coming season, Lampard should look at his time under Ancelotti for inspiration. He could use him instead of Tammy Abraham, but the Anelka-Drogba partnership may inform Lampard of a much more dangerous method.

Ancelotti was never wedded to one formation over another. He would often line the Blues up in a 4-diamond-2 one match and a 4-3-3 the next with some of his famous 4-3-2-1 “Christmas tree” thrown in for good measure. The main idea was that a back four had a midfield three in front of it with a very fluid attacking three ahead of that. The attacking three often defied conventional roles and definitions.

Anelka and Drogba thrived in this set up. Drogba was able to stay in and around the box or the center of the pitch and act as a reference point. Anelka was able to use his natural tendency to find space to roam about the pitch. The remaining player, either a winger or an attacking mid, reacted to the two players in tandem.

That is where the inspiration for Abraham and Werner comes in. Werner is almost a perfect fill in for Anelka. He likes to roam away from the center of the pitch and find pockets of space to operate in. In addition, he is able to score from a multitude of angles which is exactly what made Anelka so dangerous.

Part of Anelka’s success was being able to play off a target man like Drogba. Abraham is not quite a target man. He likes to get involved and offer himself as an outlet, but he is not quite the player to put his back into someone and still get the ball. That being said, it is a trait that can be developed and with Olivier Giroud staying at the club, the Blues will have an option that can both play and teach Abraham a thing or too.

The main draw back to playing both would be the loss of one of the wingers. Ancelotti had this same issue but Florent Malouda, Deco, and Salomon Kalou were unable to keep the striking pair out for long. Christian Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech, and Callum Hudson-Odoi all have a stronger shout but it really depends on how the season develops for those three plus the three strikers.

Lampard saw his personnel best season behind a deadly striker pair that did not always line up in the standard 4-4-2. As he builds his Chelsea side, he should find inspiration from Anelka and Drogba with his usage of Werner and Abraham. It may not yield the crazy amount of goals that it did in the past, but it has all the makings of a wonderful partnership.