How much Chelsea have improved since their last visit to Old Trafford

It has been a long time since Chelsea travelled away to Old Trafford. How much have the Blues improved in the meantime against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side?

Chelsea is set to take on Manchester United at Old Trafford on Saturday. It was also the venue where Lampard’s career as Chelsea’s head coach started officially. Almost 15 months have passed since that day where the red devils brutally exposed the work in hand for Chelsea’s greatest goal scorer.

A lot of things have changed since that day at Chelsea. Some have left either permanently or on loan. There are half a dozen new faces as well. Even though they were not able to open the scoring that day, Chelsea finally found their feet in front of the goal. Goals came from both young and senior players which helped them finish inside the top four.

Despite a tough start, goals started to flow from Tammy Abraham. His early purple patch meant Chelsea was able to find a spot inside the top four. When the goals dried up for him, Lampard finally turned to Olivier Giroud. His top form towards the end of the season meant Chelsea was able to remain in that elusive top four as the season concluded. The rise of Christian Pulisic was also a notable one.

But one part that saw little improvement was the defense section. Even after the end of the season, Chelsea didn’t have a first choice goalkeeper or a centerback pair or a left back. It was one of the reasons why they bought a player each for all three positions.

Even though Lampard tried all the possible combinations between Andreas Christensen, Kurt Zouma, Fikayo Tomori, and Antonio Rudiger, none of them were convincing. Every time one player has a decent run of four or five games, they would produce silly mistakes that cost the team dearly. It was almost the same between Marcos Alonso and Emerson at the left back role.

The introduction of Thiago Silva will provide much-needed leadership in the center of back four for Chelsea. Despite a shaky start at the Hawthorns, his presence has made significant improvement in the backline. Meanwhile, Ben Chilwell started his Chelsea career in the premier league with a goal, an assist, and a clean sheet. In his short time so far, he has proved good going forward and backward.

What made things worse for Chelsea at the back was the form of goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga. His first season was pretty decent after arriving as the world’s most expensive goalkeeper. As a result, his awful form was a big headache for Frank Lampard. He had the worst save percentage among Europe’s top five leagues. That’s how worse he was. Luckily Chelsea was able to bring in Eduardo Mendy from Rennes. The same path Petr Cech took 15 years back.

An injury to Edouard Mendy and lack of match fitness for Silva meant, Chelsea had to use the same center back pair and goalkeeper from last season against Southampton last week. The result and their performance showed nothing much has changed between them even after almost 15 months. Meanwhile, Mendy and Silva were back midweek against Sevilla in the champions league. There was a notable improvement as Chelsea comfortably kept a clean sheet against Europa League Champions.

It’s still early days. But Frank Lampard and Chelsea cannot afford yet another season where the defense loses games. Lack of proper preseason and introduction of man players are some of the challenges Lampard will have to face as the season progress. But early sights suggest it will better all-around this time around for the west London side.