Chelsea: Frank Lampard’s style of team selection could prove detrimental

Frank Lampard has been true to his word in regards to starting players on merit, but might that strategy be a detriment to Chelsea at times?

It is now common knowledge that Frank Lampard gives out playing time by merit. He gives playing opportunities to those who work hard in training and those who perform well in previous matches. That style of selecting a team is understandable in a dressing room full of talented individuals, but it could become detrimental to those who constantly aren’t selected, and ultimately, affect the whole team negatively.

In an article by Chris Smith, on leadership lessons that can be extracted from football coaching, Smith makes a good point about teams and individuals in a team. Smith and his professional team spend some time with Ian Bateman, a futsal coach. Bateman chats with the group about various ways football coaching can apply to leading a team in the workplace.

Smith highlights how important it is to occasionally assign tasks to the seemingly less competent members of the team in team exercises, even if it is clear that there are more competent members who would execute that task better. Smith emphasizes that this would build up those individuals who aren’t quite as good as their counterparts yet, and it would then go on to align they’re competency levels with that of the more competent members. This would enable more competent members of the team to help the less competent ones and as such help the overall group.

This applies very accurately to football teams and team selection. It is often very tempting to select the “best eleven” for every match when all players are fit, and ignore the rest until “you need them”. This is understandable because many things are at play when a team takes to the pitch; chemistry and ability being two of them.

You want your best players out there every time, because they give you a better chance of victory every time. You also want players that are familiar with playing often, because it helps transition into and out of phases of play quicker. This constant selection of the “best eleven” whenever possible would benefit the group of eleven that are always being selected, but could ultimately hurt the other 12-20 players who aren’t part of the best eleven.

Football is a team sport, and no one player wins trophies alone. Yes, there are times when fans have attributed a certain trophy to a particular player, but in reality, no player can “carry” a team. They still need other teammates to do their bit. That applies to Chelsea too. You cannot go a whole season, across several competitions, with just your best eleven. You’ll need to rely on bench, reserve and sometimes fringe players. The more these non-selected players don’t play competitive football, the more it affects their match fitness.

Waiting until you can no longer select one of your “best eleven” to consider another player could prove to be more problematic than is planned. This is because these players may not have the needed match fitness to get the job done. Yes, the player may not have as much ability as the player he’s replacing, but that is only made more problematic when the player is only seeing the pitch for the first time in months. This can also pose high injury risks of its own.

Match fitness is just one thing that should be considered. Team chemistry is another. Depending on the amount of new faces in a starting lineup, chemistry and communication could become a big issue indeed. In fact, the Blues faced this problem against Rennes in the Champions League when Lampard made five changes in the match. The players found it difficult to find a rhythm and the whole team looked shaky.

He brought in an Emerson whose last Chelsea start was against Barnsley in September, Olivier Giroud whose last Chelsea appearance was Tottenham in the League Cup also in September, until he made a 13-minute cameo against Burnley. Mateo Kovacic who had one start in Blues’ last five games. These players had not played together often, if at all. And it was all too obvious. It may be that they were left out because their teammates performed better than them, but when they were needed, they had to start a process that could have been started earlier.

It would be unfair not to admit that finding the balance between fielding your best eleven and integrating other lower ability players into the squad is very difficult, but it is necessary if the team is going to be ready for a long, tightly-packed season. Rotation is not listed as one of Lampard’s strengths, and therefore he can definitely improve on that.

Bringing in at least one, maybe at most two new faces into the starting lineup occasionally. Not too many players that the whole chemistry of the team is thrown out of balance, but just enough that these less trusted players have a feel of playing with the main group. Giving them an opportunity to develop in the right environment. Right environment because everyone knows players can only grow with playing time, real match situations where they have to make decisions that have consequences. Yes, decisions that have consequences, because that’s the only way players grow. Sometimes you figure out which one is the right decision by making the wrong one.

In all of these, the significance of matches should be taken into consideration obviously. It wouldn’t be wise to put a player who hasn’t played in months against a Liverpool team that can even overwhelm experienced players, talk less of players who are not as comfortable in match situations. There are times when you absolutely need to have your best available team out on the pitch, otherwise, you’re gambling. Cup matches is a good place to rotate and build match fitness and chemistry with other non-regular players, but cup matches are few and far between, and many cup matches see you rest most of your best eleven, and it’s them that you’re looking to build chemistry with anyway.

This isn’t to say Lampard’s squad management has been poor per se. It makes sense to want your best team out on the field every time, but if you only stick to that, the rest of the team will suffer the more they’re off the pitch and that would come back to hurt the whole team later on in results. Yes, players train and train hard. However, that cannot be substituted with playing minutes. It is important that lower ability players get a chance against the level of opposition the main team play against as it would help them not only get used to playing against teams at the top level, but also in getting used to playing with the best eleven. The management of minutes for Tammy Abraham, Michy Batshuayi and Olivier Giroud last season comes to mind. The management of minutes for Callum Hudson-Odoi and Mateo Kovacic this season comes to mind.

What do you think about Lampard’s minute distribution? Let us know in the comments and on Twitter.