Chelsea: Three key clashes as Blues look for rebound against Wolves

2. Will Chelsea get the rotation right?

The Blues have been rotating midweek as of late due to Champions League being done and dusted early. That luxury is now gone. Every midweek match from now until the return on the Champions League will be a Premier League fixture of utmost importance. It will simply be impossible to rely on the same XI every single game.

Chelsea, of course, has the depth to survive this. Jurgen Klopp may not be on the money when he says Chelsea has the best squad in the league, but the Blues surely have the deepest. Few other teams can wring their hands over Christian Pulisic or Timo Werner, Olivier Giroud or Tammy Abraham, and many more.

But depth doesn’t matter if it isn’t used or isn’t available. The latter Lampard can’t do much about. The former he can but hasn’t been doing nearly enough.

It is understandable that Lampard has wanted to stick with a winning formula, but some players like Werner have played nearly every available minute this season. Of the 1830 minutes available, Werner has played 1500 of them. That isn’t even mentioning national team matches.

Werner is hardly alone in that boat, his case is simply the most extreme. And if Chelsea is to survive the winter slog, they simply must rotate. It is physically impossible for most players to play every minute of every match. There are exceptions to every rule (Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi) but players shouldn’t be measured against the extremes.

Chelsea has the depth but that only matters if it is used. Otherwise it is pointless to keep the card up the sleeve. This doesn’t have to be a full blown 11 for 11 rotation, but one or two changes per game to ensure no one is playing four games in two weeks will be needed.