Given that it has been two days since the Leicester loss, it appears as though Chelsea manager Frank Lampard has been given a stay of execution by Roman Abramovich. He is hardly out of the danger zone as the club is surely going full steam ahead to build a contingency plan. In the meantime, Lampard has the opportunity to turn things around, but three things must change for the Blues to return to their early season form.
1. Pick the right players, not the political ones
There has been mention in recent weeks about some players being unhappy with their amount of playing time. Tangential to that has been the board’s unhappiness with Kai Havertz and Timo Werner playing badly or not being used, as well as an understanding that the squad is large and needs a significant amount of trimming. Lampard, for the majority of his time at Chelsea, has spoken about a meritocracy. Play and train well and you will find yourself playing more.
It certainly hasn’t felt like meritocracy recently. There is a certain amount of rotation that must occur, especially in a season such as this, but few have really gotten the sense that Lampard has picked lineups as of late based on merit. This phenomenon started with the FA Cup match against Morecambe where there were very relevant reasons to play some players for fitness and form reasons. The match against Fulham, however, very much looked like a match where Lampard picked as many players as possible for reasons other than merit.
This is not to say that either lineup was bad or wrong for the occasion, it simply did not feel true to the spirit of Lampard’s claims of meritocracy. During this entire downturn of form, the academy players have consistently been the few willing to play their hearts out to turn things around. Yet, their opportunities, other than for the sure to be player of the season Mason Mount, have been limited.
Tammy Abraham will surely have been scratching his head seeing his last start before Leicester having come against Arsenal. Callum Hudson-Odoi has regularly been Chelsea’s best player in recent weeks, yet his start against Leicester was the first in the Premier League since Aston Villa. And against Leicester, Lampard opted for a wide open porous midfield in the absence of N’Golo Kante, but he did not opt to play Billy Gilmour who could have at least given some semblance of structure.
Simply put, it seems since this down turn that Lampard has been selecting lineups to appease players that don’t need appeasing or to appease the board as results soured. Instead, he has to return to picking players on merit. Players actually playing to turn this around. If that upsets the board, so be it. What are they going do? Threaten to sack him?