The game against Leicester on Sunday is must-win for Lampard. They have to win it, it’s so important for the players and their confidence but also for Lampard’s confidence too.
After United I believe the players were thinking about what a big loss Eden Hazard is, and how they would compete without replacing him.
But after the Super Cup and a win against Leicester can turn that confidence around, they have a quality team with quality players and Lampard is using youth too which is good to see. Jorginho had by far his best game in a Chelsea shirt since he arrived and to do well those performances need to be kept up.
Failure to beat Leicester will mean people will start asking questions of Lampard.
It will put much more pressure on him and on the players and questions will be on the table about whether Lampard is right for the job. That in turn puts more stress in the dressing room and more trouble for the manager.
The pressure will be so huge on their shoulders if they don’t get the result, so they have to start well and win convincingly. It’ll buy them time to work on the team and bring back confidence, but after the Liverpool game I would say they have good reason to believe they will win. If they keep playing like that, they will games and that’s a fact.
For me, they have the players to do well in the Premier League this season, they will be one of the teams to beat – though I can’t say the same for the Champions League. Lampard received some criticism from Jose Mourinho when they played Chelsea, but it was his job to comment and be honest about what he felt.
He will realise that he will get a lot of opinions now and people telling you what you should and shouldn’t do, people pointing in your face and telling you that you are wrong, but it’s the same for all big clubs. You will face criticism as Chelsea manager.
Chelsea’s response in the Super Cup was perfect – though Liverpool were only good for the first 15 minutes
Chelsea had the perfect response in the Super Cup after their loss against Manchester United. They were thrashed, and so we were expecting a reaction from Frank Lampard and I believe we got that.
If I was a Chelsea player or Frank, I’d have been very upset to lose that game – especially the way it happened. But I liked the behaviour of the players on the pitch and Frank’s tactics – you could see that rather than fight Virgil van Dijk he had told them to get the ball in behind him and Joel Matip.
Liverpool were only good for the first 15 minutes, Chelsea had complete control of the game. Lampard should be very proud of his team if that’s how they will play this season, it’s a good response after a bad result even though they didn’t win.
But I watched the game against United too, and 4-0 didn’t reflect the game, just like Chelsea losing last night didn’t.
Lampard won’t regret selling Luiz, he sent him a clear message by showing him the door
The fact that David Luiz left the club the way he did tells me that Lampard told him he was not going to feature regularly in his team. Luiz is 32 years old, and Lampard knows what he’s like as a player and was fine with showing him the door – I don’t think that’s the issue here.
For me, it should have been done earlier and that’s the problem.
I’m not very happy seeing players moving clubs when the competitions are starting, it just causes trouble. But for me, Lampard sent a clear message to Luiz by showing him the door, that he is not his priority, so I doubt he regrets his decision.
Chelsea 4/6, Draw 3/1, Leicester 7/2