Football news - Chelsea’s home-grown products aren’t the only ones who need time
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Updated 22/01/2020 at 20:36 GMT
In the early stages of the season Chelsea’s new youth-first approach was heralded despite some obvious growing pains - and now the same leniency needs to be shown to their manager, writes Pete Sharland.
Chelsea manager Frank Lampard
Image credit: Getty Images
Time.
It’s a strange thing. Some of us have too much of it, most not enough. Nearly all of us allow it to dictate to us, a select few are able to ignore it.
Right now Frank Lampard needs some of it.
The festive period in English football is notoriously brutal and as one of the most decorated players in his country’s history Lampard is no stranger to its relentlessness.
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Frank Lampard
Image credit: Getty Images
But right now he must feel as if he’s taking one gut punch after another.
In the last 31 days Chelsea have played eight matches. They’ve beaten both Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal, rolled over and let Southampton scratch their belly, and worst of all surrendered late goals away at Brighton and Newcastle.
Tuesday night’s draw with Arsenal was the icing on a particularly soggy cake. The early-season charm of Chelsea’s youth approach after a transfer ban has now worn off, fans are frustrated and the media are circling. This is crunch time for Lampard and his squad.
Because whether he likes it or not this has rapidly become a pivotal season for Lampard. Any notion of a transitional year has gone out of the window, mostly thanks to the spectacular ineptitude emanating at times from the red half of Manchester as well as both sides of North London.
When Lampard was appointed it was supposed to be a long-term project, not a one-or-two-year experiment to see what might happen. He has already achieved the first phase of the project; he has blooded a handful of academy products into the first-team set-up. So far, so good.
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Mason Mount of Chelsea FC celebrates with team mate Tammy Abraham and Willian after scoring goal during the Premier League match between Chelsea FC and Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge on December 4, 2019 in London, United Kingdom.
Image credit: Getty Images
The next step? He has to work out what to do when teams set themselves up to counter his high-intensity style of football by sitting deep and catching his naïve team on the counter.
And unfortunately he has to do that fast. This season has become a brilliant opportunity to secure Champions League football, something that could be make-or-break when it comes to summer recruitment. Any time Lampard deserved to be afforded is rapidly evaporating. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to go back to Project Knee-Jerk.
Now Lampard is still, relatively speaking, a new manager; a lot of these big tactical adjustments are not going to happen overnight. They’re certainly not going to happen when he’s got a game every few days to think about whilst trying to negotiate an incredibly difficult time for the club.
This is a club that slowly lost one of the strongest spines world football has ever seen, and, rather than replace them, elected to try short-term fixes or rely on individual brilliance.
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Former Chelsea player Eden Hazard
Image credit: Getty Images
And then they sold that individual brilliance and couldn’t spend to replace it.
It seems to have been forgotten so quickly that not only is Lampard trying to learn on the job at one of the biggest clubs in the world, he’s doing so without one of the best players in Chelsea’s history.
Over the past season or two so much of the good Chelsea did came through Eden Hazard and it cannot be overestimated how important he was to this team. Even when he wasn’t at his best his sheer presence was enough to create space for others around him.
Plus don’t forget that Reece James, Fikyao Tomori, Mason Mount and Tammy Abraham are all playing their first seasons in top-flight football, not to mention Callum Hudson-Odoi had barely a handful of top-flight games under his belt before this season.
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Chelsea's English midfielder Callum Hudson-Odoi (L) celebrates with Chelsea's English striker Tammy Abraham after scoring his team's third goal during the English Premier League football match between Chelsea and Burnley at Stamford Bridge in London on Ja
Image credit: Getty Images
But are they being classified as disappointing?
No, they have been given time to bed in, time to make mistakes, time to learn and in turn they are putting in some solid performances.
In fact the patience afforded to these players is astonishing given it is coming from one of the least patient club-fan base combinations in the world.
So why is the same not being afforded to their manager?
This is Lampard’s second season in management, his first at the highest level. Of course he experienced all of this as a player but it’s different in the dugout, he is still learning alongside his players.
For all the times Chelsea fans rolled their eyes in exasperation as the club dispensed with a player or manager the minute things started to go wrong, do they really want to do the same thing with Lampard?
Of course there is an increased sense of urgency around the club given how the chips have fallen elsewhere but that does not mean Chelsea need to do anything stupid, either on the pitch or in the dugout.
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