Chelsea legend Pat Nevin has spoken exclusively to TalkChelsea about what went wrong against Manchester City and whether it’s fair to question Frank Lampard’s credentials as manager.
As you well know, the Blues were defeated 3-1 by Man City on our home turf on Sunday afternoon.
The first-half collapse was both concerning and untimely, with Chelsea in the midst of period of ill-fortune heading into the game.
Media publications, notably The Athletic, were quick to cast doubt over Lampard’s future as manager. He does hold the reins at one of the most notoriously cut-throat teams in the game, after all.
However, Pat Nevin, speaking to TalkChelsea, revealed his belief that the spotlight ought to be shone upon City in wake of a good performance, rather than Lampard in wake of a bad one:
“I’ve been to see Manchester City quite a few times this season and that is by far the best they’ve played. They were brilliant, particularly that 20 minute period in the first-half. Absolutely phenomenal.”
It’s hard to argue, too. City were at their brilliant best throughout the first period of the game – the best we’ve seen them play all season. As he often likes to, talisman Kevin De Bruyne also saved his season’s best showing for his former employers.
Nevin continued, detailing the predicaments that Lampard had to face as the game played out, “When you go 1-0 down, do you then chase it? Or do you sit back? The Frank way, at home, is ‘we’re going to try and get this back’, but by the time it gets to three, you think maybe it’s time to be sensible now.”
“All he had to do was change it to a 4-2-3-1 and it would have killed that space there. He’s not daft, he knew that, but he wanted to go and attack it and try and get it back. It’s one of those ones that backfired.”
You can microanalyse the entire 90 minutes to identify the mistakes Lampard made, but sometimes in football you just have to hold up your hands and concede inferiority, at least on the day.
At the very least we can credit Lampard for his bold approach against a very good team. Chelsea managers of the past could be accused of being far too negative against the ‘Big Six’, mentioning no names.
Is that not the sort of positive approach we longed for previously?
You can call it naive, but we spent over £200M over the summer, as calculated by the Mirror. Did we do so to shuffle back towards the ropes against the big teams or face them toe-to-toe?
Perhaps we do obsess too much about that reported £200M figure and the expectations it brings. Nevin believes that it’s important to put it into context, with Chelsea merely making up for lost time after serving a transfer ban.
“What people like to say is ‘well he’s spent X amount this season’, more than anyone else. Yes – but what about over two seasons? How does that look? It’s grossly unfair to talk about how much he’s spent this season when he’s been there two seasons.”
Nevin explained how, despite Chelsea’s great expenditure, he never considered us to be in the title conversation: “I would never have said we were one of the favourites to win the league. Of course it’s possible, but look at how long it took Manchester City to pull that squad together – and they spent an unbelievable amount of money.”
Chelsea have also stumbled over the most congested period of the season, in a season like no other.
As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, players had little time to rest and recover after the last season ended, far less than usual, and the pre-season preparations were reduced to virtually nothing.
Nevin’s belief is that Chelsea’s shortfalls of late are justifiable by that alone, with many of our rivals going through similar periods this campaign.
“You just have a bad day at the office. Spurs have had a bunch of them, Arsenal have had a bunch of them. I was at Liverpool the other night when they played West Brom, in the second-half they were absolutely shocking.”
He also adds that Lampard hasn’t been helped by several of his marquee signings’ gradual adaptation to life in England’s top tier.
“The argument I would make for Frank, and he himself isn’t big on making excuses, is that it’s a pretty new looking team. Havertz and Werner haven’t settled down yet, at all. It takes a while in the Premier League to do that.”
“Ziyech has been injured and he’s probably the most important player we’ve got now, and we’ve hardly had him.”
As we Chelsea fans were drawing up our ideas of our new and improved starting XIs after a summer of investment into the squad, you can be certain that all of Kai Havertz, Timo Werner and Hakim Ziyech will have been in there.
Both Havertz and Werner are still evidently adapting to the league, with the former’s debut season as a Chelsea player already having been derailed by coronavirus.
Ziyech began the season injured, returned and established himself as our star performer before being ruled out once again.
Taking all of that into account – is it fair to question Lampard’s managerial credentials and discuss the possibility of him being the latest Chelsea manager on the chopping block?
At least in the eyes of Pat Nevin, no.
He’s not keen to entertain any suggestions of Lampard losing his job, stressing that the speculation surrounding his future at current is just as a result of the media attempting to create their own narrative in hope of driving traffic to their sites and back-pages.
“I suppose there’s a lot of questions being asked now, is Frank getting it right, is he getting it wrong? They could’ve said that about Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, they could’ve said that about many managers. It’s just a weird season and I think it’s too early to be making any calls like that on Frank Lampard. Miles too early.”
“Have a look back and see what they said when Manchester United were going through their tough time. See what they said when Arsenal were going through their tough time. It’s just the media, that’s what they do, that’s how they sell.”
Perhaps that is the case, or maybe Roman Abramovich is legitimately having his concerns over Lampard’s management at current – nobody really knows.
What we can be certain on, though, is we have a man in charge who would work on the Cobham training pitches day and night to ensure our ambitions are achieved.
There is no man more driven to ensure Chelsea succeed, nor is there a man with greater knowledge on what it takes to succeed at Chelsea. On that basis, just as was the case when he signed along the dotted line, you have to consider him the best man for the job.
