Superblue

Will they join up with the squad now and train with them immediately? I guess it makes sense to, get some of that adjusting out the way. Especially if pre season is as would be expected, much shorter than usual.

Forgetting the logo for a minute, the home kit looks great. I've never understood this idea of some crazy, outlandish design. Especially for the home kit. Keep it simple. I hope that third kit isn't real though. I'm traditional. My team and colour are blue, not red. I'm not even a fan of red trim, let alone that. I can't ever remember when growing up owning any clothing with red the predominant colour (and still don't), I brought Pokemon Blue and not Red back in the day despite my best mate already owning the blue version out of principle (and I think I was only 12 at the time). It even took huge amounts of persuasion for my wife to convince me to incorporate some red into our kitchen design when it was redone. Red should just be a banned colour on any future Chelsea shirt design.

Even under Pep their transfer success was very inconsistent (I personally think this has been the case throughout Pep's managerial career but that's another argument), masked by a phenomenal group of players that had come through the academy and others already at the club. That Ukrainian centre back with the funny name and Zlatan come to mind of big price misses. The best buys were all domestic or former academy based players - Pique, Alves and Villa. I think the last time Barcelona got transfers consistently right was under Rijkaard when they brought the likes of Ronaldinho, Eto'o, Deco, Henry, Yaya Toure, Abidal, etc

Like others have mentioned, many of the players now will have grown up watching Frank Lampard being one of the best players in the world and Chelsea being one of the biggest teams in European football always challenging for trophies. If Lampard keeps us moving in the right direction i think he could be a big help for us attracting some top players to the club.

Kovacic is already probably our man of the match

Three half time subs is a big statement by Lampard.

The problem with Tammy is if he isn't scoring goals, his contributions are limited. Giroud isn't as prolific and obviously has a different skill-set but that skill-set allows him to contribute even when he's not scoring goals. I felt Tammy's overall game was improving earlier in the season but the niggling injuries and break seem to have seen him regress in recent times with his hold up and link play.

Gilmour is way off the pace. It's easy to argue about his position but some of his mistakes are basic errors so far.

Pulisic should have scored that.

Thanks for the final 5% confirmation! I was reluctant to say 100% myself and look like a prat if it was wrong!

I appreciate the argument, but I think the nature of the situation called for us to do what we needed to do to win. Klopp and Pep have stayed very true to their philosophies but it's easy to forget that Liverpool were nowhere initially under Klopp and even just 2 years ago barely scraped in the top 4. Pep 3 years ago only just scraped City into the top 4 at the end of the season. Whilst I think there will be some time and patience afforded to Lampard more than previous managers, history suggests that if we fail to make top 4 this season he'll be under huge pressure as expectations have seemingly increased as the season has wore on. Also, if we get into the Champions League for next season, it might provide Lampard with a bigger budget and a more attractive proposition for targets which will hopefully accelerate the team's development much quicker than trying to match up to City.

I'm pretty sure that's a different Matt Law. It says they're a United fan, the Matt Law at the Telegraph I'm 95% sure is a Villa fan.

We could do a lot worse in my opinion than keep Willian on. He's never going to put up big numbers in terms of goals and assists but he offers other strengths that our other wide players don't. Unless we sign some world class attacking player, I think it's a sensible move. I definitely wouldn't give him 3 years, but I wouldn't be fussed if he signed for 2 years. We have some promising attacking players coming through and another season or two of Willian in the squad could help bridge that. He's obviously liked and trusted by Lampard, is the most tactically disciplined wide player we have, hasn't shown any physical drop off yet and is rarely injured. We have to be careful that all our hopes aren't pinned on Ziyech and Werner to come in and hit the ground running because if they need time to adapt, others need to be there to contribute and give them this opportunity to adjust and adapt. Last night's game showed how important the experience and contributions of the likes of Willian and Azpi are, and if we can get ourselves into a position to muster a title challenge next season that influence and experience will again be important.

Everything is cyclical in football no matter how dominant a team looks, a time will come when someone else will take over. Liverpool even 2 seasons before this just scraped into the top 4 ahead of us. They'll have their time at the top but it won't last forever. I like what we're doing and building. There seems to be a degree of sensible planning over the last couple of years that hasn't appeared to be there for a while, whether by design or accident. The transfer ban has actually worked in our favour to take stock of the resources we already had and I think has provided a platform now for the club to achieve a balance of top academy talent and big signings. Arsenal had a period in the late 00's where their young team was being talked up to the heavens but they never built on it (most never reached their potential either) with signings in key areas to supplement. I feel we are already doing that, and with a couple more signings to add to what we have already brought and the young talent continuing to develop, I think we'll be a lot closer next season.

Starting to see some maturity and real signs of development in both Lampard's management and the players over the last few games pre and post lockdown. Whilst I would have preferred the season to be much smoother, I do feel everybody will benefit in the longer run for the difficult moments and grind experienced this season. The wins against Liverpool and Everton (and the comprehensive manner in which we won them) were a massive boost of confidence to return back to. The Villa game was very positive to come from behind because it hasn't happened nearly often enough this season, and then last night we could have easily been blown away when they equalised but the team dug in and re-took the momentum in the last 25 of the second half and with the chances created I feel fully deserved the win. It's still very much a work in progress but we seem to have hit a patch of form just at the right time and I'm pleased to see the team starting to show a bit more fight and personality in our performances.

If Pulisic stays fit, he'll score 15-20 goals a season as he develops. He just seems to have 'it' that other goal scoring wide players have.

There could be agent fees for selling players too. Not sure how common it is, but I can remember reading at the time that Pogba's agent got a big chunk of the fee due to Juventus when they sold him. I wouldn't be surprised with agents if they take a cut at both ends of a deal.

I think there is some consideration to this. Our defence in my opinion has at times this season been made to look worse than it is by our attack failing to convert it's dominance. There have been so many games this season that we have dominated and wasted chance after chance, only to be either 1-0 ahead or still level with 20 minutes to go and the opposition grow in confidence and suddenly sense an opportunity to "have a go". The more desperate we've got as games have gone on to get a goal has left us more and more open too. The defence still needs to be improved, and a leader at the back would more often than not help us see out 1-0 wins or keep a clean sheet for a 0-0. Just converting 2 or 3 of those late losses into draws now would have us in a much more commanding position in the table, they make a huge difference. However as you mentioned, City or Liverpool over the last couple of seasons would put 2 or 3 on a lot of teams within the first half or first hour and for the opposition then it's simply damage limitation and the game can be seen out comfortably. The lack of clinical and cutting edge to our attack this season has been just as problematic as defensive lapses and I'm quietly confident that the two players we've already signed for next season will help change that.

I agree it's not just about the height - you only have to look at that list, it's difficult to pick any of them you'd trust to impose themselves and dominate their opponent when defending set pieces. But Azpilicueta is not going to improve that either. We really need a physical, dominating presence in the backline and someone to lead by example. It won't provide an instant fix, but it would make a difference. I'm really disappointed that Rudiger hasn't stepped up. I always felt he seemed to have the right mentality and personality to be a leader and possibly even a future captain but he just doesn't seem capable to lead the defence this season where in the absence of David Luiz, he is now the senior centre back.

The only thing putting me off this is Azpi's lack of height. I'm not even too concerned about this in open play for the majority of games, but set pieces at the moment are killing us and although there can be question marks over tactics and coaching, it doesn't help that we don't have enough players tall and physical enough to handle this.

I definitely felt we looked much more solid in midfield yesterday. Kante was clearly sitting as the deeper of the midfielders and left us much more unexposed. There were a couple of times particularly in the first half that Kante cut balls out that may have looked fairly innocuous but that was only because Kante covers ground quick over 5 - 10m. I really like the strengths that Jorginho brings but his lack of athleticism leaves us very vulnerable in that area and those sorts of situations are what usually leave us exposed to being countered. I read a Lampard interview during lockdown where he said that he'd been studying a couple of areas in the team that he felt needed addressing and I wonder if this was one of them having somebody offering a bit more protection in front of the defence. This does then raise questions whether Kante can fulfil a role of a deep playmaker like Jorginho can, but I do think it will allow at times for us to set up in a more attack minded setup with two attacking midfielders (e.g. two of Mount, Barkley and RLC, possibly Ziyech too next season) without leaving ourselves too exposed. Will be interesting to see if he continues with Kante in this role.

I'm pretty pleased overall with the result and general performance. You only have to look at how most teams have been slow and ponderous in this first set of games, I think we dominated possession well and got stronger in the second half which I felt would happen against a team that only played a few days ago. People complaining about RLC playing wide left, but he apparently played their in the friendly against QPR and we can only trust that he put a performance in that pleased Lampard. Pulisic has been out for 6 months too and has a worrying injury record for his young age so he'll need managing in these last few games himself, and both will be even more important if we don't manage to keep Pedro and Willian until the season end. What I loved about Pulisic's goal was the desire and intelligence to get into the back post. Our wingers don't do that nearly enough, but I've seen signs of it from Pulisic this season that makes me think he could become a regular goalscorer in the future. It is something that Hudson Odoi needs serious work on.

Completely agree. I think the current situation is necessary to a degree, especially when 5 subs can be utilised too, but moving forward it no doubt favours the squads with the most depth hence why I think that would be a compromise situation to trying to help more academy players gain exposure.

A win today won't just build a gap behind us but will also put pressure on Leicester that they haven't really experienced yet this season. It would drag them in towards us and start making that fight for top 4 over two spots instead of one. Leicester's form was poor just before the break (I think it was something like 2 wins in 8 in the league) which is why we've actually made ground on them despite our own form being patchy at best) With Leicester vs United and Chelsea vs Wolves being the final game of the season, there could genuinely end up being a winner take all scenario in both games.

In his press conference, Lamps did seem to suggest that he wanted the increase numbers on the bench to be a permanent thing. I actually think that it should be but perhaps with the slight change that it should be 9, with a minimum of 2 u21 players. Obviously there are ways around this to a degree as we have a number of players at present who form part of the first team and qualify under that bracket but I think it would present a longer term benefit to all top flight clubs to try to phase academy players into the first team setup, and I think in our case Lampard would view it as an opportunity to give more younger players exposure.