Super Frank Thread

[OneMoSalah 8,810]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

Just realized that Lampard is already halfway through his 3-year contract with the club. Am assuming any contract extension discussion will begin in the coming months (assuming things continue on the right track).

Would think if we continue this sort of results and performances towards the end of the season it will be top of the list. I think we are lucky because he is a Chelsea man at heart and he will not rush into pushing the club to renew or whatever so would expect it to be done by end of the season or earlier. 

[bigbluewillie 1,868]

9 hours ago, Vesper said:

we added a new set piece coach

Anthony Barry 

The key man behind Chelsea's set-piece solidity - and it's not Thiago Silva or Edouard Mendy

https://www.football.london/chelsea-fc/fixtures-results/chelsea-mendy-silva-anthony-barry-19225837

Told ya

[Puliiszola 519]

22 hours ago, Jason said:

The Athletic needs to find out what happened after that Southampton because while there is a long way to go and there will be moments where we have to suffer, everything started to fall into place and click since then. And this isn't just because of the players returning etc either. 

Personnel change/upgrade coupled with playing the best suited formation for the squad.

Mendy, Silva, chilwell all staying fit is a huge upgrade on kepa, rudi, alonso on any day, against any opposition and in any formation. 

Mount finally played in his best position. Kante being played as a no. 6 to protect the defense and showing everyone who had re-written history that he could not play that position, to the point people were fine with jorginho.

And MOST importantly, ziyech coming in. The guy is an orchestrator. Brilliant footballing brain. 

All of those things happened in a space of 2-3 games. 

So far, so good.

[Vesper 29,196]

Restaging Bielsa’s extraordinary Spygate briefing for Frank Lampard’s Chelsea

https://theathletic.com/2236443/2020/12/04/bielsa-lampard-chelsea-spygate/

As daylight faded one January afternoon, a group of journalists gathered at Leeds United’s training ground. They stood in reception for 20 minutes, kicking their heels and waiting for the summons upstairs. A bit of small talk broke the tension.

All bets had been off since 3pm when phones began ringing with news of a press conference called by Marcelo Bielsa. It was unscheduled and the media department at Leeds offered no guidance about what lay in store. Most of the club’s staff had no idea. Speculation filled the vacuum rapidly and a stream of questions ensued. Was Bielsa resigning? Did he plan to press the nuclear button and walk away? No one could say.

Bielsa was six days into “Spygate” and by lunchtime on January 16, 2019, he was losing patience with the narrative around him. He had owned up to sending scouts to watch opposition teams in the Championship train — a method exposed when a French intern employed by him was stopped by police outside Derby County’s complex — and he was ready to take any consequences but accusations of cheating and deception were rife and those he refused to accept. The local media were not there to hear him quit. They were there to hear him fight for his reputation.

Only Victor Orta, Leeds’ director of football, had an inkling of what Bielsa was planning. The club’s players had trained that morning as usual and were reassured that if Bielsa intended to walk out, he would most likely have given them some indication first. But the mood was anxious. Leeds were clear at the top of the Championship and thriving with Bielsa as head coach. They could not afford to lose him. Spygate was personal, though, and when he called the media up to a meeting room on Thorp Arch’s first floor, he looked annoyed and worn as if the controversy had been eating at him incessantly.

The room was stuffy and packed, with reporters squeezed into a few rows of seats and Bielsa’s staff tucked away in a corner at the back of the room. A projector was whirring and two big screens gave a hint at what was coming, showing a mish-mash of computer files. Bielsa did not want questions from his audience. He wanted to talk and to talk without interruption, starting with a written statement. This was his defence.

For 66 minutes he outlined his analysis techniques (“legitimate” analysis techniques, as Bielsa deliberately put it) in the most minute detail, revealing his methods readily. The access felt unprecedented. Analytical work was secretive and private and managers were not in the habit of sharing it. For those in the room, the insight was astonishing. It was pitch black outside when the building emptied just after 6pm.

The purpose of it? To demonstrate the depth of the research his analysts were carrying out and, in doing so, water down the criticism of his habit of sending scouts to watch other teams train. With so much information about a club to hand, what discernible difference could the details of one training session make? Was Bielsa really gaining any advantage when he already had a wealth of detail to feed on?

His press conference focused heavily on Derby — Frank Lampard’s team at the time — because Derby was where Bielsa’s intern was caught and Lampard made no secret of his annoyance. “On a sportsman’s level, it’s bad in my opinion,” Lampard said and much of the coverage of Spygate took the same tone. Bielsa used his opening gambit at his impromptu briefing to hit back. “I didn’t have bad intentions and I didn’t try to gain an unfair sports advantage,” he insisted. So why send a scout to Derby? “Because I’m stupid,” Bielsa said. “It allows me to keep my anxiety low.”

Bielsa, over the course of an hour, was able to outline everything about Lampard’s Derby side: the formations they favoured, the minutes played by each player, the signals they used at set pieces and the way Lampard tweaked his set-up depending on how a game was going. It was all there in black and white and all gathered through fair means.

Tonight, Bielsa and Lampard will share a touchline again, this time in the Premier League and this time with Lampard in charge of Chelsea. So if Bielsa was to re-run his famous press conference and pick apart Lampard’s current squad, what would the presentation tell about the game awaiting Leeds at Stamford Bridge this evening? What would his analysis consist of and what conclusions would he draw? And would Lampard be left with any element of surprise?

---

One of the more striking revelations from Bielsa’s famous session was the amount of time the backroom team around him devoted to analysis. He was not breaking significant boundaries with his research — every prominent English club was heavily invested in analytical tools — but it was hard to imagine any head coach going to greater lengths than him.

Leeds, before the 2018-19 season (Bielsa’s first as head coach), had reviewed every one of the games played by Derby in the 2017-18 season. There were 51 matches in total and every one took four hours to dissect. The purpose of this, Bielsa admitted, was limited. Gary Rowett had been Derby’s manager throughout the 2017-18 season but then left for Stoke City, clearing the way for Lampard’s appointment at Pride Park. All the same, Bielsa wanted footage and oversight of every player who was still on Derby’s books. “We think this is professional behaviour,” he said. “We try not to be ignorant about the competition we play in.”

More relevant to him was the breakdown of Derby’s formations under Lampard. Leeds could show that after 31 games of the 2018-19 season, Derby had used a 4-3-3 system with Mason Mount on the right of midfield in 49 per cent of the minutes played. They had used a 4-3-3 with Mount on the left of midfield in 22 per cent of the minutes played. There was an occasional 4-2-1-3 in which Mount changed roles but in general, their strategy was fairly fixed. “Before the game we knew perfectly the kind of systems they would use,” Bielsa said.

The time investment by Bielsa and his staff on pre-match analysis might be without parallel. At four hours a match, the job of going through all of Lampard’s 72 games in charge of Chelsea in the Premier League and Champions League would take 12 days straight without sleep. Assuming an analyst worked for eight hours a day, that equates to 36 working days in total, or three and a half weeks if the job was shared between two people. And all of that to study just one club.

This is not to say that Bielsa’s approach is too painstaking. While it is true that elements of analysis can be sped up by using third-party datasets, there is a trade-off involved between time saved and trusting the way someone external collates results. In Bielsa’s case, his fixation on analysis is a way of ensuring that every base is covered. It could be that he is reluctant to put himself at the mercy of people outside his inner sanctum making decisions about the data they collect. For him, he probably prefers to be slow and in control than fast and reliant on others. That way nothing is missed.

For the sake of sanity, a more efficient means of getting to know Lampard’s Chelsea is required here. Thankfully, statistics from the likes of Opta and smarterscout helps hasten the process, freeing us of the near-Sisyphean endeavour undertaken weekly at Thorp Arch. Bielsa’s presentation in 2019 focused on three key themes which The Athletic will also concentrate on. To quote him from his seminar, he said that with every team he wanted to know “the starting XI, the tactical system they will use and the strategic decisions on set pieces. These are the three main axis the head coach usually analyses”.

One of the first slides shown by Bielsa on the night was a simple breakdown of results, the starting point of establishing whether a team Leeds were about to meet were in a “positive or negative cycle”. Wins were marked in grey, draws were marked in white and defeats were marked in red. Derby were a competitive side under Lampard, making the Championship play-offs and ultimately beating Bielsa’s Leeds over two legs in the semi-finals. The screen in front of him demonstrated their consistency. Lampard’s Chelsea have been very reliable this season, losing just once in the Premier League and competing strongly in Europe. A glance at their results shows a team in form who concede relatively few goals and are undefeated in 13 fixtures.

In basic form, this seems encouraging for Lampard but looking at the quality of underlying performances based on a team’s expected goals ratio over time is often a more useful indicator of how well they are playing. Focusing purely on league matches, Chelsea have seen a recent decline in their attacking capabilities since last season (represented by the blue line, below) but an improvement in their defensive strength too (represented by the red line). Under Lampard, their performances have been more stable than they were with Maurizio Sarri who started well but struggled midway through his reign.

This gives a picture of the team’s aptitude as a whole. But what about the individual players at Stamford Bridge? Who is in favour at the moment and how exactly is Lampard using his squad?

Back in 2019, Bielsa was able to reel off information about each of Lampard’s Derby players. He showed how Scott Malone had played 1,172 minutes at left-back during the 2018-19 season and another 17 minutes on the left wing. Tom Huddlestone’s roles were more varied but even so, 94 per cent of his time was spent as a defensive midfielder. Harry Wilson, County’s on-loan Liverpool winger, was categorised in nine different positions across four different formations. “I do not need to watch a training session to know where they play,” Bielsa said.

Similarly, the chart below shows every player currently at Chelsea and the fixtures they have featured in out of the club’s last 38. The badges indicate the opponents faced, with the most recent fixture against Sevilla — a 4-0 Champions League win on Wednesday evening — lodged at the top.

Chelsea’s first-choice team is recognisable these days, with a small group of players seemingly rotating depending on either a change in Lampard’s game plan or if rest is required. Eduoard Mendy is the likely choice in goal and a back four of Ben Chilwell, Thiago Silva, Kurt Zouma and Reece James are nailed on to feature if they are fit. Lampard regularly goes with a midfield three of Mount, N’Golo Kante and Mateo Kovacic and is less inclined to turn to Jorginho than Sarri was.

Up front is where things get interesting. As noted by the bubbles closer to the top of the chart, Kai Havertz and Christian Pulisic are back in contention after periods on the sidelines through injury or COVID-19 self-isolation. Timo Werner has featured in every game so far this season, making him another guaranteed starter on the left. Up top, Chelsea have two options — Olivier Giroud and Tammy Abraham. Giroud, who scored all four goals against Sevilla in midweek, is the stronger of the two in the air and better than Abraham at linking up play based on last season’s evidence.

As mentioned earlier, a large amount of Bielsa’s attention was paid to Derby’s formations. Conducting the same type of analysis, we see that Lampard’s tactical preferences have not changed dramatically since he left Pride Park for Stamford Bridge. He favours a 4-3-3 system 58 per cent of the time, though he has dabbled with a 3-4-2-1 (21 per cent) and 4-2-3-1 (13 per cent) during the past 38 games. Bielsa will have registered this and would be right to expect that Chelsea go 4-3-3 tonight. Lampard’s big tactical decision is whether to apply specific attention to Leeds midfielder Kalvin Phillips, whose surgical passing pulled Everton to pieces at Goodison Park last weekend.

Within Lampard’s 4-3-3, the following chart provides a breakdown of who has appeared most in each position in Chelsea’s last ten games (a way of ensuring that only players who are still part of Lampard’s squad and featuring regularly are considered). Bielsa produced a comparable chart midway through his Spygate presentation, a means of predicting Derby’s most likely XI on any given matchday.

With the exception of Kante, whose versatility has seen him superseded by Jorginho at the base of the midfield on minutes played, this looks like Chelsea’s most likely line-up for the visit of Leeds to Stamford Bridge. The chart also shows the positional versatility Chelsea have and how they might look to change shape within the match. Moving Mount onto the right wing gives Lampard a more energetic presser than Hakim Ziyech or Callum Hudson-Odoi. Havertz is an option in midfield if more of a goalscoring threat is required at number eight.

On to set pieces. These featured prominently in Bielsa’s 2019 presentation as he outlined Derby’s tactics at corners and free kicks and analysed their shortcomings in defending them. “We try to find weaknesses of the goalkeeper or where we can press,” Bielsa said. “The players know about the opponent.” His staff had taken to studying the signals given by Derby’s players at each corner, indicating whether the ball would be played to the near post, the back post or into a more central zone inside the box.

Video analysis is required to properly appraise Chelsea’s schemes, but at present in the Premier League they are one of the most effective sides from set pieces. They’ve scored six goals so far this season, the most in the division, and from a variety of scorers too. Zouma has three, Chilwell and Tammy Abraham have one apiece and the most recent scorer was Federico Fernandez who netted an own goal in Chelsea’s 2-0 victory at St James’s Park.

Chelsea’s conversion rate at corner kicks is 12 per cent, effectively scoring from one in every eight. It is the highest in the Premier League and nearly double that of second-placed Everton (6.3 per cent). It paints a picture of a team who pose a big threat from set-pieces against a side in Leeds who have not always coped well in defending them under Bielsa. As he said in January 2019: “Is this analysis (of set pieces) useful to us? No. Because half of the goals we concede are still from set pieces.” It was a common theme throughout his press conference: yes, we have endless amounts of data. But no, not all of it makes a difference.

Ratings from smarterscout show just how good Chelsea’s players are in the air from corners and free kicks. The aerial ability ratings shown below are a weighted duel-win rate which considers the ability of the opponent in the duel rather than just the outcome. For example, winning a header against Peter Crouch would be impressive. Winning one against Jamie Shackleton, Leeds’ diminutive midfielder, would be less so for very obvious reasons.

In the Chelsea camp, Zouma, Chilwell and Giroud are dangerous from corners, as is Havertz. Stopping Chelsea profiting means stopping one of those players from isolating the weaker duellers in Bielsa’s side. Get the match-ups right and Leeds should cope. Get them wrong and Bielsa could find that his goalkeeper, Illan Meslier, is exposed by Chelsea’s power.

Smarterscout is a site which gives detailed analytics on players all over the world, producing a score between 0-99, a bit like the player ratings in the FIFA video games but powered by real data and advanced analytics.

As the original Spygate session proved, there is almost no limit to the analysis that can be done by professional clubs but these were the areas that Bielsa spent most time on and these same will have come under the microscope again in the build-up to tonight’s match in London. The wealth of data is a product of Bielsa’s refusal to leave anything to chance or to assume that he has nothing left to learn. His salary at Leeds — the highest the club have ever paid a manager — is compensation for his staggering devotion to detail. As Pep Guardiola once told him when their paths crossed in Spain: “You know more about Barcelona than me!”

---

For those who sat through his 66-minute briefing, the message was two-fold. Bielsa wanted respect for the amount of time he spent on scouting, or at least some recognition of the fact that sending interns to watch teams train was a fractional part of his methodology. But he was also happy to accept that the information gathered — reams of it and lots of it documented in stacks of files on shelves behind him — was plainly excessive. It was as much about him as it was about football, a way of satisfying his obsessive streak.

“I know that people laugh at you when you have this much data,” he said. Nonetheless, he saw it as a mark of professionalism. If he had a question about Derby or Lampard, his files would answer it. Any thought which popped into his head could be addressed by the data. It was there if he needed it and free to ignore if he did not. But this was his routine and he was sticking to it.

Bielsa would not be drawn on Thursday about the work he had put into studying Chelsea this season. “As the competition goes on, all of the managers become knowledgeable about the other teams,” he said. “Every manager in the Premier League can talk fundamentally about the other 19 teams.”

That much is true and it was never Bielsa’s intention in 2019 to pretend that he was doing what other coaches were not but in taking analysis to extremes, there are very few like him. Data alone cannot negate the hundreds of millions of pounds worth of talent Lampard has in his dressing room or the quality those players possess. But as the former England midfielder discovered in his first job in management, there is next to nothing Bielsa does not know about you or your team.

 

[Jase 43,479]

Since we were on this subject a day or two ago, shoutout to Anthony Barry. Not only has he helped make us look more defensively solid from set pieces, he has also made us more dangerous offensively from the same situation. Already scored so many goals from corners this season for example, compared to last season. Also helps I guess to consistently have someone like Zouma in the XI as opposed to Christensen, who can't seem to score to save his life!

[milka 3,362]

Chelsea move into second in most wins in the PL  , & officially become the number 1 team in London.

 

 

 

[Jase 43,479]

 

[Tomo 21,736]

12 hours ago, Jason said:

 

I'm guessing they started the comparison's at United 10-11 because our double winning side were pretty crap at defending them aswell 

[milka 3,362]

 

[Vesper 29,196]

Do Chelsea really have the strongest squad in the Premier League?

https://theathletic.com/2246470/2020/12/08/chelsea-squad-premier-league/

It’s the kind of debate that fans of rival clubs love to have but will never agree on: Who has the strongest squad in the Premier League?

You can understand why supporters will hope, let alone argue, that the answer is their own team, because more often than not, the greater strength in depth you have, the better your chance of ending the season with silverware.

It is even more important to have plenty of options at your disposal in the current campaign, with the fixture list condensed into eight months rather than the usual nine.

The discussion has really come to the fore over the past few days courtesy of two high-profile voices. If Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp is to be believed, Chelsea are best equipped to handle the congestion and “favourites” for the title because of it.

Klopp’s views were echoed by former Liverpool defender and Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher, who said: “You could maybe argue that Liverpool and Manchester City have a stronger XI, but in terms of back-up players right now, that strength of squad (at Chelsea) is absolutely fantastic and it doesn’t feel like the team would be weakened too much no matter who was playing.”

Some might dismiss the sentiments of Klopp in particular as mind games but are the pair right to regard Chelsea so highly? The timing of their comments is not a coincidence. Since losing to Liverpool in September, Chelsea have gone on a nine-game unbeaten run in the Premier League (it is 16 in all competitions if you’re not including the penalty shoot-out loss to Tottenham Hotspur in Carabao Cup) and climbed up to third place, within two points of Klopp’s defending champions and their co-leaders Spurs.

However, it is what head coach Frank Lampard’s side have been able to do with his selections in the Champions League during the first eight days of December which has probably done more to cause the Liverpool manager concern.

Last week, Lampard made nine changes to the line-up and Chelsea became just the second English club to win at Sevilla’s Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium. That “weakened” team did so in emphatic fashion too, securing an emphatic 4-0 victory.

Then, with top spot in Group E already secured, Lampard went one better by bringing in 10 different players, despite Hakim Ziyech and Callum Hudson-Odoi missing through injury, from the side that had triumphed over Leeds United on Saturday for Tuesday’s 1-1 draw with Krasnodar. It included handing first Champions League starts to teenagers Billy Gilmour and Tino Anjorin, the only men in blue on the night not to be senior internationals.

Understandably, Lampard is doing his utmost to play down Klopp’s views. No manager wants that kind of pressure. However, Klopp’s and Carragher’s general sentiments about Chelsea growing into a significant force is shared within the corridors of power at Stamford Bridge.

Technical and performance advisor Petr Cech knows what a good squad looks like, having won 13 major trophies as a player for the club from 2004-15. The success was kickstarted by Jose Mourinho’s arrival as manager in 2004 and the lavish spending of owner Roman Abramovich, which began a year earlier.

Abramovich showed his intent in the last transfer window to improve the quality Lampard has at his disposal. Over £200 million was paid out for Edouard Mendy, Ben Chilwell, Ziyech, Kai Havertz and Timo Werner, while former Paris Saint-Germain captain Thiago Silva arrived as a big-name free agent.

Cech sees a connection between past and present. Speaking to the Champions League Magazine TV show recently, he said: “I think we are in a similar position to where the team was in the 2004-05 season.

“We have players who came in of a younger age, players in their mid-20s with a lot of expectation and hunger to succeed. We have a young manager and everybody is driving forward and hungry to succeed. I believe there is a similarity to that team. It is important we keep winning and put ourselves in a good position to attack the next part of the Champions League.”

That is some call from Cech to make, given the quality of the team he played in and what Mourinho’s men went on to achieve in 2004-05. They won the Premier League with a then-record haul of 95 points and claimed the League Cup too. The current generation have a lot more to prove before being seen on the level of John Terry, Didier Drogba, Lampard the player and company. Lampard the manager won’t see himself as having Mourinho’s standing either just yet.

But that’s a debate for another time, if and when some trophies have actually been collected. What is more apt is the competition they’re up against now and whether they deserve such accolades.

Tottenham can certainly argue their case as a strong group. Mourinho made eight changes for the Europa League match at LASK last week and yet the starting line-up still cost over £200 million in transfer fees. They also got to field the rather talented Real Madrid loanee Gareth Bale.

Liverpool have been severely weakened by long-term injuries to Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez, while a number of key individuals including Trent Alexander-Arnold and Alisson have also spent time on the treatment table. Yet they are still two points ahead of Chelsea and most of their players have the Champions League, Premier League and Club World Cup on their CVs. Their attack is arguably stronger now that Diogo Jota has joined forces with Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino.

Manchester City aren’t exactly short of numbers too, although they do seem to be increasingly reliant on Kevin De Bruyne. The fitness issues of the club’s record goalscorer Sergio Aguero mean there is a big void for heir apparent Gabriel Jesus to fill. Manchester United’s inconsistency and Arsenal’s struggles in the bottom half of the league rule them out of the strongest-squad conversation as things stand.

But what about Chelsea? Carragher made out that any of the back-up players could just step in if someone gets injured and the quality wouldn’t be affected. But some perspective is required — and that was before the 1-1 home draw with Krasnodar last night, in which a Jorginho penalty, awarded for a foul on Tammy Abraham, brought the only goal of a laboured performance.

There is a reason why Chelsea are now regarded as title challengers rather than just simple top four contenders. That is a significant step.

Mendy and Silva are a major factor why the defensive record has improved. Should either of those two miss matches for a length of time, Chelsea will be back to the uncertainty of last season, when Kepa Arrizabalaga was in goal and Antonio Rudiger or Andreas Christensen played next to Kurt Zouma. Krasnodar took advantage of that, as well as signs of age in Cesar Azpilicueta’s legs, to take the lead.

Left-back was another weakness until Chilwell arrived from Leicester City. Emerson is ahead of Marcos Alonso in the pecking order as his No 2 but Chelsea spent £50 million on Chilwell because of that duo’s struggles.

N’Golo Kante, who started just 20 Premier League games in 2019-20, is in outstanding form as the deep midfielder. Jorginho’s speed of movement and pass aren’t considered fast enough for the way Lampard wants to play. The fact Lampard turned to Kante and Werner with 16 minutes to go against Krasnodar, to inject some energy into the home side, spoke volumes.

And Lampard must be concerned that wide players Christian Pulisic, Ziyech and Hudson-Odoi have all suffered hamstring issues at various junctures. Lampard said yesterday that Ziyech and Hudson-Odoi would be out for about two weeks after their latest setbacks. Reece James and Mason Mount are key men to his system as well.

Havertz provided a measured response when asked to compare Chelsea’s squad with others around Europe. “There are not many (better), we have a lot of good players in our team,” he told BT Sport. “But we all know we have to improve a lot because we have some new players, young players as well. We have a lot of talented players and that is a good sign for us.”

Agreed. This is not a piece to say Chelsea have a terrible squad and Klopp doesn’t have cause to be alarmed.

However, if Lampard is to beat Liverpool and other clubs to this season’s trophies, it will be because of the first string, not their understudies.

[Magic Lamps 11,677]

This talk is pure gaslighting.

Clearly ManCity have the strongest squad. Pools is arguably stronger too. Mind we only have a handful of world class players. In one or two years tables will turn tho

[R2D2 368]

I don't post often but just wanted to say Lampard is absolutely delivering those improvements in the last 2 months, long may it continue, he seems to learn from his mistakes and improve upon it, top class manager in the making. Don't think we have enough for title challenge but easy top 4 finish and QF in CL would suffice for me this season.

[Jase 43,479]

 

[Jase 43,479]

Was the logic of playing Abraham and Werner out wide with Giroud in the middle in the 4-3-3???  

[Jase 43,479]

We had more points after 12 games last season (26) than we have after the same number of games this season (22)...

[Laylabelle 9,406]

2 minutes ago, Jason said:

We had more points after 12 games last season (26) than we have after the same number of games this season (22)...

That surprises me cause I remember so many crappy games last season..then again can't remember when exactly. Know December was a bit testing.. 

[Vesper 29,196]

Carlo Ancelotti: What I really think about Frank Lampard at Chelsea FC

Carlo Ancelotti rates Chelsea FC's start to life under Frank Lampard since his appointment at Stamford Bridge

https://www.thesportreview.com/2020/12/chelsea-fc-news-ancelotti-lampard/

Carlo Ancelotti has admitted that he has been highly impressed by the start Frank Lampard has made to life as Chelsea FC’s manager.

The former England midfielder was brought in at Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2019 and he led the Blues to a fourth-placed finish in his first season in charge.

The west London side spent big in the summer transfer window, bringing in the likes of Kai Havertz, Timo Werner, Hakim Ziyech and Edouard Mendy to strengthen Lampard’s squad.

The Blues have made a solid start to the new season and are currently considered to be one of the main contenders for the Premier League title as things stand.

Ancelotti led Chelsea FC to the Premier League title and FA Cup during his time in charge of the west London side.

And the Everton boss has now admitted that he has been highly impressed by the way Lampard has begun life in charge at the west London club.

Speaking in an interview before Everton’s home clash against Chelsea FC on Saturday, Ancelotti said: “I think he’s doing really well.

“He did really well before Chelsea, he did really well last season and Chelsea are doing really well now.

“He has a fantastic squad, a fantastic team and so his job is really good.

“Our relationship has changed because before it was a relationship between a manager and a player, now it’s between colleagues.

“I am pleased and I am happy to see him again. Chelsea are in a really good moment. I think after a difficult start they start to play like they want and like they are able to do.”

Chelsea FC will return to Premier League action on Tuesday night with a trip to face Wolverhampton Wanderers.

[Tautvix 1,321]

Simply not good enough.