David Hytner was at the Emirates tonight. Here’s his verdict. Thanks for reading this MBM. Nighty night.
Frank Lampard speaks to Sky. “The performance in the first half was nowhere near good enough … too nice to play against in all aspects … too passive defensively … the second half was better but the result was confirmed by then … Chelsea has been a big success for 20 years but at the moment we’re not in that position … it’s pretty evident to see behind the scenes the reasons why … these things are not things to change overnight but we’d better get there quickly … the passive nature of our game you could attribute to many things … it’s the easy go-to that they don’t care enough … the players certainly care … but, and I hate to say they are low on confidence, because you’re playing for Chelsea there’s a level of performance you have to do, you can be low on confidence but still show a dynamic side to your game … maybe it doesn’t even matter what the core reason is, because the only thing that will get you out of it is working hard and understanding the things to do … and in the minute we are a little bit conditioned that makes us pretty nice to play against … that’s what will have to change … we need to find the reasons quickly … it won’t be an overnight fix … we have to do the basics better and then we’ll get some progress … the first half was nowhere near good enough as a performance for the players that we’ve got and where we want to be as Chelsea … but it’s a reality and that’s what I’ve come into … it’s what we need to improve as a club.”
