With Sunday's draw against Newcastle, a disappointing Chelsea season came to an end and the Blues wasted little time in signalling a new era with the appointment of Mauricio Pochettino the following day. However, the west London side will have to wait until he starts full-time.
Now, is the time to set things up for Pochettino to ensure he has a platform to help Chelsea flourish in 2023/24 and to solve problems that emerged in 2022/23 and to solve others that couldn't be fixed. It's possible to identify a litany of errors, and to direct blame in multiple directions but what matters now is overcoming them.
There is little time to work until Pochettino officially takes charge and an even shorter period until the transfer window opens and it is there the club's work must start. Lampard felt comfortable to list a number of issues in his final press conference as caretaker manager, with both the size of the squad and the number of players with heads turned near the top of the list.
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"I think some have been mindful of that for a while [saying goodbye] and it's been part of the problem," explained the 44-year-old. "It's hard to compete in this league or at this level if some players are in that middle ground and too many are. That's been a thing. Maybe getting to the end of it is a good thing. Whoever is emotional or has their eye on somewhere else or whether the club want them to leave or they want to leave. Now we get to the bottom of it quickly."
It is not simply a problem that arose at the end of the season however. While there is speculation over the futures of N'Golo Kante, Mason Mount, Mateo Kovacic, Hakim Ziyech, Christian Pulisic and a multitude of others, the club have endured similar problems before.
Lampard and Graham Potter have pointed to issues in pre-season when searching for an explanation for Chelsea's underperformance in the Premier League. There were issues around the travelling schedule, the facilities and more when the Blues toured the USA in 2022 but also difficulties with the make up of the squad.
The likes of Michy Batshuayi, Marcos Alonso, Ross Barkley, Emerson Palmieri and Kenedy were all on the trip and all eventually departed the club. Alonso and Barkley left for free but it was the end of the transfer window before they departed, having spent all of pre-season and more under Thomas Tuchel.
In defeat to Arsenal in Orlando, Chelsea were comprehensively beaten and outperformed. The season had yet to begin and Tuchel's frustration was evident.
Following the game, he said: "I saw today a team in Arsenal who are mentally committed to an idea of playing, a level of exhaustion, a level of physical commitment that we could not match. Also, a level of mental commitment that we lacked because we have a lot of players who are thinking about leaving and looking at their options. We have players that have left and I think at the moment that's obvious."
It is a situation Chelsea must avoid falling into again. The Blues already have a squad in excess of 30 with a swathe of loan players to return. As Lampard noted, situations must be resolved quickly. Then, Pochettino can drive a committed squad further.
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