That was not, it’s fair to say, the start that Frank Lampard wanted to his second stint as Chelsea manager. It’s not just that his side lost 1–0 to Wolves, who are just four points off the relegation zone. It was the nature of the performance. Under Graham Potter, Chelsea had dominated games and failed to take its chances. At Molineux on Saturday, Chelsea was outfought and outplayed and didn’t even create the chances to miss.
“We needed more aggression,” Lampard said after the match. “We needed to be more competitive. That’s the base-line.” Which sounded a lot like the sort of blaming the players that undermined morale in his last stint in charge. As though conscious of that, Lampard rowed back, insisting he didn’t meaning “stinging criticism” by his comments.
“It’s a big task,” he went on. “We’re managing Chelsea Football Club. We’re not in the position we want to be in and there’s always a reason for that. I was never going to solve everything in one day.” But the truth is this seemed not merely not a step towards solving the problems, but a regression.
