Why Chelsea? Why? The worst performance of the season. Disgraceful from start to finish. No hunger, no passion, no desire and quite frankly, no idea.
Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte, Maurizio Sarri and now Frank Lampard have all questioned this team’s motivation. There’s no leadership, and there’s nobody talking on the pitch either.
This time last week I was a guest on the podcast, we’d just come off the back of a comfortable 3-0 win over Watford. Ross Barkley and Mason Mount ran the show in midfield, one dropping deep to pick up possession and the other pushing between the defensive lines to split the defence apart.
It was the kind of performance that Frank Lampard had envisaged from his new midfield line up of N’Golo Kante as a deeper 6 with two more attack minded 8’s in front of him. The kind of midfield that Lampard himself would’ve loved to have played in.
The performance of course, came off the back of the shock 3-2 defeat to West Ham United a few days previous. The defence again struggling with set pieces and a last minute break away left us seething.
Luckily, those around us had dropped points but as we discussed on the pod, we probably couldn’t afford any more defeats in the race for top 4.
Watford showed a really positive reaction, the reintroduction of Kurt Zouma in defence seemed to provide the aerial dominance we seemed to lack.
Crystal Palace offered more cause for concern than optimism, it was perhaps only due to the introduction of Jorginho that we came away with all three points. The Eagles, who hadn’t won post lockdown, were really pushing for an equaliser before the forgotten man slowed the game down in Chelsea’s favour.
We’ve all known for some time that the defence needed fixing and we’d lost Kante and Billy Gilmour to injury so the reintroduction of Jorginho was coming against Sheffield United, so it made it more surprising that Lampard stuck with Mount and Barkley to partner him.
The Blades suffocated Chelsea who struggled to create anything of note. The performance of several players left a lot to be desired, Tammy Abraham not taking his opportunity to prove to the club he deserves his new mega money contract.
3-0 defeat, the risk of being outside the top 4 by the end of the Manchester United vs Southampton game. Still to face Liverpool and Wolves in our last two matches. The world had ended right?
Certainly seemed like that, especially on social media. And I’m the worst for that. Absolutely hate losing and to me, Champions League football was over because I can’t see this defence keeping Liverpool or Wolves out.
And then just 24 hours later, Bournemouth spanked Leicester 4-1 and things seem on the up. Norwich tomorrow, already relegated, what could go wrong?
Manchester United and Leicester still have to play each other as well, so there’s dropped points for one of them at least.
This season has been a rollercoaster, there’s been highs and oh so low lows, and guess what, there’s going to be even more between now and the end of the season.
So buckle up, get ready and enjoy Frankie’s show time Blues!
