Chelsea come off the back of a damaging defeat in the Champions League against Valencia and roll into a massive Sunday home game against Liverpool.
The Blues looked short of confidence as they were stunned by a late goal from the Spanish team, and in no state to take on one of Europe’s strongest team.
Having said that, the Reds lost last night too, and there are some changes Frank Lampard can make to help his chances of a good result.
Firstly, he has to replace Mason Mount. That won’t be easy, given the midfielder has provided both goals and creativity in abundance for this team. If he’s going to stick with the 343 that has worked better defensively, Lampard could restore Christian Pulisic to the team to add some genuine pace on the counter attack to scare Liverpool.
Secondly, Lampard can look to return some of his injured players to the team. It seems a total lottery at the moment over who’s going to be fit, but any one of N’Golo Kante, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Antonio Rudiger and Reece James look like they could feature from the start. Most of them will probably need a sub appearance first, but we’d be shocked if none of the quarter were able to start at last this weekend.
Thirdly, Lampard can think of a better way of switching the game up in the second half. His current tactic is to bring on Olivier Giroud, but that really didn’t work last night. By that point the wing backs have tired and aren’t getting as many crosses in, and Giroud and Abraham together both were essentially out of the game looking for crosses that weren’t coming. A more developed backup plan for when we go behind could bring huge dividends for Lampard and his staff.
