Chelsea are not the biggest team, that is just a fact.
Goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga stands at just over 6 foot, whilst none of his defenders are really that tall with Antonio Rudiger and Kurt Zouma both standing at 6ft 2in. They are both reasonable in the air, but certainly not dominant.
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk stands at over 6ft 3in and is one of the best aerial ball winners in the world. This is what Chelsea lack, and Frank Lampard has admitted that this is something they need to look at.
Defending crosses has proven to be a real issue at Chelsea this season, highlighted once again by an abysmal defensive performance against West Ham in the week, resulting in a 3-2 defeat.
But Lampard knows they need to improve on this, and uses the example of his Chelsea playing days as the fact that they simply lack the height and dominant ball winners in the air.
As per The Telegraph, Lampard said:
“We’ve looked at set-pieces this season. And when we came into the club we looked at the stats from last season. Last season, we were bottom of the league defending set-plays, in terms of teams getting big chances against us, and second bottom in attacking. So we looked at that. It’s not just a reference to last season because we haven’t improved much this year.
“If you look at the personnel, and I really don’t like to talk about my own playing days, but we didn’t work much at all on set-pieces; certain managers more than others, and there were a few reasons, mainly John Terry, Gary Cahill, Didier Drogba, Michael Ballack and (Branislav) Ivanovic. So you’d stick it in an area and they would defend it or score goals.
“Similarly with Liverpool, I remember a lot of talk about them and set-pieces a few seasons ago. They were zonal and conceding a lot. They signed Virgil van Dijk and he heads out everything that comes in the box. So there’s a huge relation to personnel. And if you don’t have that size across the team, the main thing is trying to compete as hard as you can and making it difficult for other teams to score.
“I’m not making excuses because we haven’t done it well enough on the pitch and that has to improve,” he said. “But when you look at who you might bring in, with the balance of the squad, in the modern day, [height] is certainly something to take into account when you’re looking at recruitment.”
