Frank Lampard reveals the players failed to follow his instructions against Southampton

Chelsea had yet another disappointing result at the weekend, throwing away 3 points to draw 3-3 with Southampton.

It was another game that The Blues should have won easily and put to bed in the first half when they were all over The Saints and leading 2-0.

But it was the same old story for Frank Lampard’s side, as awful individual errors and shocking defending gifted Southampton two goals to come back and get a point in the final minutes of the game.

Chelsea should have won the game and put it beyond reach in the first half, but when they didn’t do this, they just needed to see it out and cancel out any threat from Southampton.

Lampard has revealed that this is pretty much what he asked his players to do, but they failed to follow his basic instructions and continued to push on and attack.

Lampard wanted his players to miss the Southampton press and go longer, as reported by Goal.

He said:

“I certainly didn’t want to play brave football in the last moments of the game.

“That was my message to them, that I wanted them to go longer and break the press. I don’t think the players did that enough.

“We tried to play too much and some of that is ingrained in the players that they want to try and play football.

“That’s certainly something I am not a big advocate of with high pressure, as something you can do is miss out the pressure to get the ball high up the pitch and use the players at the other end of the pitch.

“That was probably my biggest disappointment that the players didn’t put into action.

“I am not concerned about the communication; we certainly work very hard through the week to have that.

“What I am concerned with is game management and, in the game, the players have to gauge that on the pitch, it is part of what being a top player at Chelsea is about.

“Absolutely, it is the players’ choice. If there is a moment where the players have to see out a game, then we have to do that on the pitch and it isn’t about communication from that point at all.”

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