Chelsea’s current poor run of form appears to be getting to Frank Lampard after he ‘lost it’ in the dressing room when talking to his players at half-time against Arsenal, according to reports.
After a good start to the campaign, the blues have hit a blip recently, winning only one of their last five Premier League games – a 3-0 win over West Ham just before Christmas.
From being title contenders few weeks ago, Chelsea could slip nine points adrift league leaders Liverpool if the reigning champions win their outstanding.
Prior to Arsenal’s win over Chelsea, Mikel Arteta’s side had not won in seven league matches and were closer to the relegation zone, but they were two goals up at the break against Lampard’s side in what was a poor display.
The Athletic claims Lampard ‘lost it’ with his players during his half-time team talk at the Emirates, raging at their poor showing.
His mood was not improved when Bukayo Saka scored a third goal shortly after the restart and, despite threatening to mount a late fightback, Lampard could not hide his unhappiness at the display in his post-match media duties.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, he said: ‘I’m angry because I want us to win games and today was an opportunity to go second at a place where they’re having a tough time, and we know how that goes.
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‘You either make it more difficult for them or you give them a little opening, a crack, and we did that from minute one and continued to do it for 45 minutes.
‘And you get what you deserve. Lazy to give away a penalty. Lazy in terms of giving away a free-kick that he [Xhaka] puts in the top corner. I’m very, very disappointed in the way we approached the first half, because some things in football are basics.
‘It’s not tactics or systems, it’s: do you want to run? Do you want to back your teammate up? Do you want to sprint? Or do you want jog? Or maybe you want to say, “Oh maybe I don’t have to run”. We took that decision rather than the right one.’
Chelsea gave a better performance against Aston Villa on Monday, though sacrificed the lead and ended up drawing the game 1-1.
