A YEAR ago, Chelsea were reborn on the fourth of July when Frank Lampard took over as manager.
The club legend celebrates his first anniversary tonight with a home against Watford as he looks to take another step towards securing a Champions League place.
Lampard admits the progress of his young team has been quicker than expected but has warned the fans to be patient for his second year as becoming title contenders could take longer.
Lampard, whose team lost 3-2 at West Ham on Wednesday, said: “I’m always a perfectionist and I always want more. It means nothing if we don’t finish off the season well. If we get in the Champions League spots then of course I will be very, very pleased.
“It has been an enjoyable first year here. When I came into the job, even though I knew the club well, I didn’t know the current squad so well. I have learned a lot.
“I’m a realist and knowing we lost Eden Hazard and the input he had individually at the club was huge, it was a case of and how do we work around that? I think we’ve found good ways to work around that.
“I sense from the fans what they want. I always want to improve and we’re nowhere near the finished article or where we want to be.
“We have found a really good level at times. If we say now, ‘Ok, now we’re going to challenge’ we have to remember we’re actually going up against if not the two best club teams in the world, then two teams very very close to that.
“The reason is because they’ve worked hard over a big period, they’ve trained well and recruited well, so we may find the curve looks slightly different.
“We have to fight against that and try and close the gap as quickly as we can in whatever way we can as a club. “
Despite looking at offensive players, Chelsea also need to improve the defence – and Lampard admits the team is physically too small.
He added: “When we came into the club we looked at the stats from 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 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 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.
“But there’s no doubt and I’m not making excuses because we haven’t done that well enough on the pitch and that has to improve.
“When you look at who you might bring in with the balance of the squad, in the modern day, it is certainly something to take into account when you’re looking at recruitment.
