Lampard admits Chelsea not good enough at the moment and we should be worried

Another weekend, another loss. That’s three Saturdays in a row where Chelsea have ruined our weekend. Three defeats to teams teetering on the edge of the relegation zone. Three defeats to teams on horrendous runs of form of their own. Bournemouth, for example, had 1 win in their last 10 games. Now they have 2. Meanwhile, Chelsea have lost 4 of 5 in the league after winning 7 in a row not that long ago.

Simply put, it’s not been good enough from the Blues, and there’s no hiding from that fact. Head coach Frank Lampard certainly wasn’t after the game, admitting as much, and making it clear that we have lots of work to do on the training ground.

“I am not going to draw a line between me and the players. We have a long week where they can go away a couple of days and when they come back train hard for Tottenham. We have to admit at the moment it is not good enough.”

Bournemouth followed the same formula as West Ham and Everton, sitting deep and going long on the counter, and utilizing crosses and set pieces to cause havoc as well. And while the visitors managed to scramble in a goal (initially ruled out but correctly given by VAR), Chelsea failed to find a way through. The couple times we did, point-blank chances were wasted (Mount, Emerson come to mind). But against such a struggling team, we should’ve been creating more to begin with.

“Now we have the reality, if we are not at our best, if we don’t have enough then we need to find another way.”

“When we’ve played teams who are deep and well organised we haven’t found a way. We need urgency in our play. Getting it through the lines. Don’t play safe. We played too safe.

“It’s clear we are not playing well enough. We are creating a lot but giving away silly goals. We didn’t create enough. We didn’t get the fans excited enough.

“Teams will make it difficult. That is a test, can we find ways to do something extra.”

-Frank Lampard; source: Football.London

Not too long ago, Chelsea were flying high and winning games. But it’s been a stop-start last two months, trading wins and losses with a couple draws thrown in (W-L-W-D-W-L-D-L-W-L-W-L) and things continue to trend towards one of those classic wintertime “bad moments” — though if the pattern holds, we’re due a win next.

And yet, we remain fourth.

The season’s far from gone. But improvement is required and required quickly. Spurs and Mourinho await on Sunday.