New Year, new thinking, old problem

Picture: Sky Sports

So I start 2023 with a post about football. Sorry if you were expecting something erudite about rock and roll, but there’s plenty of that in the pipeline, I assure you. It’s just that things need to be said about my football club. And being a Monday, home of the occasional ‘Monday Moan’ (see posts passim), it might as well be now, even if today is only the second day of the new year.

There was hope that the World Cup, which ate through most of the final six weeks of the old year, would allow Graham Potter time to figure out what wasn’t happening at Chelsea. Prior to last Tuesday’s restorative 2-0 win over Bournemouth, the club had suffered three straight defeats in its previous Premier League outings, running up to the tournament in Qatar. Potter had said that he would use the international break to get his head around why. In fairness, it was probably the first opportunity he’d had to fully get under the skin of the team he’d been somewhat parachuted into following Thomas Tuchel’s abrupt sacking in September, barely a month into the new season. That meant Potter had a steep curve to attain, even if it was softened by conciliatory noises from Chelsea’s new owners about a “project” that would give him time. 

The Bournemouth result, which saw goals from Kai Havertz and Mason Mount, with Raheem Sterling displaying a contributory form that he’d barely shown since his summer move from Manchester City, gave some hope that Potter’s pledge before the game, that improvement was coming, would ring true. “We’ve had a challenging time, some ups, some downs, in terms of the previous year which is normal at any football club,” the head coach said during his pre-match comments. “But we want to stabilise, try and improve and make our supporters happy, because we know the last few weeks before the break weren’t nice for us. Results suffered, performances weren’t where we wanted them to be, and we have to do better than that.”

Picture: Twitter/Chelsea FC

The one negative in the Bournemouth result was the withdrawal of Reece James having put in a half during which he’d demonstrated, cruelly, what Chelsea had been missing during his absence due to a knee injury. When that injury occurred again, right in front of the dugout, a collective groan extended around Stamford Bridge. That was just how much difference James had made. If, then, you add his left-sided wingback counterpart Ben Chilwell to the injury list, a picture emerges of why Chelsea have looked pedestrian without the pair, marauding forward to cut in, or providing flank protection to a central defensive trio that includes the 38-year-old Thiago Silva. It’s worth noting that since the start of last season Chelsea have won 82% of the games James and Chilwell have started together, and lost just once. Given that both players have been injured for varying periods of that record, you have to wonder what could have been with them fully intact.

So, move on a few days to yesterday’s New Year’s Day visit to second-from-bottom Nottingham Forest, whose manager Steve Cooper knew exactly where to exploit weakness. The resulting 1-1 scoreline flattered Chelsea with, perhaps, the one bright spot being Raheem Sterling’s long overdue sixth goal out of 17 appearances. Full credit, then, to Cooper for inspiring his side into not lying down. But questions must be asked as to why Potter was unable to eek another three points out of a squad in which the club’s new owners invested an additional £270 million last summer. Word is there’s even more expenditure to come. Money, as we all know, doesn’t necessarily solve problems. 

“I think Potter needs time,” was the conclusion of Graeme Souness after the Forest game. “This is not a squad equipped to go and win big games of football. Their goal difference is plus-two.”. Which raises the obvious question: if not, what does £270 million buy you, then? Not a lot, it would seem. None of Chelsea’s summer purchases have exactly set the world alight.

What is emerging are doubts about co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali’s buying strategy, which has appeared more urgent largesse than tactical solution finding. £170 million of that spend went on defenders. By any measure of expectation, Kalidou Koulibaly (a £33 million buy from Napoli), Marc Cucurella (£56 million from Brighton) and Wesley Fofana (almost £70 million from Leicester - and has only made six appearances due to injury), should have made some difference. But, it would seem, no. Koulibaly was meant to resolve the departures of Antonio Rüdiger and Andreas Christensen, both of whose contracts had run down amid dissatisfaction with successive managers, and then exploited the vacuum caused by Roman Abramovich’s forced disposal of the club.

Picture: Twitter/Chelsea FC

Against Forest, Chelsea were exposed at the back. Playing a four, with Koulibaly and Silva flanked by club captain César Azpilicueta and Cucurella, Chelsea looked leaden through the middle, with Jorginho labouring despite loanee Denis Zakaria putting in a decent shift. As wingbacks, Azpiliqueta and Cucurella are no substitutes for James and Chilwell, either in terms of guile or agility. Which means more is expected from the midfield. But here questions must be asked about Jorginho’s viability. In turn, the forward line of Pulisic, Havertz and Sterling look somewhat anaemic, with the American blowing hot and cold (frustratingly, he was outstanding for the USA in Qatar) and the German still unsure of whether he is a false 9 or an actual 9. Hakim Zyech doesn’t seem to have Potter’s confidence as a starting option, despite an outstanding appearance for Morocco at the World Cup. That seemed to merely confirm that he wanted to remain in the shop window, because God knows he hasn’t appeared to be interested in playing for his club when he’s been given the chance.

What this all ladders up to is that Chelsea are, after all that outlay, lacking from front to back. Even if you factor in a lengthening injury list that includes N’Golo Kanté (who surely must be reaching the end of his contract and usefulness, anyway, given that he spends more time on the treatment table these days than a football pitch), the project must surely be about a wholesale blood transfusion rather than more purchases which essentially paper over cracks that have existed in the plasterwork for a long time. 

As one Twitter wag noted yesterday after the draw with Forest, Chelsea have burned through Antonio Conte, Maurizio Sarri, club legend Frank Lampard and Tuchel as managers in the last six years, but some of the same players that engendered their sacking are still on the books. A harsh assessment maybe, but it is perhaps why the appointment of RB Leipzig’s Christopher Vivell as technical director could be the most important signing of the Boehly era (replacing the American chairman himself who’d been fulfilling the role ad-interim). 

Maybe that will stem the apparently naive acquisitions of players like striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, bought in an act of transfer deadline day desperation, presumably in the belief that he could reconnect with former Borussia Dortmund manager Tuchel, only for the coach to be fired five days later. In fairness, Chelsea have been staffing up behind the scenes under the new ownership, especially within its much-vaunted academy, but the attention - and expectation - will always fall on the first team.

And so, we enter another January window. Received wisdom is that player signings at this time of year smack of shotgun wedding, and often end in disappointment (case in point: Fernando Torres). So far, the club has brought in 20-year-old Ivorian striker David Datro Fofana to cover for Armando Broca’s long-term injury, and central defender Benoît Badiashile has joined from Monaco for around £32 million. As is now the custom, Chelsea are being linked with just about every other player who performed with distinction at the World Cup in the belief that the Boehly-Clearlake chequebook contains endless blank pages.

This does bring the spotlight back to Graham Potter. Whether he gets time remains to be seen, but compared to his predecessors, the threat of a P45 isn’t as immediate under the new owners as they had been under Abramovich. But even that doesn’t insulate him. Potter’s challenge - which he hitherto hasn’t encountered in his managerial career - is to turn a squad that still contains Champions League-winning players from only May 2021 back into Top Four competitors. Which on yesterday’s evidence and today’s view of the Premier League table, in which Chelsea sit eighth, seems unlikely.

The impending period will, though, pile on the pressure. Potter’s next two games are against Manchester City - the first, at home in the league, the second, three days later, at the Etihad in the FA Cup. There’s little respite beyond that, either, with a trip down the Fulham Road to upbeat neighbours at Craven Cottage, before returning to Stamford Bridge for Crystal Palace, and then back on the road to Anfield, all before the January window shuts. No wonder fans are anxious. Some have become openly hostile to Potter, though these tend to be keyboard gobshites offering little more than Mauricio Pochettino’s name as an alternative, and who patently haven’t read the situation that the Chelsea coach found himself in when he drove up the A23 from Brighton to his new job in September.

Fresh blood might help - sorry, fresh blood should help - but the bottom line is that Chelsea have too many players who are, to varying degrees, underperforming in seemingly untouchable positions. Some might be doing so because of the players around them, while with others it’s because they simply lack the winning mentality required at the club. 

It’s often said that Chelsea have never been as good as the team that won trophies repeatedly under José Mourinho with a spine of serial winners - and leaders - that ran from goal (Petr Čech), through central defence (John Terry), central midfield (Lampard) to the front (Didier Drogba). The club has, of course, won silverware since that quartet’s retirements, but in its current line-up, it’s hard to identify where the strengths are. Capabilities are there, no doubt, and I’m certainly not suggesting that Chelsea are currently a collection of individuals. But there’s something patently missing.

It doesn’t need to be found immediately, though. A period of purdah from open-top buses might allow the club to re-establish the imperiousness of the early Abramovich era, and the success that had eluded it in the preceding 34 years. The trouble is, success is a very demanding mistress. And a lucrative one, too. Which might tip the weight of expectation on Graham Potter’s shoulders against him in the months ahead.

With 20/20 hindsight...

I'm not going to rewrite my own history. Frank Lampard's removal in January still hurts (see posts passim). But what Thomas Tuchel produced on Saturday in Porto, out of the same group of players who’d started the season under Lampard, was a tactical masterclass. The result, a 17th major trophy - and for the second time, Europe’s most prestigious - under Roman Abramovich’s ownership suggests that the philosophy of silverware over managerial longevity works. 

To those of a principled nature, this apparently mercenary need for cups might sit uncomfortably with a more purist, romantic view of football. But Saturday’s win over the even more lavishly resourced Manchester City, whose owner even paid for the club’s fans to be flown to and from Portugal, revealed something of the notion that it’s not always about money. That might sound rich from the fan of a club where money has, actually, bought quite a lot. But money didn’t buy that victory - directly - it was Tuchel’s tactics, plus Pep Guardiola’s decision not to play start with Fernandinho and Rodri, and add a little bit of free stardust from the Chelsea Academy. 

One genuinely satisfying outcome of the Champions League Final was the sight of Mason Mount and Reece James making such outstanding contributions to the win - the former with his midfield-splitting pass to Kai Havertz for the goal, the latter for his robust maturity in preventing City’s fearsome attack from clawing back. You could also cite Andreas Christensen and Christian Pulisic, both of whom have experience of Chelsea’s youth system. Havertz’s goal was most satisfying, simply because the £71 million signing had taken a while to settle in the side since his arrival last summer, with a huge price tag on his shoulders. A nasty bout of COVID-19 didn’t help, either. Perplexingly, he’s still not the out-and-out forward Chelsea so desperately need. 

Timo Werner, bless him, once again demonstrated how a full season and the injection of a fellow German to manage him still hasn’t done anything to improve his finishing. A return of 12 goals in 51 games (and just two in 23) over all competitions is by any measure woeful for a striker, especially one who arrived from Leipzig last summer, having bagged 28 strikes out of 34 Bundesliga games alone. So with the sadly outcast Tammy Abraham - another youth product - and Olivier Giroud destined for pastures new, if Chelsea are to close the gap with City in the Premier League, Werner either needs to dramatically improve his lethality, or Mr. Abramovich has to get his cheque book out again.

The youth element of Chelsea’s make-up has been the core of the club narrative over the last two seasons. When Frank Lampard took over, he had little option but to play the youngsters, thanks to the UEFA transfer ban in place. His existing familiarity with players like Mount, as well as the history of assistants Joe Edwards and Jody Morris working with the Academy, meant their progression added chapters to the fairy tale. And thus it continued when Tuchel took over, though he fell back on experience and maturity to begin with, probably as a safety net, before increasingly seeing what Mount and James could do. The same applied to Ben Chilwell, who’d joined from Leicester last summer, but seemed to take a while to win the new coach over, with the unreliable (in my opinion) Marcos Alonso getting the nod over him. 

It would, however, be too easy to make Saturday night’s victory a romantic one about youngsters alone: just look at the shift the near-32-year-old captain César Azpilicueta put in, or the 36-year-old Thiago Silva, before his groin gave out, or even Antonio Rüdiger. And just how magnificent was the diminutive N’Golo Kanté, who turned 30 in March, placing him in the category of players Chelsea likes to offer limited-length contracts from now on (but would be utterly insane not to tie him down, based on the form he’s shown this season). Kanté was everywhere against City, and while it’s become something of a cliche to refer to him as two players in one, he was, once more, more than just a holding player, but frequently the origin of Chelsea’s forward runs, attacks that exposed Guardiola’s midfield folly.

Here, then, is where I run the risk of revisionism. Chelsea were in some trouble in January when Lampard - forever a club legend - was fired. It’s possible that they could have dug themselves out of it, but heads had noticeably dropped. I still can’t reconcile my thoughts: could Frank have benefitted from a more experienced director of football to manage him? Or was it just too soon, ultimately, to be managing the club? John Terry beware, if so. 

Thomas Tuchel is not naive. He will know full well of the managerial toll that has come with the successes of the Abramovich era. Saturday’s result was the third occasion Chelsea have won a title at the end of a season where the manager has changed midway through. Maybe the Russian owner knows what he's doing, after all. His instincts for pulling the trigger at the right time seem uncannily sharp, but it’s hard not to wonder why those instincts weren’t apparent when some appointments were made in the first place. Avram Grant, André Villas-Boas, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Maurizio Sarri, even José Mourinho (twice)  and Lampard himself were all, to some extent, experiments that failed, requiring Guus Hiddink or the detested (but successful) Rafa Benítez to be parachuted in. 

Tuchel took over an increasingly listless team, instilled some defensive fortitude into them and plugged the leaks. It’s likely that he will now be offered to extend his somewhat tentative 18-month contract. If nothing else earns it, the ‘cup with the big ears’ should do so (not that Chelsea winning it helped Roberto Di Matteo - appointed in March 2012, fired the following November). Tuchel’s tactical victory on Saturday over Guardiola has, at least, quelled the disquiet over Chelsea’s end to the domestic season, with their only-just fourth place in the Premier League, having lost games at crucial moments, and Leicester’s convincing victory in the FA Cup Final which denied Tuchel his only other chance of securing silver.

But taken into another context, along the way, Tuchel has now outsmarted Guardiola three times in six weeks, which poses the enticing prospect of Chelsea mounting a credible challenge to City next term. In the Premier League, Tuchel arrested any further decline and pushed Chelsea back into European contention, just. He took them into an FA Cup Final. And - most impressively - he masterminded superb knockout-round victories over Atlético Madrid, Saturday night’s hosts, Porto, Real Madrid and then City. It’s not been lost on commentators that the near-deity Pep Guardiola’s desire to win Europe’s biggest prize continues, while Thomas Tuchel has achieved it in only five months. He’s not the Special One, but on Saturday’s evidence, he is pretty special. Wish I’d known that when I wagged the finger of doom in January and said that Chelsea should be careful what they wished for. I mean, what do I know?

Paging Dr. Hiddink

Picture: Chelsea TV

For many people, myself included, today is the first day back at work after a welcome break. It was an opportunity to sleep in, to recharge and, even in the strange circumstances we find ourselves, enjoy a Christmas with the ones we love (or, at least, those we’re allowed to spend time with). For Frank Lampard, I suspect, this Monday morning is simply the continuation of a nightmare that has not, apparently, been ended by his wife Christine elbowing him in the ribs to wake up and stop him turning restlessly.

Yesterday’s performance by Chelsea was one of the most toothless, abject displays I’ve seen by The Blues in all the years I’ve been watching them. Which is many. And I’m still only talking about the first half against Manchester City, who had monstered the home side with three goals within the first 34 minutes. If there was one consolation, it’s that Lampard’s side held at only three for the remaining sixty-odd minutes, Callum Hudson-Odoi’s 92nd-minute strike never more than a token. 

The almost immediate conclusion, as the final whistle blew, was that the pressure on Lampard had just been cranked up considerably, with Chelsea ending the Christmas period in eighth place and a woeful record of three defeats in five games that netted only a single win. At risk of stating the bleeding obvious, this is not what Roman Abramovich shelled out £250 million in the summer for. That’s the stark truth, regardless of the more rational analysis that results are never instant, no matter how much you spend. If you look at the indifference afforded Jürgen Klopp, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and even City’s Pep Guardiola in their first months of management at their respective clubs, progress takes patience and time. Unfortunately, those are commodities the Russian oligarch has repeatedly shown limited supplies of. 

Time, in particular, is relative. A month or so ago, Solskjaer’s future at Manchester United was in grave doubt. Today they sit just behind Liverpool on goal difference alone, on the back of a ten-match unbeaten run. For Lampard, a month is a long time. “I know that it doesn’t come that easy,” he said after yesterday’s savaging by City. “I know where we’re at, whether it puts pressure on me or not. A month ago, everyone’s asking me when I’ll sign a new contract and now people will be saying different things because in quick succession over a tight, busy period, we’ve lost four games of football.” 

It’s true: when Chelsea were on the up they were suddenly being talked about as title contenders. But with every opportunity over the festive period they’ve had to add points and climb the narrowly spaced top six, they’ve blown it. Stoically Lampard has maintained the manager-under-pressure mantra of “My job is to keep working”, but if reports this morning are to be believed, the Chelsea hierarchy has already started shortlisting potential replacements. That in itself is to be predicted, given the capricious history of the club’s owner, but it doesn’t diminish the dull headache produced by the prospect of yet another managerial schism at the club and, in particular, one involving one of the club’s most celebrated former players.

“I played here for a long time,” Lampard said yesterday. “I understand that the minute you lose a few games in a short period of time, then everyone looks and ask questions and the expectations are different this year, because everyone says, ‘Well, you spent this amount of money?’. The reality is [that] a lot of the younger players that have come in are new, are young, have been injured, have not played together. It’s the first time I’ve been able to play Ziyech, Pulisic and Timo Werner in the same team. If we’re expecting the relationship between them three to be the same as [City’s] Sterling, De Bruyne and Silva, then there’s a lot of expectations that are not real.” As ever, an intelligent and cogent argument from Lampard, and to anyone else, it stands up. But Roman Abramovich isn’t anyone else. As this blog has documented on many occasions in the history of Chelsea’s revolving front door, managers have come and gone with alarming regularity. The most notable departure for me is always that of Carlo Ancellotti, hired as the exalted Milan maestro, who delivered a league and cup double in his first term at Chelsea, and was gone by the end of his second for having the temerity of only achieving a Premier League runners-up spot.

“This club has to take some pain to get where we want to get to, because any build or rebuild - and the ban that we had, and the players we have brought in - takes pain,” added Lampard. True, but the transfer ban of the 2019-20 season is starting to become old news. And the players he brought in during the summer - most notably Werner and the high-expectation Kai Havertz (even taking his bout of COVID into account) - should by now be at least showing signs of pulling their weight. And that comes down to leadership.

That was in short supply yesterday. Actually, it was non-existent. Until City slackened off after the break, job done, Chelsea were anaemic in all departments. The entire backline was caught all at sea by City for all three goals by Ilkay Gundogan, Phil Foden and Kevin de Bruyne. Club captain César Azpilicueta, normally so dependent out on the right, was constantly caught out; his inside centre-back Kurt Zouma looked disinterested; veteran Thiago Silva - nominally, the player brought in for his leadership - appeared uncommunicative; and even left-back Ben Chilwell, one of Chelsea’s brighter acquisitions, looked off his game. The defence wasn’t helped, either, by a midfield providing absolutely no protection whatsoever, or offering much stimulus when they did have the chance of going forward. And as for the frontline, utterly toothless. Werner summed up his current run of form by kicking the flag instead of the ball on a corner late in the day.

It’s times like this that Chelsea fans and commentators alike get nostalgic, and reach for the past. It wasn’t so long ago that the current Blues boss was part of a spine that had Petr Čech at its base, John Terry in command at the back, Lampard in the middle, and Didier Drogba at the top. Lampard, now, needs to tap into that. While Drogba could go missing in games when he wasn’t interested (similarly, Diego Costa more recently), when in the mood he was as tenacious a street fighter as Terry was the ‘Captain. Leader. Legend.’ blunt instrument at the back. It won games. It won titles. It may not have won friends, but that’s not what you’re in football for.

The solution? Well, it would be easy to pontificate from the sofa that Lampard needs to make more use of Olivier Giroud and less of Mason Mount, who has, it should be said, deservedly been a first-choice pick, but even he looked bereft of ideas yesterday. Werner needs time to regain confidence, N’Golo Kante needs to find the tenacity that made him such a mesmerising watch in central midfield when he arrived from Leicester City. And elsewhere, heads need knocking together so that concentration improves, and players start showing a bit of interest in what they’re doing. As on yesterday’s performance, that was in scant supply. And it’s precisely that sort of indifference that traditionally prompts Abramovich to look up Guus Hiddink to see if he’s got any plans for the next few months. 

Sweet bird of youth

Picture: Richard Pelham, The Sun

I'm still staring at the calendar in disbelief. It's Monday, 12 August. My shoulders continue to peel from the blast of Florida sun I've just returned from. My work inbox is groaning under the weight of e-mail traffic seemingly indifferent to the fact I've been on holiday, each missive tugging at my coat screaming "read me first!". Of course, the myriad reply-alls which simply say "Thanks." are straight in the bin, as should be the individuals who inconsiderately sent them (word to the wise - I really don't care that you're thankful. I do care that you're bunging up my inbox with a message for someone else).

Such holiday harrumphing aside, I'm staring at the date because it means that first blood has already been drawn in the 2019-2020 football season. Around the country in recent days there have been qualifiers for the FA and League cups, the Football League began the previous weekend, and we've just witnessed the opening salvos in the Premier League. It's the same every summer, I suppose: games watched partially in holiday resort bars, out of desperation for some sight of football in most cases, and escape from the family in many others. These first weekends for the respective leagues are the beginning of an arcing season that will clamber through the temperature changes of summer, autumn, winter, spring and summer again, with the prospect of breaking out the mid-season parka and gloves now still a long way away, but in reality, only a matter of weeks. As the TV commentators have been predictably stating, there's a long, long way to go.

Which is why yesterday's events at Old Trafford should be meaningless. Because, we are told, the first game of the season is. And the second. And probably the third. These are, however, the views of those with false hope. An opening day tonking, such as Chelsea suffered yesterday, can always be rationalised, justified, even. The optimist will look back on it and make hopeless excuses: "They were still at the beach"; "The pre-season friendlies don't mean a thing - it's always different when they get down to the real work"; "We've still got players coming back from injury/the summer tournament/settling in to the new side"; and yada, yada, yada.

Chelsea have turned over so many managers over my lifetime (and not just in the Abramovich era, either), that the arrival of each new one is always a test of faith, belief and expectation. Frank Lampard's status as a club legend makes no difference than that which accompanied the appointments of Ruud Gulitt, Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Di Matteo or even dear old Geoff Hurst, many moons ago. All equally expendable, none particularly qualified. Like his predecessors, Lampard fits a narrative, only this time it's a little more spun out: the two-window transfer ban imposed on the club, coupled with the acute need for the club to reconnect with a fanbase alienated by Maurizio Sarri's stubbornness and Antonio Conte's slide into uppity petulance. Hence a focus on youth, a commodity the Stamford Bridge faithful have desired more than anything else, given the plethora of young talents that have been husbanded out on loan deals. With Eden Hazard gone, and the FIFA ban preventing external reinforcements, Chelsea are being forced, very publicly, to rely on a combination of inexperience (manager and players) and relatively unproven potential (youngsters Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham, Reece James, 20-year-old American wunderkind Christian Pulisic, Fikayo Tomori, plus Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who started to get opportunities last season, before being cut short by injuries).

Lampard has already played the 'I've got to work with what I've got' card to rationalise his Premier League managerial debut. I don't blame him. But from the perspective of some fans' point of view, be careful of what you wish for. We've looked on, frustratingly in recent seasons, as Chelsea's acclaimed academy has produced trophies at a better rate than the first team, without seeing many - or even any - of that youth progressing to the senior squad. Now Chelsea have been forced into drawing on the kids, with Lampard placing it as a pillar - if not the pillar - of his maiden season as a Premier League manager. With his tight little crew around him of Jody Morris, Eddie Newton, Chris Jones, Joe Edwards and Henrique Hilário, Lampard is clearly a risky bet, given that he only has the one season as a coach under his belt, and a Championship coach at that. So here's a perfect storm: two or three major factors conspiring to install a young, unproven coach in charge of a squad containing young, unproven players at this level. Chelsea have virtually signalled that it will be alright if things go pear-shaped this season, though any study of the Abramovich form will show that no one, no matter how much of a much-loved club son, will be immune if things go too pear-shaped. Just ask José Mourinho.

Ah, yes, Mourinho. Always the scene stealer, as he managed to do yesterday as Sky Sports' star summer signing, being allowed to upstage his fellow pundits (including resident alpha male, Graeme Souness) as they presided over proceedings at Old Trafford between the Portu-geezer's two former teams. And, as Brucie would say (and I don't mean Steve), "Didn't he do well?!". Despite José's less than subtle "come and get me" plea to clubs, we actually got to savour the footballing intelligence that turned a very minor player into one of the most successful coaches of all time, to date with 25 major honours to his name.

"Chelsea were too soft, not compact defensively, not aggressive enough, there was too much space between the lines. They did not press in blocks," Mourinho told Sky Sports viewers after the match, in what had been an assured punditry debut for the channel. "A little bit of experience would fit well with the team. You look to the performance of Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham and for matches of this dimension you need a little bit more," questioning why N'Golo Kante - only recently returned to the squad from injury - was left on the bench by Lampard at the start. "If Kante can play 30-35 minutes he can start the game. And then if he lasts only one hour then he lasts one hour. But maybe Frank listens to us and says Kante is impossible to play. My feeling is that they had a possibility to play with more know-how," adding that the experience of Marcos Alonso and Olivier Giroud were also sitting on the bench. "To come to Old Trafford, even if this is not the huge Manchester United that used to scare people, it's Manchester United."

Don't get me wrong, I want Lampard to succeed. Ever since talk began of the club's record-scorer returning as manager, I've warmed to the idea. Not piping hot, I'll readily concede, but given the circumstances, if the club is prepared to have a fallow year while it bloods in the youth while unable to buy new players, then so be it, and we should be able to enjoy the love-in with our much-loved former No.8. And yes, too, this was just the first game of the season. But Mourinho is right: it was still Manchester United - even 'this' United, with its own young manager and a dysfunctional misfit like Paul Pogba - at Old Trafford on the opening weekend. However, to blame Lampard's selection of youngsters like Mount and Abraham, would be wrong. There was a broader naiveté to Chelsea's structure yesterday. As Lampard himself conceded, four mistakes, four goals conceded. Blame for at least two of them can be laid at the feet of club captain César Azpilicueta, who seemed to pick up where he left off in his last, indifferent season, and Kurt Zouma, still only 24 but whose signing for Chelsea at the age of 19, then loans and injuries, gives him an air of club experience and history. Whatever that experience is deserted him yesterday. One might concede that not even David Luiz - now departed for Arsenal - would have conceded such errors. Much expectation weighs now on the return of Antonio Rüdiger to the Chelsea defence. But with Luiz gone, it's surely fair to say that Chelsea's options at the back aren't huge, even with the talented youngsters Tomori and James available in the full back positions.

That Chelsea dominated for large parts of the first half yesterday should not be forgotten. But there are - and should be - very real concerns about how Manchester United were able to suck the Londoners in and then hit them, hard, on the break. Even with the likes of Loftus-Cheek, Hudson-Odoi and Willian still to return from injury, their talents are not defensive. Nor, too, was the now much-missed Hazard, to be fair, but Lampard has to ensure that his expressive attackers can be as steely in the defensive phase as they are in the offensive. In this, he has to take on board Mourinho's valid criticisms, even if he has a point that injuries limited his options. Unfortunately that excuse only goes so far.

"I don't have to be too concerned about what anyone else says, the pundits," said Lampard, responding to his former boss. "But what is clear is the squad is the squad we've got and I believe in it. I can't drag people out of the medical room, whether they're experienced or not. The players we played today, and on the bench, are the players we have. We were missing internationals and big players, but I don't want that to be an excuse. We were competing for long periods. We made four mistakes and they put them away. It is a reality check for us all. It wasn't a 4-0 game for long periods, but we need to accept it."

Lampard is, and always has been one of the more likeable figures in the game. Articulate and intelligent, as well as gifted on the pitch, he has been long destined for management, perhaps even more so than his former oppo John Terry. But brains and eleven expensively-acquired GCSEs (including an A* in Latin) mean little when a) you're working for Roman Abramovich and b) competing in the Premier League. One could easily interpret Mourinho's "a little bit of experience" comment about Lampard's team selection as a jibe about Lampard himself. Mourinho has rarely pulled his verbal punches, and you wouldn't expect him to do so even when commenting on a former player whom he might still regard as one of his football 'sons'. Even José is capable of being cruel to be kind.

I'm no Statto, so my memory may not be 100 per cent here, but the last time I saw Manchester United beat Chelsea 4-0 was at the old Wembley in 1994 in that year's FA Cup Final. It was a miserable afternoon, made worse by having to trudge back to Fulham to start a 12-hour night shift at Teletext, relieving the day duty editor who happened to be a massive United fan, and who took great pleasure in taunting me from his lofty seat on the mezzanine floor as I came through the front door. I was too jet lagged yesterday afternoon to be that bothered by this latest 4-0 drubbing. Lampard's comments, post match, were the right ones, but they somewhat passed me by. "As a manager I feel things are slightly magnified," he said. "You take wins and losses more and this hurts," conceding the mistakes that lead to the goals, but defensively pointing out that "anyone with football experience will tell you that it wasn't a 4-0." Unfortunately, Frank, it was. How you and your team responds now will be the mark of you as a manager.