Chelsea stars ‘questioned’ Lampard as he discusses Blues chaos behind-the-scenes

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Frank Lampard has revealed that he was questioned by some Chelsea players last season when he was in the Stamford Bridge dugout. The ex-Blues interim boss struggled during his second managerial stint at the club, admitting that the bloated size of the squad and ‘disenchanted’ players were fundamental issues behind-the-scenes.

The ex-Everton manager was brought in by Todd Boehly to try and steady the sinking ship at Chelsea after Graham Potter’s tenure, though it became a thankless task after the club were dumped out of the Champions League and consequently had nothing to play for.

The former England international had 32 senior players to work with at Chelsea, meaning that proven stars would often be rotated either out of the starting eleven or the squad completely – which sparked issues. Speaking in an interview with Steven Bartlett on his The Diary Of A CEO podcast, Lampard explained that he had top-quality players ‘questioning’ his decisions due to how he was forced to rotate his ranks consistently and leave players out.

He continued: “The biggest thing about the standards thing was the size of the squad and the motivation of players that you’re not going to play. In football, that’s a challenge with 20 players which is a modern squad.

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“But Chelsea’s got very big, to the point that I can say, and I’m not criticising that player for dropping standards but I want to try and get something out of him. I would try but when you kind of look at it you go, ‘Yeah but he’s had this for a long time where he’s not playing so he’s not being competitive with that player who is playing, so that player is pretty comfortable too because he’s not pushing him’.”

Similarly to his post-match press conferences, Lampard reiterated that ‘standards’ and ‘culture’ were severely lacking at Chelsea during his time at the club, and he feels that those are two integral principles for any squad looking to achieve their goals.

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Additionally, problems stemmed from some players becoming disinterested earlier in the campaign and not pushing themselves on the training pitch, Lampard continued: “I could see in training the level wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to get a result at Brentford at home or whatever, let alone Real Madrid.

“When I got there I could see the team spirit and the togetherness was not there. It was nothing bad, but you have to train elite to be elite. The minute we didn’t get through against Real, you’re into that end-of-season zone and what are you playing for and that is not the norm at Chelsea.”

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