CAPE TOWN – Furious Chelsea manager Frank Lampard has criticised his players after they were humbled 3-0 by Sheffield United at Bramall Lane on Saturday.
The loss for Lampard’s Blues has handed the initiative to Manchester United and Leicester City in the race to finish in the top four and qualify for next season’s Champions League.
“They were better than us,” an angry Lampard told Sky Sports after their game.
“Better than us physically, better than us in the mind, better than us with the ball so you lose the game. They were stronger than us. We don’t have a crowd here at the minute so you hear every voice and all I could here was Steffield United voices so they were stronger in that sense.
“They’re good players, they’re a good team. We all know that this season so if you come here and peform below par collectively as we did, it’s gonna happen,” said the Chelsea boss.
Cristian Pulisic has been one of the Premier League’s form players since the restart, and Lampard blamed his players for failing to get the ball to the 21-year-old American quickly enough.
“We matched them and we respect the way they play but we were too slow with the ball, we weren’t even getting our wingers into the game and our wingers have been fantastic since the restard. We weren’t getting them into the game.
“So we just tried to get more of a control of the gamw which we did do but we never looked overly threatening. They still had the counter-attack. It definitely made us look more solid against their shape but already 2-0 down, you’ve made it difficult for yourself,” Lampard added.
Chelsea could find themselves out of the top four altogether if Leicester City beat Bournemouth on Sunday, and the on-form Manchester United pick up three points from their home game against Southampton on Monday.