Frank Lampard on sharing the goals around, progressing without Eden Hazard and the preparation needed for penalties...
Chelsea travel to Norwich today, hoping to pick up our first Premier League win of the season against the newly promoted Canaries.
The Blues will also be looking to add to our goal tally for the campaign, after Mason Mount opened his side’s 2019/20 account in last Sunday’s 1-1 draw against Leicester.
Asked if his side may need contributions from many areas of the pitch in order to score the necessary goals this season, Lampard said: 'We’ll have to find them amongst the group because I know how many goals Eden Hazard was a part of in terms of scoring and assisting.
'These are facts that are real and we have to try and address them with work. The challenge is clear for the strikers and the attacking players: ‘Can you be the players to score those goals?’ because the top teams in the league tend to have players who are scoring regularly, that do win games that are tight, that do make you clear in games and good periods when you’re playing well and you need to score enough goals to put the game to bed.
'That’s the challenge for us. It’s something that we aren’t doing and we need to do.
'Every team is its own entity. We obviously have to score from different areas of the pitch. I think that’s pretty clear. We need to score more goals at this moment for sure.'
Lampard also spoke about having to deal without Hazard this season, highlighting the quality that he has at his disposal in the current squad in the Belgian's absence.
'I haven’t trained with that in mind. I’ve trained as I see the squad I train with. Some of our wingers have been injured. Callum’s (Hudson-Odoi) back training now and Willian missed the first part of the season.
'This is football and you have to adapt constantly. With Eden, we all know the reliance in terms of his output was huge. He’s in the top bracket of world players and football’s attacking players so you have to accept that.
'But I haven’t considered it and the players shouldn’t. The players should just play as they play. There’s enough quality in this team to win games for sure without Eden. He’s not here now so that’s the end of that story.'
Following the debate around designated penalty takers that has emerged this week, there has been plenty of discussion about different approaches to who should take spot-kicks. Lampard, a regular spot-kick scorer at Chelsea, has given his opinion.
'I watched the [Wolves v Manchester United] game and saw all the comments around it on the TV straight after,' said the boss.
'I can see all sides of that story. It can happen. People are competitive, people feel confident in the moment.
'We have a penalty taker and you also have the second penalty taker if things happen in games. I think it’s quite important to do that, especially if you’re really confident in someone and they’re your man.
'But that isn’t always the case. It’s very easy to comment from the outside but when you have a couple of players who are vying for it and they’re confident in games, then you can have issues with that.'
By Tom Mortlock