Former Manchester United defender, Gary Neville has explained how new Chelsea manager, Frank Lampard has changed the club’s style of play.
He said the Blues style of play has evolved from how they played under predecessors Maurizio Sarri and Antonio Conte.
Lampard is yet to taste victory since taking over from Sarri at Stamford Bridge in the summer, and drew 1-1 against Leicester in his first match in charge at Stamford Bridge.
However, Neville believes Lampard has already implemented positive changes to the Chelsea side, which will bear fruit sooner or later despite the slow start to the season.
Speaking on Sky Sports Monday Night Football, he said, “It was a difficult week with Man United, the Super Cup final and obviously now Leicester, who are a good opponent, at Stamford Bridge.
“What I would say is that having watched the game last week and watched the game yesterday afternoon, Chelsea were a lot stronger in the first half. And he’s trying to, if you like, completely change the culture of Chelsea.
“You think about the last three managers Chelsea have had in Jose Mourinho, Conte and Sarri – methodical, rigid in terms of their approach in the sense that they were very, very set in how they would play and very fixed on that in terms of the principles and values that they have.
“Conte, you could see the patterns of play all the time. Sarri, it was exactly the same last year. The criticism of Sarri at Chelsea was that he was always the exact same. Jose was always more compact. He was always talking about more compact, even last week in the studio.
“What Frank’s trying to do, that you can see in the first couple of weeks, is be really progressive, fluid, attacking, play more on the front foot. It’s the most I’ve ever seen a Chelsea team press. They pressed from the front last week for 25 minutes. They pressed yesterday for part of the game – Mason Mount’s goal was from that.
“But to ask the team to go from where they’ve been and ask the group of players to go from where they’ve been to be where he actually wants them to be, there is going to be a little bit of pain on the way. We’re seeing that early bit of pain.”
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