Frank Lampard has hinted that Arsenal will continue to be better than Chelsea in the coming seasons. The Blues have suffered this season, failing to be as competitive as they should be, even after making some quality transfers.
There have been so many changes at Stamford Bridge: Thomas Tuchel got fired, and after that, Graham Potter was appointed and then sacked. Now it is Lampard’s turn again to caretake the club until Mauricio Pochettino, as widely anticipated, takes over in the summer. Many Chelsea fans would hope things change for the better next season, but with the new owner knowing nothing about football, it will not be easy..
Considering Chelsea and Arsenal are to play tonight, in his press conference ahead of the London Derby, Lampard was asked whether Chelsea can be better than Arsenal next season and whether there are one or two things his side should learn from Arsenal’s transformation.
Lampard admitted Arsenal are where they are because they worked hard to get there, and trusted Mikel Arteta to do a complete rebuild of the squad and the philosophy and allowed our boss the time and space to complete his project, whereas, in an obvious reference to his time at Chelsea by saying that “at another club they may have changed a manager two or three times”.
Lampard was quoted as saying on Football.London: “It’s interesting to compare the Arsenal story. We all had a little insight in the Amazon series. When you see what they are producing now and myself as a football person, the interesting thing about watching the series and before that I went up against Mikel at Chelsea in my first year, there is a long process to get to where you want to get to.
“I remember playing against Mikel’s teams in the early stages which were sometimes five at the back, sometimes four, sometimes they build with a four and defend with a five. Now they have a very, very clear identity, and they have a clear, through recruitment, change of squad. Other than maybe the players that have come through, and you always need academy players to come through with a high level and they’ve had that. There has been a lot of work to that, through Mikel, through the team, through alignment, through good recruitment. If we talk about it as just happening this season, it’s come overnight. I think you go back to the begining and all those tougher periods.
“Do we have the possibility to do that? Yes. Will it take a lot of time and good decisions along the way? Absolutely yes. You can get there. Those things have been a credit to Arsenal because I saw and you remember the times when the manager was being questioned, the owners were being questioned and players were being questioned. That process can take two or three years which it has done. Within that two or three years you have to make a lot of right decisions and keep working in a good way. To be fair, from the coaching side, it’s great to see a club stick with a manager when maybe at another club they may have changed a manager two or three times. They’re a great example of that done well, and part of the answer to why they are where they are now, alongside very good coaching and good players.”
There is no doubt that quite a lot of Arsenal fans are also very impatient and are prone to demand instant success, and called for Arteta’s head when things have not gone according to their wishes, but thankfully the Arsenal owners decided to accept that they had a long-term project that would include a few setbacks along the way.
It is quite obvious that Arteta would not have got that support and patience if he had taken over at Chelsea and would have been sacked many moons ago. Maybe it’s time for the Blues to realise that perhaps they need their own long term project to bring them back up to Arsenal’s level under the new regime….
Sam P
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Arteta says Arsenal are happy where we are but admits that “We still have a lot to do”
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Chelsea did sack him! I am sure they wouldn’t mind sacking him again.
That could be seen as an ‘oversack’.
Ha ha ha, I think he wants to be sacked before tonight’s game talking like that. And so he should be, bless him.
Seriously though we better play properly tonight and not underestimate them. I’m not convinced that we will win this game, although we should. If we don’t, there is something seriously wrong with us.