{"id":4185,"date":"2023-04-08T18:04:51","date_gmt":"2023-04-08T18:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-lampard-says-big-task\/"},"modified":"2023-04-08T18:05:55","modified_gmt":"2023-04-08T18:05:55","slug":"soccer-lampard-says-big-task","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-lampard-says-big-task\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer-Lampard says big task ahead but anything can happen at Real"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (Reuters) – Frank Lampard always knew he had a big job on his hands and a losing start to his return as interim Chelsea manager on Saturday only confirmed that.<\/p>\n

The 1-0 defeat at Wolverhampton Wanderers made no difference to 11th-placed Chelsea’s Premier League position but was hardly what was needed ahead of a Champions League quarter-final first leg at holders Real Madrid next Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The focus is now fully on that match at the Bernabeu and Lampard, a record scorer at a club where the goals have dried up, was not writing off his side’s chances despite the odds against them.<\/p>\n

“It’s a different competition, it will be a different type of game and it’s up to us to prepare in the right way and anything can happen,” the former England international told Sky Sports television. <\/p>\n

“We respect the fact we’re playing the current holders so we have to focus on that now and cannot be too despondent.<\/p>\n

“We’ll certainly analyse the game and we have to make improvements because we feel we want to be better and the only way to get better is hard work.”<\/p>\n

Chelsea managed only one shot on target at Molineux, and that was a tame effort.<\/p>\n

Despite having 62% of the possession, and making 517 passes to Wolverhampton’s 313, Chelsea failed to pose a threat against a side fighting their way out of relegation danger and now 12th overall.<\/p>\n

In the league, Chelsea have only 29 goals to their credit from 30 games and have not scored in their last three league matches.<\/p>\n

“It’s a big task,” said Lampard, who told his players at half time that Wolves were playing with more aggression and hunger in their game as a team fighting for their Premier League survival.<\/p>\n

Tackling the causes of the goal drought is a priority, and Lampard recognised there was work to be done on building confidence and changing the mindset.<\/p>\n

“We have to find the reasons and solutions for that. The only way I know is to work,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Some players here haven’t got a history of scoring goals, maybe fresh to the league or are new players. You have to give them time and work with them. <\/p>\n

“At the same time, we’re Chelsea and want to score goals and win games so we have to find a solution to that.”<\/p>\n

Lampard made two changes to the line-up, with Raheem Sterling and Conor Gallagher on from the start and Ben Chilwell on the bench. <\/p>\n

French international N’Golo Kante and Mason Mount, both recovering from injury, were not in the squad although the former at least is likely to be back against Real.<\/p>\n

Striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang came on for the last 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

“I have to try and use everything, we want to assess the squad quickly and try and find the best players to win games,” said Lampard.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Pritha Sarkar)<\/p>\n

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LONDON (Reuters) – Frank Lampard always knew he had a big job on his hands and a losing start to his return as interim Chelsea manager on Saturday only confirmed that. The 1-0 defeat at Wolverhampton Wanderers made no difference to 11th-placed Chelsea’s Premier League position but was hardly what was needed ahead of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":4186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3707J-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4187,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185\/revisions\/4187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}