Frank Lampard has admitted Chelsea are far from reaching the Manchester City or Liverpool’s level right now.
The Blues record goalscorer and current manager is not under any impression that the transition to title-challengers will happen overnight.
Chelsea were still in the Premier League top four prior to the Coronavirus outbreak. They have impressed with the current set of players this season.
“I think I’m always the first to criticise myself, look at what we could have done better. You can always lean on certain games, certain results, I think you kind of have to get beyond that. It’s more thinking I’m pretty happy with being in fourth position,” Lampard told Sky Sports (via Onefootball).
“It was always going to be a competitive, difficult year for us to be in and around that top four and we’re there at the moment. It’s more about how can we progress from here? We know we have some youth, we know we’ve been searching at times for consistency. So really, I’ve been looking and saying, ‘Yeah, I’m happy with where we’re at but I want a lot more.’ But I think a bit of reflection time has been pretty good, not just for myself but also the staff and how we want to work, and can we get a bit more out of us going forward?”
When asked if Chelsea could become contenders for the league title, Lampard replied, “I don’t want to jump the gun because what Liverpool and Manchester City have done in the last two or three seasons has been very clear. I think I’d be probably a bit of a fool to make that claim that we will bridge that gap very quickly, because there’s been a lot of hard work at those two clubs of recruitment of top players, of great coaches, of players working and improving themselves.
“We have to be part of that process. Our way has to look different, we can’t try and copy that, but we have to look at that. We have the good young players, we have had experienced players around them that have helped them this year, but we know there are little areas within the squad and some of that’s us and what we have on the ground already and some of that’s how we might look to recruit going forward.
“With this period now and what’s going on in the world, it’s made it very difficult to plan too much on that front. We have to have different versions of plans going forward of how it looks. But going into this break I certainly felt like we were going in the right direction. With continued progress and work on the day to day and attitude of the club, of myself and the players, and with potentially bringing in some players in key areas that we think can help us to try to bridge that gap to Liverpool and City then, yeah, I’ve got a strong belief that we can.”
