Frank Lampard is unhappy with the international schedule that is hindering his pre-season training at Chelsea.
Majority of the first team squad is away on international duty and with the time constraints, there will be little to no time left ahead of the 2020/21 campaign.
Premier League games are due to start on 12th September and players might miss out on a week of preparation. That is not ideal for a club who has plenty of new faces coming in this summer. Chelsea have already signed 5 players and are due to bring in more. Lampard will be expecting a strong challenge in integrating them all at once.
Asked about this preseason by the club’s website, Lampard said: “It’s slightly different, slightly less. They have not been off for so long, they have had just shy of two weeks off, so the levels have not gone down so much but there is still work needed to get yourselves to exactly where we want to be.
“This international break is not a positive for us at all, most clubs will tell you that, it is very difficult to try to put our team together to work on the things we need to. Now we lose a lot [of players], so we need just our absolute best to get ourselves ready for when we come back.”
After the 1-1 draw against Brighton, he added, “It was a good workout for us. It was a tough fixture for us because we have only been back training this week, Brighton have been training longer. For the players, the fitness level we are striving for before, now a lot go away on internationals, so it was part of our pre-season plans as such.
“I thought the first half was bright and fresh considering where we are at with those levels, against a good team, so it is not so much the result, we obviously want to win every game, but to see individuals getting fitter, the collective as a team, it was a pretty good day for us.”
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