CHELSEA boss Frank Lampard is in the middle of a squad rebuild at Stamford Bridge, with a number of issues needed to be fixed from last season.
Despite finishing third in the league, Lampard’s reign in his first season was filled with inconsistencies and defensive mistakes.
Ben Chilwell put in a man-of-the-match performance on his home debut for ChelseaCredit: Reuters
In fact, Chelsea ended the season conceding the most amount of goals inside the top ten.
The back four was one major issue that Lampard knew he needed to work out.
He did this by signing Thiago Silva and Ben Chilwell, and both players started in the win over Crystal Palace this afternoon.
A hugely problematic area for Chelsea has been at left back.
Neither Marcos Alonso or Emerson Palmieri have failed to nail down a regular spot under Lampard, who has often rotated between the two and even used right sided Cesar Azpilicueta out there.
Chilwell arrived from Leicester City being Lampard’s long-time number one target for the left back spot, and this afternoon he proved why the Chelsea legend has been chasing him so hard.
The England international had a fantastic game over all and not only did he do his primary job in defence by helping keep a clean sheet, he also scored Chelsea’s opener with an emphatic close-range shot.
Shortly after this he popped up with a beautiful assist for Kurt Zouma to head in Chelsea’s second goal of the afternoon.
Then there was a moment right after that had Lampard smiling. In a deep area, Chilwell was surrounded by three Palace players and he ended up dribbling it out of danger past all three of them, and this was right before he calmly chested a dangerous cross back to his goalkeeper Edouard Mendy.
Mendy had a quiet game with not much to do, but there was a moment that was picked up by the TV audio that had me chuckling.
You could hear Mendy referring to this afternoon’s star man as ‘Chilli’, which is just adorable!
It capped off a great afternoon for Chilwell on his full Premier League debut, and a great afternoon for Lampard’s Chelsea, who desperately needed to put in a good performance and take all three points this afternoon to ease the early season pressure.
Chelsea confirm £50m Ben Chilwell transfer from Leicester City as he becomes Frank Lampard’s third addition to squad
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
