[ad_1]
Chelsea manager Frank Lampard looks dejected on the bench.
Faced with a horizon of economic ruin for most of European football, Chelsea They have set out to make up for lost time with a £ 200 million ($ 256 million) spending spree to try and lift Liverpool and Manchester City to the top of the Premier League.
The Blues finished 33 points behind Liverpool last season but achieved club legend Frank Lampard’s main goal in his first campaign in charge at Stamford Bridge by guiding the Blues back to the Champions League despite a ban. transfer and lose Eden Hazard to Real Madrid.
Lampard has been rewarded with some of the most exciting young attacking talents in Europe with the signings of Timo Werner, Kai Havertz and Hakim Ziyech.
A defense that conceded 54 goals in the Premier League last season has also been overhauled with the arrival of English international left-back Ben Chilwell and former Brazil captain Thiago Silva, while the spending spree is not complete and Edouard is expected. Mendy joins from Rennes in the next. days to solve a position problem in the goal.
“For some clubs it seems less important how uncertain the future is: those owned by countries, owned by oligarchs,” said Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, who has a much more limited budget to work with. “We are a different club.”
Lampard is aware that with greater resources also comes much greater scrutiny. The former England midfielder played for a string of Chelsea coaches who were ruthlessly fired for failing to meet the exacting standards of Russian billionaire owner Roman Abramovich.
After accusations that he was losing interest in the club, Abramovich has loosened the purse strings to a point never seen since he swept English football in the summer of 2003 and is hoping for a return on his investment.
“My expectations are at a different level than last year because of the different situation,” said Lampard. “I didn’t come here to finish fourth.”
After investing so much in the team, questions remain as to whether Lampard, in his third season as a manager, is the right man to lead a title fight against two of the world’s best coaches at Klopp and Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola.
Even Lampard’s supported status may not spare Abramovich’s grace if Chelsea doesn’t at least push Liverpool and City into a three-way title race.
“We have finished many points behind in the last two seasons, so first we have to look to close the gap and build confidence. I am not going to get ahead of myself by making predictions that we will challenge anyone else,” added Lampard.
“We should be excited, but we should also have a warning. We need to work with the players and my job is to work with the new players to get them settled into the team. The work starts now.”
Chelsea won’t need to wait long to gauge their title credentials when Liverpool visit Stamford Bridge on the second weekend of the season.
Before that, Lampard’s men travel to Brighton on Monday for the kind of match they can’t afford to slip into if they want to keep up with the record points set by Liverpool and City in recent seasons.
Werner and Havertz are expected to make their debuts, but injury and lack of matchmaking means Ziyech, Chilwell and Silva are all lost.
