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Frank Lampard questioned the mentality of his players after Chelsea lost their chance to reach the top of the Premier League by sliding to a second straight loss. Although they did not play well, Chelsea headed towards victory over Wolves when Olivier Giroud scored early in the second half. Daniel Podence tied before Pedro Neto scored a winning goal in injury time.
“We should have seen the game,” Lampard said. “If you are not playing well, which we did not do, you should hold on, not allow counterattacks.”
He hinted that some Chelsea players may have gotten complacent after enjoying a 14-game unbeaten streak before Saturday’s loss at Everton and advised them to reflect on that before Monday’s home game against West Ham. “Maybe the players can think about that. This is the Premier League. If you don’t act, you lose matches. “
Lampard added that his players must show more cunning to respond to different challenges during matches and also suggested that some had not heeded the advice on the Wolves’ counterattack power.
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“They’ve given us different types of games in these last two, Everton made it difficult for us to break them, we didn’t succeed with that, and the Wolves played a counter-attack style. The players have to feel that on the field because the message was very clear about their counterattack and the people that could hurt us and that’s disappointing.
“We had enough players to deal with that, but we weren’t adequately prepared to fight back. We stopped Thiago Silva, we had numbers to deal with that, but we didn’t do well enough. “
Lampard offered some mitigation by suggesting that the busy schedule may have detracted from their energy levels. “There could be some fatigue,” he said.
“I hate to say it after a loss because it feels like an excuse, but even in the first 60 minutes, when we were the best team, we had nothing to do with ourselves. We have traveled to Everton, we returned and then we traveled to Wolves, but they are all in the same boat. We have a couple of area injuries, which means I can make too many changes, so I understand that side.
“We had a long undefeated streak and everyone sang our praises. I was the last to do that, it’s my job to keep my head on both ends. So I shouldn’t be too disappointed tonight as I wasn’t too euphoric after Leeds after a very good race. But clearly, when we perform as we did today, that is not game management, those are not the quality levels that we strive for.
“I still think that there are many improvements to be made with the group, so I would not say that I am very surprised because my experience with the Premier League tells me that if you lower your standards, that we have in two games, and especially away from home, you can losing matches, so a great lesson for the players ”.
