Frank Lampard believes Chelsea have only themselves for the FA Cup final loss to Arsenal
According to the BBC, Frank Lampard believes Chelsea have only themselves to blame for falling short in the FA Cup final to Arsenal.
The Blues got off to a good start when Christian Pulisic gave us the lead in the fifth minute. The opening few minutes were good but we failed to hit a shot on goal after the 10th minute. A pretty damning statistic indeed.
The performance was strikingly lacklustre as it missed the characteristic intensity and drive Lampard’s teams bring to the pitch.
“We got complacent, took time on the ball like it was a stroll.”
The Blues boss has taken account of what went wrong and has laid the blame solely on his side. Given the lack of cutting edge, it is hard to argue against his assessment.
“We didn’t play well enough to win a final. A lot of today is on us.”
Apart from Pulisic, no player looked ready for the match. The American’s injury in the second half was all the more jarring knowing the impact he had on the game.
With him out on the picture, our greatest offensive threat was missing. The team was also slow in its buildup and failed to create anything of note.
“We were slow, we played back on ourselves, invited pressure.”
Referee Anthony Taylor did us no favors as the brunt of questionable decisions went against us. It all came to the fore when Mateo Kovacic was sent off for a fairly innocuous challenge on Granit Xhaka.
Going down to ten men was a real kick in the teeth as Chelsea continued to struggle to test the Gunners defence.
It was a bad day for Lampard as he also has to contend with injuries to Cesar Azpilicueta and Pedro. The latter went down with a dislocated shoulder and appears to have played his last game for the club.
The fact that Lampard acknowledges the shortcomings of his side is a good sign going forward. Rather than deflecting blame, we hope he does what is necessary to ensure this never happens again.
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Chelsea next face Bayern Munich in the second leg of the Champions League Round of 16. Trailing 3-0 from the first leg, we will have to play out of our skins to pull off a miracle.