Chelsea manager Frank Lampard believes that his side can take plenty of positives from their 2-1 defeat against Manchester City on Saturday. The result meant that the Blues recent good run of form came to an end. They can however still hold their heads eye as they were largely competitive against the reigning Champions of England. The game also proved that they are pretty much capable of being competitive against any top side in the World. Prior to this season, many expected the West Londoners to struggle for a top four finish, let alone be competitive against the best sides.
“Coming into the game, our recent form and how we’re developing quickly, I wanted to come here and be brave, to compete, to be brave on and off the ball,” said Lampard as quoted by the official Chelsea website.
“In the first half you saw all of that from us. At 1-0 we have relative control of the game. We didn’t have that little bit of quality in the final third. They had a couple of moments but we were playing well. Throughout the game there were a lot of positives, but we lost and it shows you at this level the finer details in both boxes are what decide these ones.
“Today I don’t think you come away from the game and say anything other than there were two really strong teams going against each other. One wins it because of a deflected goal, and then a real moment of quality from Mahrez. The rest was pretty much in the balance.”
For large spells of the game, Chelsea actually dominated Pep Guardiola’s side and finished the 90 minutes with more possession. N’Golo Kante broke the deadlock during the 21st minute and put the Blues ahead at the Etihad Stadium but Guardiola’s charges brought themselves back into the contest following two quick goals form Kevin De Bruyne and Riyad Mahrez before half-time.
City’s experience helped them to prevent Lampard’s charges from scoring an equalizer during the second half.
It would have been a good learning curve for the young guys
At the end of the day, City’s home advantage and superior level of experience gave them the edge during the game. Even though Guardiola’s charges had the aforementioned two factors working in their favour, they only still barely won the game. It can be argued that the Blues will be able to seriously back themselves to win the game when the two sides meet at Stamford Bridge.
The game would have also allowed younger players such as Christian Pulisic, Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount and Fikayo Tomori to get used to the conditions and atmosphere at the Etihad. It is likely that the quartet will be involved in some earth-shattering fixtures at the same ground in the future.
