Frank Lampard has admitted that Chelsea have to play to their own strengths in their UEFA Champions League clash with Real Madrid on Wednesday evening.
The Blues go into the first leg of the quarter-final off the back of a torrid run of form which saw Graham Potter lose his job and be replaced by Lampard on an interim basis.
Lampard’s arrival, however, hasn’t done much to rectify their slide down the Premier League table, as Chelsea suffered a harrowing defeat to Wolves in his first game back in charge.
Chelsea face a mammoth task of a two-legged Champions League quarter-final with reigning European champions Real Madrid, who eliminated the Blues at this stage last season.
Speaking to the press ahead of the game, Lampard was asked how he intends to go about the game.
“We have to understand the strengths of the Real Madrid team, their qualities in possession and their individual talent. We have to be very disciplined in our game off the ball, and understand the threats,” he said.
“There are some very clear threats individually in their team. Ways Madrid like to score and regularly score and how they want to control the game. So we have to be defensively good against that.
“But we also have to show our own strengths in our game…We have to have belief, we have to follow the idea because in a high-level game the biggest thing can sometimes be the mentality – following through with what the idea is, under pressure. At this level, you have to be spot-on with our game to take it back to Stamford Bridge in front of our supporters.”
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Lampard also discussed the players he’s most worried about coming up against on Wednesday.
“It’s a difficult question, because once you start naming one, two, three, you ask about fourth. It’s a team with a lot of good individuals. I’ve got a huge amount of respect for the team. My biggest respect for the Real Madrid and the success is for the serial winners – Benzema, Modric, Kroos – a huge amount of admiration for them,” he added.
“To appreciate what it takes at this level to win so regularly, to know what it takes to win so regularly. That’s what it makes them the special players they are. They all have incredible qualities.
“Of course, Vinicius Jr as a young player has incredible quality. We have to make the players aware of those threats. In certain areas of the pitch where we know the threats are repetitive. The one-on-one with Vinicius Jr and Benzema at the top end of the pitch. The players…
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