Frank Lampard believes Chelsea need to become “killers” in attack in order to build on an overdue victory and begin bridging the sizeable gap to the Premier League’s leading clubs.
The mid-table Blues on Saturday ended a nine-match winless run, including six successive defeats since Lampard was reappointed, by beating Bournemouth 3-1.
Conor Gallagher headed the visitors in front at Vitality Stadium but, after Matias Vina’s leveller, they were largely toothless going forward until late finishes from Benoit Badiashile and Joao Felix halted the prolonged slump.
While a top-half finish is the extent of Chelsea’s potential this season, they will hope to be challenging for Champions League qualification at the very least next term.
Interim manager Lampard, who is due to leave Stamford Bridge in the summer, feels the Blues must develop a ruthless streak in order to do that and suggested the club may need further recruits, despite having already spent more than £600million on transfers since Todd Boehly’s takeover.
“We controlled a lot of the game,” he said of the south-coast success.
“Without the killer instinct, we were running inside their box a lot in the first half, we had a lot of overloads on the side of the pitch.
“And as this team develops or as we add to the squad I think you have to be more killers at the top end of the pitch.
“If you look at the top half of the table, that’s what you will see all across it. At the moment, we haven’t got that. But you saw nice individual performances in a positive direction.”
Two-time European champions Chelsea sit in 11th position, a staggering 40 points behind leaders Manchester City and well adrift of the top four.
Travelling supporters celebrated the long-awaited triumph with self-deprecating cries of ‘we are staying up’, having earlier directed derogatory chants at American businessman Boehly.
Lampard backed the club’s owners to eventually be successful following a dismal first campaign at the helm.
“The fans have been used to a lot of success, they want a lot of success,” said the former Blues midfielder.
“What I do know is the fans will stick with this club. I do know there are a lot of intentions to take this club where we want to get it to again.
“There’s not one club out there of our size that hasn’t had transitional periods.
“People would give a left arm to have the success we’ve had for 20 years, so if it’s our year where we have to go again and work a bit and try and come back stronger next year, everyone stick together, then I’m sure we will.”
The west London club move on to meetings with relegation-threatened Nottingham Forest, reigning champions City, and Champions League hopefuls Manchester United and Newcastle.
Lampard is concerned left-back Ben Chilwell will be unavailable for the run-in after he limped off against the Cherries.
“It’s a hamstring injury,” he said.
“We don’t know if it’s serious but with a hamstring injury at this stage of the season it’s clearly a worry for the last few games.”
Bournemouth began the weekend level on 39 points with Chelsea and had the better chances for a winner before suffering late disappointment, with Badiashile’s pivotal strike coming from Hakim Ziyech’s free-kick into the penalty area.
The Cherries have the worst record in the division for conceding goals from set-pieces, an issue head coach Gary O’Neil is eager to address.
“We’ve struggled with defending balls into the box,” he said. “We’re obviously aware of it and it’s something we need to improve.
“I’m hopeful we can put some work in now week to week but then we can put things in place for next season to make us much stronger in that area.”
Guardiola not concerned despite Manchester City's poor defensive record
Pep Guardiola is not worried about Manchester City's defending despite the reigning champions failing to keep a clean sheet in their last six Premier League matches.
City went 1-0 down against Fulham before fighting back to win 3-2 on Saturday. Their opponents also amassed an expected goals (xG) total of 2.4 compared to City's 1.55.
It follows a trend of unusually sloppy defensive displays from the champions, who have conceded eight goals in their last six league matches. They also had to come from behind against Brentford in September.
Guardiola, however, is not overly worried.
"Sometimes I give credit. The first goal – why don't we give credit to them rather than [be critical] defensively? There are actions we can defend better but step by step we will improve," he said, via the Guardian.
"I would say except [Yoane] Wissa against Brentford, in the other ones we were playing good. It's not nice to come back from 0-1 but we created chances today to go 1-0 and 2-0."
City allowed Fulham five big chances compared to their one, with the London side taking 11 shots, nine of those from inside the box.
Comparatively, City had 20 shots with only half of those coming from inside the box. However, two of the visitors’ goals came from outside the area with Jeremy Doku and Mateo Kovacic both firing in from distance.
"I'm very happy he scored two goals, he's not a guy to score [usually] those goals," Guardiola said of Kovacic, who is one of the midfielders the City boss expects to fill in for the injured Rodri this season.
“We started really well with two chances in two minutes and they switched immediately to five at the back. When they do that, we have one man free on the 18-yard box and that is Kovacic.
"The two goals were because they couldn't defend that. We have to exploit that more against teams that don’t play five at the back – now opponents know that they can’t leave him [Kovacic] alone, otherwise he will score a goal."
'I back myself on penalties', says Everton's spot-kick hero Pickford
Jordan Pickford said he fancied Anthony Gordon would switch up his penalty routine after scoring his last two spot-kicks for Newcastle United.
Gordon was a livewire for Newcastle against Everton on Saturday, though the England international ultimately fluffed his lines in the biggest moment of the 0-0 draw at Goodison Park.
With 10 minutes remaining in the first half, Gordon failed to beat his former club-mate Pickford from 12 yards after James Tarkowski had fouled Sandro Tonali.
The Goodison faithful were in a buoyant mood after seeing Gordon, who left Everton for Newcastle in 2023, squander his big chance, though the Toffees could not craft an opening at the other end, albeit Dominic Calvert-Lewin was perhaps unfortunate not to be awarded a penalty of his own.
Nevertheless, Everton held firm to make it three Premier League games unbeaten and secure their first clean sheet of the campaign.
Pickford and Gordon spoke on the pitch at full-time, and the England goalkeeper told Sky Sports: "He asked me why I went that way. I just said both his penalties before had gone right, so I fancied him going to the left, which he did.
"I back myself on pens, it’s the first one I’ve saved for Everton in a while."
It marked Pickford's sixth penalty save from 33 spot-kicks faced in the league during his time at Everton, and his first stop since a crucial one from James Maddison against Leicester City in May 2023.
Newcastle, meanwhile, have had two of their last three Premier League penalties saved (one goal), having scored 23 of their previous 24 spot kicks in the competition.
Asked if it helped going up against a player he knows well in Gordon, Pickford said: "I watched the game [against Man City] and he reversed it against Ederson, and he went the same way the game before so I just fancied him going goalkeeper's left.
"It hit me off my knee, straight off my beak [nose]. I don't think Ant executed it to perfection, he'll be disappointed, but I’m there to make the save and that’s what I’ve done.
"It's like trying to double-bluff each other – I've got the better of him, it’s a big moment and managed to get us a draw. Now we move forward."
Eddie Howe, meanwhile, said his team took "big steps forward" despite not getting the three points.
"I have to credit the players because it is a difficult environment to play in and it is a much better defensive display from us too. Big steps forward," Howe told BBC Sport.
"We stood up to the physical test and were technically very good. We are trying to break barriers and have an outstanding season. I think we are capable of more and we have some tough fixtures to come.
"Anthony handled the occasion very well. I think his all-round game was very good. He will be disappointed with the penalty. But credit to Pickford for the save."
This was just Newcastle’s third clean sheet in their last 32 Premier League away games – they had recorded three consecutive shutouts on the road before this run.
Since the start of last season, meanwhile, only Arsenal (21) and Liverpool (15) have kept more Premier League clean sheets than Everton (14).
Brentford defeat 'my worst game as a coach', says O'Neil
Gary O'Neil believes Wolves' 5-3 defeat against Brentford was his "worst game as a coach" as the visitors remain rooted to the bottom of the Premier League table.
Nathan Collins' second-minute header was cancelled out by Matheus Cunha soon after, only for in-form Bryan Mbeumo to put the Bees in front from the penalty spot.
Jorgen Strand Larsen levelled the game once again, but the hosts then raced into a 4-2 lead by the break thanks to efforts from Christian Norgaard and Ethan Pinnock.
The final two goals of an enthralling encounter came in the closing stages, with Fabio Carvalho scoring Brentford's fifth before Rayan Ait-Nouri netted a late consolation.
Wolves are now winless in their first seven games of the 2024-25 Premier League season (D1 L6), their worst run at the start of a top-flight campaign since 2003-04, when they also went without a win in their first seven (D2 L5).
They have also managed just one win in their last 17 league matches, but it was the manner in which his team collapsed that left O'Neil feeling downcast.
"It's the furthest I've seen the group from what we wanted to look like. An unbelievably disappointing afternoon for us. Crazy, crazy goals we gave away," O'Neil said.
"There's a lot to think about and a lot to put right. We’ll get straight to work. Some players will be away [on international duty] but we need to find a way for the team to be better than this afternoon.
"Today was so loose. [We made] crazy decisions with and without the ball. It was a really poor performance.
"The responsibility is on me. Of course, the players are going to make decisions, but I need to give them something that makes them make better decisions than they made today, make fewer mistakes than we made today. It’s the worst game I’ve been involved in as a coach.
“I'll do the best I can with the group I have. The club do what they can do off the pitch. My responsibility is to find results. This league can be tough. There are no hiding places. We can do better than that."
For Thomas Frank and Brentford, they continued their impressive home form in the Premier League this term.
The Bees are now unbeaten in their first four home games of the 2024-25 Premier League season (W3 D1), their longest such run at the start of a top-flight campaign since 1936-37.
Saturday's triumph was also their first home league win against Wolves since a 3-0 win in the Championship back in February 2016.
They also netted four first-half goals for the second time in the Premier League following their 4-0 win over Manchester United back in August 2022.
Brentford continued their lightning starts to matches this campaign, with Collins' opener coming after a minute and 15 seconds, with the Bees falling agonisingly short of scoring inside the first minute for the fourth game running.
"We've been practising winning the coin toss all week, and we lost it. That’s why it took us so long [to score]," Frank joked.
"AIl jokes aside, we want to get forward as quickly as possible and put crosses into the box. After they made it 2-2, we scored 32 seconds after the kick-off.
"Offensively - wow! Unbelievable. We seemed to create a chance every time we went forward, and we were such a threat from set pieces.
"Defensively, I’m mostly angry about the first goal. The second one, we lost the ball - it was quite good play from them. For their third goal we could have done better.
"We gave less away compared to the West Ham game, but we still need to improve."
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