Chelsea's interim manager Frank Lampard crticised his team for being "too nice" against Arsenal on Tuesday night as a 3-1 defeat at the Emirates extended their losing run to six matches in all competitions.
A Martin Odegaard double and a Gabriel Jesus goal handed Arsenal a comfortable and deserved 3-0 lead after just 34 minutes, and while Noni Madueke scored in the second half for the Blues, the damage had already been done.
The result continued Chelsea's miserable season, which sees the Blues languish in 12th place in the Premier League table, while Lampard has lost all six of his matches in charge since returning to Stamford Bridge to replace previous manager Graham Potter until the end of the campaign.
"The first-half performance was not good enough, in every way," Lampard said. "We were too nice to play against, nice off the ball, passive, things we talked about before the game defensively we did not do.
"We did not restrict the space between lines, we did not get the line up as much as we needed to, we did not affect pressure on the ball, we did not make contact with Arsenal players.
"On the ball the same, passing short, playing to position, not playing longer, not making forward runs. Things that we spoke about and if you play like that, you get what you deserve."
Chelsea did improve after half time but any hopes of a comeback always felt remote from a team who had only scored one goal in their previous seven games.
"Maybe there were some things I said at half time, which to be fair I had said before the game," Lampard said. "Tactical no, playing a back-four or a back-five, these things do not matter if you don’t get the basics right.
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"So we got the basics a bit better and we had more of a dynamic nature about us, and we created a couple of decent chances and scored a goal from it.
"They are small gains but that can’t be from 45 minutes until the end when you come to a place like this.
"If you haven’t been conditioning and doing that on Wednesday and Thursday, you won’t do it on a Saturday or whatever matchday you want to talk about. When those things don’t become you as a group, it doesn't change overnight and we are seeing that at the moment."
Chelsea have five games remaining of their season, with a trip to Bournemouth on Saturday next up.
