Chelsea face a big game against Premier League champions Liverpool on Sunday and Blues boss Frank Lampard spoke at a press conference ahead of the clash with Jurgen Klopp’s side. Here are three things we learned….
Pulisic and Ziyech out but Werner’s OK
“Ben Chilwell’s not ready for the game. Christian Pulisic is not ready for the game – similar to Ben, we hope they’ll be training and progressing over the next week or so.
“Ziyech is also not ready for the game. Same story. But Timo Werner’s fit.
“Thiago has been training with us for the last three or four days. We’re just working on his fitness at the moment.”
Lampard is annoyed by criticism of Ruben Loftus-Cheek
“If there is harsh criticism of Ruben in the game against Brighton then it is certainly very harsh because coming back from an injury like that is difficult.
“He has put in a lot of hours into it and he is a hugely talented player, a great lad, and there will be lots more to come from Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
“Unfortunately the nature of this game is very reactionary and people will say it is as they see it, but knowing Ruben’s story behind the scenes he has fought back really hard to get where he is.
“I know Ruben’s story probably second best to how he knows it. Ruben had a terrible injury – one that he worked hard to come back from over the course of last season. He was just about to play under-23s games when lockdown came in.
“He worked incredibly hard in restart and got a start against Aston Villa and was due to start against Bayern Munich in the last game of the season but had a bit of an issue on the day of the game. He has trained brilliantly again to get fit for the start of the season.”
And he’s fed up of talk of a feud with Klopp
“That’s the nature of the world we live in, There’s a lot of airtime for you to have fill with these rivalries. I understand sometimes they can be scrutinised in every single way.
“I just reiterate what Jurgen Klopp said on his part. I have got a huge amount of respect for him as a manager. I always have. What he has done at Liverpool over time has been incredible and that’s on him as the focal point of the club.
“There’s nothing in it for me. The competitive nature of the 90 minutes can always slightly boil over in different directions. The respect I have for Jurgen Klopp will never change.”