Frank Lampard singled out Noni Madueke for praise and promised the Chelsea youngster he will get ‘more opportunities’ as a reward for his display against Arsenal. The January recruit from PSV Eindhoven had been given only fleeting opportunities to impress since his arrival but was thrown a starting opportunity against the Gunners. While some of his more experienced teammates failed to cover themselves in glory, Madueke did at least show signs of promise and registered his first goal for his new club midway through the second period. Lampard acknowledged Madueke’s display, saying: ‘If I want to talk about an individual it’s Noni, who scored the goal, plays how he’s been training. He’ll get a lot more opportunities.’
Lampard has now presided over a miserable run of six consecutive defeats since his appointment as interim manager and the club legend was at a loss to outline why his team failed to show the requisite fight against an Arsenal team, who should have been vulnerable as a consequence of their recent wobble. He said: ‘We weren’t good enough, we were too nice to play against, too passive. In possession we weren’t playing balls over their press, or winning second balls. We can’t change things overnight but we better get their quickly because we have another game at the weekend and games to come. The passive nature of our game you can attribute it to many things. There’s the easy go to that the players don’t care enough, but they do care. You can be low on confidence but still show a dynamic side to your games. All the things we spoke about before the game we didn’t do.’ Frank Lampard has now lost all six of his games in charge of Chelsea since replacing Graham Potter and he refused to be drawn on the display of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, making his first league start since November’s reverse fixture. For more stories like this, check our sport page. Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.