SQUAD GOALS
FRANK LAMPARD challenged Chelsea’s young guns to fight for the title.
The Blues boss fielded the youngest Premier League team in their history yesterday.
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And after goals from Tammy Abraham and Christian Pulisic put Crystal Palace away, Lamps urged them to aim for the stars.
He said: “The younger players are showing they deserve to be at this level.
“I’m proud of the squad we have but I also realise it is just a snapshot. The big picture is the long-term future. At the moment they are sustaining it with Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount, Fikayo Tomori and Reece James, who has just come in.
“We are about a third of the way through and we are in a good position. But we know this league can punish you if you drop off.
“If we want to build something over a long period of time here then we have got so much improvement to do because the gap was too big last year between us and the top two. So we want to close that.”
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Chelsea briefly moved up to second in the table after a sixth successive Prem win — last achieved in 2017 during their title-winning season under Antonio Conte.
They did it with the most youthful team fielded by a Prem club this season — average age of 24 years and 88 days — under the league’s youngest boss, 41, who was up against its oldest in Palace’s Roy Hodgson, 72.
Lampard is now trying to manage expectations around the place after this giddy run.
He added: “At the start of the season it was about belief in the younger players.
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“I felt they deserved a chance but there’s always a question mark because you don’t know until you see them there.”
Abraham, who put Chelsea ahead, now has ten goals in the Premier League.
Lamps said: “He got his goal, which he took clinically, even if it might not be his best game in the showreel.”