Frank Lampard challenges new Chelsea transfers to make history as club enters fresh era

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Giuseppe Muro14 September 2020

Frank Lampard has told Kai Havertz, Timo Werner and the rest of his new-look team to make their own mark on Chelsea history as they prepare to usher in an exciting era tonight.

Chelsea begin their season at Brighton in what Lampard hopes will be the start of a fresh dawn for the club after spending more than £200million over the summer.

There has not been this much excitement around Chelsea arguably since the summer of 2003 when Russian owner Roman Abramovich arrived at Stamford Bridge.

Lampard knows Abramovich will expect instant returns on his summer spending and says he is ready for new levels of pressure this season.

But he has told his players to ignore comparisons with some of the great Chelsea teams of the past and write themselves into the club’s history books.

“It is the start of the road potentially for us,” said Lampard. “You look back at some of the squads here, there were very experienced and high-level squads. This is a pretty fresh squad with the players we have brought in and the youth that remains from last year. It is an exciting thing for this squad to now make their own mark.

“We start afresh pretty much this year. That is how it feels for us. We want to be challenging and we want to be moving in an upwards direction, like I keep saying, to close the gap on the top two teams that are above us.”

Chelsea have signed Hakim Ziyech, Werner, Ben Chilwell, Thiago Silva and Havertz this summer as they bid to close the gap on Liverpool and Manchester City.

German duo Havertz (below) and Werner are in line to make their debuts but Ziyech, Chilwell and Silva are unavailable.

Lampard has defended Chelsea’s spending spree and hit back at Jurgen Klopp after the Liverpool boss had a go at their vast investment.

Klopp claimed Liverpool were “a different kind of club” and could not “behave like Chelsea”, who are ready to take their spending to around £250m by signing Rennes goalkeeper Edouard Mendy.

AP

Lampard said he found Klopp’s comments funny and pointed to the money spent at Anfield since the German took over in 2015.

Liverpool have invested more than £300m on Virgil van Dijk, Alisson, Fabinho, Naby Keita, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah, and Lampard said: “I found it slightly amusing. We all know Liverpool have spent huge amounts. My job is not to get too caught up in the comments of others. We will be judged on the results we get.