CHELSEA MANAGER FRANK Lampard has offered his support to Tammy Abraham after the young striker’s penalty miss against Liverpool proved decisive on Wednesday.
After the first nine players converted their penalties in a shootout in the UEFA Super Cup, Abraham saw his spot-kick saved by Adrian to seal the trophy for Liverpool.
Lampard was not phased after seeing Abraham miss the crucial penalty, insisting that moments like those are part of being a top-level player.
“Tammy needs to keep his head up,” Lampard told BT Sport. ”That’s part and parcel of being a top player. You want to take the fifth penalty but you might miss it.”
The first-year Chelsea boss was proud of his side’s performance in a 2-2 draw over 120 minutes in Istanbul, a major improvement after the Blues fell 4-0 to Manchester United in their Premier League opener on Sunday.
“They showed their personality. It was a tough, tough game against a fantastic Liverpool team,” Lampard said.
Talk about Jorginho, talk about that performance, talk about [N'Golo] Kante who has hardly trained, talk about Kurt Zouma, Andreas [Christensen], I could go through them all, incredible.
“I’m really proud and I know we lost, but I’m confident for the season after that.”
Lampard will have to rely heavily on youth this season, with the Blues in the middle of a two-window transfer ban that will see them unable to sign players until next summer.
But the manager isn’t concerned about his side’s inability to bring in players, insisting that he’s got a strong group to work with.
“We’ve got a real quality bunch in here,” Lampard said. “People will talk about transfer bans and all that, but I already knew this was a really good group of players and we’re working harder as a team.
“We’re trying to install the way I want them to play and the way they played today had so many good things.
It’s hard, but I don’t want to just focus on youth. We’re obsessed with Chelsea and youth at the moment.”
One of those young players is Christian Pulisic, who impressed on his first Chelsea start with an assist and a fantastic goal that was ruled out for offside.
“Really pleased, let’s not forget Pulisic is 20. He goes and gets an assist and will only get better,” Lampard said. ”He has to get used to teams like Liverpool and how they play.
“Mason [Mount] and Tammy gave us another dimension when they came on. Mason almost scored, so did Tammy.”
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