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Frank Lampard finds Newcastle 1 Chelsea 0 tough to take “We dominated every aspect of the game…”

4 years ago
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Frank Lampard brought his Chelsea team to St James Park on Saturday.

The Chelsea boss hoping/expecting to see his team stretch to eight points the lead over those outside the Champions League placings.

They came, they saw, they dominated…but they didn’t conquer.

Frank Lampard declaring after the final whistle: ‘We dominated every aspect of the game…’

That is every aspect but score goals.

Steve Bruce employed his usual ultra-defensive tactics and it was a shocker to watch for Newcastle fans, for 93 minutes that is.

Only one effort on target as United defended so deep and offered all but zero ambition.

However, for all their domination, Chelsea found it impossible to put the ball in the net, Dubravka and his centre-backs outstanding.

Nobody outside the top four has scored as many as Chelsea and only Bournemouth have scored less than Newcastle’s 22 goals in 23 games.

Yet the one serious NUFC effort on target was enough today.

Frank Lampard says his players have to learn a valuable lesson from this Newcastle defeat and that is, if you control an entire match but don’t score then it counts for nothing.

As for what Newcastle United learnt from this game…presumably keep fighting and stay lucky!

Frank Lampard:

“We dominated every aspect of the game…

“They hit the bar in the first half but the rest of the game was ours, except scoring.

“Newcastle defend their box, you won’t make too many clear-cut chances against them.

“We controlled the game, we were at the end of their box.

“If we want to go to the next level we have to take chances and score in these kind of games.

“The lads have got their heads down in there…

“But the brutal reality of football is if you don’t score, teams stay in the game and something like that happens at the end.

“I know they had three headers at our goal but we had control of the whole game.

“It has been the story of parts of our season, there have been so many great stories of our season but part of it is we control, we create, but we don’t score.

“If we don’t score enough goals a team like Newcastle won’t come out, they are very organised with what they do and you are always open to what happened.

‘We probed, we changed the play, they dropped deep, so it’s not easy to run behind them, so you have to move the ball from side to side quickly.

“At times in the first half maybe that was a little bit slow but in the second half it wasn’t.

“When we did attack, there were so many moments where a bit of quality, the final pass and certainly the finish, wasn’t there for us today.

“We can’t absolutely rely on Tammy Abraham.

“We have to have goals from across the frontline if we want to bridge the gap upwards.

“Tammy has been fantastic this season, it didn’t quite come off for him today but that’s football.

“I can’t complain about anything from the team really.

“Of course we don’t want to give headers away in our box, they’re big and that happens but other than that, we gave everything we could to try to win the game.

“You address on it on the training ground with the players but we can’t practise finishing or entering the final third any more than what we do. We have to be more clinical and the players know that.

“Sometimes we can switch to two (up front) if a game feels that way but in that case it would have meant bringing off N’Golo Kante, who was outstanding all game, or Jorginho at the base of our midfield, and you have to be careful with their counter-attack.

‘We were creating a lot so the Michy change was to change the feeling of the striker.

“Can he come on and make something happen because he’s very dangerous around the box. so it was just like-for-like (for Abraham).”

Stats from BBC Sport:

Newcastle 1 Chelsea 0 – Saturday 18 January 5.30pm

Goals:

Newcastle:

Hayden 90+4

Possession was Chelsea 70%, Newcastle 30%

Total shots were Chelsea 19, Newcastle 7

Shots on target were Chelsea 4, Newcastle 2

Corners were Chelsea 10, Newcastle 1

Crowd: 52,217 (3,200 Chelsea and 10,000 free NUFC season ticket holders)

Referee: Chris Kavanagh

Newcastle team v Chelsea:

Dubravka, Krafth (Sean Longstaff 71), Lascelles, Clark, Fernandez, Willems (Ritchie 12), Hayden, Shelvey (Matty Longstaff 85), Almiron, Saint-Maximin, Joelinton

Unused Subs

Darlow, Schar, Lejeune, Atsu

(Newcastle 1 Chelsea 0 : If plan was to bore everybody to death and score in last minute – It worked! – Read HERE)

(Saturday’s Match of The Day running order announced after Newcastle 1 Chelsea 0 – Read HERE)

(Must see Alan Shearer celebration when winner goes in at Newcastle 1 Chelsea 0 – Video – Watch HERE)

(Newcastle 1 Chelsea 0 – Instant NUFC fan/writer reaction to Saturday’s victory – Read HERE)

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