5. Poor Defensive Work
Now, even Lampard himself would surely admit that the defensive side of his game is not his strong point. Indeed, when a player has a goalscoring record as consistently impressive as his, some would say a lack of defensive nous can be excused. The problem for Lampard and Chelsea is that the ex-West Ham man is now being asked to fulfil a deeper role to the one he has filled for most of his career. He is generally deployed as part of the double-pivot in The Blues 4-2-3-1 formation alongside either Ramires or John Obi-Mikel and this is a position, which simply requires a slightly different skillset to the one which Lampard can offer. He has never been a fine tackler, and his defensive positioning is often found wanting, as it would be for any player who specialises in making late runs into the opposition box. Lampards struggles in this position are backed up by the statistics which show him making just 1.1 tackles per Premier League game. This does not rank him favourably against his deeper-lying midfield colleagues with both Ramires (3.3) and Mikel (2.3) making considerably more tackles each game than Lampard. Even Lampards passing not something he is generally considered poor at does not stack up well alongside Ramires and Mikel. The 34-year-old has a pass completion rate of just 81.9% in the league compared to Ramires with 85.5% and Mikel with an impressive 89.8%. Of course, stats like these do not paint the whole picture, but even when watching Lampard operate in his deeper role for Chelsea it is clear that his attacking instincts lead to occasionally reckless positioning which Ramires and Mikel are simply not as prone to.
All statistics taken from whoscored.com