Chelsea boss Frank Lampard has revealed the rationale for adopting the 3-4-3 formation in Chelsea 5-2 win over Wolverhamption Wanderers.
Seven goals in a thrilling encounter at Molineux, all coming in the final hour of the match. A hat-tick for Tammy Abraham, who also scored at the wrong end for Wolves, a worldie from Fikayo Tomori and a goal for Mason Mount underline Chelsea’s superiority.
It was the beginning of a fantastic attacking performance as nerves calmed down at the Molineux, where top-six teams usually struggle to score, let alone put five in the back of the net. Afterwards, Lampard was nothing but delighted with the win.
“It’s a tough place to come. They haven’t lost here for a long time. They get good results against the top six teams because they defend so well and are dangerous on the counter-attack.
“We changed the system. The players took that on board really well. I’m delighted to come here and score five goals because not many teams do that.”
Lampard has often talked about wanting his team to be tactically flexible and adaptable as per the opposition at hand. During the match, those words came into wonderful focus, with Lampard’s team selection and decision to play with three central defenders. Initial confusion on and off the pitch at the return of the 3-4-3 led to justified praise 90 minutes later.
For Lampard, the praise belonged to the players who executed his instructions and did not betray the work they had done in training all week.
“[Wolves] play three at the back and they play it very well. There are two points really. One is we’ve conceded more than we’d have liked to. We had Toni back fit and to have three centre-halves gives you a bit more security on face value.
“And also I want us to be adaptable in an attacking sense. What it allowed us to do today is get Mason and Willian in really nice positions, inside wingers, behind Tammy. They caused Wolves exactly the problems we wanted to cause them. It was good to see the work we had done on it come off.”
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