Frank Lampard has put the blame on Chelsea’s leaky defence on a lack of preparation time with his troops.

The Chelsea boss said: “We’re working hard defensively and we’re always trying to improve on that.

“This season we’ve had the second-fewest shots on our goals behind Man City, but we have an issue where we’re conceding too many goals from the chances that we do allow.

“The main thing particularly for ourselves is that there has been a lack of preparation which if you’re working with new players or small changes, that takes time. And hopefully that will keep improving now.

“Maybe there’s an element of that for everybody, without the fans, but we have to worry about ourselves and we have to change it ourselves.”