Well, that was so needed! Frank Lampard has finally seen his Chelsea team win in the Premier League after the abysmal nine-game winless run. The 3-1 success at Bournemouth on Saturday afternoon took a huge burden off Lampard’s shoulders, but there is still a long way to go for the under-performing Blues.Conor Gallagher headed the visitors in front at Vitality Stadium, but, after Matias Vina’s leveller, they were largely toothless going forward until late finishes from Benoit Badiashile and Joao Felix halted the prolonged slump. While a top-half finish is the extent of Chelsea’s potential this season, they will hope to be challenging for Champions League qualification at the very least next term.##NAJAVA_MECA_7234335##Former club captain and England international Lampard was a member of some truly excellent teams – and he wants to bring those qualities to the current crop of Chelsea players. The biggest shift needs to happen in the squad’s mentality and the desire to finish the opponents off.”We controlled a lot of the game. Without the killer instinct, we were running inside their box a lot in the first half. We had a lot of overloads on the side of the pitch. And as this team develops or as we add to the squad I think you have to be more killers at the top end of the pitch. If you look at the top half of the table, that’s what you will see all across it. At the moment, we haven’t got that. But you saw nice individual performances in a positive direction.”Chelsea have won their first game under Frank Lampard and just their second away match of 2023. Frank’s finally off the mark. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/MPBRovmVGb— Squawka (@Squawka) May 6, 2023 Two-time European champions Chelsea sit in 11th position, a staggering 40 points behind leaders Manchester City and well adrift of the top four. Travelling supporters celebrated the long-awaited triumph with self-deprecating cries of ‘we are staying up’, having earlier directed derogatory chants at American businessman Todd Boehly. Lampard backed the club’s owners to succeed following a dismal first campaign at the helm.”The fans have been used to a lot of success, they want a lot of success. What I do know is the fans will stick with this club. I do know there are a lot of intentions to take this club where we want to get it to again. There’s not one club out there of our size that hasn’t had transitional periods. People would give a left arm to have the success we’ve had for 20 years, so if it’s our year where we have to go again and work a bit and try and come back stronger next year, everyone stick together, then I’m sure we will.”
