Chelsea began 2021 down in fifth position in the Premier League, seven points behind leaders Liverpool after an awful run of form which has seen them lose three matches in their last five in the English top-flight.
Frank Lampard’s side were expected to do well this season after the manager was given a huge war chest in the summer and the Blues secured all of the players that he’d gone after.
However, Jamie Carragher is concerned that Kai Havertz was bought without any real thought given as to where he was going to play in the Chelsea XI, and as such, his poor current form could probably have been foreseen.
“I look at Kai Havertz and wonder if Chelsea really needed to sign him last summer?” he wrote in his column for the Daily Telegraph (subscription required), cited by the Daily Mail.
“He is obviously a player of great potential, but it never works buying a player because he is so highly-rated, unless you have a predetermined idea where he will fit into the side.”
With almost half of the season played now already, the pressure is on Lampard to turn the corner and get the best out of the players he has in situ, including Havertz.
Failure to be challenging at the business end of the campaign, given how much the manager has spent to date, could well end with his sacking if he’s not careful.
Lampard out
Is a mistake from Lampard