Frank Lampard is keeping his cards close to his chest when it comes to the summer transfer window.
“I’m certainly excited about the squad we’ve got, with the young players and if we can get a few additions for areas I feel we need,” he told Chelsea’s official magazine.
The player that so many Blues fans are desperate to see at Stamford Bridge is Jadon Sancho. The Borussia Dortmund winger is arguably England’s brightest talent, and at just 20-years-old is likely to cost the club well over £100million.
When a deal is that sizable, the club must do all they can to aid the player’s transition into the side, and after Sancho scored his first senior hat-trick at the weekend, Lampard may have just witnessed how to do just that.
Lucien Favre opted for a 3-4-3/3-4-2-1 formation on Sunday against Paderborn, and it returned an emphatic 6-1 result for Dortmund. Starting on the right of a narrow front three, Sancho lined up alongside Thorgan Hazard in the middle and Julian Brandt on the left. Favre granted the three men significant creative freedom, and this saw them allowed to drift and stretch the field when possible.
If you study Thorgan Hazard’s chalkboard, you’ll notice that a lot of his involvement happened in the channels. Meanwhile, Brandt would often come deep to get the ball, with Dortmund’s plan about dragging the Paderborn defence out of position and exploiting the space that was created.
To their credit, Paderborn tried to stay compact and operated with a 4-1-4-1 formation, but Dortmund’s use of wing-backs Raphael Guerreiro and Achraf Hakimi stretched the field well, and in the second half Paderborn became ragged and disorganised which allowed Dortmund to add further goals.
In terms of the front three, Hazard was not afraid to come deep and try to drag one of the centre-backs with him. Sancho’s role saw him not only drive in behind but also drift across to try and connect with crosses from the left.
Both Sancho and Brandt exploited the half-space when possible, with Dortmund’s plan focused on creating overloads down the sides and forcing Paderborn’s full-backs, Mohamed Drager and Jamilu Collins, to engage with the wing-backs and advancing midfielders.
In many instances it left the two defenders with a thankless task -- trying to split the distance between the advancing wing-back behind them and the attacker (be it one of the front three or a midfielder), trying to run off the shoulder of the defender.
For an example of this, you can see it play out in the 48th minute. Collins tries to get in front of Emre Can as he runs onto a cross from Guerriero, but both men miss the ball. It trickles through to Hakimi, who should do better with his finish.
This is the exact kind of chance that Paderborn struggled to deal with, along with runners in behind. Although Sancho was quiet in the first half, he came alive in the second period to claim his hat-trick, and he also managed to create five chances throughout the game (source: Stats Zone).
If Chelsea fans were excited by the prospect of Sancho before this will only have strengthened those feelings. Lampard has been flexible in his formations this season. That experimentation has included the use of a 3-4-2-1, both early in his tenure and more recently against Bournemouth and Tottenham Hotspur in February.
Favre has used a back three for a considerable period, going back to November last year, according to transfermarkt, with only minor tweaks to the front three.
In theory, trying to replicate that with the Chelsea squad is not as difficult as it might sound. Mason Mount could operate in the false nine role that Hazard plays, or Tammy Abraham could be coached into it.
Elsewhere, Christian Pulisic could be used in Brandt’s role as could Callum Hudson-Odoi. It does require a ball-playing centre-back like Mats Hummels to spray it out wide quickly and accurately, but again, this could, in time, be a role that Fikayo Tomori takes over.
Where Chelsea may struggle is in replicating the quality at wing-back, specifically on the left side. Reece James is rightly viewed as the club’s future at right-back, but the opposite side has posed some issues. It’s believed Lampard will address that in the summer, and finding a consistent attacking threat in that role could be a key factor in unlocking Sancho’s potential at Stamford Bridge.
As for the player himself, with so many options on the table, there’s a case to be made that Chelsea is the best one. The Blues already boast a young squad, and in Lampard, he would have a manager that will use a system he is accustomed to.
All of that combined would make his transition to the Premier League all that more natural and make the most of Sancho’s brilliance.
