Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp branded Chelsea "soft" in their defeat to Leicester City and believes the blame falls on the players for their continual under-performance, as opposed to manager Frank Lampard.
Chelsea have lost five of their last eight Premier League matches and have gone from possible title contenders to potentially missing out on the Champions League altogether, should their downturn in form fail to be addressed.
That has heaped pressure further on Lampard's shoulders, following a summer of more than £200million invested in the first team but former Liverpool and Tottenham midfielder Redknapp claims new arrivals like Timo Werner, Kai Havertz and Ben Chilwell need to step up.
Werner and Havertz, who arrived from Bundesliga clubs RB Leipzig and Bayer Leverkusen, respectively, have underwhelmed and were made to look decidedly second best by a Leicester team whose performance encapsulated everything Chelsea weren't at the King Power Stadium.
The Foxes played with purpose, energy, aggression and won individual battles across the park, nullifying Chelsea, forcing defensive mistakes and were worthy 2-0 winners.
"You bring in lots of new players, it’s like you’re a kid in a candy shop, you’ve got all the players but who do you pick and where do you play them?" Redknapp said on Sky Sports.
"Players that come in from another country, you’re hoping they’re going to hit the ground running. [Kai] Havertz and [Timo] Werner just haven’t. They were two star signings, they’ve struggled.
"There are one or two things that I look at and this will upset Frank more than anything because he was as hard-working a player as I’ve ever seen. But one or two of them are a little bit soft.
"You never want to be labelled a soft team, one that doesn’t run enough, that doesn’t work hard, win individual battles. That can boil down to confidence, but I look at that team right now and there are one or two of them that are just doing enough and they can’t just do enough playing for Chelsea."
Lampard continues to tweak his team and system to try and hit upon the right formula as he deals with the transition of having to integrate young players amid a transfer embargo to possessing some of Europe's brightest and most coveted attacking talent.
It remains unclear how he can field an XI that incorporates Havertz, Christian Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech and Werner - with the latter two substitutes against Leicester - and it's difficult to know exactly which players fit together.
Chelsea's next three games are against Luton in the FA Cup at Stamford Bridge followed by very winnable home league matches against Wolves and Burnley.
Redknapp wants to see more from their expensive recruits and those who have emerged as first-teamers over the last 18 months.
"Players right now have got to take responsibility, they’ve got to do more," Redknapp added. "I mentioned the full-backs, Reece James, Ben Chilwell coming in for a lot of money, I want to see a lot more from him. I’m seeing him go through the motions a little bit, I want to see more energy.
"They were out-fought, out-battled, a better team won.
"You look at Chelsea and it feels like they’re being thrown together a bit at the moment. It’s hard, you’re searching for something as a manager, you want the right recipe.
"You’re hoping that [Hakim] Ziyech will come on and do a bit for you. You give Callum Hudson-Odoi an opportunity today, what did he do? He had one opportunity and ended up falling over, a lack of quality.
"A lot of the players didn’t do enough when they had their chance today. They’ve got to do more."
