With Chelsea six points clear at the top of the Premier League, Frank Lampard believes his former employers are now clear favourites for the title.
Speaking at the World Darts Championship on Monday night, the midfielder explained how Chelsea are in an excellent position and appear to have found a winning formula.
He told Sky Sports’ Laura Woods: “As a Chelsea man it is great to see, all credit to everybody there. The manager obviously changed the system after [the] defeat at Arsenal.
“Nobody would have fancied them to be anywhere near winning the league at that point and now they look the dominant team.
“I don’t like to tempt fate but I can’t see anyone who has got the consistency to close the gap, so I fancy Chelsea strongly now.”
However, this is the Premier League we’re talking about and someone of Lampard’s experience should know that anything can happen in the title race.
Lampard was then asked to name the teams that could challenge Chelsea, to which he replied: “[Manchester] City are in a decent position.
“And there are teams with quality for sure – City, I think Liverpool are very good to watch this year, and Arsenal.
“I think those will be the group chasing but with Chelsea, when you take that kind of a gap into Christmas, I think barring suspensions or injuries to top players like [Eden] Hazard and [Diego] Costa, I fancy them to carry it through.”
It’s no wonder Lampard is so confident given Chelsea are currently on an 11-match winning streak in the league.
Since their 3-0 defeat to Arsenal on September 24, the west Londoners have bagged 33 out of a possible 33 points to an aggregate score of 25-2.
Antonio Conte’s 3-4-3 formation has clearly made the difference, with the Italian deploying Cesar Azpilicueta, David Luiz and Gary Cahill as the three centre-backs and Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso as wing-backs.
Conte claims losing to Liverpool and Arsenal inspired him to make said changes: “In my mind, before the game I understood our formation wasn’t good to face Liverpool, on the tactical aspect. And we paid for this.
“And also against Arsenal. And then I decided to change. To see my teams have two bad defeats – we deserved two bad defeats – I didn’t like this. It changed something in me, in the players, in the club.
“To change totally the situation is not easy, and you must go slowly to put your idea [across]. In my mind in the game against Liverpool there was the will to change, but I waited for the right moment – after two bad defeats.
“Now we have 11 wins, nine clean sheets. It’s fantastic, because it’s not easy to not concede a goal in this league.”