Chelsea will host Brentford on Wednesday at Stamford in the Premier League. Frank Lampard hopes to win his first game for Chelsea since his appointment as an interim manager last month.
The Blues will be without several key senior players for the Brentford games. Reece James has spent most of this season with medics because of his knee injury. He missed the World Cup because of the same problem. James played only 33 minutes in Chelsea’s 2-1 defeat to Brighton.
Mason Mount has also not been available for Chelsea recently because of the bruised pelvis. He came on in the second half during Chelsea’s 2-1 defeat to Brighton.
Providing injury of his squad ahead of their Premier League encounter with Brentford, Lampard said: “Reece James is unavailable for the Brentford game and probably for the season.
“Mason Mount is the same. There is potential for the last game of the season but probably not. That’s obviously disappointing for us.
“Reece had a hamstring he picked up in the Madrid game. He got through the game, but we scanned it the following day. Mason had been carrying this pelvic injury for quite a while before I arrived.
“We’ve got to the stage now where he’ll have a minor surgery. Probably a four-week recovery, and we know where that gets us to.
When quizzed if Madueke, Chukwuemeka, and Mykhailo Mudryk will have more playing time before the season ends: “If they deserve it. If they deserve it, for sure.
“I think there are two things; there is the individual work of showing that you deserve it, and I’m fully for that.
“In the first period at the club, I came in with the transfer ban and losing big players, and everyone said, ‘Of course, young players get in the team.’ They got in the team because they deserved it because of how they train and those things.
“And that’s a culture and a way that you have to have at a top football club. And I don’t think that changes just for the moment; that should always be there.
“So players have to train, and those seven games and days of training now are all opportunities to show you deserve to be in the team.
“As I think I’ve probably shown as a coach, if you do that you’ll probably get an opportunity with me.”
Frank Lampard also expressed his admiration for Brentford ahead of the game.
He said: “I’ve been impressed with everything. Stability, a really good coach, and consistency to stay with the coach through difficult moments you have in seasons which for a team like Brentford establishing themselves in the Premier League will mean moments maybe of difficult, they’ve come those always. A real clear idea of how they want to play, a real clear idea of link to the recruitment of how they want to play. I think it’s a huge credit to everbody involved.”
