Pre-season friendlies: Three talking points from Chelsea's exciting win over Salzburg

Shaky defence

Fikayo Tomori.

The defense must be the first thing in Frank Lampard's mind right now. Perhaps the biggest area of concern for Chelsea has to be the number of goals they are conceding at the moment. Moreover, most of the goals conceded have been a direct result of careless mistakes and poor decisions.

Now, the same issue had affected them last season. There were several instances where Chelsea lacked focus and conceded simple goals. Moreover, set-piece defending has also become a problem for Chelsea recently.

In the match against Reading, Chelsea's awful set-piece marking was in full display. From a corner, Reading's attackers were left completely unmarked at the far post. Later on, Chelsea's center-backs failed to communicate and ended up leaving a free path for a goal to be scored.

David Luiz (in yellow), one of Chelsea's center-backs.

Last night, Chelsea ended up conceding three goals against Salzburg. What is disturbing is that Chelsea have failed to realize their defensive frailties. Yesterday, the starting line-up featured David Luiz and Fikayo Tomori's pairing at the heart of defense. It is possible that these two weren't able to perform properly due to their lack of understanding. However, with a senior defender like Luiz starting, Chelsea should be worried about conceding two unnecessary late goals last night.

As the season begins, Lampard must do something to improve his defense. Scoring five and then conceding three isn't really the ideal practice for a season. The center-backs must pull up their socks if Chelsea realistically want a piece of silverware this season.

In Kepa Arrizabalaga, Chelsea have a top goalkeeper.