3 things Frank Lampard offers to Chelsea that Maurizio Sarri doesn't

Chelsea FC v Burnley FC - Premier League

Youth development

The main concern for Chelsea this summer is the potential transfer ban for the next two transfer windows. Appointing a manager who can further promote and operate with academy players would be a priority.

It also happens to be another avenue of criticism of Maurizio Sarri, who has been called out on his lack of desire to give young talents significant playing time.

Callum Hudson-Odoi had only featured in Chelsea starting line-up through pressure from the board and the fans after Bayern Munich’s multiple bids for the England international. Ruben Loftus-Cheek struggled to get on the pitch when not battling a back injury. Andreas Christensen would have spent most of his time on the sideline if it wasn’t for Antonio Rudiger’s injury. Ethan Ampadu has clearly been out of the picture, even for Europa League squad.

The failures of Sarri’s signings: Jorginho, Mateo Kovacic and Gonzalo Higuain; also made his case worse.

On the contrary, at Derby, Lampard has been reliant on two Chelsea loanees: Mason Mount in midfield and Fikayo Tomori in defence. The latter went on to win Derby’s Player of the Year award for the 2018-19 season. Being a club legend, Lampard is also obviously more familiar with Chelsea youngsters compared to Sarri who has just been at Chelsea for less than 11 months.

Jody Morris, Lampard’s assistant at Derby and also a Chelsea veteran, had been involved at Chelsea academy set-up since 2014 before joining Lampard at Derby in May 2018. Few people, if any, know the club’s young talents and workings of Chelsea's academy set-up at Cobham better than Morris.

Chelsea v Arsenal - FA Youth Cup Final: Second Leg

During his years at the helm of Chelsea U-18s, Morris led the team to win seven trophies including their fourth and fifth successive FA Youth Cups.

Morris has also criticised some of Chelsea previous managers for not paying attention to the academy. “I don’t think there’s an academy in this country that’s better [than Chelsea],” he said. “But it doesn’t look like that on paper because of the amount of players who are not playing in the first team.

“The players are good enough, most definitely, but the managers are not, for one, aware of them.”