Chelsea cut new manager shortlist to two amid Frank Lampard pressure

Chelsea are thought to have narrowed their potential new manager shortlist to just two names if results don’t improve and under-pressure boss Frank Lampard is sacked.

Chelsea lost a fifth game in eight when they were comprehensively beaten by Leicester last time out and have slid down the Premier League table to eighth.

Lampard even said following that latest defeat that he was ‘worried’ by the alarming run of results, admitting that many of his players didn’t even do the bare minimum or basics in terms of running, sprinting and covering ground against the Foxes.

The 42-year-old has the lowest points per game average of any Chelsea manager in the Roman Abramovich era and the fourth lowest of any in the Premier League era as a whole. He is now widely favoured among bookmakers to be the next boss to get fired.

Lampard effectively got a free pass in his debut season because of a transfer ban and the sale of Eden Hazard, but the Blues spent over £200m on new players ahead of the current campaign and, if anything, have somehow gone backwards.

According to Sky Sports, Lampard has to improve results ‘immediately’ or he will be toast. What could still save him is club officials witnessing the turnarounds that Mikel Arteta and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer have achieved with patience at Arsenal and Manchester United respectively.

But Chelsea have already been making preparations in case they need to make the switch and are said to have trimmed a list of names to just two: Thomas Tuchel and Julian Nagelsmann.

Former AC Milan and Juventus boss Massimiliano Allegri was also a name under consideration, but if Lampard goes the likelihood is that Chelsea’s next manager will be German.

Tuchel is currently out of work after being dismissed by Paris Saint-Germain last month. He has been heavily linked with Chelsea before, although it was recently claimed by the Daily Telegraph that the club were actually warned off him back in 2017 when considering replacing Antonio Conte because he could potentially be difficult to work with. Conte eventually stayed for another year.

The problem with Nagelsmann is that he will not leave current club RB Leipzig before the end of the season. That would mean having to make temporary arrangements if Lampard is sacked and the man once dubbed ‘Baby Mourinho’ is the new coach Chelsea specifically want.

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