Frank Lampard has no doubts Kai Havertz will thrive for Chelsea, but insists the Germany youngster must first get up to full fitness.
Havertz arrived in a reported £72million (€80m/$92m) deal from Bayer Leverkusen, though he has so far failed to spark into life at Stamford Bridge.
After an indifferent display in his debut against Brighton and Hove Albion, Havertz struggled to impose himself on the game as Chelsea went down 2-0 to Liverpool on
Sunday.
Yet Lampard has no concerns over the 21-year-old, who he suggested is not fully up to speed.
“Kai has played various positions in career, as number nine, number eight and a number 10,” Lampard told a news conference.
“He played lots off the right for Leverkusen and I have my own vision going forward.
“The key now is getting him fit. Kai, with the situation we are in we aren’t in a position where we can wait. We need to get him fit, and it’ll become very clear why he’s here.”
Chelsea are hoping to make a swift recovery from their weekend defeat as they return to action in the Carabao Cup.
Barnsley travel to Stamford Bridge on Wednesday with the hope of springing an upset, but Lampard is happy to have an extra 90 minutes to help nurture his charges back to full fitness.
“We’re in the position that this game for me is of course about getting through to the next round, it always would be, but I have huge eyes on the fitness of the team because we’re not fit now, which means our pressing game and the speed of our game, it will be very difficult to attain the levels that we want,” the manager added.
“So I’ll use this game primarily for the first-team squad to get there. With respect to Barnsley and respect for the competition, it’s a huge night for us for the fitness of our team.
“We’re in a very difficult position. I don’t want to compare us to all the other teams, but we had pretty much as short a break as you can have because of our Champions League game against Bayern Munich, which took us two weeks beyond the regular season, and then we came back and played when everyone else started, unlike a few other teams in the Premier League.
“We also made some new signings, we also had double figures of quarantines at the start of pre-season, so we’re clearly in pre-season mode and that’s why we mustn’t get too judgmental. I’m not being too judgmental of the squad at this point because we are short on fitness for individuals in the team.”
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