Frank Lampard has reiterated that Chelsea must work hard to get fitter during the closing weeks of the season.
The caretaker manager is yet to oversee a victory since his return to Stamford Bridge with Chelsea suffering defeats to Wolverhampton Wanderers, Real Madrid and Brighton & Hove Albion.
Having been in charge for less than two weeks, certain aspects of Chelsea's frequent below-par performances cannot be put at the feet of Lampard, who has been faced with minimal time on the training pitch.
Chelsea are yet to have more than four days between any fixture, something which Lampard has alluded to in his recent press conferences.
However, Lampard has made a point of being disappointed with his squad's fitness levels, claiming at the weekend that they were 'lacking capacity and needing physical work'.
Ahead of the Champions League quarter-final second leg with Real Madrid on Tuesday, Lampard was asked to expand on the matter, some interpreting his recent comments as criticism of the previous coaching staff.
The Englishman has instead rejected that point of view, feeling that player should not necessarily be over-relying on the work that is undertaken on the training ground.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference, as quoted by football.london, the club legend said: "I'm always big on personal responsibility in football as a player and as a group. So when I'm talking like that I'm not blaming anyone else from what I see now and what I see in the future.
"It's something we have to address now and address going forward because it's a big part of the game and we do a lot of work and delve into the data and statistics on the output of what we put into games.
"It's not a question of commitment of players but my job is to focus in on points we can get better at to compete at this level and I think it's something that as a short-term thing we can improve on and that's we are going to do."
Later in the media briefing, Lampard added: "It feels like everyone is jumping on this physical thing. It's part of the game that's important but there's other parts that we can improve on.
"From my point of view it's about trying to attack those things. I call them the baseline things because without those things you will struggle at top level football to get results without them. We are trying to broach those things together in quick time but the reality is some of them take time to get better."
Lampard head into the game with the defending European champions trailing 2-0 on aggregate courtesy of goals from Karim Benzema and Marco Asensio at the Santiago Bernabeu. body check tags ::
