Chelsea caretaker manager Frank Lampard has hinted at more minutes for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang before the end of the season after saying he gives the team a 'different feeling' up front.
Lampard has been unable to reverse an alarming slump of form at Stamford Bridge, losing all five games since taking succeeding Graham Potter on a temporary basis.
In that time, Chelsea have scored only one goal - a deflected Conor Gallagher effort in the 2-1 defeat to Brighton - and have conceded nine; a sorry state of affairs that sums up the fortunes of the club since Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital took control and authorised a mega-money spending spree.
One of Chelsea's main issues has been their lack of presence up front. Kai Havertz has played the majority of the season at centre forward, though many would argue that's not his natural position, and understudy Armando Broja has been injured.
Joao Felix has filled in during his loan spell from Atletico Madrid and Raheem Sterling has also played there - but neither individual is natural in the role and would prefer to drift inside from wide positions.
This is all despite Aubameyang being on the club's books since September. The 33-year-old joined Chelsea from Barcelona just before the 2022 summer transfer window closed, and was the final signing of the Thomas Tuchel era.
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Indeed, the German was dismissed from his role a week after Aubameyang arrived, even though the latter's signing was directly linked to having worked together in the past. The former Arsenal captain was frozen out under Potter - and was also left out of the club's Champions League squad - but Lampard's recent words suggest more minutes could be on the way.
“With Auba, in a short period, it’s been hard for me to gauge that [physical level] but when you see him come on against Brentford you see the different feeling of the team," Lampard said of Aubameyang.
"So I think one thing’s for sure, as I said before, he’s a very high-level player, but clearly in a situation where he’s maybe not at his freshest and sharpest.
“I will want a number nine that I can play off and that we can rely on – it’s not ideal for me to ask Raheem [Sterling] and Joao Felix to play in that number nine. We had to in games against Real Madrid because Kai [Havertz] was missing in one of them.
"So there’s a lot of things that you have to put together and I don’t think the solution is always as easy as, ‘here’s a number nine, I have to see if they’re ready or not to play.'”
Aubameyang has played just 501 minutes of Premier League football since returning to England - five and a half full games worth. He has scored one goal in that time, on his debut in the 2-1 win at Crystal Palace in September.
