Interim Chelsea manager Rafael Benitez has played down the argument between Frank Lampard and David Luiz during Thursday night’s Europa League match against Rubin Kazan.
To everyone it just looks like a simple case of ‘handbags’ but the press believed that it may have hinted towards internal disharmony at the club, but Benitez said that it simply isn’t a problem.
The pair had to be pulled apart by their team-mates when they clashed at the half-time interval, but the manager explained the situation.
He said:
“It’s always good to have players arguing about things that happen on the pitch, so you can correct things at half-time.
“We were talking about that, adjusting positions. So it’s fine, it’s not a problem.”
(The Sun)
It probably was over nothing but it certainly isn’t something that we have seen very often and both Petr Cech and Yossi Benayoun felt the need to try and diffuse the situation when Lampard was pointing an accusing finger at Brazilian defender Luiz.
I doubt it’s anything for Chelsea to worry about as tempers can flare, we’re all human, and all parties concerned have probably forgotten about it all already. To me it seems as though the press are doing their usual and are doing their best to find evidence of conflict, or attempting to create one that isn’t there.
But these incidents are always down to interpretation, it could easily be argued that it shows passion for the fight.
I guess it’s irrelevant in any case. Chelsea are in the semi-final and managed to get there without having to overextend themselves due to the away goal advantage they earned on top of the 3-1 lead from the first leg, it left Rubin Kazan with a mountain to climb and although the Blues were guilty of letting their foot off the gas, they did not have to play their strongest XI to do the job.
Agree with Rafa, any passion is a good thing.