Chelsea manager Lampard reveals the decision that helped Tammy Abraham score hat-trick in Wolves win

Frank Lampard made a tweak in his formation which saw his Chelsea team inflict a first home defeat on Wolves since January 2 and was full of praise for his young Blues afterwards.

Chelsea successfully adapted to a change in formation to hammer Wolves 5-2 at the Molineux on Saturday as Tammy Abraham grabbed a hat trick, with Fikayo Tomori and Mason Mount completing the rout.

The result and performance left Lampard delighted, with the Blues boss singing the praises of his experienced and young players.

‘It’s (Molinuex’s) a tough place to come,’ said Lampard. ‘They (Wolves) haven’t lost here for a long time. They get good results against the top six teams because they defend so well and are dangerous on the counter-attack.

‘We changed the system. The players took that on board really well. I’m delighted to come here and score five goals because not many teams do that.’

Lampard surprised many by starting the game with three central defenders and wing-backs, a decision he explained afterwards.

‘For ourselves, with Wolves in account. They play three at the back and they play it very well. There are two points really. One is we’ve conceded more than we’d have liked to. We had Toni (Rudiger) back fit and to have three centre-halves gives you a bit more security on face value.

‘And also I want us to be adaptable in an attacking sense. What it allowed us to do today is get Mason and Willian in really nice positions, inside wingers, behind Tammy. They caused Wolves exactly the problems we wanted to cause them. It was good to see the work we had done on it come off.’