​Lampard admits international break dampening Chelsea preseason | OneFootball

Chelsea manager Frank Lampard admits it is tough to get a good preseason with his team due to international commitments.

Many of his first team players will be involved with their countries in the coming internationals.

It means he does not have much time to get his team ready for the new Premier League season, which begins on September 12th.

Asked about this preseason by the club's website, Lampard said: "It's slightly different, slightly less.

"They have not been off for so long, they have had just shy of two weeks off, so the levels have not gone down so much but there is still work needed to get yourselves to exactly where we want to be.

"This international break is not a positive for us at all, most clubs will tell you that, it is very difficult to try to put our team together to work on the things we need to. Now we lose a lot [of players], so we need just our absolute best to get ourselves ready for when we come back."

He went on to talk about his team's 1-1 draw with Brighton on Saturday: "It was a good workout for us. It was a tough fixture for us because we have only been back training this week, Brighton have been training longer.

"For the players, the fitness level we are striving for before, now a lot go away on internationals, so it was part of our pre-season plans as such.

"I thought the first half was bright and fresh considering where we are at with those levels, against a good team, so it is not so much the result, we obviously want to win every game, but to see individuals getting fitter, the collective as a team, it was a pretty good day for us."