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Frank Lampard praises Chelsea youngster Reece James for ‘incredible individual performance’ against Bayern Munich


The Chelsea boss was happy with the character shown by his young team (Picture: YouTube)

Chelsea boss Frank Lampard has singled out Reece James for his ‘incredible individual performance’ against Bayern Munich and feels his young side learned a lot despite their defeat.

The west London club lost 4-1 in Bavaria on Friday night, and 7-1 on aggregate, as they exited the Champions League at the round of 16 against a rampant Bayern side.

While Lampard was disappointed to go out of the competition, he felt the tie was a good learning experience and was particularly impressed with how well James played against the German champions’ star-studded attack.

James was up against Bayern’s left flank of Ivan Perisic and Alphonso Davies (Picture: Getty)

Speaking at his post-match press conference, Lampard said: ‘I want to focus on the resilience and the performance levels of a lot of players in the team.

‘I think it was a good exercise for us today to look at a team like Bayern Munich and the Champions League experience they have in their ranks. Hundreds of appearances through their team and we had young players, debut seasons.

‘Reece James going toe-to-toe with top players with an incredible individual performance, and some others within that. And I can see where I want us to go, for the good and the bad.’

Asked if the players will have learnt from the experience, Lampard continued: ‘Yeah without a doubt. A game against this high-level opponent is going to stretch you and strain you and it will be an experience for Reece and Callum and Tammy and Mason.

‘But what I saw was young players there staying in the game, showing their qualities, fighting until the end.

‘N’Golo Kante, who has played 50% of our games this year – we’ve missed him badly – and then showing why he is the player that he is, with his level of performance during the game particularly the second half.

Lampard feels his side will benefit from playing against Bayern (Picture: Getty Images)

‘So the result isn’t nice. Probably most people expected us to lose anyway, but we went in with the absolute right intentions and we competed against them.

‘I’m never going to be happy with a defeat, but when you match up the two teams and I think about where we want to get to, it will take time. It’s not overnight. We know the position we’re in. So we take a rest which the players richly deserve and we look forward and we want to improve.’

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