Cesc Fabregas called on Chelsea's players to ask serious questions of themselves after they slumped to a 3-1 loss at Premier League title-chasing Arsenal on Tuesday night.
The scoreline flattered Frank Lampard's men who sit just nine points off the drop zone - a remarkable scenario given how much money has been pumped into the squad.
Fabregas, who played for both the Gunners and Chalsea, pulled no punches in his post-game assessment, calling out the expensively assembled team's abject failure to put up a fight against the Gunners.
"It's just sometimes about the players, you have to take a look in the mirror at yourself and ask questions," he told Sky Sports.
"Because nowadays in what I see in this new generation - not so much like 10, 15 years ago, we didn't used to have them - the excuse is to look at the manager.
"The manager doesn't play, it's 11 players who need to show up tonight.
"You train during the week to show up here, to show hard and show ambition to win football games, especially when you are playing for Chelsea in the same way Arsenal did tonight.
"They didn't do that and sometimes we need to look at the players and more on what they perform than not just an excuse for the new generation, which is to look at the manager all of the time."
"There's a level of performance you have to do."
Chelsea boss Lampard admitted his side were "too nice" to play against.
"Performance first half was nowhere near good enough," he told Sky Sports.
"[We were] too nice to play against in all aspects, too passive. Defensively the lines weren't coming up, giving them the space they want, playing balls over their press - all the things that make you a nice team to place against, we did.
"It's a good team. They go 3-0 up against you. The second half was better, but of course the result was relatively confirmed by then."
Lampard also insisted that there were levels of performance expected from his side.
"The passive nature of our game you could attribute to many things and I think that's the easy go to that 'they don't care enough'," he added.
"The players certainly care, but when you are - and I hate to say this - low on confidence, because tonight I don't want to say the low on confidence thing too much because you're playing for Chelsea.
"There's a level of performance you have to do. You can be low on confidence but still show a dynamic side to your game when things might not go your way for you.
"But as a collective you're making contact off the ball with their players and making them hurried, which we didn't.
"It maybe doesn't matter what the core reason is because the only thing that gets you out of it is working hard and understanding there's things to do and at the minute, we're a team whose a little bit conditioned in a way that makes us pretty nice to play against and that's what a Chelsea team hasn't been in recent years and that's what'll have to change."
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