Chelsea vs Leicester result: Frank Lampard’s vision starts to emerge but familiar problems keep the shackles on

Chelsea 1-1 Leicester City: A first half built on energy, determination and youth unravelled after the break to allow Wilfried Ndidi to atone for his early error and split the points

For most of the first 45 minutes we saw the clearest glimpse yet of what a Frank Lampard Chelsea team might look like, if he gets the time to click it all into place.

They were energetic, determined and young, and their goal encompassed all those things when the impressive academy graduate Mason Mount pinched the ball from Wilfred Ndidi on the edge of the Leicester City box and drilled a finish past Kasper Schmeichel.

But after half-time the array of problems Lampard faces revealed themselves, one after another. His midfield’s productivity began to wane, with Jorginho’s radar going haywire and Pedro playing like a slightly drunk wasp, carrying a sting which he couldn’t quite remember how to use. Gaps creaked open through the centre just like those which Manchester United exploited so ruthlessly a week ago.

Leicester took a foothold in the game and soon it was more, when Ndidi made up for his earlier error by scoring a headed equaliser from a James Maddison corner.

By that point, 66 minutes in, Leicester were enjoying themselves, to the extent that Brendan Rodgers could afford a grin a few moments later when Maddison somehow cleared the crossbar with a brilliant chance in the Chelsea box.

Beside Rodgers on the touchline, Lampard let out another of his exasperated huffs. A man who has spent most of his life playing football, he is quickly finding out that the game is a whole lot more stressful when you can only watch.

“The first 25 minutes or so, that’s how we want to play,” said Lampard, who played down the significance of his first game back at Stamford Bridge as a manager. ”The rest of the game wasn’t quite how we want to play. Credit to Leicester, they put us under pressure, but in the second half we left far too many spaces from them. I don’t expect 100mph for 90 minutes, but I do expect us to find another way.”

Perhaps Chelsea’s decline was the natural response of a team who were stretched to their limits on a midweek trip to Istanbul, both physically and emotionally. And certainly Leicester deserved credit for the way they transformed themselves after the break; if anything they will leave Stamford Bridge frustrated that Maddison and Jamie Vardy spurned chances, and that Youri Tielemans inexplicably ignored a simple through-ball to Marc Albrighton in the final throes.

Which meant that the final whistle was greeted by the kind of subdued sigh that comes when neither team are quite satisfied after 90 minutes of chipping away at one another, like no one could quite remember why they’d began arguing in the first place. Chelsea showed glimpses of what it is they are trying to achieve, but it was a stark reminder that it will take time, and that everyone at Stamford Bridge will require a rare commodity in these parts in recent years: patience.