Chelsea striker Olivier Giroud has praised the character of manager Frank Lampard, who has yet to taste success as the Blues head coach. The west London giants have started the season with successive losses to Manchester United and Liverpool in the Premier League and UEFA Super Cup respectively but they were somewhat unfortunate to come up with nothing in the latter of those games.

Speaking to Chelseafc.com, Giroud spoke about the mentality of the new manager and said that the 41-year-old’s response remains neutral irrespective of the performance from the players, he told: “He always tries to be very positive. He won’t be too tough with us when we are not doing too well, but he also won’t put us ‘over the moon’ when we are playing well. He is always trying to analyse well the situation.

“He said he was proud of our performance [on Wednesday] and it is tough to lose like we did, on pens, but we have to keep our head up. The most important thing [against Liverpool] was to keep the confidence high, have personality to play with freedom and clearly we did that. We were very strong and we can build good things from that for the future.”

The Blues commanded the better chances during the backend of the Super Cup encounter against Liverpool, but they could not secure the silverware after losing through a penalty shoot-out after the scores were tied at 2-2 after 120 minutes of play. Next up, they have a home game against Leicester City and the match should pose a different threat compared to the recent encounters.

Unlike against United and Liverpool, the Blues would go into the game as clear favourites but they need to be wary of the threat from the Foxes on the counter-attack. Brendan Rodgers’ team are widely dependent on Jamie Vardy upfront to make the difference but they also have the likes of James Maddison, Harvey Barnes, and Youri Tielemans, who are game changers on their day.