Lampard Admits Arsenal Admiration

Chelsea star Frank Lampard has admitted

that he has been as impressed by Arsenal’s title charge as anyone,

ahead of the mouthwatering clash between

the two city rivals on ‘Grand Slam Sunday’.

The England international midfielder had no problem admitting that the Gunners have been a joy to watch, though he did suggest that their shock defeat at Middlesbrough last week was an indication that they don’t have the quality in depth to maintain such stellar form over the long run."Arsenal deserve all the credit they get because they've been playing fantastic football,” said Lampard. “They've been a great team to watch and I think maybe the reason everyone has been so excited about it is they've caught teams unawares."Everyone knew they had good young players but no one expected them to play so consistently well and score so many goals.

Probably one of our downfalls is that people have been expecting unbelievable things because we've been winning things for the last few years so they don't talk us up so much."But Arsenal deserve all the credit they get this season and we're obviously two teams who play with different styles and that will be one of the fascinating things to see on the day. What's nice for us is that we've narrowed the gap over the last month.

There was a point where we were possibly double figures behind Arsenal with their game in hand and we've put ourselves in a position where we could go level on points."That's a great confidence-booster for us. I think it was inevitable that Arsenal weren't going to keep winning. It's very hard to keep that level up, especially when you go to places like Newcastle and Middlesbrough.

So we're back in the hunt and looking forward to the chance to show what we can do against the top teams."Lampard concluded by insisting that he’d rather face a full-strength Arsenal on Sunday, rather than have the likes of Fabregas, Hleb and Flamini fail late fitness tests."You like to play and test yourself against the best, you don't want people saying afterwards that there were any excuses either way,” he added.

“But maybe it's for them to stay strong without two of their big players. We've had to do that all season and we'll go there without probably the best striker in the world (Drogba)."

surprising how lampard suddenly being nice and slow to arsenal. tsktsktsk.

courtesy of goal.com