Speaking at his pre-match press conference at Cobham this afternoon, Lampard had news on the group of players who were unavailable for our opening game at Brighton. Despite training with the team for the first time this week, Ben Chilwell and Thiago Silva are among those who won’t feature, but Lampard did have positive news on another new acquisition, Werner. He suffered a dead leg on his debut at Brighton.

‘Ben Chilwell is not ready for the game, and Christian Pulisic is not ready for the game,’ started Lampard when asked about their availability.

‘We’re hope they’re training and progressing over the next week or so.

‘Hakim Ziyech is also not ready for the game, same story. Timo Werner is fit.

‘Thiago has been training with us for the last three or four days. We are just working with him on his fitness at the moment, so Liverpool will come too soon for him.’

The boss spoke further about the Brazilian defender who he has worked with for the first time in recent days.

‘Thiago is certainly a leader. He brings that with him by nature. He doesn’t speak the language that great, something we’re working on very quickly, but we have a lot of players in the squad who are multi-lingual and help with that.

‘By presence, by attitude in training, by the quality of the player he commands respect. I look forward to having him around. He already seems very engaging and intent on helping the team, and that’s all you can ask for as a coach.’