Our caretaker manager believes it is far more complicated for a manager than just selecting a side that will play front-foot, attacking football that is both effective and attractive on the eye. He admits that is of course the end goal but there are other areas of the game which are equally important.

‘Coming in here, I think the systems have changed a lot and that hasn’t brought an answer,' explained Lampard. 'I don’t think there is one answer or the other.

'For Real Madrid I got criticised going into the game for being too defensive but for me, that was the only way to approach that game. After 60 minutes, we could have been 1-0 or 2-0 up and then that game and the whole tie looks different.’

Lampard did change tact and opt for three central defenders against Brentford last time out, allowing Cesar Azpilicueta and Ben Chilwell to operate in wing-back roles and provide the width.

The 44-year-old was strong on the notion that he must compromise, taking into account the opposition and the predicted nature of the contest, when he spoke to journalists ahead of the trip to Arsenal tonight.

‘Brentford was different. Managers sometimes have to compromise. At the moment, with where we are, there are things we have to look at, and we think “Well, that didn’t work properly so we cannot be that fluid like we have tried to be”. We went to Wolves with 4-3-3 and we didn’t win. After the events, there are not always absolute answers,' he said.

‘Do I want to play more free-flowing football? Yes. When I was here before people maybe thought we were almost too free-flowing at times. I know that when I looked at the underlying nature of how we were playing in my first season here, we had one of the highest xG totals in the league and one of the lowest xG against, but we were conceding more goals than we should have done. There are different reasons sometimes.

‘In this short term, I want to find consistency in our work but that has been challenging in five games. Sometimes you are having to put pieces of the puzzle together.’