Chelsea manager Frank Lampard defended his players and the club's co-owner Todd Boehly.

Lampard was asked during a news conference if his players needed to show more commitment and desire.

He was also queried about a photo of Boehly speaking to a fan at Stamford Bridge during a recent loss.

On the players, Lampard stated: “I'll answer the second part first. I said it the other day, I said it earlier: I'm not questioning commitment of players. I got asked after the game on Saturday if the players looked hungry enough and I answered that it's very easy to get to that point from the outside when there's a lot of factors that come together to try and get a team playing at its peak.

“Confidence, belief, physical nature of the game, tactical nature of the game. It feels like everyone is jumping on this physical thing. It's Part of the game that's important but there's other parts that we can improve on. From my point of view it's about trying to attack those things. I call them the baseline things because without those things you will struggle at top level football to get results without them. We are trying to broach those things together in quick time but the reality is some of them take time to get better. So that's fine. Tomorrow's a huge game, we just have to focus on that.

He then added on Boehly: “With regard to the ownership and fans, passion goes both ways. The fans show passion and I don't think the owners or anybody who comes to Chelsea and expect anything else.

“The fans have complete passion and want the club to do well and we have been fortunate enough that the club has been successful over the last 20 years or so. That means you want more of it. I don't think anybody needs schooling on that. I think it is clear and also the word passion is coming from both sides.

“These are passionate owners who want to bring a real vision to the club and we are probably the early stage of the process in those terms. Again, I keep being asked a lot of the same sort of stuff but when you look at processes in the Premier League and we want to rise and stay the very top and at the moment we are just off that level.

“People always question everything in the beginning and the early stages and at any part of the process.

“There is an important stage with the way we are working - we just want to get our heads down and get on with the things in front of us. Passion and that is normal. I don't think it is a problem. I certainly don't find it is a problem. We can all be passionate together and work in the same direction to get where we want to be."