Mourinho, speaking on Sky Sports, said “If Kante can play 30-35 minutes, he can start the game. If he lasts only one hour, then he lasts one hour.

“My feeling is that today they had a possibility to play with more know-how.

“Marcos Alonso was on the bench, Kante was on the bench, Giroud was on the bench.

“You look to the performance of Mason Mount, the performance of Tammy Abraham, you look to the performance even of Andreas Christensen and for matches of this dimension you need a little bit more.

But Lampard, who was unable to sign players this summer because of a transfer embargo, refused to make excuses for the heavy defeat.

“In terms of the squad, we knew we couldn’t bring players in the summer,” said Lampard. “But I know and I believe we’ve got really talented young players.

“So let’s be clear – with the injuries we’ve got at the minute, and the fact we couldn’t bring in players, this is going to be a work in progress to a degree.”