You’re just looking at the worst part of Benitez by the end. It wasn’t comparable to the football at the beginning, remember the Docuoure through ball to Gray against Burnley?
Just the same way Ancelotti’s performance against Spurs at the start of that season was absolutely nothing like the 5-0 drubbing by City at the end. See Koeman, Silva and Allardyce for comparisons.
We can claim success after a few games if we want but I don’t back these players do it will take more than them turning up for a few homes games to wipe away five years of cowardly crap.
Lampard seems to know what he’s doing though, hopefully that will extend to the summer when he has to be ruthless and turf these players out.