Frank Lampard has spoken on a two hour new Podcast today, which you can watch in full below. But I wanted to break down some of the key quotes and highlight some important points.
As we all know, Chelsea had a terrible season last season and things went from bad to worse when Frank Lampard became interim manager.
Why did he even take the role at a sinking ship? Why couldn’t he motivate the players? What was the underlying problems here?
I think we all know the answers really to all the above, but it’s clear from Lampard’s quotes that even he was surprised with the state of the mindsets of these players and the amount of them who had already checked out for the season and were thinking about their next moves.
When people are in that way of thinking, it was always going to be completely doomed for Lampard no matter what anyone wants to say on his tactics or what he did or didn’t do on the pitch, which was also poor by the way.
“The biggest thing about the standard was the size of the squad. The motivation of players; not going to play or you’re out of the Champions League squad, it’s demotivating. It’s a challenge with 20 or so players alone but with Chelsea it got so big. I had a short period and wanted to get something out of this, but you look at it and they’ve had it all season, players not playing.”
“There was the transition of new ownership, not everything was perfect before that. I think that getting the squad right and a fresh voice with a new manager coming in now is the way forward, the squad is compact now and they can compete.”
“When I got there, I could see the spirit and togetherness was not there. You have to train elite to be elite. You could see the body language from players who weren’t player. As soon as I got here I noticed very quickly that some players were thinking about this season petering out and what the future looks like.”
“The surplus players was made up of mainly international players. Then we had kids who were waiting and happy to train. But you’re telling internationals you got to stay at home, it’s not easy. Having conversations with them every Friday, it’s not easy for the manager’s energy either.”
“It was a learning curve for me, and an interim job is what it is. But I was back home at a club I love, but I knew there was a lot of basics they lacked behind the scenes. There is an understanding at the club that this has to change now.”
“The intentions are good, I had a relationship with the owners. They want to take the club forward and be the best. Now with a new manager I think they will have a greater chance to show what they’ve got. I can say hand on heart the intentions of the owners is good. You’ll see some of these young players they will develop going forward (Enzo, Mudryk, Madueke).”
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“The change of ownership and people moving on, there was a big change of structure so you have to give time and leeway for the change of the process. There are some good sporting directors there now who are very hungry and want to move the club forward. Most huge clubs like Chelsea have had a version of what Chelsea are going through now. They have signed some very good players. The proof will be how these players develop.”
“When I was at Chelsea (first time) I wanted to bring in Declan Rice – that kid would have been the captain of Chelsea for the next ten years. I had ideas. The club had others. In hindsight its easy for me to say they should have done this or that.”
“It’s a club very close to my heart, I do love a challenge. I was very happy to be back at home in that period. But It wasn’t my most favourite experience of my footballing career if I am honest. I enjoyed the first few weeks being back at Cobham. The middle bit I started to understand more what they were lacking. Then our final run in I was like lets get through this.”
“The players were just ready for the season to end. As a general it didn’t hurt me, I’ve seen a lot of these instances and I am not holding the players to my standards. I knew the back stories, the players were moving on and they just weren’t ready for the last games. I don’t want to come here and shout to much in a short period, it’s hard for me to make too many changes. I understood the role of interim. I didn’t work long enough with the players. I tried to drive them and drive them but a couple players sat with me and said they are going to be leaving and I got that, I wasn’t going to change that in four weeks.”
“I went back for the challenge and we didn’t get the results we wanted, and I take the responsibility for the reasons why. I’m big enough and strong enough to handle the consequences.
“The last couple of weeks was very tough because it was just seeing out the season and it’s not a nice place to be. It wasn’t a nice time. I haven’t got a huge amount of reflections on it, this period was so abstract for me, so different. I was relieved it was over but wished it went better at the end of the season.”
“The Chelsea fans were fantastic with me at Stamford Bridge. There is an understanding that the club is just not where it wants to be. They are waiting to see something better this year, but the older fan has seen many struggles before.”
He isn’t wrong at all with any of this, we all saw it on a weekly basis with our own eyes, it was super painful.
It’s very clear what our problems were, as we all knew at the time. Many of these players downed tools and had eyes out the exit door, which has all become so clear now with the amount of sales we have made.
Once again, props to the club for moving so many of these bad eggs on, it was so desperately needed, as Frank has highlighted here.
Even though his tactics were fully questionable last season, I feel bad for him because he was always fighting a complete losing battle with so many of these players having already given up.
