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| Picture: Chelsea FC |
Never has Chelsea appointed a manager (sorry, "head coach") with so much expectation on his shoulders. Or as much doubt. Twitter, that great touchstone of our time, was predictably binary on the news this morning. Comments from both Chelsea fans and the indifferent were split between the "It's too soon, I hope it doesn't end in tears" view and the "Welcome back Frank - you’re going to be a blinder" (though this being Twitter "your" was often the frequent spelling). Lampard is, at the end of the day, a big boy, and an intelligent one at that. Having seen ten managers come and go during his playing career at Chelsea, he will have seen for himself just how fast the revolving door ejects the dismissed and the failed. He will know what managing Roman Abramovich’s football team is all about, risks and all. But don’t forget, though, it’s a huge gamble for both parties.
Lampard’s appointment, delayed by yesterday's Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp outages (oh, how modern) comes after a month of speculation, rumour and conjecture. Will he? Would he? Would they? Why would they? The former midfielder is stepping into a lion's den only the bravest would enter, taking on only his second job in club management in only his second season in management itself. That first season, at Derby County, left the neutral (or, perhaps, the unromantic) unsure of whether Lampard has the chops...yet. But did Ruud Gullit and Gianluca Vialli have the chops when cuddly Ken Bates promoted them from the playing staff to become managers, winning the FA and League cups respectively? Now, granted, they didn’t last long, either, but longevity in post hasn’t been a tradition at Chelsea for generations. In fact, in the Abramovich era, longevity probably hasn’t even entered the lexicon, just as long as the manager of the moment delivers Champions League football and maintains a strong challenge on the Premier League title. Even then, that’s not necessarily a guarantee of survival. Just ask Carlo Ancellotti, hired as the model of European managerial excellence, who won the league and cup double in his first season at Chelsea, but only achieved a second place domestically in his second and was fired in a corridor at Goodison Park after the final game of the season.
It is believed that Lampard has received assurances from Abramovich that he will be given time. That might sound empty, but with the club having to accept the two-window FIFA transfer ban, as well as the inevitable loss of Eden Hazard, such assurance represents tacit acceptance that it's time to live within means and make do. Not that with a squad largely unchanged from that which won the Premier League title under Antonio Conte just two seasons ago, plus the wealth of youth talent at its disposal, 'making do' will be a particular hardship. But it won't be plain sailing, either. For a start, Lampard will need to win over the core of the senior players. Coming in as a club legend might help, but Chelsea does have some dead wood in its midst. And the ban means that players like David Luiz and Willian, who'd otherwise offered a choice between a one-year contract (being over 30) and the door, need to be harnessed for what they can still bring. If they can.
Clearly, though, the big opportunity for Lampard is to score a few PR points with the home fans by playing Chelsea's youth prospects. Few, beyond Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Callum Hudson-Odoi, before they were injured towards the end of last season, have had a chance at the club. Chelsea's loan system has looked more like an exercise in husbandry, as the likes of Mason Mount, Fikayo Tomori and Tammy Abraham have been farmed out. Clearly, though, in the case of Mount and Tomori, their time under Lampard at Derby will serve them well. As will the arrival of Jody Morris, Lampard's assistant at Derby, who was drawn from the Chelsea academy with an impressive record. That record, by the way, should also be shared by Joe Edwards, the 32-year-old youth coach at Chelsea who has played an unsung role in the incredible haul of trophies the club's academy teams have netted in recent years. Lampard's apparent appointment of Edwards to his coaching team is the clearest indication yet that the youth will get their turn. We shouldn't forget, either, that Lampard will also have at his disposal Christian Pulisic, the 20-year-old American "soccer sensation" bought from Borussia Dortmund in January for £58 million, who might well go some way to plug the considerable gap vacated by Hazard.
In his first comments as the new Chelsea manager, Lampard has at least given his younger charges the hope that, finally, they will get their chance at the club. "The path from the academy to the first team is important," the Evening Standard reports him as saying. "I will always have an eye on the academy. I was that young player a very long time ago and the one thing you want is the feeling that the road which divides the academy to the main building is a road you can cross. It has to be there for you. And I think that does come from the top. If young players are performing and they deserve it on merit, then they will be coming to train with us." Here is an oblique reference to rumours that Lampard is planning to integrate the first team with the club's Under-23 set-up, or at least remove some of the clear barriers that separated them (Maurizio Sarri is alleged to have not seen a single youth match during his sole season as club head coach).
"There is a lot of hard work for [the youth players] to do," Lampard added. "I don’t want it to look like an easy road. It is very tough, but I want to try and help them. I'm excited because playing here for so many years, seeing the work put into the academy and on all fronts, from the top, the investment into it and the desire to see it succeed, on the ground, the coaching staff, the people working in the academy trying to bring players through to the first team.
Speaking about Mount and Tomori in particular, Lampard cites their attitude. "You could see they had come through the academy here in how they held themselves, how they trained, their manners off the pitch. That’s what I want to see. I want to dangle the carrot. Can you work hard? Can you compete? Can you get in the team?".
There was a time, several years ago, when a young Frank Lampard had doubts cast over his prospects as a player. Famously, his father, Frank Sr., would drill him at West Ham's training ground, keeping him out after everyone else had gone back to the changing rooms. As a player, he had to put up with a lot, including the ludicrous "Fat Frank" jibes from opposition fans. One thing, though that made him stand out as a player and contributed to his record 221 goals for the club, was his attitude. Lampard has always come across as being somewhat driven, and it's what made him become such an integral part of that title-winning spine of players - along with Petr Čech (also now back at the club), John Terry and Didier Drogba - that made Chelsea an exciting delight to watch. That excitement disappeared in the denouements of Mourinho and Conte's tenures, and failed to even register under Sarri, even if the Italian managed to win both the Europa League and third place in the Premier League.
I know plenty of rival fans still regard Chelsea as arriviste. That's their prerogative. The unwritten rule is that you cheer on your side and boo everyone else. I'm always amused by the "where were you when you were shit?" taunts that come from the away end at most games at Stamford Bridge. Because I always reply, "right here!" (though technically I was right where they are, given that I stood in the Shed End when I first started going to games at the Bridge). Chelsea has come a long way since then, but Lampard today is benefitting from a revolution that began when Glenn Hoddle was poached from the newly promoted Swindon Town. In turn, he attracted bigger international names like Gullit, who in turn attracted Vialli (fresh from lifting the European Cup as Juventus skipper) and Gianfranco Zola. Admittedly, these players were reaching the end of their playing careers, but fans glossed over their ages and bought into the new glamour, finally abandoning the era of Mickey Droy and Ron Harris, and a perpetual lurching between divisions in front of pitiful crowds at home.
While the peak of Hoddle's achievement may have been a Cup Winner's Cup run in 1995 (earned on the back of that 4-0 tonking by Manchester United in the '94 FA Cup Final...), Gullit, his successor, took Chelsea back to Wembley in 1997 and the club's first major honours since a single league title in 1951. 22 years on, and with the not insignificant acquisition of the club by Abramovich, Chelsea can claim one Champions League, two Europa League, five Premier League, seven FA Cup and four League Cup titles in the modern era. Given that haul, Chelsea could, in a way, afford a fallow season or two if it gives a young, inexperienced but locally adored manager like Lampard the space to build a squad based on youthful talent. Yes, we crave success, and even under Mourinho were prepared to sacrifice style for moribund substance, but we also want entertainment. It’s what, ultimately, gets us out in all weathers on a Saturday afternoon rather than traipsing around shopping centres.
Both Gullit and Roberto Di Matteo - scorer of that 47th-second goal at Wembley in '97 - both believe that Lampard can thrive as Chelsea manager, with the Dutchman saying that his lack of experience should not be the disadvantage it might at first appear: "Look, he has done nothing yet as a coach," Gullit told Sky Sports. "[But] they gave me this opportunity as well and we won, so that [inexperience] has nothing to do with it." Di Matteo, Lampard's manager at Chelsea when they won the Champions League and FA Cup in 2012, says no one can predict outright whether the new head coach will succeed, but he'll never know unless he tries. "It's a great fit, but whether it's right now or not, only time can tell," the Italian told Sky. "You can't say it's too early, you have to give people a chance. He's got all the tools and it will make a lot of people happy if he is the next manager." And there's the key: "It will make a lot of people happy". Modern football, and certainly Chelsea, doesn’t do a great deal in this department. Chelsea has elicited plenty of WTF moments in recent years, with ill-advised appointments such as André Villas-Boas, Luis Filipe Scolari and Rafa Benitez (even if he landed the Europa League, his stock at Stamford Bridge was ocean-deep to begin with).
Not every ex-Chelsea name, however, is comfortable with Lampard becoming the boss so soon in his career. Former captain Dennis Wise told Sky Sports that the risks are significant: "From a playing point of view, from a personal point of view, everyone loves [Frank] at Chelsea. But he hasn’t been long in coaching and neither has Jody [Morris] so it slightly worries me a little bit, but if they get it I wish them all the luck, both of them. It’s going to be tough for him but fingers crossed they do the right thing for Chelsea and do well." This from Wise might be the glowing endorsement it looks. But he has a point: "At the end of the day, Chelsea are a Champions League team, they want to finish in the top four," he told Sky. "I think as Chelsea fans you want to be competing at the highest level and winning trophies."
Time will, of course, tell. Lampard certainly has his work cut out, whether it is repositioning N'Golo Kanté back into the seat of midfield, where he should have been last season, getting the best out of the ageing likes of Giroud, Pedro and Willian, integrating Pusilic and the academy stars while, hopefully, aiding the recoveries of Hudson-Odoi and Loftus-Cheek, while at the same time addressing the deficiencies that gave Sarri so much doubt about their viability. Taking the helicopter view, and with a pinch of optimism, these are, actually, quite exciting times at Chelsea. A little different, I grant you, but exciting none the less.
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