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| Picture: Richard Pelham, The Sun |
Such holiday harrumphing aside, I'm staring at the date because it means that first blood has already been drawn in the 2019-2020 football season. Around the country in recent days there have been qualifiers for the FA and League cups, the Football League began the previous weekend, and we've just witnessed the opening salvos in the Premier League. It's the same every summer, I suppose: games watched partially in holiday resort bars, out of desperation for some sight of football in most cases, and escape from the family in many others. These first weekends for the respective leagues are the beginning of an arcing season that will clamber through the temperature changes of summer, autumn, winter, spring and summer again, with the prospect of breaking out the mid-season parka and gloves now still a long way away, but in reality, only a matter of weeks. As the TV commentators have been predictably stating, there's a long, long way to go.
Which is why yesterday's events at Old Trafford should be meaningless. Because, we are told, the first game of the season is. And the second. And probably the third. These are, however, the views of those with false hope. An opening day tonking, such as Chelsea suffered yesterday, can always be rationalised, justified, even. The optimist will look back on it and make hopeless excuses: "They were still at the beach"; "The pre-season friendlies don't mean a thing - it's always different when they get down to the real work"; "We've still got players coming back from injury/the summer tournament/settling in to the new side"; and yada, yada, yada.
Chelsea have turned over so many managers over my lifetime (and not just in the Abramovich era, either), that the arrival of each new one is always a test of faith, belief and expectation. Frank Lampard's status as a club legend makes no difference than that which accompanied the appointments of Ruud Gulitt, Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Di Matteo or even dear old Geoff Hurst, many moons ago. All equally expendable, none particularly qualified. Like his predecessors, Lampard fits a narrative, only this time it's a little more spun out: the two-window transfer ban imposed on the club, coupled with the acute need for the club to reconnect with a fanbase alienated by Maurizio Sarri's stubbornness and Antonio Conte's slide into uppity petulance. Hence a focus on youth, a commodity the Stamford Bridge faithful have desired more than anything else, given the plethora of young talents that have been husbanded out on loan deals. With Eden Hazard gone, and the FIFA ban preventing external reinforcements, Chelsea are being forced, very publicly, to rely on a combination of inexperience (manager and players) and relatively unproven potential (youngsters Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham, Reece James, 20-year-old American wunderkind Christian Pulisic, Fikayo Tomori, plus Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who started to get opportunities last season, before being cut short by injuries).
Lampard has already played the 'I've got to work with what I've got' card to rationalise his Premier League managerial debut. I don't blame him. But from the perspective of some fans' point of view, be careful of what you wish for. We've looked on, frustratingly in recent seasons, as Chelsea's acclaimed academy has produced trophies at a better rate than the first team, without seeing many - or even any - of that youth progressing to the senior squad. Now Chelsea have been forced into drawing on the kids, with Lampard placing it as a pillar - if not the pillar - of his maiden season as a Premier League manager. With his tight little crew around him of Jody Morris, Eddie Newton, Chris Jones, Joe Edwards and Henrique Hilário, Lampard is clearly a risky bet, given that he only has the one season as a coach under his belt, and a Championship coach at that. So here's a perfect storm: two or three major factors conspiring to install a young, unproven coach in charge of a squad containing young, unproven players at this level. Chelsea have virtually signalled that it will be alright if things go pear-shaped this season, though any study of the Abramovich form will show that no one, no matter how much of a much-loved club son, will be immune if things go too pear-shaped. Just ask José Mourinho.
Ah, yes, Mourinho. Always the scene stealer, as he managed to do yesterday as Sky Sports' star summer signing, being allowed to upstage his fellow pundits (including resident alpha male, Graeme Souness) as they presided over proceedings at Old Trafford between the Portu-geezer's two former teams. And, as Brucie would say (and I don't mean Steve), "Didn't he do well?!". Despite José's less than subtle "come and get me" plea to clubs, we actually got to savour the footballing intelligence that turned a very minor player into one of the most successful coaches of all time, to date with 25 major honours to his name.
"Chelsea were too soft, not compact defensively, not aggressive enough, there was too much space between the lines. They did not press in blocks," Mourinho told Sky Sports viewers after the match, in what had been an assured punditry debut for the channel. "A little bit of experience would fit well with the team. You look to the performance of Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham and for matches of this dimension you need a little bit more," questioning why N'Golo Kante - only recently returned to the squad from injury - was left on the bench by Lampard at the start. "If Kante can play 30-35 minutes he can start the game. And then if he lasts only one hour then he lasts one hour. But maybe Frank listens to us and says Kante is impossible to play. My feeling is that they had a possibility to play with more know-how," adding that the experience of Marcos Alonso and Olivier Giroud were also sitting on the bench. "To come to Old Trafford, even if this is not the huge Manchester United that used to scare people, it's Manchester United."
Don't get me wrong, I want Lampard to succeed. Ever since talk began of the club's record-scorer returning as manager, I've warmed to the idea. Not piping hot, I'll readily concede, but given the circumstances, if the club is prepared to have a fallow year while it bloods in the youth while unable to buy new players, then so be it, and we should be able to enjoy the love-in with our much-loved former No.8. And yes, too, this was just the first game of the season. But Mourinho is right: it was still Manchester United - even 'this' United, with its own young manager and a dysfunctional misfit like Paul Pogba - at Old Trafford on the opening weekend. However, to blame Lampard's selection of youngsters like Mount and Abraham, would be wrong. There was a broader naiveté to Chelsea's structure yesterday. As Lampard himself conceded, four mistakes, four goals conceded. Blame for at least two of them can be laid at the feet of club captain César Azpilicueta, who seemed to pick up where he left off in his last, indifferent season, and Kurt Zouma, still only 24 but whose signing for Chelsea at the age of 19, then loans and injuries, gives him an air of club experience and history. Whatever that experience is deserted him yesterday. One might concede that not even David Luiz - now departed for Arsenal - would have conceded such errors. Much expectation weighs now on the return of Antonio Rüdiger to the Chelsea defence. But with Luiz gone, it's surely fair to say that Chelsea's options at the back aren't huge, even with the talented youngsters Tomori and James available in the full back positions.
That Chelsea dominated for large parts of the first half yesterday should not be forgotten. But there are - and should be - very real concerns about how Manchester United were able to suck the Londoners in and then hit them, hard, on the break. Even with the likes of Loftus-Cheek, Hudson-Odoi and Willian still to return from injury, their talents are not defensive. Nor, too, was the now much-missed Hazard, to be fair, but Lampard has to ensure that his expressive attackers can be as steely in the defensive phase as they are in the offensive. In this, he has to take on board Mourinho's valid criticisms, even if he has a point that injuries limited his options. Unfortunately that excuse only goes so far.
"I don't have to be too concerned about what anyone else says, the pundits," said Lampard, responding to his former boss. "But what is clear is the squad is the squad we've got and I believe in it. I can't drag people out of the medical room, whether they're experienced or not. The players we played today, and on the bench, are the players we have. We were missing internationals and big players, but I don't want that to be an excuse. We were competing for long periods. We made four mistakes and they put them away. It is a reality check for us all. It wasn't a 4-0 game for long periods, but we need to accept it."
Lampard is, and always has been one of the more likeable figures in the game. Articulate and intelligent, as well as gifted on the pitch, he has been long destined for management, perhaps even more so than his former oppo John Terry. But brains and eleven expensively-acquired GCSEs (including an A* in Latin) mean little when a) you're working for Roman Abramovich and b) competing in the Premier League. One could easily interpret Mourinho's "a little bit of experience" comment about Lampard's team selection as a jibe about Lampard himself. Mourinho has rarely pulled his verbal punches, and you wouldn't expect him to do so even when commenting on a former player whom he might still regard as one of his football 'sons'. Even José is capable of being cruel to be kind.
I'm no Statto, so my memory may not be 100 per cent here, but the last time I saw Manchester United beat Chelsea 4-0 was at the old Wembley in 1994 in that year's FA Cup Final. It was a miserable afternoon, made worse by having to trudge back to Fulham to start a 12-hour night shift at Teletext, relieving the day duty editor who happened to be a massive United fan, and who took great pleasure in taunting me from his lofty seat on the mezzanine floor as I came through the front door. I was too jet lagged yesterday afternoon to be that bothered by this latest 4-0 drubbing. Lampard's comments, post match, were the right ones, but they somewhat passed me by. "As a manager I feel things are slightly magnified," he said. "You take wins and losses more and this hurts," conceding the mistakes that lead to the goals, but defensively pointing out that "anyone with football experience will tell you that it wasn't a 4-0." Unfortunately, Frank, it was. How you and your team responds now will be the mark of you as a manager.
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