Results
have not gone Frank Lampard's way so far but the new Chelsea boss remains
positive about his players and the vision that he has for the club. In this
exclusive interview with Sky Sports, Lampard reflects on his first six weeks
in the job and explains the thinking that will shape what happens next...
When Dr Geir Jordet completed his PhD on the role of vision, perception and
anticipation in elite-level performers, the Norwegian discovered that Frank
Lampard had the highest 'visual exploratory frequency' of any player in the
Premier League at the time. As detailed in the book Edge, Lampard
continually scanned all around him before receiving the ball.
It wasn't luck that he was often in the right place at the right time.
The thought occurs because there are those who might suggest Lampard's famed
awareness is being tested right now. The Chelsea job is always going to be a
demanding one but taking over with a transfer ban in place and the team's
star player sold? Maybe this was a good time to get his head up and realise
what he was getting himself into? Not so, he insists.
"Things surprise you in football management every day but the situation has
been exactly what I expected," Lampard tells Sky Sports. "I knew about the
transfer ban, I knew Eden Hazard had left the club, I knew we were losing
two strikers in Alvaro Morata and Gonzalo Higuain and I knew we couldn't buy
anyone. I knew we had five or six major injuries.
"I knew all that but the last thing I want to be is negative. I want us to
be competitive this year and we still have a strong squad. We have to be a
bit patient because those other factors are there. But that doesn't mean we
can't go out there with that competitive head on and challenge in everything
that we do. My job is to focus on the task at hand."
It has not been a quiet start for Lampard. The fixture list threw up a trip
to Old Trafford and a Super Cup against Liverpool to kick off his reign. The
first resulted in a 4-0 defeat and the second saw Chelsea cruelly beaten in
a penalty shootout. "Challenging games," he says. Now he must prepare the
players for his first home match in charge against Leicester.
The press conference before that game saw him fielding questions about Tammy
Abraham being racially abused on social media. Lampard is disgusted by the
fact that his young striker had to endure such treatment and the player's
welfare is his clear priority. But Abraham is resilient. He wants to play.
Neither this nor results have killed the optimism.
Lampard's anger at Abraham's ordeal clearly expressed to the assembled
media, he bounds out of the press conference and into a small meeting room
inside the main building at the training ground, only breaking stride
briefly to glance at the cricket score on the television.
He is at home here. As you might expect of the club's all-time top scorer,
the man who captained Chelsea to Champions League glory in 2012. It was his
work at Derby County that encouraged his old club to turn to him this summer
but it was what he achieved in those 13 years at Chelsea that have ensured
he returns with an air of confidence and conviction.
"There are little things that help," he says. "It's a big club but I know
the structure and I know the faces behind the scenes so the familiarity
helps in that sense. I didn't feel nervous walking into a big new building
on day one. I knew big parts of it. I watched every Chelsea game last year
and I had trained with a lot of the academy players previously too."
Of course, Lampard also knows that none of this will matter without wins.
"Performances and results will define how long I am here," he adds. But for
large parts of the game at Old Trafford and most of the evening in Istanbul,
his players delivered a performance. It is the reason why he remains so
encouraged by what he has seen from his Chelsea so far.
"It is very easy to be negative after losing 4-0 but there were a lot of
good signs during the game against Manchester United," he says. "As for the
performance against Liverpool, I think we were the better team against one
of the best teams in the world and probably deserved to win on general play.
This is something we should be proud of.
"We need to use that. Hopefully, it will give us confidence about what's
ahead. What I have felt in the six weeks that I have been here is that the
players are a good group and they have a lot of spirit. We saw that against
Liverpool in the dressing room and on the pitch. That is what you want to
see as a manager because it gives you the chance to work."
The appetite for change at Chelsea is strong. Maurizio Sarri felt the fans'
frustration because of a perceived reluctance to trust in the young talent
at the club. Lampard has not made the same mistake. As well as Abraham, he
has already given opportunities to Mason Mount and Fikayo Tomori, two young
players he had at Derby, in the first two games of the season.
But Lampard appears keen to get the balance right too. It would have been
easy for him to discard Jorginho - a player who had a difficult relationship
with the supporters for much of his debut campaign - but instead he has
embraced him and speaks with genuine warmth about the midfielder. Lampard
will change things but he will be doing it his own way.
"I certainly won't be changing things for change's sake," he says. "But
where there are ideas that are different, I have to be strong in those and
stick to what I believe will take the club forwards on the pitch. The
players have to come along with that because we want to be successful and
that takes a lot of hard work and being together as a group."
But what is the Lampard idea? He is wary of using the 'philosophy' word.
"It's very much a coaching course word," he says. But he is well aware that
there is an expectation now that coaches must have a big idea. Gary Neville
and Jamie Carragher debated this on Super Sunday - disagreeing about the
amount of adaptability that the modern coach can show.
"I heard that conversation," says Lampard. "I fall somewhere in the middle
of the argument. I think as a manager you do have to have a clear idea of
how you want to play. The principle has to be there but it needs to be
something that constantly evolves. Having an idea does not have to mean that
the actual system has to stay the same.
Lampard idea
"The ideas that we work on in training relate to how we react, how we win
the ball back, our work ethic and the general principles that are most
important to me. The system is what you work on within that and this can
change depending on who you are playing against, your own strengths and how
your team evolves.
"That is something we are assessing day in and day out so I want us to be
flexible on those terms. We have different ways we can play even within
games. It needs to be changeable, it needs work on the training ground and
it needs buy-in from the players.
"The reason we lost the game against Manchester United was not because of
where our line was on the pitch, it was because of individual mistakes in
turning the ball over and not following a runner at the right time. Those
are the little details that you have to be on top of constantly. We reflect
on it, we watch the videos back and we look to improve."
The influences on Lampard's ideas are more wide-ranging than might be
expected of a man who is now so associated with one club. As well as his
experience at Derby, he cites a season at Manchester City and the time he
spent playing Major League Soccer in the United States as a key period in
which his thoughts about the game really began to crystallise.
"I always thought I would finish my career at Chelsea but when it was
decided I would be moving on because they wanted to make changes in the
squad, that obviously opened up a different path for me," he explains.
"Looking back, that was positive because I had two big experiences - one in
Manchester for a year and another in New York for 18 months.
Guardiola influence
"I formed a lot of my ideas about how I wanted to manage in those later
years of my career because you think more as you get older and you assess
more. When I watched football, I would watch managers intently to see the
things that are important to them. I have huge respect for Pep Guardiola,
Jurgen Klopp and Mauricio Pochettino now."
Guardiola, in particular, made an impression when Lampard spent two days in
Manchester watching his training sessions. But it his own vision that
matters now. "You realise the things that are important to you," he adds.
"All three of them are incredible managers and I love the way that they work
but I want to become my own person."
And yet one influence looms larger than most. The reason for Lampard's high
'visual exploratory frequency' can most likely be explained by the fact that
when he was a young boy playing the game, his father Frank Lampard Sr would
be in the stands. He would shout one word at his son time and again.
Pictures. Pictures. It left its mark.
Now that Lampard has traded the pitch for the dugout, another lesson remains
at the forefront of his mind. "The best ethic that my dad ever gave me was
that you have to work, work and work to improve in every second that you get
and in every training session that you get," he says. "That work ethic is
the main thing I will try to instil in this team.
"I like to work hard. I have never had any fears about it. I liked to come
to the training ground early in the morning and I don't mind staying late
either. It's not a problem for me." Against Leicester at Stamford Bridge
this Sunday, he will hope to find some solutions for Chelsea too. Whatever
happens, as ever, Frank Lampard is well aware of his situation.
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