Immediately after the end of the game, Frank Lampard ran briskly to his own fans. The interim coach of Chelsea FC also had to be very quick because most of the supporters no longer wanted to watch the humiliating 1: 3 (0: 3) at London city rivals FC Arsenal on Tuesday evening and had left the stadium prematurely. Arriving in front of the thinned-out Chelsea fan base, Lampard thanked them for their support and apologized for the disappointing performance. Above all, he emphasized the bond with the fans, who have always remained loyal to him since he switched to Chelsea as a player – in 2001 for 16 million euros from West Ham United.
Crowd favorite Lampard, who was the club’s record scorer and had scored 211 goals in 648 competitive games, symbolically stretched out both fists at the supporters. Benevolent applause returned, with people signaling that they remembered Lampard’s service to Chelsea – and are unlikely to turn their backs on him because of it. Despite the failure in the present.
This support helps Lampard, 44, who is used to success and who won all the relevant titles when he was a player with Chelsea, now to deal with the fact that he has not won much in five years as a coach – and currently does not even win a game. All six Chelsea matches since his return as head coach until the end of the season have been lost, including the two Champions League quarter-finals against Real Madrid. In the league, the proud club has slipped to twelfth place in the table. Lampard had previously suffered 24 defeats in 44 games in his tenure as Everton manager. Because he also lost the last four games there before his dismissal in January, his personal statistics now show ten bankruptcies in a row. Of all England’s top division coaches, Arthur Cox was the last person to be responsible for such a dry spell at Derby County – in 1988.
Lampard, who is convinced of himself, is therefore currently exposed to numerous media jokes in England, which is quite gloating. Not only is he classified as the “worst manager in Premier League history”. But he is also very blatantly suggested that he would rather switch to the TV expert squad – to his former player colleagues who had previously also tried as coaches. Former opponent and later team-mate Cesc Fabregas recently said Lampard’s side acted as if “eleven olives (from the disposable jar) had been spilled on the table”. The Mass Journal The Sun headlined in a pun on the Arsenal result: ‘Frank’s in 3 Fall’ – Lampard in free fall! The malice is also related to the fact that many football fans from rival clubs are not necessarily well-disposed towards Lampard. Because they suffered a lot under Lampard, who once won with Chelsea.
Despite the series of defeats, Lampard bears the sometimes tasteless criticism of his person with astonishing dignity. He neither withdraws nor tries to justify himself or even fight back. Instead, he analyzes his team’s performance objectively and calmly, names mistakes and reasons without going into detail about individual players and embarrassing them. The experience he has gained as a leader helps him in this.
When he accepted, Lampard hoped that Henkelpott history could be repeated
With his eloquence, Lampard is currently representing the troubled club far more honorably and stringently than the executive floor around the diffuse club bosses Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali. Due to his reputation, the transition coach is practically the only intersection that all interest groups in the divided Chelsea FC can agree on. In view of the unprecedented sporting misery, the mood in the club would probably be difficult to capture if Lampard would not appease with his authority.
Applies as a face of failure: since Todd Boehly took over Chelsea, little has worked at the proud London club.
(Foto: Bradley Collyer/AP)
His only shortcoming: If only he were as good a coach as it sometimes sounds in the press interviews … In all previous games, Lampard continued the trend of his unsuccessful predecessor Graham Potter by helping the already overwhelmed and exhausted team further formation and personnel changes overloaded and unsettled. Most recently, he even surprisingly called retired striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang into the starting XI against his former club Arsenal – for the first time since the first round duel with Arsenal. At half-time, Lampard Aubameyang came on again and replaced him with Germany international Kai Havertz.
When agreeing to a second coaching commitment at his heart club, Lampard was guided in particular by the quality of the individual players – and by the unrealistic thought of being able to save the season that had long since failed in the Premier League with the handle pot in the Champions League. Lampard experienced that himself as a player when Italy’s Roberto Di Matteo took over at Chelsea in March 2012 for the sacked André Villas-Boas – and shortly thereafter won the premier league with a team that was sagging in the league. The situation was almost identical to Thomas Tuchel, who replaced Lampard in January 2021 after a year and a half as coach – and also won Europe’s most important club competition in the same season. But the current Chelsea side are no match for the successful models that came before them – because, and here is the bitter irony for Lampard, the squad lacks the kind of leaders he was on the pitch himself.
In a way, Lampard is bringing to an end the two-decade era he shaped as a player (and coach) and funded by previous owner Roman Abramovich. That’s beautiful and sad at the same time. What predominates? The fans have not forgotten that that period was the most successful in the club’s more than 100-year history. And what part Lampard played in it.
