Jordan Houghton can still remember the time Frank Lampard literally left his mark on him — sending a message to the one-time Chelsea starlet.
And he believes the Stamford Bridge great also left a lasting imprint on the club in just 18 months as manager before he was sacked last year.
The Plymouth Argyle midfielder believes his own career may have turned out differently had Lampard been in charge when he was making his own way through Chelsea’s academy.
Houghton is set to run out at the Bridge for the first time in tomorrow’s FA Cup fourth-round tie. He readily admits he hoped he would one day do it for Chelsea, having been there from the age of six to 22.
While he is not bitter that he never managed to make his senior breakthrough at the club, he wonders if it might have been different had Lampard’s drive to promote youth been shared by previous Chelsea managers.
“There was a period where there was a good bit of hype around the youth teams and we were winning a lot of stuff and no one seemed to be getting opportunities,” said Houghton, who won the FA Youth Cup alongside Andreas Christensen and Ruben Loftus-Cheek in 2014.
“Things have changed now — players are getting in. I think it was down to Lampard making that initial movement in terms of trusting the young players, but I don’t have any negative feelings towards it. If Lampard was manager at the time, I think there would have been opportunities. I’m not saying necessarily that would have been me, it might have been for someone else. You wouldn’t be human not thinking what if.”
He remembers Lampard the player giving him a rough reception on the training ground.
“I always remember Lampard because, as a midfielder, I was up against him,” he said. “I’ve never spoken to him about it, but I think he always had that thing of: ‘This young player might come for my spot’.
“So I always remember he was at it in midfield up against me. No one in training was sliding at all — it was very safe because no one wants to get injured — and he’d come in with a couple of crunching tackles.
“I was about 16, 17 and he caught me on the ankle with his studs up and then he was just straight off for the ball again. I was thinking: ‘Ooh.’
“A few times in training me and him would have a good little battle.”
Experiences like that mean Houghton, who went on to play for MK Dons before joining League One Plymouth, has no fears about potentially coming up against N’Golo Kante or Jorginho tomorrow.
He said: “Going through the big names (I trained with), there was Lampard, John Terry, (Didier) Drogba, Diego Costa a little bit later, Eden Hazard. I think coming up against those players that anxiety won’t be there as much as for some people.
“I hope they do play a really strong side because I want to play against the best. It is years since I was training with that level of player and I just want to see where I am at and go against the best.”
