Of all the tributes that flooded in when Frank Lampard retired as a player in 2017, there was one that stood out, getting straight to the heart of who he was, what had made him so successful. “You were the best trainer by a million miles every single day,” said John Terry, his longtime Chelsea and England teammate.
“You stayed out, working on your finishing. I will miss you getting four cones and doing sprints – setting the example for the academy kids.”
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Lampard has plenty on his plate at present, almost too many problems to list, and they have conspired to make his return to Chelsea as the interim manager a frustrating experience. It is now six defeats out of six, the latest being the 3-1 at Arsenal on Tuesday night; not since Glenn Hoddle lost six on the spin in 1993 have the club endured such a run.
Where to start? The season is dead, nothing to chase in terms of meaningful league positions, and the players know it. Lampard is merely keeping the seat warm for the next permanent manager and the players know it. The squad is bloated and unbalanced, set for a high-stress overhaul, and a significant number of the 30-plus are unclear as to what the future holds. In the vacuum, they are weighing up their options.
Where Lampard started as he raked over it all in the wake of the Arsenal result (and wake was the operative word) was with the fundamentals, those that fired him as a player, upon which he would always fall back. They are hard work and mental toughness, the innate desire to prove his worth – and others wrong.
When he looks around him at the shambles Chelsea have become this season, he cannot make a harsher criticism than to suggest this foundation has crumbled.
At Arsenal, what drove Lampard to distraction during an awful first half (Chelsea were 3-0 down after 34 minutes and it could have been worse) was the absence of aggression, how they did not “make contact” with their opposite numbers, how they allowed Arsenal to play. They were similarly without thrust in possession and Lampard made the damaging link to a lack of application in training.
“It’s a mental desire in terms of to get up to people but it also starts with capacity to be able to do it,” he said. “And if you haven’t been conditioning and doing that and doing that … and you don’t do it on Wednesday and you don’t do it on Thursday, then you won’t do it on Saturday. So those things … and when they become you as a group, they don’t change overnight. We’re seeing that at the moment.”
Lampard made the point that he was “absolutely not questioning the players as lads”. They do care, he said. They did not have bad intentions. But the term still felt a little loaded. He did not call them men and there is a difference between being a well-intentioned lad and a top professional willing to sacrifice everything.
“There are some things that you go: ‘OK, fine, we need to get better at that,’” Lampard said. “But there are some things that you go: ‘No, no, lads. They are the basics. And they have to be better.’ The team is low on confidence but it’s also underperforming in basics.”
To Lampard, it has not been about the tactical approach, whether he plays three at the back or four; rather whether the players have the wherewithal to absorb and transfer the positive energy and instruction he gives to them, to assert themselves on the pitch.
It is not unusual to hear him talk about belief, mainly because it was such a big thing as a player and the teams he played in. When he does, it is possible to see that old-school British mentality, 110% and all the rest, and wonder whether this shtick continues to work.
There is also an element of reputation-protection in play from Lampard. Highlight the players. Highlight all that is wrong in an impossible situation. He does not want to be dragged down by a second managerial failure of the season after the one at Everton.
But as Lampard considers the remainder of the season – five more matches; it is Bournemouth next on Saturday, followed by Nottingham Forest, the Manchester clubs and Newcastle – there is the sense, more than ever, that he will hunker down with his values and trust in those who share them.
Lampard mentioned the winger Noni Madueke, who he brought in at Arsenal after the 21-year-old had trained well. Madueke scored the Chelsea goal, his first for the club. “It’s a question of five games and to compete with each other like Noni did in his performance from two weeks of good training,” Lampard said. “To show that you deserve to be in the team. Those should be the rules, anyway.
“The more I am here in this short period, I am becoming a bit more practical about it. The players that do show, train well and have that motivation … and that’s not always the shouters, it can be the quiet ones with the motivation … will be the ones that try to get us improvement.
“And then, as the club moves forward, that will have to be the case all the time. That’s what top clubs have. Somewhere this season we’ve lost that kind of feeling.”
