Sixteen years ago, on the day that Frank Lampard lifted the Premier League title with Chelsea, his Uncle Harry completed one of football’s great escapes.
It is no surprise that as Lampard finds himself fighting his own relegation battle as manager at Everton, he has turned to Harry Redknapp for advice. Redknapp masterminded Portsmouth’s incredible survival mission in 2006, when they took 20 points from a possible 27 to beat the drop.
Safety was confirmed with a 2-1 victory at Wigan - just hours after Lampard had collected his second title medal following a 3-0 victory over Manchester United at Stamford Bridge.
Everton’s predicament is just as precarious. They face Lampard’s former club at Goodison stranded in the bottom three. And Lampard revealed: “I speak regularly to Harry - no matter what the situation. He is always a great voice of reason and experience and he has been in this situation before. It’s not like he tells me to do this or that - it’s not that kind of advice.
“But I chat to him casually and some of the things he says to me makes you think ‘yeah, of course.’ With people like him, you find the best things they say are simple. I’m not trying to put Harry down when I say that because it’s the absolute opposite. The smartest managers make things very simple. Whenever I speak to him, whether it’s ‘what do you think about taking the Everton job, Harry? What do you think about the Chelsea job? What do you think about this situation, because you were there with Portsmouth?’
“Those things are easy to bounce off him - and you might get some nuggets of advice. In terms of what the nuggets are, I'll keep them to myself! But it's great though to have him on the end of the phone.” Family has also been important to Lampard away from the business of trying to keep Everton in the top-flight - although he admits that the task is consuming every waking moment. He said: “Fortunately I have really good people around me in terms of the staff here and family at home. It gives me great perspective.
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“The harder bit is when you are not actually playing games and you have a long week, because you think about the job all the time. You need to have real support at home - and I'm fortunate that I have that with my wife and children. I've got four kids, and a couple of them are pretty young, and they make you smile all the time. A couple are a bit older, which is different but great in the same sense - and those things are important.”
Lampard spent his playing career fighting for titles and trophies - and his message to his Everton players is that they should make the most of the life they lead even when the battle is about survival. He said: “Being a manager compared to being a player is at the different end of the scale. When you’re a manager, the job consumes you on all fronts. My thoughts every day are about the players, the training, the results, the staff and the fans. It is absolutely like that night and day.
“I enjoy that because I want to give everything to make it work. But it almost feels like the highs are higher and the lows are lower, so you have to keep yourself somewhere in the middle. The players will also feel the pressure, but at the same time we are fortunate to do the job we do. We did an hour’s training at Goodison (on Friday). The sun was out and we were all doing something we love. I told the players how lucky we are - but they also have to understand that they have a responsibility to every Evertonian to make sure we stay in this league.”
