When Frank Lampard watched Chelsea vs Liverpool from a Stamford Bridge box on Tuesday evening, it was the first time he'd returned to the ground since being relieved of his duties in January 2021. At that moment he didn't know his next view of the pitch would be from a very different vantage point.
"I arranged to be at the game two weeks ago," he said. "I can imagine what it looked like but I can guarantee we had not started talking by then. I had not been back to Stamford Bridge for some time. Before that I had been working and then there was Covid and all these things.
"But for a club I have got this affiliation with, it is a feeling like home when I come here. I wanted to go back to a game, and of course we are here now. That was arranged two or three weeks ago."
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Against Liverpool, Lampard will have seen plenty of possession, plenty of shots and no goals, a tidy summation of what has led the west London side to sit in 11th position in the Premier League table. While ultimately it has proved not good enough as the Blues move onto their fourth manager of the season, there have been a degree of caveats with significant turnover and new additions following the club's summer takeover.
Things have not worked smoothly so far as Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali looked to put in place a long-term project early in their tenure as custodians. While little has paid off as of yet, conversations with Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley have proved impressive for Lampard and the caretaker boss is confident that people in charge of the project are heading in the right direction.
He said: "From the conversations I have had with the club now and people that are decision makers and people running the club they have all been really positive.
"It has been really interesting for me because for a club to move forward and I’m very experienced now in terms working at different clubs, over my playing career as well. I was at Chelsea for a long period, went to Manchester City for a year, New York City. I managed at Derby, managed at Everton. You get an understanding of a club that has a vision and wants to move forward.
"Of course it's about people and people working in the right direction and collaborating and talking and trying to find the right way. That’s the sense I’ve had coming here.
"Of course at the moment we are in a position where it's part of the process. That’s fine. I keep saying the same thing but I’m ready to play my part in that process and I would be very honest and open with everybody. I know the club, I think that’s a positive coming into this role now."
With the top of Chelsea's hierarchy still new to English football, and Chelsea, could Lampard prove a vital advisor given his connection to the club?
"If the owners, people that work here, decision makers, medical, kit men and anybody wants to speak to me about anything, my job here is to try and affect it in a positive way," he added. "If I have knowledge before, great. But this club wants to move forward so it’s a case of how can we get better?
"I will be absolutely happy to have all those conversations. But I don’t know what they are now. My first priority is trying to get results on the pitch. That is primarily why I am here in this moment. I would obviously be happy to have lots of those conversations."
Chelsea currently have 11 fixtures remaining on the calendar: nine Premier League matches and two legs against Real Madrid in the Champions League. The former Everton manager arrives when figures such as Luis Enrique and Julian Nagelsmann have been closely linked to the Chelsea job in the summer and names such as Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte continue to be linked.
The midfielder said: "I think it clear what the job is from the title of the role. Do I want to do as well as I can in this period to show I am managing and coaching really well? Then we’ll see. I don’t need answers to that point. I have taken that under the conditions that I know what it is and now it is up to me to do very well. As I say, this is a club I am connected to. I just want to do well in this moment.
"After that, of course, it may mean I end up saying thank you very much in what looks like a future for me, and at that point I will be very happy and say I think I have given everything and hopefully it is positive. And that is it. I cannot get ahead of my station at all. I am not there. I am just here to affect this period."
The Blues boss has not concerned himself with who may in charge come the summer. He insists that the club's focus is solely on getting the right candidate in for the long-term, and his is to do as well as he possibly can over the remaining fixtures.
"No, no. My only focus can be this," he said: "The feeling I have from the club, rightly so, is that they want to do a process to find the right person to take the club forward whoever that might be. And that is absolutely their prerogative. Maybe that is why I am here in this period in this moment.
"Can I do as well as possible? I hope so. It is not for me to decide the club’s process and how they go about it. Any of the talk during this next period… you’ll ask me but it won’t be affecting me. It will only affect me because I know what it is - what results we can get, how we train and how we prepare for games."
Given the atmosphere Graham Potter had to endure against Aston Villa and Chelsea's struggling position in the Premier League with little left to play for outside of faint hopes of European spot, many could consider it a win-win situation for club and manager. However, it could perhaps come with a risk too given the way Lampard's previous two jobs have ended at Everton and Chelsea.
He said: "I don’t think it is a win-win, but I don’t think it is worth talking about the risks. Every job is a challenge. Of course, I am connected to the club and I understand that element of it, and that does help me in terms of having a fresh knowledge of a lot of the squad and a strong eye on Chelsea obviously because of my connections.
"It is not worth talking about risk – it is about working out how you can get results game by game. there will be always be judgement from the outside. Certainly, as a manager you cannot held too much to what people see as success or failure or risk or win or not winning.
"You just have to work with the players that you have got. We have a strong squad here, a mixture of younger players and experienced players. I won’t start considering risk or wins until hopefully we get those wins."
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