Chelsea shows no sentimentality; manager Lampard gets the boot
Sentimentality couldn’t save Frank Lampard.
Being Chelsea’s record scorer counted for little when the team’s decline, on Lampard’s watch as manager, alarmed owner Roman Abramovich after $300 million invested in new talent for this season.
After just 18 months in charge, and five losses in the past eight English Premier League soccer games, the novice coach was fired Monday.
It was the 14th change of managers in 18 years at Chelsea under Abramovich, and former Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain coach Thomas Tuchel is set to arrive in London this week as Lampard’s replacement. The German could attend Wednesday’s match against Wolverhampton using a slight English pandemic allowance for workers flying into an elite sports environment to avoid full quarantine — if he tests negative for the coronavirus.
What Lampard’s status at the club did afford him was a public statement of explanation from the Russian billionaire, for whom he helped to win so many trophies as a player.
“This was a very difficult decision for the club, not least because I have an excellent personal relationship with Frank and I have the utmost respect for him,” Abramovich said. “He is a man of great integrity and has the highest of work ethics. However, under current circumstances we believe it is best to change managers.”
Those circumstances see Chelsea down in ninth place in the Premier League with the worst points-per-game record of any of Abramovich’s managers. The performances had “not met expectations” and left the team “without any clear path to sustained improvement,” Chelsea concluded.
“On behalf of everyone at the club, the board and personally, I would like to thank Frank for his work as head coach and wish him every success in the future,” Abramovich said. “He is an important icon of this great club and his status here remains undiminished. He will always be warmly welcomed back at Stamford Bridge.”
The lack of fans being allowed into the stadium due to the pandemic might have hastened Lampard’s departure. There was no opportunity for supporters to demonstrate their public support for “Super Frank Lampard,” as they chant, or for any backlash against his removal at upcoming games.
As the pressure has grown, the cracks were showing ahead of the FA Cup win over Luton on Sunday, when Lampard hit out at perceived negative coverage of the team.
But his own shortcomings of a fledging coaching career were being exposed, and sentimentality was cast aside despite him being instrumental to the trophy-laden revival of the club as a player since the takeover by Abramovich.
After securing one of the biggest jobs in English management so early in his coaching career, Lampard leaves Stamford Bridge without any success, having lost the 2020 FA Cup final to Arsenal.
“Frank has had a short amount of time with a new set of players,” said former England teammate turned Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville, whose own spell as a manager lasted less than four months at Valencia. “He was given a period under a transfer embargo — it shielded him. He did a great job in that period, but the minute they spent the money they did, it was always going to bring more expectation and we know what happens at Chelsea when expectation comes.
“When you have one of the biggest budgets in the league and biggest spend, expectation comes with it and at Chelsea their approach to managers has been consistent and Frank knew that when he got the job.”
Next in the dugout at Stamford Bridge is set to be Tuchel. It would be a swift return to coaching for the German less than a month after being fired by PSG following a power struggle with the Qatari ownership.