LAMPS’ TOUGH LOVE Blues boss not scared to make calls and ‘upset’ his talented young players

FRANK LAMPARD revealed he upsets 10 or 15 of his players EVERY WEEK to get the best out of his team.

Less than 10 months after taking over at Stamford Bridge, the Chelsea manager wants to break the mould.

The Blues sat fourth in the Premier League, were in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup and were still – just – in the Champions League when the pandemic brought football to a halt 10 weeks ago.

And now his players are returning to training as they prepare for a potential restart next month.

Speaking to the Chelsea Magazine, Lampard revealed: “I know that a manager is going to upset 10 to 15 of his players every week by making decisions people are going to be unhappy about.

“You have to accept that. I try to see the bigger picture. If you can be honest and up front with players – which is not always easy – they will respect you in the end, even if they are upset when they’re walking down that corridor.

“That’s how I felt as a player. I respected the managers who were up front with me, even if they were giving me bad news.”

Lampard knows what he wants from his youngsters, having discovered the standard he had to reach when he arrived at Chelsea as a player in 2001 from West Ham.

“I’ll never forget coming to Chelsea and realising how much better I needed to be in possession,” he said.

“That was the main thing I noticed when I trained with players like Jody Morris and Emmanuel Petit – the level of player you had to be. So I was always going to be a manager that wanted to have more of the ball, which we have done in pretty much every game this season.

“But I want a team that wins the ball back and is hard to play against.

“With the quality of players we have, we will produce good football – but I want us also to be that high-intensity team.”

Speaking before young stars like Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham and Reece James returned to training, Lampard said: “I truly believe in the high-intensity part of the game. If you don’t have that you can’t compete.

“I am an idealist. I want to see good football. At the same time, I have no problem being a pragmatist. You need to be that way with how the Premier League is.”