Robbie Savage
Football’s Mr Marmite give his unique take on English football’s biggest talking points
FRANK LAMPARD is doing what nobody thought was possible – making Chelsea better to watch without Eden Hazard.
When he took over in the summer, under a transfer embargo and after the Belgian’s £100million move to Real Madrid, the consensus was that they’d struggle to finish top four.
But he has already turned them into the most watchable side in the Premier League behind Liverpool and Manchester City.
And a year after he brought Derby to Stamford Bridge in the League Cup, and narrowly went down 3-2, Lampard is in danger of turning Chelsea into everybody’s second-favourite team – like Leicester in 2015 – by promoting the virtues of youth.
I’ve always had huge respect for Lampard, even more so since he finished applauding all four sides of the ground after a game and came over to where I was working on the touchline to offer his condolences shortly after my father passed away.
He ran maybe 80 yards to tell me, ‘Sorry about your dad, mate’ and gave me a big hug.
That was a touch of class – and now he’s already a class act as a manager.
He even buttonholed me in the Ajax press room after the game to ask when I was bringing my PFA Academy All-Stars Under-14s to play Chelsea at Cobham, and made a point of saying he’ll come watch.
That shows how much he cares about his club from top to bottom, not just the first team.
I said at the start of the season that Lampard was the perfect fit for Chelsea... but I don’t think, in his wildest dreams, he’d have envisaged sending out the sixth-youngest side to play in the Champions League and beat
Ham, he always stayed behind for extra training, shooting practice and, even if he wasn’t the most naturally-gifted player, he drained every last drop of ability through sheer endeavour.
Young lads coming through the system at Chelsea can look up to him as a role model.
Suddenly, a team whose only academy graduate for 20 years was John Terry is full of kids – and that’s a fantastic lookout for the future of English football.
Lampard has shown you don’t need to spend £200m in a single transfer window to turn promise into league points.
If I had to choose between Lampard, Unai Emery and Mauricio Pochettino to manage my club, Frank would get my vote.