Chelsea deserve credit for gambling on Frank... now they must back him
IT’S insane that in the past 12 years Chelsea have had 15 managers.
Not one of those managers lasted more than two years.
That is a key fact as the noise over Frank Lampard’s “lack of experience” reaches deafening levels.
Could they have had more experienced managers than Carlo Ancelotti , Guus Hiddink, Jose Mourinho, Felipe Scolari, Rafa Benitez or Antonio Conte (below)?
Yet none survived.
In large part, that’s because of a restlessness among the club’s owners. They seem to get bored with a manager’s style very quickly at Stamford Bridge – and yearn for change. But the past three appointments (leaving Hiddink’s return aside) have failed because the managers seemed to have lost the players.
For all their experience, it looked suspiciously like the team couldn’t relate to what the boss wanted.
You can’t sugarcoat it, Chelsea’s players downed tools. Of course, they did. Under Mourinho, under Conte and under Sarri.
Now you can point the finger at the players, but they have also won stuff, and that’s the modern game. It’s about getting the most out of the incredible talent at the top level.
What I’m saying with Frank is that the players could relate to him a little more. And he will definitely understand more what is going on within his squad.
He’s only just finished playing, he knows lots of those players and they will definitely feel he is far more approachable than any manager they’ve had for quite a few years.
You can argue that, if players down tools, you get rid of them and find ones who don’t, but it doesn’t work like that any more in football.
And Chelsea look to be facing a transfer ban over the next year or more. So what then?
You need a manager who can create the right atmosphere to get the best out of his squad, who knows what they can and can’t relate to, who knows what works with them and what doesn’t.
This is why the “lack of experience” argument is nonsense. Who has more experience of what makes Chelsea’s current group of players tick than Frank Lampard? And I’ll give you another example of why this “experience” line doesn’t always stand up... one involving Frank himself.
He was part of a “golden generation” for England, in a midfield that also contained Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes.
By any standards, s, that is a midfield that managers would die for – and they played under some of the most experienced managers in world d football.
Yet none of those ose managers got the best est out of them. In fact, none of those managers – who seemed too stuck in their own rigid systems – could make that midfield work at all.
Maybe England needed a different approach. Maybe they needed a young coach with new ideas who was tactically fluid with systems that could get the best out of the talent he had.
Like a young Pep Guardiola, who went into Barcelona without experience and created the best team they’ve ever had. had He did that by accom accommodating the tale talents that people sa said couldn’t fit t together, in a system s that made the most of their strengths and removed w weaknesses.
I’m not saying L La amp a r d is Guardiola, Gua but I am saying fair f play to Chelsea – and there should be more appointments like him. They have taken a risk, yes, but why not? Maybe it’s time Chelsea looked at the bigger picture and the longer term. They have to stop appointing a new manager almost every season.
Frank and his coach Jody Morris know the club. Jody was there in the youth team set-up and, believe me, he’ll know more about what is really wrong at the club than just about anyone else.
That knowledge can help build something – not destroy it.
Frank doesn’t have too much experience as a manager, but what he has is decent enough. And, more importantly, he’s a Chelsea legend who knows what it takes to win there.
We’ll find out soon enough if he has what it takes to win there as a manager. And that’s the bottom line.
Chelsea have followed a depressingly similar path with their managers for the past 12 years – now it really is the right time to see if another direction works.