Blues past won’t buy Lampard more time
FRANK LAMPARD knows that Chelsea got rid of him once as a player and will do so again as a manager if results don’t improve.
But the Chelsea manager, whose team take on Morecambe today in the FA Cup after four defeats in six games in the Premier League, says that he won’t worry about those external pressures, with Ralph Hassenhuttl, Julian Nagelsmann and Thomas Tuchel all being touted as potential replacements.
Realistically, Fulham away next Friday is a bigger showdown for Lampard than Morecambe. Lose at Craven Cottage and the support he has been shown by managing director Marina Granovskaia may wilt away.
But Lampard, who impressed working under a transfer ban last season, doesn’t expect any favours just because he is a Chelsea legend, the club’s record goalscorer and an icon of its most successful ever team.
‘All I want to concentrate on is the job in hand and I can’t control some things,’ said Lampard. ‘I certainly don’t want to rely on anything that’s happened in the past here.
‘A month ago, everything was rosy and now a month later, in very quick time, everyone is looking negatively. For me, I have to be the one who looks positively and things I can’t control outside of that would be a waste of time for me.
‘I understand what football is, I understand the demands and expectations. So I don’t think I can earn the right of anything that takes me out of that equation.’
With former team-mate Petr Cech, technical and performance adviser at the club and a key ally in the Chelsea hierarchy, Lampard is likely to be given time to turn things around, with the recent upticks for other young managers such as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Mikel Arteta perhaps providing some solace.
Ultimately though, Lampard acknowledges that will be owner Roman Abramovich’s prerogative to change if necessary.
‘It is his prerogative,’ agreed Lampard. ‘And I have to sit here and say that, when he came to Chelsea all those years ago, it made my career because maybe I would have gone on elsewhere, or whatever would have happened in my personal career.
‘But, fortunately, I was at a club that had an owner who brought in top players and absolutely changed the face of Chelsea — and also changed my life. But I don’t think that should give me any head start, although I think the job I did last year, in one year, to get us to fourth place was a huge positive for us because of the constraints.
‘After that, now I need to do it all again.’