Some 800 days after being sacked as Chelsea manager, Frank Lampard was back at the training site where he knows the territory better than anybody.
His record there as a player – highest goalscorer, a sweep of all the major trophies – and experience there as a manager lend a logic to his appointment as caretaker manager, a role formalised on Thursday, and as the firefighter to quell a crisis set about by the dismissal of two Chelsea managers so far this season, Graham Potter and Thomas Tuchel.
Lampard, sacked by Everton in January, has been asked to provide “stability” and to chase one very ambitious dream, the Champions League title, before Chelsea make a permanent managerial appointment in the summer.
‘Permanent’ is always a loose term at the club where Lampard took orders from 10 different managers during a garlanded 13-year career as a dynamic Chelsea midfielder.
When he was invited back to manage them he became one of 18 different men in charge so far in the 21st century. He therefore has a detailed handle on the insecurities of the position and the corrosive effect that can have on a manager’s authority over players; what he now knows is that managerial uncertainty seems to be a chronic condition at Chelsea, regardless of the owner.
When Lampard was previously hired and then sacked as manager within 19 months, it was Roman Abramovich who brought him in and shipped him out, while expressing his personal affection for the former England midfielder.
The re-hiring, albeit on an interim basis, has been done by new owners, headed by the US-based Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali, who in less than year since taking over found fault with Tuchel, who succeeded Lampard in January 2021, and Potter, dismissed last weekend.
But they do appreciate Lampard has cachet with supporters and several current players in Chelsea’s vast squad. “A legend at this club,” Boehly and Eghbali were quoted as saying of Lampard in a Chelsea statement. “We are delighted to welcome Frank back. He has all the characteristics we need to drive us to the finish line.”
At Chelsea’s Cobham practice centre, players such as Mason Mount, Reece James, and Mateo Kovacic greeted the news of Lampard’s return with a degree of warmth.
All of them progressed as footballers during his previous term as Chelsea manager, and each of them has seen the new owners invest heavily in players in their positions. Lampard himself will regard the timing of N’Golo Kante’s return from a long injury – the France midfielder made his first start since August in the goalless draw with Liverpool on Tuesday – as a happy omen.
He can think of good precedents too, for coaches who have arrived at Chelsea in a crisis and made a resonant impact. Roberto di Matteo was bought in on an interim basis in 2011-12; he finished the season overseeing the club’s first Champions League title. Tuchel won Chelsea their second European Cup barely four months after replacing Lampard.
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Europe will be firmly on Lampard’s mind, even if Saturday’s trip to Wolverhampton Wanderers and the need to lift Chelsea into the top half of the Premier League, feels urgent.
Next week Real Madrid roll into London, and among Lampard’s homework tasks will be analysing Madrid’s most recent matches, a 6-0 walloping of Valladolid and Wednesday night’s startling 4-0 win over Barcelona at Camp Nou in the Copa del Rey. Karim Benzema scored hat-tricks in both games; Chelsea have scored no goals at all in their last two fixtures.
The Madrid quarter-final brings Lampard a reunion with Carlo Ancelotti, once the Chelsea manager who most effectively maximised Lampard’s goalscoring potential. They have much to discuss. Ancelotti is in his second spell with Madrid, Lampard now a returnee to the Chelsea dugout. Ancelotti’s other Premier League job was with Everton, where Lampard was one of his successors.
The next stage in his managerial career has come quickly, and unexpectedly, and if the short-term role – keeping the seat warm, perhaps for Julian Nagelsmann or Luis Enrique – back at Chelsea feels like a demotion, it may yet serve to recover a reputation dented at Everton. A win over Madrid would be a ringing endorsement. A clamber up the Premier League to a European qualifying spot would fulfill his mission.
