Super Frank Thread

[killer1257 3,282]

Great subs today.

Lampard is killing it right now.

Gesendet von meinem VOG-L29 mit Tapatalk

[Fernando 6,455]

Don't worry as soon as we lose this thread gets filled. 

People just love to come out of the shed when we lose for some reason.....

[milka 3,346]

 

[Vesper 28,795]

Rooney can learn plenty from Lampard and Gerrard’s path to credibility

https://theathletic.com/2218529/2020/11/24/lampard-gerrard-rooney-derby-rangers-chelsea/

During his time in charge of the England rugby union team, Stuart Lancaster liked to share his theory about the value of credibility.

He felt that every coach or manager could be placed on a credibility scale running from zero to 100. Every match, every training session, every meeting and every decision or action, however seemingly minor, offered an opportunity to increase his credibility in the eyes of his players — or, conversely, a threat to the goodwill and credibility he had already built up.

Lancaster liked to point out that, whereas a manager or coach would typically walk into a new job at around 50 per cent on the credibility scale, his own experience was different. Having risen quietly through the ranks at the Rugby Football Union, without having played or coached at elite level, he felt he registered no higher than 20 on his own scale when he was promoted to the England job in 2011, but, from that low starting point, he was sure he would build his credibility over time, whereas a high-profile candidate could feasibly and unwittingly do the reverse.

It didn’t work out, though. Lancaster was praised for the groundwork he did to improve the culture around the England team, but results weren’t good enough and he resigned after a poor showing at the 2015 World Cup. But much of what he said still holds true. “If you arrive with a big reputation but turn out not to be good at handling people, or lose your rag under pressure, then you lose points,” he said. “And when that happens, the players eventually stop listening to you and start talking behind your back and then, suddenly, you’re gone.”

That principle applies even more in football, where the financial stakes are so high, the pressure on managers is so intense and, for whatever reason, that tendency to “stop listening” seems to take hold so much more easily. In the eyes of an unforgiving dressing room, a single incident or defeat can see credibility lost, never to return.

It is one reason why, ultimately, football management rarely works out in the longer term for those who assume, having excelled as players, that they will make a successful transition into management. A player with an illustrious reputation and, in many cases, a strong personality might start out much further up Lancaster’s scale — and any early successes will only increase that credibility — but very few great players prove as adept at the finer points of the job as, for example, Sir Alex Ferguson or Jurgen Klopp, who, after unremarkable playing careers, rose to the very top of the credibility index as managers.

Even those great players who have initially made it look easy, such as Johan Cruyff and Franz Beckenbauer, have tended not to thrive in management for the long term, for one reason or another. Zinedine Zidane, who won three Champions League titles in his first spell as Real Madrid coach, rarely comes across as someone who regards it as his natural calling.

But still they come. Indeed, they seem to be coming in ever greater numbers. Look around the top clubs in Europe and you will see several managed by distinguished but relatively inexperienced alumni. It might seem like a Premier League-centric trend — Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Manchester United, Frank Lampard at Chelsea, Mikel Arteta at Arsenal — but it has gained popularity in Italy, with Andrea Pirlo at Juventus and Simone Inzaghi at Lazio. If anything, it is the success stories of Pep Guardiola at Barcelona, Diego Simeone at Atletico Madrid and Zidane at Real that these clubs hope to emulate.

So many players see what Guardiola has done at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City, or what Zidane has done at Real, and imagine they could do something similar with the right backing and the right talent at their disposal. If the concern a decade ago was that so many of the best minds in the game were being lost to the lure of the television studio, then these days it feels as if the managerial job market is saturated by the number of top-class players who feel they are destined to become top-class coaches. Beyond those mentioned above, there is Steven Gerrard at Rangers, Ryan Giggs with Wales, John Terry learning the ropes on Dean Smith’s staff at Aston Villa, Michael Carrick likewise under Solskjaer at Manchester United and now Wayne Rooney outlining his desire to be part of the succession plan at Derby County following Phillip Cocu’s dismissal last week.

They cannot possibly all succeed. Indeed their first challenge, at this stage of their careers, is to demonstrate to their players that they have more to offer than the credibility and authority that their playing career affords them. Take away Gerrard’s name and he would not, aged 37, have been appointed by Rangers on the basis of a season coaching Liverpool’s under-18 team. Neither would Lampard have got the Derby job or, a year later, having narrowly missed out on promotion from the Championship, the Chelsea job. And it goes without saying that Manchester United would not ordinarily have appointed a coach who had previously relegated Cardiff City — those two Norwegian Eliteserien titles with Molde notwithstanding.

Their credibility, upon taking those jobs, was based almost entirely on their reputations as players. That tends not to sustain them for long. The media, the fanbase and, of course, the board of directors might be seduced by a big name and a familiar face, but players, once they have overcome any initial sense of awe, want to see more from their managers. If they and their staff cannot bring individual and collective improvement on the training ground, or if they are clumsy or insensitive in their handling of players, they will not last long.

From the moment Gerrard and Lampard took over at Rangers and Derby respectively in the summer of 2018, there has been an unhealthy fascination with their fortunes. It has sometimes felt as if, for Gerrard, the Rangers job could only go one of two ways: 1) succeed (which means breaking Celtic’s stranglehold in the Scottish Premiership, preferably before they win 10 in a row) and he will put himself firmly in contention to succeed Klopp at Liverpool or 2) fail to meet expectations at Ibrox and find future employment much harder to come by. Such is the dichotomy faced by an inexperienced big-name manager who is so closely associated with one club.

Football is so fickle — not just the fans or the media, but players and owners too. Reputations can fluctuate wildly, sending managers can go up and down that credibility scale from one week to the next. Just as it was wrong to write off Lampard five weeks ago, when Chelsea were leaking goals at an alarming rate, so too would it be wrong to go overboard after a run of six consecutive wins against Krasnodar, Burnley, Rennes, Sheffield United, Newcastle United and Rennes again. Lately there has been more stability and composure to their defending and a far greater swagger going forward, but assessments are ongoing. The next six games (Tottenham Hotspur, Sevilla, Leeds United, Krasnodar, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Everton) will tell us more.

What can be said with certainty, though, is that Gerrard and Lampard both appear more credible as managers now than when they started out just over two years ago. That might seem like a statement of the obvious when, lacking experience, they were thrust into roles where they had to learn the job, but it doesn’t always work that way. Bryan Robson, Roy Keane, Ruud Gullit and Gianluca Vialli, four very different characters, seemed to peak in their first year or two as in management. If Gerrard and Lampard are still improving and developing in year three, that bodes well — and perhaps it says something about the merits of taking a year or two to study coaching and build up your knowledge, rather than going straight from player to manager or, in the cases of Robson, Gullit and Vialli, player-manager.

Maybe there is a lesson there for Rooney. He sounded desperate last week to outline his candidacy for the Derby job, but, although he is studying for his UEFA A Licence and was part of Cocu’s coaching staff, that immediate transition from player to manager seems a hazardous and outdated one. Better, surely, to continue his studies and to be better equipped for the challenge when management becomes his full-time preoccupation. As it stands right now at Derby, yes, he would have immediate credibility as a team-mate and as one of the great players of his generation, but it is unlikely he has built up the knowledge, the experience and, crucially, the distance and perspective that a manager needs to thrive beyond the short term. Even with Steve McClaren returning to the club in an advisory capacity, the idea of appointing Rooney would, beyond the expectation of an initial uplift, seem risky for all concerned.

“The reality is that having a good, long playing career, which I’ve been lucky to have, doesn’t automatically make you ideal for the hot seat,” Lampard told me in the summer of 2017, having retired as a player. “Management is a long road and any manager worth his salt has been on the pitch, on rainy days, with young ones learning their trade. To switch from playing to the other side, there are loads of things you have to take on board that you’ve never even had to consider as a player — from the real basics behind the scenes to the top-end things on the pitch. Until you’ve earned your stripes, to the degree that you feel totally ready, you shouldn’t do it. I’m just not in that position right now.”

He would not have imagined back then that he would have been appointed Derby head coach a year later or at Chelsea a year after that. It has all happened far quicker than he had in mind — to the disapproval who would see it as a “silver spoon” appointment for one of English football’s golden boys — but at this point, it feels increasingly positive.

Lampard was hired with a different brief to his recent predecessors at Chelsea: to start building a younger team to challenge in the longer term. He did that last season with the emergence of Reece James, Mason Mount and Tammy Abraham, securing Champions League qualification and reaching the FA Cup final. This season, with the additions of Edouard Mendy, Thiago Silva, Ben Chilwell, Kai Havertz, Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner, far more is expected results-wise. After a sloppy start, with far too many goals conceded, the past six weeks have brought a distinct improvement in what they are doing both in and out of possession.

Rangers’ progress under Gerrard is undeniable. It hasn’t come cheap — the wage bill has increased significantly through the expansion of the squad and the building of a support staff that is colossal by Scottish standards — but they look like a real team now. In 21 games in all competitions this season, they have won 18 and drawn three. They are 11 points clear at the top of the Premiership and, although Celtic have two games in hand, Rangers are now widely regarded as favourites.

Celtic are in a turbulent state right now, but, for Rangers, this is far from a case of standing still and catching up with a target that is going backwards. By just about every metric, they are improving under Gerrard. In 15 Premiership games this season, they have scored 41 goals and conceded just three.

That will, of course, invite familiar questions about the quality of the Premiership, but Rangers’ results in European competition under Gerrard merit recognition and praise. In July 2017, under the more experienced Pedro Caixinha, they were knocked out of the Europa League by Progres Niederkorn, of Luxembourg, in qualifying. Since then, they have played 38 Europa League matches under Gerrard, losing just five and keeping 20 clean sheets. Their draws away to Villarreal, Benfica and Porto have been characterised by a level of tactical discipline that few imagined would be a defining feature of Gerrard’s management style.

Rangers might now be seen as the perfect first job for Gerrard, in much the same way as it was for Graeme Souness in 1986, but it was far from an easy one. It is a tough gig, trying to drag the club onwards and upwards at a time when it seemed to be weighed down not just by its past — both glorious and more recently traumatic — but by Celtic’s continuing domination of Scottish football. Appraisals of Gerrard will be far less positive if Celtic end up celebrating 10 in a row next May, but the former Liverpool captain can currently be said to be raising standards, rather than merely meeting them at a club that was crying out for strong leadership.

Chelsea isn’t an easy gig either. A succession of experienced and highly qualified coaches have pitched up at Stamford Bridge and achieved far better results than Lampard in the short term, but they have usually done so without showing the slightest inclination to integrate academy players into the first team. Lampard, his hand forced to some extent by last season’s FIFA transfer ban, was willing to put his credibility at stake to look beyond short-term results in year one. These are early days in year two, but the way James, Mount and Abraham are combining with new arrivals such as Chilwell, Ziyech and Werner reflects well on his ability to manage a group as well as his planning.

It wasn’t always clear last season what Lampard’s Chelsea was meant to look like. It seems much clearer now, with a more solid-looking rearguard but also a strong emphasis on defending from the front. If you go back to the principles Lampard set out when he took over at Derby — an emphasis on young players, a desire to stretch and over-run opponents with a creative, high-energy game — they are immediately apparent in the way Chelsea are playing now. That is not always the case with those managers who tell you to embrace and believe in their philosophy.

We come back, inevitably, to the suggestion that Lampard only got the Chelsea job — indeed only got the Derby job — because of who he is. Well, yes, that is pretty obvious. When a manager is appointed in those circumstances, his playing reputation brings a certain credibility, but it also brings an increased scrutiny at the first sign of trouble. So far, Lampard has dealt calmly with that pressure and with the various challenges that come with managing a group of elite-level players. There have been few murmurs of the type of discord that crept up repeatedly during Antonio Conte’s final season in charge or Maurizio Sarri’s brief tenure.

None of this means that Lampard’s or Gerrard’s impact can be likened to that of Guardiola at Barcelona or Zidane at Real Madrid, or anything close to it, but it does suggest that, a little over two years into their management careers, the former England team-mates are going some way to justify the faith that has been placed in them. If they are only ever one or two bad results from a perceived crisis, then that is just the reality of life as a big name in a high-profile job. To this point, both of them seem to be handling that pressure more comfortably than many of us would have expected.

If initially their credibility was based almost entirely on their reputations as players, then the Lancaster theory suggests they would have struggled had they not quickly shown there was substance and ideas behind the big name. Neither has yet won a trophy as a manager, but both appear more credible now than when they started. That is one of the first challenges facing any legendary player taking his first steps into management. All too often, the first casualty of a coaching career is credibility.

[Vesper 28,795]

Wednesday November 25 2020 Matt Law's Chelsea briefing

Dressing-room influence of senior pros like Giroud and Azpilicueta will be vital during title bid By Matt Law, Football News Correspondent Ask Antonio Conte for three of the most important players of his title-winning Chelsea season and one of the answers may come as a surprise. N’Golo Kante and Eden Hazard were undoubtedly the star performers of the 2016/17 campaign, but John Terry’s influence was less obvious as he made just nine Premier League appearances in his final season as a Chelsea player. Terry was vitally important for Conte, however, and the Italian would freely admit that losing his control on the dressing room and over the squad contributed to the problems that followed in a stormy second season in charge. It was a similar story during Jose Mourinho’s second coming at Stamford Bridge, as Dider Drogba made a limited contribution on the pitch to the 2014/15 title success, scoring four Premier League goals, but off the field his impact was huge. Like Terry did under Conte, Drogba set standards at the training ground and in the dressing room, putting out potential fires before they got anywhere near bursting out of control. Following his departure, Mourinho’s reign went up in flames. So it was interesting to hear Chelsea’s current head coach Frank Lampard praise two of his substitutes following the victory over Newcastle United that helped to set up Sunday’s clash against Mourinho’s Tottenham Hotspur as an early marker of the two club’s title credentials. Asked about club captain Cesar Azpilicueta and Olivier Giroud shouting encouragement from the bench, Lampard said: “I can’t understate what it means to the group and what it means to me when I hear that from players that have been great players for the club and really important members of the squad. Players that are sitting out a game or a period of time, supporting the lads. “It means sometimes as much as the performance on the pitch to me because we will rely on those players and it shows the professionals that they are. We have a big squad and half the players every game are probably not happy they are not starting, but when they show personality and support like that then it’s a big deal for us.” Lampard earlier this season made a point of underlining the fact Azpilicueta will remain Chelsea’s club captain, while, ahead of the Champions League clash against Rennes, he also insisted that he wants Giroud to stay at the club. Giroud, like a lot of Lampard’s Chelsea squad, has never won a Premier League title but he has won a World Cup with France and his professionalism was never better illustrated than last season when he returned to the team after the coronavirus restart and helped to secure Champions League qualification with six League goals. Losing Giroud in January would be a big blow to Lampard as the know-how brought by players like him and Azpiliceuta, who has won two titles with Chelsea, is invaluable and often irreplaceable. The dynamic of the squad has changed since the days of Mourinho and Conte, meaning there is far less chance of egos getting out of hand these days but Azpilicueta and Giroud can certainly help to ease some of the younger players through the highs and lows of a season. While Lampard has been reluctant to talk up Chelsea’s title chances just yet, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Mason Mount have made their excitement clear but the older professionals will know there are many bumps in the road to navigate. Lampard added title-winning experience to his team with the addition of Thiago Silva, but the defender does not yet speak fluent English which means his verbal impact in the dressing-room and around the training ground is limited. Kante, of course, knows how to win titles but his introverted character means he is far more likely to lead by example on the pitch rather than acting as a sounding board through difficult times or pulling up team-mates if they get carried away. The midfielder is practically silent on the rare occasions he has to watch from the stands. It is not just at Chelsea where the influence of older heads has been felt. Manchester City have not looked the same since the departure of Vincent Kompany, while James Milner proved again at the weekend just what an important player he has been for Liverpool. If Chelsea are to close the gap on City and Liverpool, or even sustain a title challenge this season, then Lampard knows he needs the Azpilicuetas and Girouds of this world, even if it is from the bench rather than on the pitch. Get in touch at @Matt_Law_DT or via [email protected].   A Telegraph Sport subscription is only £1 a week, or £40 for 12 months   Get unlimited access   The week at Chelsea Analysis: How Frank Lampard has turned Chelsea into Premier League title contenders Latest: Tammy Abraham turns training ground frowns into smiles as Chelsea striker makes himself key man again Antonio Conte interview: 'I wanted to sign Lukaku and Van Dijk at Chelsea — we lost momentum after that' The making of Hakim Ziyech: How a petulant prodigy became the 'Wizard of Amsterdam'

[Jase 43,479]

Shearer meets Lampard: Abramovich’s support, rebuilding Chelsea & dropping stars

https://theathletic.com/2223577/2020/11/27/shearer-lampard-abramovich-chelsea/

What is it about Frank Lampard and timing? Of all the qualities that defined a phenomenal playing career, the most uncanny was the way he would get himself into the perfect position at the perfect moment, driving himself towards the box to meet the ball, which he would dispatch with the precision of a surgeon and the power of a thunderbolt. The same quality clings to Frank in management and, like always, he is making the most of it.

I remember a few people suggesting Frank would be a stop-gap appointment as Chelsea head coach when he returned to the club he graced as a midfielder for so long last summer. You could understand the logic — there was a transfer embargo at Stamford Bridge and Eden Hazard was leaving, so perhaps a big job was less enticing for the established names — except that it underestimated his appetite to graft and learn and improve.

As Frank, 42, tells The Athletic, “You don’t get the Chelsea job after one year at Derby (County), that’s not the norm”, but if his history as a player was instrumental in taking him back to London, to his club, the rest was down to him. That’s the thing about timing. It might bring you an opportunity, but you still have to take it and this has always been what sets Frank apart. Make no mistake, luck is irrelevant. It is a side-effect of hard work.

Timing is the theme of this interview, which coincides with Roman Abramovich’s 1,000th match as Chelsea owner. Under Abramovich, Chelsea have been transformed into serial winners but their managers have never been permanent fixtures, which makes the timing thing so interesting. The clock is always ticking. As usual, Frank’s timing has been a blur, from “shitting myself” before his first squad meeting at Derby, to resting £70 million footballers and moulding a huge club, all in the space of two years.

So far, so good. Last season was hugely impressive given the transitional circumstances, lifting Chelsea into the Champions League and to the FA Cup final, blooding young players along the way. After a summer of hefty spending, Frank acknowledges that expectations have risen now, but his team have risen with them. They have won six games in a row, qualified for the last 16 of the Champions League with two group games to spare and last weekend they were briefly top of the Premier League.

It is debatable whether my timing is quite as proficient. It turns out that Frank has agreed to chat to me on his day off, which makes me feel a bit guilty, although he says it has temporarily stopped him being “put to work around the house.” He and Christine, his TV presenter wife, walked their dog for an hour and a half that morning, but he had also written his programme notes for Sunday’s match against Tottenham Hotspur. Switching off is so difficult…

The subject of Frank’s notes? It had to be Abramovich, the secretive oligarch who bought the club in 2003, since when they have won 16 major trophies, including five Premier League titles, five FA Cups and the Champions League and improved in every possible manner. Frank has been around for so much of that era — more than 600 games — and was there at the start, when Abramovich swept into their rundown training facilities at Harlington.

“My first memory of Roman in the flesh was him flying into our old training ground near Heathrow and coming over and holding a meeting with us as the helicopter was calming itself down,” Frank says. “It was quite surreal. The first thing he said, through a translator, was, ‘Well, we need to improve the training ground’. And straight away, you think, ‘OK, standards are instantly going to go through the roof’.

“And they did. We signed big players in the first year. There was an element of fear amongst us younger players in terms of what it meant. A few of us managed to stay in the game and all levels rose around us. It’s been the most successful patch in the club’s history and we couldn’t have done any of it — consistently winning trophies, new training ground, building the squad, the capital put into the club, turning us into a world brand — without the owner.”

Does Abramovich get the recognition he deserves? “He gets it from Chelsea fans, because they’ve lived it and seen it,” Frank says. He is an ambitious, rich, ruthless and successful owner, but within the same answer Frank makes a softer point. “I was so proud to be at the club when COVID hit,” he says. “Our reaction was fantastic in terms of not furloughing our staff, in giving the Stamford Bridge hotel to NHS workers very quickly. I know other clubs did similar stuff, but Chelsea showed a lot of heart.”

We know so little about Abramovich beyond his fabulous wealth and his track record at Chelsea. He has never talked in public and now we rarely see him, either, following those issues with his visa. When he watched the team beat Krasnodar in Russia last month, it was the first time he had attended a live Chelsea match since a pre-season friendly against Red Bull Salzburg in Austria in July 2019.

Does Frank have a personal relationship with him? Did he play a role in Frank’s appointment? Does it count for much? “In terms of his level of involvement, he was very visible at the training ground in the early years and occasionally after games and now obviously that’s changed,” he says. “That’s maybe natural in how his life has moved as well as the club, and we know there are different reasons behind that.

“When I came back to the club, no; it was Marina (Granovskaia, the director), who contacted Derby and then myself to make that happen. I saw Roman on pre-season last year and it was big smiles and not cuddles but welcomes and handshakes. From then, I haven’t had a close, close relationship with him, albeit I report back my thoughts on games, on where I see us and where I see us moving forward consistently through Marina and I’m very happy with that.

“I would say the relationship is close without being practically close day-to-day or week-to-week. I feel the support from afar, but it’s very straight, very cut-and-dried and that’s how I try to give it back. If I’m commenting on how we’re playing or performing, I don’t beat around the bush. Whether good or bad, I think that’s the right policy with a man of that level. He’s a man who gets things done; you don’t get to his position without that.”

It raises that timing business again, the particular moment Frank arrived, the leeway he will be given as a legendary figure at Chelsea, whether he felt he was jeopardising that status. I have brief experience of that dilemma — so brief you could have blinked and missed it — when I managed Newcastle United, my hometown club, in 2009. It didn’t end as I would have wished, but still. It was a no-brainer for me. I had no choice; I had to do it.

For Frank, there had been just that single season with Derby, who he took to the Championship play-offs. It was not much of a run-up. You could make the argument that elevation came very early, but his position was the same as mine. How could you turn it down? “It’s my club and the pull of it was always going to get me, no matter where I might have been,” he says. “I didn’t know when that Chelsea opportunity might come around again, if ever.

“On top of that, the idea of staying at Derby was a tough one. It was at a tough period and I think that’s become evident now. So the decision was clear-cut, but I did have doubts — if ‘doubts’ is the right word. (Managing) Derby was doing it on a much smaller scale, tight-knit, expectations level so-so and some games would go under the radar if you didn’t get a great result.

“At Chelsea, I knew all of that would change instantly and I wanted to have a positive impact because I knew that my name and the ex-player thing wouldn’t last that long. So yeah, I had a lot of doubts. I got to work. One thing I’m pretty good at is trying to listen and learn and react. I’m open to that. I’m my own biggest critic, so there’s loads of things from last year, loads of little moments where I look back and try and keep improving on.”

What about his own stellar reputation at Chelsea and the jeopardy of tarnishing it? “You can’t think about it,” he says. “It doesn’t really bother me. As a player, it would; I really held onto being one of the elder statesmen of the team, one of the better performers and I loved that. It was a drive for me. But moving to Manchester City and New York City and then coming out of football for a year and going to Derby and experiencing the world changed my view a lot.

“I don’t rely on that in the way I used to when I was playing for the club. I want to be successful, this is my club and it always will be, even if the fans knock me out of the door because I didn’t succeed.”

There is no sign of that and quite rightly, and although Frank hasn’t cracked it — when do you ever in this tumultuous business? — he has answered those early questions. “I understood that people will have made those judgments on me in the beginning,” he says. “My playing career had a lot to do with it, and the transfer ban, and what big-name managers would potentially have taken the job, meant that things probably aligned in my favour.

“That said, losing Eden (Hazard) was a big deal. For me, since Cristiano Ronaldo, he’s the only absolutely world-class player who has left the Premier League in their prime. Maybe you could add Gareth Bale. In a period after that, with younger players, there are going to be highs and lows and a transition and in those periods people will look and go, ‘What have you got behind you as a manager?’, and I haven’t got much.

“I’m constantly trying and, because of who I am, I want to fight that battle. Because I did it as a player, I want to show I can carry on doing it now. Last year felt like a success to me, but the goalposts move again now because of the players we’ve brought in and I’ll be judged on an ongoing basis. I haven’t proved it yet.”

On the subject of those younger players, what a sea-change it’s been at Chelsea, a club that has found it difficult to connect a brilliant academy with the first-team. It had a bit to do with necessity, with that temporary halt on transfers, but Frank has nurtured the likes of Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham, Reece James and Fikayo Tomori. Finally, they are benefitting from their own investment, their own talent, thanks to Frank. Again; timing and making the most of it.

“I’m close to Neil Bath, who has run our incredible academy for so long,” Frank says. “I understand why (previous) managers didn’t rely on young players because a lot of them came in and were under pressure to win immediately and at times those players weren’t ready. For me, the circumstances made it slightly different, but the lads have to take the credit because every one of them, in their own way, has proved himself.

“That’s the first step. The second step is sustaining it, but it makes me very proud. They’re great to work with because they want to learn. They feel the club. They’re easy, they’re sponges, you can take them for extra work and they’re still developing as players. That’s great for where I am as a manager because you can really get hold of them and test yourself in their early steps in the team. They’ve all shown they deserve to be there.”

It wouldn’t work without the guidance and support of Chelsea’s older heads and Frank has that, too, whether or not they are in the team. “That’s hugely important,” he says. “When you’re a coach or manager you have a huge responsibility, but you also don’t sit in the dressing room. I hardly ever go in. So you rely on people like Olivier Giroud, who is a great example because he’s not always playing.

“Maybe some senior players would turn away, but Oli and (fellow striker) Tammy have a great relationship. Because of the lack of crowds, I can hear the substitutes behind me and Oli is constantly praising Tammy when he holds the ball up or does some good centre-forward play. That’s special. With someone like Thiago Silva, who doesn’t have the language (the Brazilian only joined this summer), it’s through performance, the way he prepares and trains and his serious nature. That’s an instant rub-off.”

It is easy to forget that Frank is still relatively new to this. He comes across as composed and polite and genial, but he has bared his teeth on a few occasions, whether standing up to Liverpool counterpart Jurgen Klopp on the touchline or making some big calls over team selection. It is still the start of something for him, but he is clearly not afraid to stand up for himself, to be front of shop.

“Being a player on the cutting edge for so long, which I was with Chelsea because we were always competing, means you either have it in you — and I probably did — or you develop it over time and become slightly hardened,” he says. “Manager is obviously a completely different role, but standing up for myself is a natural one, especially in games. I do get competitive and sometimes I look back and feel I over-reacted, but that’s just in me.

“I had that with Jurgen, and afterwards it was all fine and that’s how it should be. In terms of selection, it’s one of those things you can’t get taught how to do. You have to take uncomfortable decisions and I make them weekly because of the size of our squad. Sometimes, I’m leaving top-class players out of the (match-day) squad entirely, which is really tough. They’re just decisions you have to make. If you shy away from them, they get you in the end.”

Frank calls it the most difficult part of his week. “You’ll know it when you’re a player or manager, you’ve done both, you hang around to try and nick someone for a moment and have that conversation because it’s awkward from both ends,” he says, although, “the more you do it, the more you feel comfortable doing it and you realise it’s just part of the job. I try and be straight with the players”.

At Chelsea, more than most clubs, there is not much scope for sentiment or hesitation. Despite all that silverware, Frank is their ninth manager in a decade. Perhaps this newly-discovered focus on youth will alter their trajectory but equally, perhaps not. Sir Bobby Robson, my old manager at Newcastle called his first autobiography — he rattled off a few! — Time On The Grass, but you get the feeling time must have offended Abramovich along the way.

It is difficult to knock that approach when it has worked so well for Chelsea, even if it can chew people up. Does Frank feel that pressure to win? Is he allowed to build a team and club like Klopp, who took nearly four years to win a trophy at Anfield? Or does it need to be this season, now that Chelsea have returned to a well-trodden path by signing Kai Havertz, Timo Werner, Ben Chilwell and the rest for so much money?

“I honestly don’t know the answer,” he says. “I’d be a fool to say ‘No’, because that answer can only come from the owner and whether he feels the club should be winning things at that moment. I’ve been here as a player when managers have moved on regularly and I’m under no illusions about it. I don’t think I can ever afford to get ahead of myself.

“Last year was definitely transitional. We didn’t have the players of previous eras. Eden was such a big player. People like Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas. Before then, it might have been myself, John Terry, Didier Drogba and Petr Cech. Last year we had younger players and we were searching and so it felt different. I know that won’t last forever. I’ve already said that this year looks different again.

“I still feel like we’re developing, like the plan may not ‘take’ this season but next season in terms of really competing and getting the consistent level that Liverpool and Manchester City can produce. They’ve done that over a period. Even Pep (Guardiola). He won during that spell, but it’s been quite a long time of developing and it feels like we’re in a different position to that. But I can’t be the one to call that. It’s always going to be the owner’s shout.”

Chelsea finished last season 33 points behind champions Liverpool; now, the difference is just two. There is a lot of football to be played, but it feels like progress. “I know we’ve got a more powerful squad this year,” Frank says. “When you’ve spent the money we’ve spent, we need to close the gap, without a doubt. How much we can close it is what we’ll be defined by in the end. It feels like we’re within touching distance and we weren’t for such a lot of last year.

“It’s very easy to write yourself off. We knew we weren’t going to win the league — most clubs did — and then you settle for fighting for third or fourth. Our mentality has got to be… We want to make that step where we really get tough about closing that gap in a big way. We’re in that process, I think.”

Frank is pleased with their current run, how the team “look more balanced and the relationships on the pitch look better” after he switched back to 4-3-3. The new players are bedding in, the lack of a pre-season is being ironed out of them and he hopes that some of that is “credit to the work” he and his staff are responsible for.

Tightening up at the back has been pivotal. “It was hugely important,” he says. “It was the thing I took away from last season. There were a lot of plusses. I was happy with Champions League qualification. Losing the FA Cup final was a bitter taste at the end, but it was the goals conceded we needed to look at. Actually, it was both boxes; we created a lot and weren’t clinical enough. You can’t win anything like that. We weren’t protecting the zone between the posts — where you would have scored a lot of your goals. We’ve worked hard on that.”

Effort has underpinned Frank’s career. The minute you coast in football is the minute football will remind you who’s boss, but he is a striver, confident but not arrogant. I wonder how long it takes to feel secure or comfortable as a manager, to establish yourself? Is he there yet?

“No, no. I don’t yet, and I’m not sure if I will! I was like you as a player — when people ask me, ‘When did you know you’d made it?’, I couldn’t answer. Mid-twenties? Thirties, even? I always wanted more out of myself. I was competitive. I’d be crazy to say that now, when you look at the managers who have won big things. Maybe they can do the job much more on autopilot when they have a real structure. I’m still working daily to get better.”

One of those managers is Jose Mourinho, another fixture of the Abramovich age. It is fitting that Mourinho’s Tottenham are the opponents for Abramovich’s 1,000th Chelsea game. “I learned a great deal from him,” Frank says, “particularly the first time he came to the club because I was in the sweet spot of being a player who needed a bit of direction, a bit of a lift.

“It was probably more of a self-confidence boost, that feeling I could improve and go up a level. Training and tactics are one thing, but mentality is as big for me. With Jose’s demeanour when he walked through the door, he dragged me along and dragged me upwards to a level I hadn’t been at before.”

Mourinho is not a mentor to Frank. The circumstances do not allow it. “We’re managers of rival clubs across London,” he says. “I sent him a message when he got the job at Tottenham and he’ll send me messages when things happen around me and in my life and we always ask how each other’s families are, but I know what we’re both like. It’s the competitive level we’re both at.

“It’s not like we chat too much, but I’ve got no problem with him. We had a little bit on the line when we played in the Carabao Cup this season but, again, it’s that competitive edge. It just feels natural to me that when I go up against people I worked with, I want to beat them. I’m sure Jose would be very honest about that, too.”

It is the life Frank has chosen for himself and one he is committed to. “I love doing what I do,” he says. “It can be tough when you don’t get results and you’re trying to find solutions, but if you took it away from me tomorrow, I’d have a massive void. I’ve got great admiration for (73-year-old Crystal Palace manager) Roy Hodgson doing it at the time of his life and I’m not sure I’d go that far because it’s so taxing, but I want to give being successful with Chelsea my best shot for as long as I can.”

He keeps in touch with Terry, who is now coaching at Aston Villa. Ditto Steven Gerrard, his midfield partner with England, at Rangers. Wayne Rooney, another old England colleague, is pushing for the now-vacant manager’s post at Derby and Frank’s advice is, “Do it, go for it, although you have to do it with everything you’ve got. It’s not a job where you can say, ‘Ah, I’ll see how it goes’. You have to throw yourself into it.

“The first day I walked into Derby, I was shitting myself. I really was. It came upon me so quickly. I met Mel Morris, the owner. I was offered the job which was a big leap for him and a big leap for me. I’d played against a lot of the players. I played with some of them for my country. It’s how you package that first meeting, that first training session, of what you want to be. It’s so important. I had all those worries.

“What I was determined to do was to listen and learn — from everybody. I watch you and Wrighty (Ian Wright) and Gary (Lineker) on Match of the Day. There will be times when something’s said I don’t like and it gets your back up. Maybe we’ve been dug out because we can’t defend set pieces, so the next day I go into work and say quietly, ‘I want to have a look at set pieces one more time!’ I like listening to other managers, podcasts of other coaches. If I can take bits from that, I will. You’ve got to be yourself, but you can still suck all that stuff in.”

Frank has always done that. He reminds me that, at 16 or 17, he was called up to train with the England squad ahead of Euro ’96 by Terry Venables, along with other young players including Rio Ferdinand. It is something that Gareth Southgate has done more recently, giving those lads a little taste of the big time, something to aspire to. It was the first time our paths crossed. “I was a young kid looking up to the big boys,” he says.

And I was playing when Frank made his debut for the senior England team and he provided me with an assist for the only overhead kick of my career. You can tell sometimes when team-mates have management within them and he was one of those. He’s bright and clever and knows the game and he has a way about him. That shows in what he’s done so well with Chelsea’s youngsters. His personality is so strong, in a good way.

I’ve probably taken up enough of his day off at this point, although those continual demands are another peril of management. “It’s one of the biggest parts of the job, finding that balance, trying to avoid burnout,” he says. “At whatever level you manage, we all have our problems, however different they look. It’s all-consuming, it’s daily, it’s flicking from one game to the next, you review, you plan, you have meetings. It’s a tough job.

“I try and use days off to try and not think and talk about football constantly. I lean on Christine a lot for that. We walk the dog, I go to the gym; you’ve got to stay healthy and I’ve always relied on that to switch my mind off, to keep fresh. I don’t have too many hobbies, so in my downtime, it’s important to be at home and spend time with family and come away from it for a bit.”

Life, football; it is all about time and how you use it, that great Lampard speciality.

He will find the answers, because he is too talented not to.

Until he does, he will work his nuts off. And when he does, he’ll work even more.

[NikkiCFC 7,943]

It's all fun and games until we face decent opposition. 

0:0 against United, Sevilla and Spurs. 

If Chris didn't get red against Liverpool that would probably be the result there as well. Didn't score in 4 biggest games this season. Is that what he wants? 

[Tomo 21,733]

4 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

It's all fun and games until we face decent opposition. 

0:0 against United, Sevilla and Spurs. 

If Chris didn't get red against Liverpool that would probably be the result there as well. Didn't score in 4 biggest games this season. Is that what he wants? 

I criticised him for the Sevilla/United games but bar keeping Tammy on too long what did he do wrong today?

We managed the game well and had some pretty good chances that simply need to be taken in these games.

[Jase 43,479]

4 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

It's all fun and games until we face decent opposition. 

0:0 against United, Sevilla and Spurs. 

If Chris didn't get red against Liverpool that would probably be the result there as well. Didn't score in 4 biggest games this season. Is that what he wants? 

1. Those results need some context. As you pointed out, we went down to 10 men against Liverpool. Against Sevilla and Man United, those games came immediately after the 3-3 draw against Southampton and we had BIG defensive problems, which made Lampard go safety first against the aforementioned two teams (even if the approach was slightly frustrating). There was more attacking intent against Spurs today but we weren't clinical inside the box. 

2. They say it's important to not lose against your direct rival and it seems like Lampard has channeled his inner Mourinho in these big games. We have looked very solid defensively but not so good going forward - partly due to players still coming in and out. He's playing the 1 goal nicks it in these games, which after what we saw last season, it's not necessarily a bad thing. We do need to win a few of these games though.

3. We haven't scored against Liverpool, Sevilla, United and Spurs (excluding the League Cup) but we also have conceded only 2 goals, which came after we went down to 10 men. So, it's a bit of a half full, half empty glass situation at the moment.

[Atomiswave 6,072]

Late subs and starting with Tammy is my only grit

[Jase 43,479]

We have beaten a lot of the lesser teams recently, which is good, but here's the real test. Next 6 Premier League games before 2021...

Leeds (h)
Everton (a)
Wolves (a)
West Ham (h)
Arsenal (a)
Aston Villa (h)

[robsblubot 3,502]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

We have beaten a lot of the lesser teams recently, which is good, but here's the real test. Next 6 Premier League games before 2021...

Leeds (h)
Everton (a)
Wolves (a)
West Ham (h)
Arsenal (a)
Aston Villa (h)

Nothing world class in that list tbh. Just watched arsenal and they are not a good team: I know they can improve until we play them, but they don't have the players.

Agreed that it will show which tier we belong in this season.

[Jase 43,479]

 

[Jase 43,479]

Just noticed we have more clean sheets in the Premier League than anyone else so far this season - FIVE!  

We kept only 9 in the league last season and only got to 5 clean sheets in the 22nd game. Already got 5 clean sheets in just 10 games this season. 

[Tomo 21,733]

22 minutes ago, Jason said:

Just noticed we have more clean sheets in the Premier League than anyone else so far this season - FIVE!  

We kept only 9 in the league last season and only got to 5 clean sheets in the 22nd game. Already got 5 clean sheets in just 10 games this season. 

I'm not looking too delusional now by saying our issues were more personnel than structural 

That said, not even i anticipated such a drastic change!

[Jase 43,479]

2 minutes ago, Tomo said:

I'm not looking too delusional now by saying our issues were more personnel than structural 

That said, not even i anticipated such a drastic change!

TBF, there was also structural issue. We have looked far more solid in this 4-3-3 and aren't involved in basketball-esque games anymore!

[Fernando 6,455]

7 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

It's all fun and games until we face decent opposition. 

0:0 against United, Sevilla and Spurs. 

If Chris didn't get red against Liverpool that would probably be the result there as well. Didn't score in 4 biggest games this season. Is that what he wants? 

No good word when winning but as soon as when no win people come out of hidding? 

[DANILA 290]

Ive been calling out FL and somewhat the team for a majority of this season even while winning because I could see through it and realize how poor we are in attack - this game really showed it. The only games against decent clubs we've got four 0-0 results with very few chances. Seems like FL only attacking play is crossing and was absolutely ridiculous to see how many we attempted this game (also, if all we do is cross then why not start Giroud?). Do we not practice attacking through the middle at all? Can't even make a single unpredictable pass... embarressing