Debate: is Lampard better than Gerrard?

When Frank Lampard reported to the national team headquarters on Monday, a prominent member of Fabio Capello’s backroom staff took him to one side to talk about his recent performances for Chelsea and England. “You are in the moment of your life,” Lampard was told, “moment” probably meaning “form” in this instance.

Either way, it was a statement that appeared to end all debate about which central midfield player’s name would be first on the team-sheet for the match with Kazakhstan. Against all expectation, Lampard has the jump on Steven Gerrard after his key role in England’s 4-1 win in Croatia. Gerrard missed the match through injury and must sweat on a return, albeit a likely one. Lampard is the leading man for this game at least: back in favour on and off the field, with the new manager and supporters who previously targeted him as emblematic of the underachievement of England’s star names.

Footballer of the Year in 2005, a runner-up as World Player of the Year, twice voted England’s Player of the Year by supporters, plus a string of club honours, Lampard’s career has had plenty of moments. Those who saw Chelsea’s win over Aston Villa on Sunday, however, were widely agreed that his present level of performance is taking his game to another level.

Still an acolyte of José Mourinho, despite his decision not to follow him to Inter Milan, Lampard is anxious not to credit his resurgence solely to Luiz Felipe Scolari, the new Chelsea manager, lest it implies criticism of his old boss, but he admits that Chelsea’s players are experiencing new freedoms. “I have never known a manager encourage players to shoot or run with the ball like he does,” he says. “That is what he wants you to do all the time. It must be the Brazilian in him.”

Lampard’s last role for England was to err on the side of caution against Croatia, playing next to Gareth Barry with a first duty to guard the back four. His role grew more expansive as the opposition weakened, but on Saturday it will be different again, when Kazakhstan visit Wembley and must be broken down. Capello’s initial instinct is to sacrifice Barry and pair Lampard with Gerrard to, no doubt, a chorus of disapproval. As double acts go, these two have been about as popular with audiences as Mike and Bernie Winters at the Glasgow Empire (Mike’s opening patter died a death and when Bernie appeared with his famously huge grin from behind the curtain, a voice in the front row cursed: “Och, Christ, there’s two of them.”)

Lately, their famous incompatibility has descended to farcical levels, even being immortalised on Headcases, the satirical comedy show that is part Spitting Image, part Toy Story. In it, Lampard and Gerrard are sent up as two genial Mack Sennett characters, willing to work as a team but doomed to fail. They sing the duet Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off but pronounce the words in identical fashion — “You say po-tay-to,” Gerrard says. “And I say po-tay-to,” Lampard echoes; they try to shift a piano in the manner of Laurel and Hardy but are found standing at the same end, causing it to cascade downstairs; when Capello proposes a trust exercise in which one man falls back and the other catches him, both men fall at the same time, landing flat on the floor. “Oh, why can’t we work together?” they chorus in frustration.

In many ways, this lack of understanding has been overplayed. It is not so much that the two are terrible together, more that they are so effective as individuals for their clubs that the disappointment when they fail to re-scale these heights as a pair is made greater. In fact, they have had a great many perfectly adequate games for England in tandem, throughout the 2004 European Championship, for instance, and against Brazil at Wembley in June 2007. But more is expected.

Capello will be the third manager to try to make this work and when the need for time to forge a partnership is mentioned, Lampard rightly laughs, given that he will be 31 in June. But in one sense, Capello’s attention to detail provides a fresh start for both men.

Sven-Göran Eriksson brought them together, but admitted never discussing the way the duo were meant to work. Steve McClaren started them as central players in only two competitive games. Capello intends a full training-ground outing as a partnership tomorrow and will invest hours into accommodating players he sees as match-winners, rather than mutually exclusive. “If Steven had come to Chelsea, you can bet José Mourinho would have got us working,” Lampard said.

“Maybe we’re in a better environment for it to improve now because there is a lot more emphasis on tactical football. We will do a double session and that understanding is the sort of thing we focus on. In the past we probably did just discuss it in the dressing-room and say if one goes, the other stays back, but that instruction hasn’t really moved on from when I first came into the team at West Ham. Football has changed. In a lot of games, the midfield is overloaded and you can’t just leave one player alone. Then again, if you have hesitation in your head you end up playing in this area that is not one thing or the other, not helping out the forwards, not covering the back, either. It needs proper direction and that is what I think we will get now.

“It should work. I don’t think we are stupid players and I don’t think we are egotistical. We know we haven’t played as well for England as we have for our clubs, particularly over the last two seasons, together or separately. I think if we had done, we probably would have qualified for the European Championship. There are games when it has worked. At home against Northern Ireland and Wales in the World Cup qualifiers, we played well. If we can get to somewhere near that level again it would make a difference.”

Another moment to savour, perhaps.