The best player in the country on current form would like it to be known that
he has no objection to England fans saying “Frank Lampard’s crap”, as long
as they do it on their way out of Wembley, rather than risk undermining
collective morale during the game. The days when Chelsea’s free-scoring
midfielder was abused as “Fat Frank” by a highly vocal minority of England’s
home support would appear to be over after four successive wins in the World
Cup qualifying campaign but the damage is too recent to be forgotten.
Fortunately, there is unlikely to be a repetition any time soon, with
Lampard, at 30, playing better than ever.
Our interview, after lunch on Friday, was delayed while he accepted various
awards, including the Barclays statuette that goes to the Premier League’s
player of the month. A few introductory facts for fans newly arrived from
Mars. Lampard, an England international since 1999, has averaged 20 goals a
season for Chelsea for the past four years and is well on the way to doing
so again. In 2005 he was the domestic Footballer of the Year and runner-up
to Ronaldinho for World Player of the Year - an award for which he has just
been short-listed again. Last summer, when he was courted by Internazionale,
he signed a five-year contract, making him the highest paid player in the
country, one he expects to keep him at Stamford Bridge for the rest of his
career. A man, then, of some substance, whatever his critics may say.
He preferred to start in Chelsea mode, discussing recent “hiccups” against
Liverpool [0-1], Roma [1-3] and the midweek elimination from the Carling
Cup, on penalties, by unfancied Burnley. It must have been a major blow to
lose that long unbeaten home record to Liverpool? “The record didn’t bother
me too much,” Lampard said. “Last season we drew a lot of games at home and
we’d have been better off losing a couple and winning the others. The record
was a good one but I’m quite pleased it has gone, in a way. It had to go
some day, and it’s almost a monkey off our backs. If you win the league, you
don’t care if you’re unbeaten at home or not.”
Lampard had made no secret of the fact that he was always a Jose Mourinho man.
How close had he been to rejoining him in Milan? “Inter made a bid for me,
and it was a possibility, for sure,” he said. “It was a very tough time for
me, personally, after the death of my mum, and my head was in a spin in the
summer. I didn’t really know what to do, and I felt it might suit me to get
away and change my surroundings and my life. But when I came back preseason,
I realised how much I loved this place and, through speaking to my family, I
knew what I had to do. I’m sure now, 100%, that I made the right decision.”
Chelsea’s appointment of Luiz Felipe Scolari, in place of the unlamented Avram
Grant, had influenced him. “I hadn’t signed before he [Scolari] came,”
Lampard explained. “When I went away to think over my future, the club
didn’t have a manager for a while and, when you’re looking to sign a
five-year contract, obviously you care who is going to be in charge.”
Mourinho and Scolari shared a common first language but were very different
in make-up. “As blokes,” Lampard said, “Mourinho is the one who loves a row
and is much the more emotional character - that’s what I love about him. If
he was angry, he’d let you know. Ask any team of Mourinho’s and the players
will tell you they love him, regardless of results or what anyone outside
may think. I loved him, I loved working with him and I still have utmost
respect for him. I don’t speak to him now but we still exchange occasional
texts. Whereas Mourinho is really emotional, Scolari is more of a calm,
composed talker.
“He’s a very good motivator, in the dressing room and in team meetings, and
can be very passionate about what he wants, but his approach is more gentle.
His man-management is excellent. I feel very at ease with him when I speak
to him one to one. The best example of his positive effect is what he’s done
with [Florent] Malouda and [Nicolas] Anelka. No disrespect to either of them
but Malouda had a difficult first season and is doing very well this time
and the same applies to Anelka, who is our top scorer at the moment. I could
see the manager going out of his way to work with both because he recognised
what he could draw out of them.”
Tactically, there was not the contrast of common perception. Lampard said:
“Everyone goes on about our full-backs being liberated, that they weren’t
allowed to cross the halfway line under Mourinho, but that’s a fallacy. In
our first two seasons under Jose, when we won the league, our full-backs got
forward a lot. When Paulo Ferreira played, he was bombing on all the time.
“Don’t get me wrong, Mourinho had a defensive mind when he had to, when the
team was short of some essential ingredients and we had to grind out
results. That was the beauty of his management, he was a winner and found a
way to do it when we had no wingers, or had centre-halves, like William
Gallas, playing at full-back. Everyone got on our case because of the way we
played then, but Scolari recognises the importance of defending, too. He
likes his full-backs to get forward but nobody mentions the fact that John
Obi Mikel stays rooted in front of the centre-backs.
“When one of the full-backs goes forward, he’s an extra centre-half. It’s the
way Brazil have played for a long time and, because it’s a bit different
here, everyone is getting excited about it, but it’s belittling Mourinho to
say he was overly defensive whereas Scolari is a flair manager. I wouldn’t
put it like that at all.”
So thenewChelsea was a figment of our imagination? “No, I’m not saying that,
what I am saying is that in the first two years under Mourinho we were all
about our dynamic wingers, with [Arjen] Robben and [Damien] Duff flying down
the wing and creating chances. Now we’re more into build-up play, with one-
and two-touch passing. That’s the style the manager has brought with him
from Brazil and Portugal. We train two-touch all the time.” Lampard’s own
role was unchanged. “I’m still playing on the left of a fairly tight three
in midfield, although maybe I’ve had slightly more freedom than I had last
season. Scolari will tell me, ‘You’re free, go and do what you want, but
when we’re defending get back on that left side’.” It is his preferred
position. “I’ve done it for five years now, since Mourinho first came, and
it becomes second nature to you. But I definitely prefer playing with a
holding midfield player there, slightly more defensive, so that I can really
bomb on.”
Was this at the root of the problem he experienced when he was asked to
dovetail with the equally adventurous Steven Gerrard for England? Lampard
said: “I saw the interview in The Sunday Times when Steven
spoke about his favoured role and it got blown out of proportion by some
people. What he was saying was that his ideal position would be with a bit
of freedom, with somebody behind him. But we both know that it’s not an
ideal world, we don’t always get to play in our ideal positions. I’m playing
what is basically a holding role with England now, with which I’m finding
another challenge.
“People think all I’m interested in is getting forward to hit shots and score
goals but I accept that if you want to be a top player you’ve got to have a
bit of discipline and the intelligence to do that, and I’m happy to try
because I think I can do it pretty well. Maybe I can add something different
to the job, with the occasional run forward. Ideally, you want to play for
club and country in your favourite position but if you don’t, you’ve got to
adapt. I’ve played for England on the left, in the holding role or more
forward, and I’ve had good and bad games in all of them. I agree with Harry
[Redknapp], who always used to say at West Ham that there was too much fuss
made about tactics. It’s all about players and your attitude when you go out
there on the pitch.
“I think modern-day management is less about tactics and more about
man-management. Look at the England job. England have got good players who
win the Champions League and perform for their clubs week in, week out. The
need is to make them feel that same confidence at international level.
“With England, our lack of confidence was obvious for everybody to see and I
was part of that. That night against Croatia at Wembley, when we got knocked
out [in the qualifying stages of Euro 2008], they started to move the ball
about and we couldn’t. We all felt that we were going to give the ball away
every time we got it. That is how demoralised we had become with England,
and what [Fabio] Capello has brought us is just what we needed - order and
leadership at the top. His attitude is, ‘I’m the boss, you do the job I’ve
given you and I’ll take any flak’. The players have all responded to that.”
Capello said in midweek that after recent results on their travels, he
believed the fans would get behind England, rather than on their backs, the
next time they played at Wembley - a view with which Lampard agreed. “The
relationship between supporters and players is a two-way thing,” he said.
“The punters have got to go to games to support their team, not with the
mindset to boo after 10 minutes the first time the ball goes astray.
“For our part, the players have got to go out there and perform with 100%
attitude to get the fans behind them. We’ve both let ourselves down. Some
fans have come to Wembley intending to dig us out early on, and as players
we’ve gone out for England and not shown enough quality and even desire at
times. But when you break it down, it’s ridiculous as a fan to go and boo
your own players. I’ve got no problem with criticism, as a top player you
know you have to take it, and I have [notably against Estonia a year ago and
the Czech Republic in August].
“You can’t get the hump with someone walking home from a game and saying
‘Lampard was crap today’, or even booing at the end, but booing an
individual during the game, like they did to Ashley Cole [in the match
against Kazakhstan last month] is obviously detrimental to the team as a
whole. With some players, you can see the confidence drain out of them and
they hide. Fans have got to realise that, and I’m sure a lot of them do, but
there are some who set out with the attitude of, ‘I’ve paid my money, they
earn thousands every week, I can say whatever I want to them’. Then it
becomes a battle where fans don’t particularly like the players, so the
players don’t particularly like the fans, and nobody is the winner. We’re in
danger of going down that road.”
At club level, Lampard is confidence personified. “I do believe we’re going to
win the league this time,” he said. “Man-chester United deserved to win it
last time but with the squad we’ve got, the belief running through the
players and the quality of the manager, I think we’ll do it.” The biggest
threat? “I would still say Man U.”
- Frank Lampard is promoting Chelsea Soccer Schools, which are running
during the Christmas holidays in London, Surrey, Essex and Sussex for boys
and girls aged 4-14. For further information, visit
www.chelseafc.com/soccer-schools or call 020 7957 8220
LAMPARD’S PROGRESS
July 1994 Joins West Ham as an apprentice, making his full senior debut
18 months later
Oct 1999 Full England debut in 2-1 win over Belgium. Leads the Under21s
at the 2000 European championships
June 2001 Joins Chelsea in £11m transfer. Shows good form and despite
missing out on England selection for the 2002 World Cup, agrees a new
five-year deal at Stamford Bridge
Nov 2005 Second to Ronaldinho in European and Fifa world player of the
year awards
2005-6 Wins back-to-back Premier League titles
May 2008 Scores in Champions League final but Chelsea lose on penalties
to Man United
July 2008 Stays at Chelsea despite an offer from Inter Milan
