When Manchester City expanded to the MLS last summer, they put a team in New York to help increase exposure of the league. It has proven to be quite the successful venture as they play in one of the most famous arenas in the world in Yankee Stadium and have added high profile transfers in the likes of David Villa and Frank Lampard. As Lampard was on an expiring contract and getting to the ripe old age of 36, Chelsea let him go for free in the hopes that he would make a great impact playing stateside.
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What they didn’t consent to, or anticipate, was that Lampard would join Manchester City, the defending Premier League champions, on loan at least until the start of the MLS season. City’s owners would later extend his loan until the end of the Premier League campaign to help the team with their title defense. It’s not unheard of, since Gerrard has agreed to join LA Galaxy but only after finishing the season with Liverpool.
However, after not following up on their promise and only thinking about themselves has led to frustration among the Premier League community and soccer fans in New York who were eager to see Lampard play at the start of the season. They’ve been rewarded for this decision by going trophy-less for the first time since the 2009-10 season.
Despite playing for one of Chelsea’s arch-rivals and biggest threat to their title-winning campaign at the start of the season, Chelsea fans have shown nothing but love for their former club legend as they gave him a standing ovation at both the Etihad and the Bridge.
When asked about losing Lampard, Mourinho told reporters (h/t Daily Star):
"We lost, at the end of last year, what I consider for sure, one of the five most important players in the history of Chelsea football club: Frank Lampard. We lost that player. But life goes on. You have to think about the future and build… Chelsea lost a match-winner with the number of goals he scored, a big character, a player without injuries who played every game, an absolutely amazing player. We lost him, but life goes on."
Certainly a very classy gesture from the Special One. In 648 career appearances with the Blues, Lampard has scored 211 goals, a club record. That he’s done so as a midfielder is even more special. He has scored 7 times for the light blues this season, providing a memorable moment on more than one occasion.
He scored twice in their Capital One Cup game against Sheffield Wednesday and the winner against Sunderland after extending his loan. His first goal for Manchester City came against Chelsea, but he wisely chose not to celebrate. He is a lot like Terry in that he can still impact the result of a game in the twilight of his career.
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Quite simply, Lampard brings the qualities of a match-winner wherever he goes while winning 3 Premier Leagues, 6 domestic cups, 1 Champions League and Europa league trophy, and 2 Community Shields all in a Chelsea uniform. Best 11 million quid ever spent.
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