No matter what happens in the Championship playoffs, Chelsea legend Frank Lampard has had a successful first season and is on the edge of more.
Frank Lampard’s appointment to Derby County came as somewhat of a surprise last summer. He had been linked to several Championship clubs but few would have predicted Derby County would be the one to snag him.
Lampard was taking control of a side that had fallen out of the previous season’s promotion playoffs. They had sold several key players and had little resources to replace them with. Indeed, three of their players with 2000 or more minutes are on loan from Premier League clubs (Mason Mount and Fikayo Tomori being two of the three).
In his first season, Lampard has taken Derby County further in the FA Cup and the EFL Cup than the previous manager and achieved the same league finish. Even if he is unable to get past Marcelo Biesla’s exhausted Leeds United side, Lampard will have matched the playoff achievement as well. Considering this is Lampard’s first season as a manager, it has been a success.
That is not to say that Lampard has been perfect as a manager. On the ball, his teams are very creative, aggressive, and innovative. Most of their offensive duties go through Mason Mount at some point or another which is why his absence in late winter/early Spring saw the side dip in form. Defensively is another issue.
Defensively, Derby County is a mess. The counter press they attempt is fine in concept but difficult to master. Ahead of their defensive line, their midfield and forwards stay compact and shift side to side as a unit which is taxing and causes them to fall off late on. And if the ball is in the box, the strategy seems to be “any one that gets to it just smash it away”. If there is anywhere Lampard can improve tactically, it is the defense.
In fact, is there was anywhere that Derby did regress from 2017/2018, it was the defense. They scored the same amount of goals in both seasons but conceded six more in 2018/2019. Not sizable, but notable.
It is those defensive issues that caused Derby County to struggle against the big sides this season. Aston Villa and Leeds United both did the double on Derby which bodes ill for the promotion playoffs regardless of round now. But Lampard has seen his Derby side upset stronger sides and it could easily happen again.
Most relevant to Chelsea will be the improvement of Mount and Tomori. Mount may not be lighting the goal and assist charts up like he did in the Netherlands, but he has become more well rounded. Tomori had been in and out of Championship squads for a few seasons now but Lampard has settled him and made a fine young defender out of a previously error prone one.
Despite defense being a clear weakness that Lampard needs to work on, it has not prevented the legend from being linked to Premier League jobs. Almost any Chelsea rumor will mention him for obvious reasons, but the recent vacancy at Brighton has also seen his name mentioned (albeit, behind Graham Potter who has more managerial experience that Lampard but still finished below Derby County).
Regardless of how the season ends, Lampard has been a success. Even if Derby County do not get promoted to the Premier League for next season, it is likely that a few Premier League clubs will entertain the thought of snagging Lampard. If Derby do manage to come up, it will be interesting to see how Lampard builds a cash strapped side into something capable of staying up. He may not be Chelsea ready now, but stranger things have happened.