Despite Chelsea having a transfer ban, people are obsessed with how much things will be able to change in the coming year. The one thing Frank Lampard can change is the most important, and is very much under his control.
The only thing that can change at Chelsea this summer can be mental, and that’s the best news in the world. The squad can’t change very much, and that’s the second best news for the club. They will be able to recall a few players, a definite good, as players like Kurt Zouma, Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount and Reece James are exactly the players Chelsea need these days.
Each one, in interviews and in the last season, has shown just how strong he is mentally. Their mentality is what Chelsea need as the club moves forward this year.
With Frank Lampard likely being hired in the next few days, it is important the club cast aside its strange obsession with insubstantial and frivolous styles of play as opposed to character, passion and loyalty. These are the fundamental aspects of any club: who it is and what makes their football special. They made Frank Lampard the most special player to have graced Chelsea Football Club with their presence.
Many special players stand across the history of Chelsea, many talented and special players. But Frank Lampard stands alone because of who he was and who he is.
My great fear with him, in fact, is that he was too special of a player to be as good a coach as we would like him to be. Wayne Gretzky was not a successful coach, Michael Jordan hasn’t been a good team owner. Many fantastic former footballers have failed as coaches in that same sense. So, for those of you who would suggest that it is Lampard’s magnificent playing career that will inspire Chelsea to the next era of success, I would have to say I think you’re wrong.
What will move Chelsea on to the next level and through this dark time is his character. We are talking about a player who used to be referred to as “Fat Boy” during the early parts of his career and was abused by West Ham supporters during warm ups with chants of “Go and sit down fat boy!” He wasn’t respected because of his advanced education and his 12 GCSEs at A or A*, including an A in Latin serving to make his background different from many of his peers. Say nothing of the intelligence test he took in 2009 that revealed he has an IQ of “well above 150”, putting him in the top 0.5% of the world’s population.
Frank Lampard is too smart not to succeed, but it is not simply his intelligence. Again, it is his character. Many players in the current generation are developing mentally slower than in the past. Say what you will about why or how that reflects the modern world, but the same place players used to be mentally at around age 19-20 they now reach at about 23-24.
Frank Lampard’s success is a testament to the integral sporting values of intelligence, professionalism, commitment and perseverance. Given the abuse he suffered early in his career it is astonishing that Lampard went on to set a record for consecutive appearances at 164, a record only ever bettered by goalkeepers. His 177 Premier League goals is fourth all time in the division, bettering players such as Thierry Henry and Michael Owen in that achievement, to say nothing of the fact that he is the only midfielder in the top-10.
Only anti-Chelsea bias supports the argument that Steven Gerrard was ever a better player than Frank Lampard.
On his day, was Steven Gerrard more athletic and a better passer? Barely. But did he do it at the same level, as consistently, for as long? No. He didn’t score over 200 goals. He didn’t single-handedly negate the need for a dominant striker. Frank Lampard was perhaps the best player the division has ever seen and he did it on the back of a fundamentally fantastic character, and that is why he is the right man for Chelsea.
Jose Mourinho once said with 11 Cesar Azpilicueta’s you could win the Champions League. With 11 Frank Lampard’s you would win the Champions League on Wednesday, bring peace to the world by Thursday, feed the hungry on Friday and be back in town for a pint and a kettle of chips with the lads by Saturday at noon, all while being stately and class enough not to brag about the whole thing.
It isn’t fair what Chelsea supporters expect, but it shouldn’t be. I wouldn’t suggest that high standards ever be lowered. That slope is not one we should even gesture towards.
The amount of change that is to come will, in the end, be minimal because of the lack of transfers. But if one thing can and one thing must change, then it should be the character of the club. Even if Frank Lampard isn’t the best manager for the job, he is still and always will be the best man.
Lampard and Petr Cech are two of the greatest examples of professional footballers to have taken part in European football in the past 30 years. That they were both Chelsea players is a godsend and their return is a blessing.