Frank Lampard will make Chelsea hate losing as much as they love winning

Cesar Azpilicueta confirmed what most Chelsea watchers already suspected about the early days of Frank Lampard’s tenure. Among other restorations, Lampard will make Chelsea hate losing as much as they enjoy winning.

One of the defining characteristics of Chelsea’s golden era – those years of Frank Lampard, John Terry, Didier Drogba, Ashley Cole and Petr Cech – was how much they hated losing. Ex-players have talked about how viscerally unpleasant the locker room was after a loss. Those individuals could not abide the experience of defeat.

Like so much else from that generation, this traces directly back to their major formative influence as Blues: Jose Mourinho.

Chelsea have lost this fire, the rage in the face of defeat, in recent seasons. Part of that is the loss of players like those mentioned above, men who felt it and whose positive and negative passion ignited those around them. No one could be around Terry and Drogba after a loss and not share their hatred for that feeling. They would either learn to have it, too, or they’d find their way out of the club.

Terry was the last remaining player from that era when Antonio Conte arrived. Conte was another manager who felt winning and losing in the same way that early Mourinho and Terry did. We all saw what goals and wins did for Conte on the touchline. He talked about the effect losses had on him: he said he wouldn’t be able to sleep for days.

Terry’s departure contributed to the lower emotion levels on the touchline and around the club in Conte’s second season. Conte no longer had the one player who felt and could make others feel what he, Conte, felt in good times and bad.

Then, of course, there was Maurizio Sarri, who came in talking about fun, questioned his players’ motivation, seemed sanguine about catching up with Liverpool and Manchester City, and seemed more annoyed with the team after a loss than the fact of the loss. And that’s just it – he seemed annoyed, piqued. Not incandescent or wracked over what he could have done better.

Frank Lampard does not strike us as the fury-bound motivator that Terry and some of the others were after a loss.

Speaking about the two years he and Frank Lampard played together, Azpilicueta said:

"Obviously, sometimes we lost games but always we wanted to win more and more. We have to be grateful and feel the passion for the shirt. This is a big, big club. We have to take responsibility and know that there is a lot of things around us and we have to work hard to get it better. – The Telegraph"

Azpilicueta went on to talk about something Terry and many others have said over the years. Frank Lampard responded to poor performances by taking a bag of balls out to the training pitch and practicing. Not wanting to look like they were any less committed to the team, Terry, Drogba and eventually a large squad would go out and join Lampard in his extracurricular work.

Lampard also took a bag of balls out to the training pitch after wins and draws. That’s just who he is. The players of his day followed him. That’s why he’s now managing his club.

His players know what he did as a player and they will want to follow his example. When they see how he reacts to a loss or subpar performance, they will know what is expected of them, and still want to go further. Veterans like Cesar Azpilicueta will know what it means to put in the extra work, not just for themselves but for the effect it will have on the younger players who will follow them to the training ground.

This is one of the many ways in which Lampard’s mere presence has an effect on the club, which is magnified by the work he will do and the best of the players around him.

Chelsea enjoy their good times, and the good times still make up most of what it means to be at Stamford Bridge. But they’ve lost the edge they need to hate their bad times, or even their mediocre times.

Chelsea fans may pay the occasional lip service to beautiful football, but what they really want are wins and trophies. Lampard knows what they want and how to make it happen. He and Cesar Azpilicueta have done it as players and have said as much for Lampard’s time as manager. They are two men as good as their word.