Chelsea: Lampard and Hayes strike similar notes on player well-being

The last thing footballers need is more stress on their bodies, whether in the form of unnecessary games or ill-considered playing minutes. Both of Chelsea FC’s first-team coaches spoke out for their players’ well-being this week.

There’s no idea so bad that a football governing body can’t make it worse. Perhaps stung by the failure last year of proposals for a European Super Club Champions League or some such nonsense, the European Club Association – led by Juventus president Andrea Agnelli – is bandying about proposals that would increase the number of group stage matches in the Champions League.

Chelsea and many other clubs were fortunate to have Frank Lampard on hand and standing athwart.

Lampard stood up for the status quo, one that he is very familiar with having routinely made the finals of three cup competitions against the backdrop of competing in the Premier League. “If you ask me can we play more European games, I personally don’t believe you can fit them in amongst our busy schedule. I would find it hard to keep the quality level and the freshness within the players,” Lampard said.

The subtext of “quality level and the freshness” is player safety and injury risk. Lampard knows as much as any other coach this season how quickly players can fall out of the squad due to injury and the impact this has on the team’s potential and performance. He is also seeing how it creates a snowball effect: the remaining players must pick up the workload, leaving them more vulnerable to injury, which will make things even worse for the rest if this latter group succumbs.

Lampard’s counterpart struck a similar note over the weekend. Chelsea FC Women’s manager Emma Hayes addressed forthrightly how she is handling Fran Kirby’s return from a series of injuries.

"I have not been saying a lot about Fran Kirby because there is huge expectation on that player but it’s really important for everyone to know that she has made her way back from really critical injuries, so you need to understand that… You can’t just go from zero to 90 minutes and no, she isn’t anywhere near her best level yet, but she’s come through another game, she grew in confidence.I value her life, and her career, and so I think you have to put that in front, and protect her because there are not many talents like Fran Kirby, believe me. – Chelsea FC"

Kirby played 74 minutes and assisted on the equalizing goal against Arsenal on Sunday. As in the Women’s World Cup, her presence on the pitch adds a unique blend of power and creativity, which leads to understandable fan demand for her to have more playing time.

But as Hayes pointed out, and as Phil Neville – for all of his sometimes egotistically clownish antics – seems to understand as well, there’s a bigger picture at play here: yes, Kirby’s ability to contribute to the team over an extended run of games and seasons, but more than that, her career as a whole.

Managers work for their clubs, but they are most accountable to their individual players.

If players believe the manager is looking out for their best interest, which may mean the coach explaining to an eager and ambitious player why he or she is coming off early or not starting, they will be that much more motivated to give everything they have for that manager when they do take the pitch. They will reward the manager’s long-term investment in their future, because they will understand that the manager wanted what was best for them in the long-term, which, even for an immediate results club like Chelsea, is in the club’s long-term interest.

The various powers that be – at club and governance level – would make better decisions if they paid more attention to managers like Frank Lampard and Emma Hayes when it comes to player welfare.