Chelsea coach, Frank Lampard looks back on his achieving the Champions League spot in his debut season as a manager with pride. He considers that the staff and players have learned a lot of things in the past year and these will aid them to progress for a successful future.
Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich sacked Maurizio Sarri and made the club legend, Frank Lampard as the new coach of the Blues last year. Chelsea was in a state of turmoil but he managed to get into the top four of the Premier League on the final day of the 2019-20 campaign.
Since the start of this new current campaign, it has been a matter of signing new players to become the best club domestically as well as in Europe. After a shaky start, Chelsea showed their performance by keeping on winning in a row but couldn’t end this calendar year with a good experience. They managed just four points in their last four games and once again Lampard came under the pressure when his side lost to Arsenal in a 3-1 scoreline.
‘It’s been an interesting year, to say the least,’ says Lampard as per the Official Chelsea website. ‘We’ve loads of great experiences within a tough year that everybody has had but those challenges and situations are always things to learn from.
‘I’ve learned a lot about the squad, the players and this football club, which has handled itself brilliantly in the tough times. For me, one of the good things to come out of the tough Covid year we’ve had is that the club has stuck together. We’re in a decent place and now we need to push on.’
When asked about the position he is in since he took the managerial job 18 months before, he said that the most difficult part was losing the best player of the team not the form of Eden Hazard and plugging the vacancy he left. He believed in the Academy players and rightly so, they repaid their faith to the new manager by performing.
‘Gaining Champions League football certainly felt for me ahead of the curve because we had a year where we lost probably the most influential player to one team in the Premier League in Eden Hazard, with how he performed the year before,’ he adds.
‘We know we couldn’t bring players in but the Academy finally gave us players who earned opportunities within a squad and we fought and worked really hard to get above certain other top teams to make Champions League football so I was pleased with that.
‘I know standards here are to win things but clearly when I came into the job the landscape had changed from a few years previously so now it’s a case of can we build on that. My expectations are always high but you also have to be realistic. I see lots of positive signs within the group but only the work ahead is what counts.’
Lampard tells that he is aware of the winning mentality of Chelsea as he has been in this club for a long time in his life. As a manager, he has high expectations for the club but also the board and he himself needs to be realistic as well. No doubt there is positivity in the group and signs of huge talent in the squad, he said.
