Frank Lampard was always probably going to get the Chelsea job at some point but keeping it has never been an easy task for anyone.
When Jose Mourinho was in charge of Lampard at Stamford Bridge, he praised the midfielder for his maturity and understanding, picking him out as one who would thrive in the top job when he hung up his boots.
It did not take long for Lampard to find his way to a seat in the dugout at Chelsea – his first game in charge was just his 58th as a manager – and like many before him, it didn’t take that long for him to find his way out of it again.
After a humbling 3-1 defeat to Manchester City earlier this month, the Blues found themselves eighth in the table and seven points off league leaders Liverpool, who have a game in hand. In one of the most open title races in recent memory, Chelsea had a lot of ground to make up and the writing appeared to be on the wall. Reports emerged that the board had started to sound out replacements. It only took another three weeks for that kind of loss of confidence to turn into a P45.
“I think when I got this job a lot of people were questioning me getting the job,” Lampard said, back in October.
“But at the same time I think sometimes we just have to judge people on face value, like we do judge any manager; it doesn’t matter where you’re from, I think all managers should be judged the same.
“I was pretty proud of what we managed to achieve last season in terms of coming in the top four, in fact I thought we could have actually done even better than that for different reasons. But I was happy with that.”
And if Lampard wants to be judged the same as other managers, he should know that it works both ways. He departs Stamford Bridge with the worst Premier League points per game record of any manager in the Roman Abramovich era. Only three Blues bosses ever – Glenn Hoddle, Ian Porterfield and Ruud Gullit – have ended with a worse record.
It was fair to give Lampard a free pass in his first season. For starters, managers should all be given a full preseason and a full campaign to prove themselves, even if such an attitude seems alien in the febrile, reactionary world of the Premier League. But Lampard in particular deserved a bit of leeway with Chelsea banned from the transfer market and having lost their best player in Eden Hazard.
In that context, finishing third in the league and reaching an FA Cup final was a fine return, especially given that he got the fans, who had chanted “f___ Sarri-ball” at the previous incumbent’s preferred style of football, back onside with exciting performances and a number of homegrown players, somewhat forced upon him by circumstance but successful nevertheless.
Then came the curse of the chequebook. After being cooped up in some Virginia Water mansion for months on end, the prolific Marina Granovskaia was let loose in the transfer market and made up for lost time in spectacular fashion: Hakim Ziyech, Timo Werner, Ben Chilwell, Kai Havertz, Thiago Silva and Edouard Mendy were all shovelled into the trolley in a supermarket sweep that cost more than £200million all told. When that, rather than a transfer ban, is the context for Lampard’s record, his achievements take on a different hue.
The points per game statistic perhaps did not concern Abramovich explicitly but it is illustrative of the fact that most Chelsea managers have been successful in one way or another and have always won plenty of games. It sounds obvious to say, but when the Sword of Damocles dangles by a thinner thread at the Bridge than anywhere else, such simplicity is more impactful: Lampard was simply not winning enough games to keep his job.
Antonio Conte is third in the Chelsea managers list and he was sacked in 2018 while the great Jose Mourinho has twice been told to clear his desk at Cobham. Lampard remains a club legend but that did little to spare him the chop. On current pace, Chelsea would miss out on Europe altogether at the end of the season, and that fate proved to be too much for the board to stomach.
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