On reflection, we should probably be grateful that Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard were not appointed by Premier League clubs within the same week. Their professional lives have already felt inexplicably intertwined for too long: central midfielders and club legends at Premier League giants who both headed to MLS, two players who made the final appearances of their playing careers on the same day and began their first-team managerial careers within 24 hours of each other, the interminable can-they-can’t-they debate about their place within England’s midfield.
If nothing else, we have avoided a double avalanche of noughties nostalgia and some distinctly mild studio banter about them co-existing on the same touchline. “Haha, people wondered if we could play in the same England team and now we’re battling against one another,” says Lampard, and everyone holds their breath for the punchline. “But no, seriously, Steven’s a great guy and I wish him all the best.” (Lampard’s “serious point-joke-serious point” interview answer sandwiches became stuff of legend during his time at Chelsea.)
In fact, having been knitted together for a period of 15 years, simultaneously poster boys for the rise of the Premier League’s wealth, the crowning of English clubs in the Champions League and the wastage of a national team wrestling with its own hardwired psychoses, Lampard and Gerrard are now on diametrically opposite paths.
Gerrard is on the conveyor belt to Anfield. If that strikes as a little sugary, a little too good to be true, his future does seem to be written in pencil. Gerrard has been a youth coach at Liverpool, spent three-and-a-half years at Rangers and now taken an Aston Villa job that would be an excellent stepping stone towards a ticker-tape return to Anfield. Jurgen Klopp’s contract expires in June 2024. Whether Gerrard planned in this way or not, he has taken an eminently sensible route to his dream job.
But the performance of his former club in Gerrard’s absence has also made it easier for him. Liverpool have had a steady, successful manager for the last six years. Klopp’s time at Anfield has not been faultless (his first year and last season both brought headaches), but the clangs and cries of crisis have been largely avoided. If Liverpool had finished 11th in 2020-21 and caused Klopp to demand rest and recuperation, Gerrard may well have been appointed ahead of time. Instead, he has been allowed to plot his path.
For Lampard, the opposite. Derby County was a sensible starting destination: the decent-sized budgets before the bottom fell out, the relationship with Chelsea that afforded him glamour loan signings, the sleeping giant that meant Lampard remained relevant. But within a year, Lampard’s dream job came knocking.
You can reasonably argue that the Chelsea job came far too early for Lampard, expecting him to cope with the unique pressures of elite club management before he was fully formed as a coach. You can reasonably argue that Chelsea took a weird leap into the unknown, given that their “gun for hire” model of managerial recruitment had served them particularly well. You can reasonably argue that Lampard did well at Chelsea (coping with loss of Eden Hazard, keeping them in the top four, bringing through young players) or did badly (look at what his successor has done).
But you cannot reasonably argue that Lampard should have turned down the opportunity to manage Chelsea. He had a deep emotional connection with the club, and they reached out to him at a time of emergency. They sold to him a holistic vision of a new era at Stamford Bridge with Lampard at its core. When you are offered your dream job, you do not wait around to ask whether they would not prefer someone with a little more experience.
Lampard will have had many daydreams about his Chelsea tenure; most of them would have depended upon him being in place for longer than 18 months. Three-and-a-half years after his coaching career began, he had been appointed into – and sacked from – his job of a lifetime.
That is the danger of over-promotion in an industry where your performance is under constant scrutiny and where, at the biggest clubs, you must compete against the greatest minds in your profession. It provokes two obvious unanswerable questions: are you an elite coach by aptitude or merely past association? And where is the natural next step when you have managed a Champions League club and a Championship club but nothing in between?
English football itself appears to be grappling with that same question. Depending on how you squint at it or who you choose to believe, Lampard has been interested in, applied for, rejected or been rejected in favour of someone else for vacancies at Crystal Palace, Norwich City, Newcastle United and England Under-21s; he was certainly linked with all four. None, some or all of them might have been natural fits or awkward marriages of inconvenience – that’s not really the point. But it gives the impression that Lampard doesn’t know where he fits and club owners don’t know where he fits in.
As European football continues its nostalgic lilt, this conundrum may become commonplace. The environment of elite clubs – particularly those with systemic off-field issues – makes assessment of their “Hail Mary” coaches hard. The same applies to Andrea Pirlo after Juventus, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Manchester United and perhaps even Xavi at Barcelona. We might conclude that they were not good enough for those jobs, but what about every or any other job?
The next job is always the most important one. Gerrard may fail at Villa Park and slip from Liverpool’s radar; Lampard may finally land a Premier League job and use it to prove that Chelsea’s leap of faith was not based purely on romantic nostalgia. But Gerrard’s linear journey towards his dream job and Lampard’s disorientation post-Chelsea are proof that circumstance and chance can be just as important as ability in creating or deflating a coaching career.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/30v5Q5C
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