Two games to save his job. Poor Frank Lampard, a year after taking over at Everton, his exit is already being choreographed. According to chat room theory the FA Cup tie at Old Trafford is a free hit. The matches that follow against Southampton and West Ham bring the jeopardy.
As if the 12 months banked are not evidence enough of Lampard’s credentials, or lack of them. This was not the future foretold when Lampard stepped into his first coaching role at Derby County in 2018, a team that needed his heft as much as he required the experience at a club with residual kudos. Back then there was a theoretical thread that played on his prowess as a player. Lampard, the public school boy with the impeccable football lineage, stellar club and international figure, the full package. He’s made for this.
It was a similar story with his England colleague Steven Gerrard. Though Gerrard did not share Lampard’s educational background, or his football stacked gene pool, his path was cleared for him by the assumption among the game’s opinion formers that his talent not only set him apart on the pitch but identified him as a future Liverpool coach. If enough people invest in these romantic threads, they are received as truths by clubs seeking the next Pep or Klopp. The fear of missing out removes their critical faculties.
Rangers provided Gerrard with the same cover Derby did Lampard. The club fed off his superstar brand to position themselves as a serious proposition. In the Scottish environment, with only one team to beat, Gerrard had enough about him to make it work. Lampard was seen as a success at Derby, where his authority was absolute and the consequences of defeat were not as penal as they are in the Premier League.
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In the elevated setting of the Premier League Gerrard’s reputation as a great player was insufficient to evince the necessary response from the players against opponents staffed by players as good as he was and with more resources. Lampard ran into the same problems at Chelsea, where his special status as a player meant little to a group of international superstars needing leadership he could not give.
Glenn Hoddle discovered on his first day of management how little he understood of the management challenge, how little being a world class footballer prepared him for the role of coaching Swindon Town, where his first task was to organise a new washing machine for a stressed kit lady concerned about the club’s ability to fulfil the promise of an upgrade.
On his first day as Chelsea boss Hoddle had to negotiate the transfer of Andy Townsend to Aston Villa via a pay phone. Chairman Ken Bates’s generosity did not run to a landline in his office. Lampard’s issues were not quite so mundane but the point is made; as a player you are managing yourself, as a manager you are responsible for everybody else for which a playing career offers nil preparation.
The power was with Lampard as a player. As a manager it is index linked to results. Time, of which there is never enough, is only part of the equation. Authority born of experience is the attribute Lampard lacked. He has not been helped by a poorly assembled squad, which under the aegis of owner Farhad Moshiri, has spent poorly. Lampard is the seventh manager of Moshiri’s near seven-year ownership. Five of his predecessors were sacked.
Lampard’s opposite number on Friday, Erik ten Hag, was 13 years a player in the Netherlands but never at the level reached by Lampard. He arrived at Old Trafford after a 10-year coaching career that started quietly at the Go Ahead Eagles and Bayern Munich reserves under Pep Guardiola. By the time he reached Ajax in 2017 he had worked at three clubs, developing an understanding of the fundamentals not of the game but of managing people.
He walked into a dysfunctional dressing room at Old Trafford, a failing group corrupted by the presence of Cristiano Ronaldo. Six months later Ronaldo has retired to Saudi Arabia, Marcus Rashford has been rebuilt and the spine of the team has been stiffened by the addition of Casemiro and Lisandro Martinez, players introduced at his recommendation. You never know, Antony might turn out to be the real deal too.
Ten Hag sold himself to United on the strength of his vision and method. He has acted accordingly, bringing discipline to the dressing room and a new respect for the position of manager. Lampard began at Derby in 2018. Within 12 months he was manager at Chelsea, a post that proved too big a challenge for better than he. Lampard did well to eke out 18 months. The two-match window to save his job is perverse, but perhaps no more so than the idea he was worthy of the post in the first place.
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