Has Frank Lampard’s rookie season on the Stamford Bridge touchline been a success, and can he make Chelsea the next runaway Premier League winners through emulating a title-winning system?
Chelsea are every bit as erratic as they were in the dog days of Andre Villas-Boas’ ill-fated regime, but there is an undeniable degree of satisfaction nonetheless, with a favourite son making a decent job of a bad summer situation.
By all rights, Chelsea should be exactly where London rivals Arsenal currently find themselves, in transition and facing an uncertain future.
Thus, for all its faults, including humiliating home defeats alongside being outclassed by Bayern Munich in the Champions League, the 2019/20 campaign will be largely remembered for its positives.
The Hard Work Has Only Just Begun
There is a long way to go, and this is continually reflected by a myriad of metrics, including the way in which the latest football odds surrounding Chelsea’s fortunes shift with particular zeal after every win or loss.
It was all too recently that Lampard’s managerial future was again being called into question by a very small minority of Chelsea fans. February’s 2-0 home defeat to Manchester United was one such catalyst towards the usual post-match soundbites around Lampard’s inexperience.
Controversial though the nature of United’s victory was, it still left Chelsea looking back on the sort of winless run that has blighted parts of Lampard’s fledgeling reign.
Indeed, before the huge home win over Spurs, in which Lampard comfortably bested former mentor Jose Mourinho, Chelsea had gone four league games without a win (two draws and two losses), with a common theme being goals conceded in the final half-hour, figuring in each of the defeats.
By the same point, Chelsea’s home form – once such an asset during the heady mid-2000s – was also becoming reminiscent of the club’s worst pre-Premier League days. By full-time against United, the Blues had won one and lost three of their previous five home league games. Again, Chelsea persistently dropped points at a late stage in each of those losses.
Lampard Philosophy Begets Reasons to be Optimistic
Chelsea’s league form since that reverse against United thrust Lampard’s stock in the right direction once more. The team’s independent game-management skills, as is natural for a team under a rookie Premier League manager, are still a work in progress. The sense of team chemistry, however, is under no question at all.
Furthermore, in the context of the pre-season transfer embargo, Lampard’s ability to bring out the best in Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham, Christian Pulisic and – most recently – Billy Gilmour, is something for which he should take great credit.
With Hakim Ziyech now on the way, Chelsea will soon have a midfield moulded completely in Frank Lampard’s own image. After years of over-reliance on Eden Hazard, there is a rich anticipation that 2020/21 will see Mount and Ziyech acting as borderline support strikers in a dual ‘advanced midfield’ role.
Behind them, one of N’goloKante, Mateo Kovacic or Jorginho will serve as the ball-winner and distributor in Chelsea’s own revision of Jurgen Klopp’s hugely successful ‘Gegenpress’ system over at Liverpool. Lampard has already enacted certain elements of this system, and its development under his management will be interesting at worst, and scintillating at best.
Open Verdict to Stand for the Time Being
Ultimately, the success of Lampard’s early days at the Chelsea helm will likely be retrospective, especially if Chelsea get much nearer the title race in 2020/21.
Where others before him failed to establish a long-term legacy akin to Manchester United in the 1990s, Lampard is already succeeding. In combining grassroots hunger with world-class talent, he is doing much to emulate the best features of the Chelsea sides with which he won titles as a player.
Given the high managerial turnaround of recent years, nobody can ask much else of Lampard at this time.
