Lampard flop at Everton and Chelsea: Another potential Gary Neville and Paul Scholes case?

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By Martin Graham | 4th May 2023

The argument about former English footballers being terrible managers continues to gain more steam after Frank Lampard’s recent loss in the Premier League.

The former Chelsea midfielder lost his sixth straight match since returning to Chelsea in the capacity of an interim manager until the end of the season. Having managed the team two years prior, he would have been hoping that he could make enough of an impact to be considered once again for the role come summer when the club’s new manager would be decided upon.

His competition was Julian Nagelsmann, Luis Enrique, Vincent Kompany and Mauricio Pochettino. The first three are no longer options, which left him and former Tottenham Hotspur manager Pochettino as the options. However, he has failed woefully and now, the owners are only counting down the days to the end of the season so they can see his back.

His latest loss was against Arsenal, who they have not been able to get the better of in the past few seasons. Lampard would state that the 3 – 1 defeat at the Emirates was a result of fear.

“We were too nice to play against, nice off the ball, passive, things we talked about before the game defensively we did not do. We did not restrict the space between lines, we did not get the line up as much as we needed to, we did not affect pressure on the ball, we did not make contact with Arsenal players,” he said.

“On the ball the same, passing short, playing to position, not playing longer, not making forward runs. Things that we spoke about and if you play like that, you get what you deserve.”

He had recently claimed that his team had no fear but could not apply themselves. He had also claimed that his team were disappointing in their overall mentality. They are currently languishing in 12th and are in danger of finishing the season in 13th or worse.

Lampard is headed in the direction of former British football superstars that turned out to not have learnt anything from their managers in the course of their playing careers.

The failures of the likes of Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs and others who have tried their hands at management and failed will be nothing compared to Lampard as his failures are more popular thanks to them being in the Premier League.

In the meantime, he will take solace from his team’s second half performance against Arsenal in their latest league loss.

“Maybe there were some things I said at half-time, which to be fair I had said before the game,” he continued. “Tactical no, playing a back-four or a back-five, these things do not matter if you don’t get the basics right. So we got the basics a bit better and we had more of a dynamic nature about us, and we created a couple of decent chances and scored a goal from it.

“They are small gains but that can’t be from 45 minutes until the end when you come to a place like this.”