Chelsea's Frank Lampard is sacked just 18-months into his tenure as Chelsea boss

The story behind the sacking

Today, Frank Lampard was sacked by Chelsea. With all the news that has come out today, it has become clear that he was set up to fail. There was a lack of respect from the off when Lampard was appointed and given a wage of £4 million a year. Whilst this seems a lot, Sarri was payed £5 million, Conte was payed around £20 million and Jose Mourinho took around £10 million home a year. Whilst Lampard was an inexperienced manager coming to the club, he is Chelsea’s greatest ever player and that alone deserved him a higher salary than someone like Sarri, who had never won anything in his six year-long managerial career.

Another clear example of there being a lack of respect for the Chelsea legend is that he was not allowed to bring all of his desired staff into the club. When he took the job, Lampard brought Jody Morris, Joe Edwards and Chris Jones with him; he had also planned on bringing Shane Given from Derby as a goalkeeper coach, but this was not allowed and he was forced to work with their current coach, former Chelsea player Henrique Hilario. The Portuguese goalkeeper made 39 appearances from 2006-2014 due to his ability seeing him commonly being at the back of the pecking order. Frank wasn’t allowed to bring four staff members with him when he joined the club. This could be understandable if the club were consistent with this sort of thing but when Antonio Conte joined The Blues, he was allowed to bring eleven members of staff with him.

The appointment of Lampard was bold, but it was clear from his work with Derby what he was supposed to do: bring through the youth. Lampard did this to tremendous effect last season, with the West Londoners finishing in 4th place, only behind Manchester United on goal difference. Lampard also guided Chelsea to an FA Cup Final where they ultimately lost but The Blues were a victim of some criminal refereeing: Kovacic was sent off after two yellow cards when only one of the offences was a foul and Emiliano Martinez handled the ball outside of the area. He also took them to the round-of-16 of the Champions League where they were knocked out by the eventual winners Bayern Munich. His first season as Chelsea boss was a raging success, especially when you consider Chelsea: had a transfer ban for the summer window, didn’t sign anyone in January and lost Chelsea’s best player of recent times in Eden Hazard. Lampard had no choice but to use the youth and it payed off. Chelsea’s top scorer that season? Academy graduate Tammy Abraham.

Whilst Lampard’s spending of around £200 million often hits the headlines, there is more to the story than meets the eye. After FIFA’s transfer embargo had been successfully reduced, Lampard wanted to spend in order to help guarantee Champions League qualification for the London side. He saw Timo Werner as a plan for the summer however, Lampard felt it was necessary to bring in players for a quick fix. He had marked out Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang and Hakim Ziyech as players that he saw would help him qualify for the Champions League. Aubameyang would have been a low-risk, high reward signing. At the time he was the Arsenal captain and starting striker, but he had six months left on his contract. This would have meant Chelsea would have been able to get him for cheaper than his value. Also, Arsenal had not been competing in the Champions League which would mean he was not cup tied, something that couldn't be said for Hakim Ziyech, who was playing for Ajax and had been in Chelsea's group. Neither of these signings were made in January however Hakim Ziyech would go on to sign for Chelsea in February, but this would mean he would not be able to play for the club until the start of the next season. Aubameyang went on to sign a new contract with Arsenal and scored the two goals that meant Chelsea did not win the FA Cup. This is where the relationship between Lampard and Marina Granovskaia, a director at the club, started to disintegrate. It has been rumoured that at this point both Mauricio Pochettino and Julian Nagelsmann were being lined up as replacements if he was to be sacked.

"This is a very difficult decision for the Club, not least because I have an excellent personal relationship with Frank and I have the utmost respect for him. He is a man of great integrity and has the highest of work ethics. However, under current circumstances we believe it is best to change managers. On behalf of everyone at the Club, the Board and personally, I would like to thank Frank for his work as Head Coach and wish him every success in the future. He is an important icon of this great club and his status here remains undiminished. He will always be warmly welcomed back at Stamford Bridge." - Roman Abramovich

Another point of tension between the two was the form of the most expensive goalkeeper in the word: Kepa Arrizabalaga. In his first season the keeper was very good, managing to get a nomination for the Yashin Trophy and became Spain’s number 1. However, his form in the following season was nothing short of dreadful. Lampard wanted to bring in a new goalkeeper, but he was originally told to put an arm round the keeper to help the keeper regain his confidence, but Lampard only did this towards the beginning of the 2020/21 season, just before Edouard Mendy was brought to the club.

Tensions grew even further in the summer. Lampard’s main aim was to restructure the defence. He had marked Fikayo Tomori, Antonio Rudiger and Marcos Alonso as players he wanted to get rid of. He wanted to bring in Declan Rice who he saw as a player who could be converted to an excellent centre-back whilst providing cover for the defensive midfield role. He had also tried to sign him in January. It has been revealed that Lampard’s desire for Rice was a contributing factor to his dismissal. The Athletic were told in December that: “He needs to stop pushing for Rice or he’ll lose his job. The hierarchy are very wary about the potential embarrassment of buying back an academy reject at huge expense”. He also wanted to bring in James Tarkowski, an underrated central defender currently playing for Burnley. Lampard did not originally want Thiago Silva but was happy that someone with his leadership skills had been brought into the club. It has been alleged that Ben Chilwell is the only player that Lampard wanted. Chelsea not being able to offload any of the defenders who were seen as not needed is why Lampard’s targets weren’t brought in.

At this point, Lampard’s relationship with the board was awful. A source close to the coaching staff said that if he was in charge of any other club he would have walked but his “connection with the fans and what Chelsea means to him meant he was going to try and make things work”. The situation wasn’t helped when players started going above Lampard’s head to complain to the board. It has been rumoured that Matteo Kovacic, Rudiger and Arrizabalaga complained saying that Lampard did not have a tactical plan. However, you have to question how much tactical planning a goalkeeper needs when their job is to simply stop shots from going into the back of the net, something the Spanish keeper has drastically failed to do since being at the club.

Lampard was brought in to help completely restructure the philosophy of the club. The Blues hadn’t challenged for a title since the 2016/17 season and hadn’t gone beyond the first knockout stage of the Champions League since 2013/14. A lot of previous managers have said that this side is hard to motivate for the smaller games and Chelsea’s greatest ever was brought in to change that. He wanted to get rid of the sorts of players who didn’t consistently have a fighting spirit and he wanted to build a young core to the team, and it felt like it was working this season. Chelsea beat Leeds to go top of the Premier League table. It was also their 16th match unbeaten in all competitions. Lampard, as well as everyone else, was feeling optimistic about the team’s hopes for the season which only made the downwards spiral more painful.

My Thoughts

The dismissal of Frank Lampard is a complete disgrace but is not surprising due to the way the club acts towards its loyal servants and heroes: Carlo Ancelotti was sacked in the tunnel at Goodison Park the season after winning the domestic double; Roberto Di Matteo was sacked in the November after winning the FA Cup and the Champions League for Chelsea. Sacking Lampard now makes a mockery of every hiring him. He was brought in to change the face of the club: to take Chelsea away from the club that has a revolving door for managers and turn them into a club that would build a legacy under Lampard. This does not mean their expectations were soft, Lampard had a three-year contract at the club and was expected to win the league in that time.

The past few seasons have seen ex-players become managers of their former clubs. After Manchester United’s Champions League exit, it looked more than likely that Ole Gunnar Solksjaer was going to lose his job but that did not happen. Ed Woodward kept his faith in the Norwegian and they now find themselves at the top of the league. It’s a similar situation to Arteta, he looked certain to lose his job, but Arsenal kept their faith and now they are unbeaten in their last five Premier League games and are seven points off the top four.

In December Lampard took Chelsea to top of the league. In just over a month, they had fallen to 9th. On face value that would seem worrying, but The Blues are five points off the top four. Lampard has been let down by the signings that he did not have control over. When Kai Havertz came to Chelsea it was said he had a Ballon d’Or in his future but after struggling with long-COVID his performances have been abysmal. To the normal fan this is understandable but for some reason the Chelsea board see this as Lampard’s fault instead of holding the players accountable. Havertz’s best position is playing as a second striker or as a number 10, a position that Lampard hasn’t been using since he joined Chelsea. Granovskaia spending £72 million on him meant that Lampard had be shoehorn him into his side. He’s been trying to play him as a number 8 but has struggled with the physicality of the league and not been performing to the levels that he was showing in the Bundesliga.

The same can be said about Timo Werner. The German striker had a great start to the season, with the highlight being his brace against Southampton but the goals have dried up faster than a puddle in the desert. Since his last goal Werner has accumulated an xG of 7.16 but has only scored 4. His poor form cannot be blamed on Lampard as the striker is getting himself in excellent positions but is missing the opportunities. If you search “Timo Werner miss against” on YouTube you get seven different results to finish the sentence: “Fulham”, “Leeds”, “Newcastle”, “Rennes”, “West Ham”, “Liverpool” and “Sheffield United”; I think this sums up the problem.

The storyline to Lampard’s career as Chelsea boss is almost poetic. Mason Mount scored the first goal under his reign and captained the last game of it; Tammy Abraham, the striker who has flourished under Lampard’s management, scored a hattrick in his final game; Callum Hudson-Odoi made the last assist of the Lampard era and Reece James got the assist before that. After the loss against Leicester, The Athletic reported that Lampard thanked all the players for their efforts and shook their hands as everyone knew that Lampard was going to lose his job. I believe there could be more to the story of Mount captaining Luton. Lampard didn’t tell him and let him find out for himself when they got to the changing room and Mount saw the armband on his shirt, only to go over to him afterwards to congratulate him. Could it have been Lampard’s way of thanking Mount for being one of the few players who gave their all right up until the 11th hour.

This sacking is definitive. It is now clear that romanticism, empathy, leeway or loyalty is not present in this club.