In the space of a few seconds, Frank Lampard accurately identifies the dichotomy that sums up Chelsea’s season so far. The England midfield player is convinced that his team-mates are playing their best football and are at their sharpest mentally since they won their second Premier League title under Jos? Mourinho three years ago, yet he felt the same way under Luiz Felipe Scolari at the start of last season. Everyone knows what happened next.
Lampard’s message is that nothing can be taken for granted, reflecting a formidable work ethic that has taken him from being a much-maligned teenager at West Ham United to arguably the most consistent Premier League midfield player of the past decade.
The 31-year-old has always been one of this country’s most thoughtful professionals, a quality that he hopes will serve him well in a future managerial career, but after being guilty of taking himself too seriously during the middle of his career, he has begun passing on sage advice to others. As Lampard repeatedly tells Chelsea’s youngsters after staying behind from training to watch academy matches, while form can be temporary, focus must be permanent.
“Football is a simple game sometimes,” he said. “People can complicate it with mind games and lots of different things on and off the pitch, but it’s about concentrating and training hard and showing respect for each other as a group. We’ve all got that at Chelsea and, together with our quality, it’s going to take us very far.
“This team has always been full of quality, but there is a feeling now that reminds me of the feeling in the years we won the title back-to-back. There was a real determination, particularly in the first year, and we have that feeling of hunger again.
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“But, saying that, we probably had that feeling last year when we started really well. When we lost a couple of games, we lost our way very quickly, so it’s very important that we don’t get carried away and think that feeling is something that happens naturally. If individuals get sloppy on the training ground, or in games, it could go.”
The shadow of last season still looms large at Stamford Bridge. Under Scolari, Chelsea were unbeaten in winning nine of their first 12 matches, but defeats at home to Liverpool and Arsenal triggered a collapse from which they never recovered. This year they have fared far better against their closest rivals, beating Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United to establish a five-point lead at the top of the table before this evening’s match away to Manchester City, but the experience of 12 months ago has not been forgotten.
“I personally feel we can learn from what happened last season,” Lampard said. “The big danger in any sport, particularly football, is that when things are going great you stop doing the things that got you there. If we’re honest we did that a bit last year.”
“Football is a funny game. One day you can be invincible and feel you can beat anybody, the next you don’t know where your next win is going to come from. That’s what football can do. Hopefully, we can use last year’s experience to guard against it.”
One crucial difference with last season lies in the identity of their manager, with Carlo Ancelotti arriving last summer as the permanent replacement for Scolari in the wake of Guus Hiddink’s successful interregnum. In addition to introducing a new diamond formation with two out-and-out strikers — “a big deal and a radical thing considering the length of time we’d played 4-3-3,” according to Lampard — the Italian has altered the mood around the entire club, bringing a new sense of calm.
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Ancelotti has somehow managed to fuse the supreme organisation of Mourinho with Scolari’s good nature, and his results are enough to make either of his predecessors jealous. After eight years working for the publicity-happy and gaffe-prone Silvio Berlusconi at AC Milan, nothing worries him, and that self-assurance has filtered down to his players.
“The manager is very calm, and doesn’t get too up or too down,” Lampard said. “I think his calmness comes from the fact that he has been at the top of the game for a long time. There is a lovely manner about him.
“It’s very important to have a positive nature. There’s nothing worse than that negative feeling hanging around week after week, or for a few days after a game. You can look at the bad things that happen, but try and correct them in a positive way. By the same token, if we go out and beat teams 5-0, or even Arsenal 3-0, he doesn’t come in the next day like we’re the best team in the world. It’s a good thing about his personality.
“He is quite funny. He can get on a real level with players and he’s a manager you can talk to, not just about football, but about your personal life and which film you watched last night. He’s very easy to relate to in that kind of way. Everyone feels very relaxed when they’re around him.
“That could be seen as a sign of weakness in another manager, but the great thing is that as soon as he switches on to work, it’s very organised straightaway. There’s a lot of respect and you can’t have that casual attitude in training. That’s the beauty of it. It’s far from being a dictatorship, but we all respect him as a group and when we go to work, we go to work.”
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Lampard is expecting a difficult shift at the City of Manchester Stadium this evening. It is Chelsea’s second visit to the ground in the cash-rich Abu Dhabi era, but their first since the club’s extravagant attempt to sign John Terry in the summer. City’s 3-0 win over Arsenal in Wednesday’s Carling Cup quarterfinals has not masked their dismal Premier League run of seven successive draws and Lampard believes that their biggest difficulty is facing fired-up opponents motivated by envy. Given the vitriol aimed at Chelsea after Roman Abramovich’s takeover five years previously, Lampard should know.
“I think their biggest problem is what we found, that when you’ve got money everyone wants to beat you,” he said. “When you come to town, it’s a much bigger game.
“I don’t think it’s as cut-throat as jealousy, but there is certainly an envy to it. Everyone was envious of us. When you’re actually the team that has money, everybody wants to bring you down a little bit.” For all their money, however, City players are likely to end the season casting envious glances at Chelsea’s trophy cabinet.
? The Frank Lampard DVD Super Super Frank is available at the Chelsea Megastore at Stamford Bridge and at chelseafc.com/megastore RRP £17.99