Frank Lampard says a lack of “spirit and togetherness” and an oversized squad were big factors behind his dismal spell as interim Chelsea boss, but has backed the club’s young players to impress under new manager Mauricio Pochettino.
The Blues legend returned to the club last season following the sacking of Graham Potter but won less than ten per cent of his games in charge as they recorded a 12th place Premier League finish.
And reflecting on his second spell as manager of the club he spent 13 years at as a player on the Diary of a CEO podcast, Lampard says the size of the squad following a transfer spend of more than £600m across two transfer windows meant he found it difficult to motivate some of the players.
“A lot of players weren’t playing, they were probably going to leave, which we’re seeing now, and I could see in training the level wasn’t enough,” he revealed.
“It wasn’t enough to get a result against whoever you want to say; Brentford at home, let alone Real Madrid. Winning culture starts with basic standards.
“When I got there I could just see the spirit and togetherness wasn’t there. It was nothing bad, it wasn’t bad to go through the week, but you have to train elite to be elite. You have to.
“The biggest thing about it was the size of the squad. The motivation of players who you’re not going to not play, or are out of the Champions League squad, or things like that, it’s like asking someone to do all the prep and then have someone else actually do the job.
“The period as an interim was so abstract, so different that I can’t contextualise it by saying ‘If I’d gone in on day one and done a meeting about culture’ or ‘maybe if my tactics were slightly different in that game’ because I don’t think it would’ve changed things.”
Lampard has since been replaced by former Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino in the dugout, who says he wants to “deliver from day one” at the club despite a disappointing last campaign.
And Lampard is backing Pochettino to improve the team and says Chelsea fans still have plenty of reasons to be positive.
“They (the owners) want to take the club and be the best, and now those younger players, with a new voice and manager, I think they’ll have a greater chance to show what they’ve got anyway,” he said.
“If you’re asking five, six, seven players to come in during a difficult moment for the club and hit the ground running, it’s understandable (they would struggle).
“As a Chelsea fan, you look at it and the positives are that there’s talent there, the squad’s getting trimmed. You’ll see players like Enzo Fernandez, Mykhaylo Mudryk, Noni Madueke, they’ll develop and be big players for the club. You have to get the structure and strategy right going forward.
“Sometimes for whatever reason, there’s a transition of maybe new ownership. I was there before they came in and in terms of consistency, winning Premier League titles and really challenging, that’s not been there for a good few years now.”
