Frank Lampard believes that Jose Mourinho will repeat the success he enjoyed during his first stint as Chelsea manager should he return to Chelsea, in fact his words suggest that it’s imminent.
The Real Madrid manager is widely tipped to replace Rafael Benitez at Stamford Bridge and it seems as though everyone in football is talking about it from Lampard to Eden Hazard, from Sir Alex Ferguson to Andre Villas-Boas and even Benitez himself. Around a fortnight ago Spanish newspaper Marca claimed that everything will come to a head in the aftermath of tonight’s Copa del Rey final between Real and Atletico Madrid at the Bernabeu.
It could even be considered as the worst kept secret in football at the moment and there has definitely been media games played by all parties involved which probably had Jorge Mendes, Mourinho’s agent, rubbing his hands together in glee.
Lampard was speaking to BBC’s Football Focus about his former manager:
“There’s no way he’ll come back and rest on any laurels or rest on anything that happened before.
“With him at the helm we are going to give it a great go.”
The midfielder praised the work ethic of Mourinho when asked if he would be successful for a second spell:
“I certainly think he can because he is a workaholic. He’s got desire.
“It is not confirmed yet [but] the idea of working with him is brilliant. His talent and ability as a manager for me is the best – certainly the best I’ve worked with
“I think he will take the club on again. He has shown it with Porto, with us, Inter Milan and Real Madrid.”
He also expressed his delight over signing a new deal to remain at the club, something which Mourinho is rumoured to have a hand in:
“The club have been brilliant and I have seen, I don’t know, double figures of managers coming in and you remain loyal to the club.
“So that wasn’t in any way the main contributing factor. It is a fantastic place to be at.”
Lampard had previously claimed that he had no idea about whether or not Mourinho would be coming back to Chelsea as he said that he doesn’t concern himself with what goes on behind the scenes. But we all know he’s fibbing if Mourinho really is coming back to the club as a senior player he would have a notion of what’s going on around him and the Portuguese manager has kept in touch with staff at Stamford Bridge, as revealed by John Terry and Lampard is one of those people.
Originally I didn’t think Mourinho’s return would have a bearing on Lampard’s future as it originally felt like he was being outed following his piece in the whole fiasco during Andre Villas-Boas’ time at the club and the manager wouldn’t stand in the way of his exit if he was promised funds to replace him as he wouldn’t want a conflict with the Chelsea hierarchy harming his chances of getting the job, but it would be obvious that he would want to keep Lampard in order to avoid the situation he faced at Real Madrid.
It’s quite clear that Mourinho lost the dressing room at Real some time ago and is hated by most of the players, the fans and the media. His only friend is Florentino Perez and he must be testing his patience with his behaviour at this juncture. If Mourinho wants to last the long term at Stamford Bridge then he needs influential figures in the dressing room to back him up, including Lampard, Terry and Petr Cech. It’s something that Alex Ferguson used to great success at Manchester United with the likes of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville…of course the wages of Chelsea’s senior players would have to come down for there to be any longevity in this plan.
I think we all just want to know what’s going on now for the sake of sanity, piece of mind and an idea of what direction we are going in. It won’t be too much longer, I suspect.
Source: BBC Sport
