Jose Mourinho has revealed his plans for Chelsea’s veteran midfielder Frank Lampard and says that the midfielder will be used sparingly during the forthcoming season.
Mourinho made a point of saying that Lampard’s footballing ability hasn’t deserted him but he doesn’t have the same recovery rate as a 35-year-old as he did ten years ago, so will be rotated.
“In this moment we have just to analyse competition and make some choices.
“I believe Frank is the same player, with the difference that he is 35 and the time needed to recover from match to match is not the same for a man of 35 to a man of 25.
“That’s the only point. Now we have to analyse the fixtures, analyse the matches, analyse the week we have and to make a few choices.
“Before we didn’t analyse; before it was ‘Frank plays every match’, but it is different now.”
Mourinho will have noticed what has been going on at the club for the past couple of years so will have known that it was important to address Lampard’s role within the current squad as soon as possible. In this way he avoids a media circus and newspaper speculation over a fallout every time the player isn’t in the first XI and there can be no gripes from Lampard over a lack of communication as there was during the days of Andre Villas-Boas.
Rafael Benitez had rotated Lampard in-and-out of the side last season and it worked well as the midfielder managed 17 goals and made 50 appearances in what was a long campaign. But we’ll see how many he plays next season with the added competition of Marco van Ginkel and Michael Essien in the squad as well as Ramires and John Obi Mikel, whilst Oscar and Kevin De Bruyne are capable of playing in a central midfield position.
Source: Metro
