Frank Lampard generously defends AVB

The Chelsea veteran Frank Lampard thinks that Andre Villas-Boas was just a bit too worried about building a new Chelsea team for the future, that he forgot to make sure that the club kept winning now in the present.

But Lampard accepts that AVB was only following his instructions from Abramovich when he joined, but he lost sight of what was right in front of his eyes; i.e. winning games!

“His plan was long-term.” Lampard said. “But somewhere in the middle of that, the present didn’t go so well – and that’s where the problems came.

“To be fair to AVB, that was part of the remit and I get that we need to move on and change. But you can’t lose sight of the present.’

“I wasn’t disrespectful. I just told him I thought I should be playing.’

“I told him what I felt and he had no problem with me saying it. I wasn’t making a stand. The fact we might not have seen eye to eye was irrelevant to me.”

That statement by Frank seems to back up the stories that Andy Cole also told him that his tactics were not relevant to winning trophies with the team he had. Perhaps they might work one day in the future with a new young squad, but when the old Chelsea players are used to winning games a certain way, its always going to be hard to get them to change….