Frank Lampard To Return To Chelsea?

“He can come back when he wants and the way he wants” – Jose Mourinho’s words about Frank Lampard following the departure of the midfielder from Chelsea, after 13 highly successful years with the club. But when Lampard will want to, and what he will want to come back as remain an open question. But if you are fan of gambling sites such as GamblingSites.net, you can bet he will come back to Chelsea in the future – in what capacity I do not know.

Mourinho was adamant that Lampard will return to the club in some form. “Mr Abramovich – the No.1, the most important person – wants very much for Frank to be back, I want him to be back, the staff want him to be back, so he comes back, for sure,” he said.

“Mr Abramovich has left the door completely open for him on the understanding Frank can do anything he wants at this club. He can be a coach, he can start at the academy, he can start being my assistant at the same time because he is doing his coaching badges or he can start in a different role.”

The comments leave open the possibility that Lampard could one day end up in Mourinho’s own job. On the face of it, it could be an excellent appointment. Lampard is intelligent, tactically astute, has Chelsea in his blood, and has been able to learn from some of the best in the business – including Mourinho, Ancelotti and Capello. All he really needs is experience – and what better way to get experience of coaching at the top level than as Mourinho’s right-hand man?

On the other hand, it is rare that the best players make the best coaches. Most (though not all) top managers were relatively hum-drum players – some, like Mourinho, never played professionally at all.  It seems as if possessing the skills on the pitch and communicating them to others belong to two very different talent sets.

That would not me my major worry when it comes to Lampard. Of more concern would be that Chelsea would be encouraged to give him too much responsibility too quickly. It remains a huge step up from assistant to manager, and unless Lampard was prepared to take a top job elsewhere before returning to Chelsea, that step might prove to be too much.

If that were the case, and he was to struggle, Chelsea might themselves in a position where they need to sack a club favourite, one who they would have groomed specially for the role.  That can be a hard decision to take, and can sometimes be allowed to drag on too long, to the detriment of the club.

That might, of course, not be a problem at Chelsea, where the abrupt termination of Roberto di Matteo’s employment would seem to point to an unsentimental business-like approach to the matter. Whether Abramovich would feel quite as cold-hearted about a man like Frank Lampard, whom he evidently reveres, is open to doubt.

Whether he makes it to the Chelsea manager’s job or not, it’s clear the club are confident they’ll see him back at Stamford Bridge before too long. As Jose Mourinho said: “It’s not the end of Frank Lampard’s career in Chelsea. It’s just a little break.”