Frank Lampard's long-lasting success as Chelsea manager is far from the results he got on the pitch first time round. Albeit a top four finish in his only full season was positive and unexpected in the circumstances, it was the culture he helped to create that has gone on to remain.
It was Lampard who handed debuts to Mason Mount, Reece James and Billy Gilmour, three of the large Cobham cohort that won the Champions League in 2021. In what is now a famous image of the former academy group on the pitch at Porto - including Andreas Christensen, Tammy Abraham, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Tino Anjorin - Lampard put the foundations in place to see the group at first team level.
Before him there had been multiple missed chances, players effectively lost to the system. The basis of Thomas Tuchel's success came from handing Mount and James a place to thrive on the biggest stage, without them Chelsea would be nowhere. Now they're in a state of limbo.
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Lampard is back, most of his former academy players have been moved on, sold profit in a market whereby Chelsea require consistent player sales to fund their attacking failures. Mount and James are injured until the end of the season and with just five games left before Chelsea face Bournemouth on Saturday, there is little benefit to Lampard to risk more of the younger players.
The issue with this, outside of meritocracy, is that these decisions and short-term blindedness are continuing to hold the club back. Even with nothing tangible to gain, Chelsea still aren't willing to take the plunge into the world of a true reset. Notice, for instance, Lampard's choices to effectively outcast Carney Chukwuemeka, Lewis Hall and even Ruben Loftus-Cheek. The initial two were a pair of bright sparks over a Christmas period without many for Blues fans.
"If they deserve it. If they deserve it, for sure," he said when asked if the last run of games would be a chance for the wider squad players to get more minutes after the faltering form of senior pros. "I think there are two things, there is the individual work of showing that you deserve it, I’m fully for that.
"In the first period at the club I came in with the transfer ban and losing big players and everyone said, ‘of course, young players get in the team’. They got in the team because they deserved it because of how they train and those things. And that’s a culture and a way that you have to have at a top football club. And I don’t think that changes just for the moment, that should always be there.
"So players have to train and those seven games and days of training now are all opportunities to show you deserve to be in the team. As I think I’ve probably shown as a coach, if you do that you’ll probably get an opportunity with me."
Albeit not privy to the day-to-day training at Cobham, it must be a kick for the next generation, the set of players more likely to have a future under the next permanent coach, to be exciled and watching on whilst the form crumbles and the club slides.
Although Lampard's tone hasn't changed, something else has. In 2019 he said: "It pleases me obviously because they're competing and playing at a high level in the first team, the young players. It pleases me for the academy recognition for the work but there is a small point.
"I get asked this one and I hear a lot that it was the only way it was going to be this year and it's a perfect storm, the players had to play. That's not true. To look at it that way would be a disservice to the competition I've got in the squad. It would be a disservice to Oli Giroud and [Michy] Batshuayi, to [Mateo] Kovacic and Ross Barkley, to the centre-backs we've got.
"These young boys are contesting and they've got to prove with the way that they train that they can play in the team and then it's my choice. They proved it on merit to give me the chance to choose them and then they need to prove it week-in-week-out. It's a good story, great for us that they're competing within the squad to get their place.
"The main thing for me, the happiness, is having been at Chelsea a long time, having seen the academy work, not seeing enough of the boys come through, now we are, lets continue with that."
Training, earning a place and proving a point are all still staples of his management mantra but what it lacks is the acceptance that what is currently being used is not working on the pitch. That itself must surely carry some weight towards selection. Compare that to Mauricio Pochettino, who football.london still expects to become the next manager.
"My team and I love helping young players. It's like planting a tree, watering it and watching it grow. All the fruit that it bears comes from the land and the environment that you put in place," he described the process as in the book covering his 2016/17 season at Tottenham, 'A Brave New World.'
"You then move on to play for the first team with a feeling of identity that offers the team an added extra," he continues. "It's something that will be stamped on every side I coach."
It was something that Lampard had stamped on his Derby side, his Chelsea side and to an extent his Everton team, too. This Chelsea team in a limbo, hanging around in purgatory, doesn't have the same characteristics. 33-year-old Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is played, 33-year-old Cesar Azpiicueta is back in and 38-year-old Thiago Silva continues to play over Benoit Badiashile.
There are, as always, reasons for selection. Aubameyang is the only natural striker in the squad, James' injury has left a hole at right-back and Silva is arguably still the best centre-back at the club. Mateo Kovacic's poor form hasn't been reflected in selection, though, meanwhile Chukwuemeka watches on.
"First of all, you need to know the young lad you have in front [of you]," Pochettino explained of his own methods on the High Performance podcast almost three years ago. "Because they all come from different backgrounds. You need to inspire Dele Alli, for sure, in a different way than you would inspire Harry Kane or Hugo Lloris because they're different ages.
"When you know and have the capacity like a group to identify the profile of the player, to know every single situation that happened in the past. When they were a child, when they were growing up they came from Brazil, they came from Ireland, they came from Korea. You cannot inspire all in the same way.
"The circumstances are so important because all of them are in a different circumstance in the moment when you are going to face them and to talk with them. The reality changes every day and you need to be updated every day about what is going on inside them.
"That is why genuinely we spend more than 12 hours on the training ground. It's how important, not only my closest staff, but all of the staff. The first thing when we arrived to Espanyol or Southampton or Tottenham was to work with the club's staff.
"The club's staff need to understand us; how we are, how we need to work. We need to listen to them, how they love to work or the habits they have. We need to centralise or to try and create our own philosophy. If not, it's impossible because the kitman, or the chef, or the physio, or the doctor, like the assistant manager or the manager need to believe and be in our own way. If we believe in different ways to work or to do things then we are going to crash at a certain point."
Although it is not necessarily Lampard's job to prepare this squad for the next man, it is hard to believe this period in the middle of nowhere for Chelsea is helping. It's certainly not doing Pochettino's chances of coming into a confident, ready and developed group of young players any benefit.
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