Frank Lampard remained coy on the imminent arrival of Mauricio Pochettino to Chelsea. A deal has been agreed between the former Tottenham manager and the Blues, football.london understands, but an official announcement is yet to be made.
Lampard has just three more games remaining this season as interim head coach before the expected incoming of Pochettino, who will be in place with time to assert himself and his ideas before pre-season. The 51-year-old has been out of work for a year since leaving Paris Saint-Germain but hasn't rushed his decision here.
With Chelsea and their new owners also cautious of being too hasty in their appointment, looking to avoid past mistakes that led to poor decisions regarding Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter, the club have been without a permanent manager for over six weeks. That is set to change swiftly, though.
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A deal between Pochettino and Chelsea was reached last week and it is now all but confirmed that he will be the new man in charge. Lampard, however, wasn't being drawn into things too early. Ahead of travelling to Manchester City for the penultimate away game of the season, the 44-year-old was asked for a reaction to the news.
"Not if it’s not official, no," he said, declining to comment on the reports. He also admitted that he hadn't spoken to him. Pochettino is thought to be coming to England in the next week in order to finalise the deal ahead of an announcement. It has also been reported that Lampard will liaise with him in order to smooth out the transitional process this summer.
Chelsea have had four head coaches this season alone and will make it three permanent bosses upon Pochettino's arrival. Given the mass change and unrest, Lampard has already accepted that the club are right to be slow and steady in this period. "Do they [Chelsea] need to take their time to get the right manager? Yeah, they absolutely should do," he said earlier this month.
"We are at that stage of the season now where we understand that we are not going to get into Europe, and other managers are probably going, ‘I’ll take a look at this and wait till pre-season when I can enforce what I want to do’. It’s not silly on their part, we’ve got the top four in the run-in and that is going to be a difficult process of games.’
He has also previously opened up on the change of stance needed from the top of the club in terms of giving managers more time. "I don’t think there is always an obvious method but I do think that if you are trying to work for something, you look at the successful models at the top end of the league at the minute and you see managers that have been working there a long time.
"Recruitment is aligned with the type of squad and identity they want to bring and it works in a direction.
"You see City, Liverpool and Arsenal [have success with long-term managers]. So, clearly, if you want to get there it’s something that hopefully aligns. At the moment for us it hasn’t. We have to find a way that it does.
"I was always part of the Chelsea team that changed managers regularly. With casual hindsight it is easy to say I had great success. I won three [league] titles but I should have won five or six. That’s my feeling.
"We might have won more titles if we’d had more consistency and been able to work in one direction. And I feel like we should have done."
Chelsea face a turbulent summer with more than 15 first team stars expected to leave in a turnover of the squad in accordance with Pochettino's expected desires and demands. For now, Lampard has just three games left to get through before it is over the the new man.
Before that, though, he will take charge of the World XI for Soccer Aid at Old Trafford on June 11.
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