If you can make a team even better to watch after losing Eden Hazard from the squad, then you are definitely doing something right.
In fact, as a coach, that’s probably some of the highest praise you can get, with Hazard being one of the best players in the world.
But this is just some of the words that former player turned pundit/commentator Robbie Savage has used to praise Frank Lampard’s start as Chelsea manager.
In fact, his whole column with The Daily Mirror is literally full of praise for Lampard that you find hard to disagree with.
Lampard is on a six game winning streak with Chelsea after an initial stuttering start. Although I still expect there to be many more ups and downs, the work he is doing at Chelsea really is fantastic.
The football being played, the togetherness, the man management, the way he only wants players who want to be at the club – it’s all fully admirable.
Savage agrees, he wrote:
“Frank Lampard is doing what nobody thought was possible – he is making Chelsea better to watch without Eden Hazard.
“When Lampard took over in the summer, under a transfer embargo and after Hazard’s £100 million move to Real Madrid, the popular consensus was that Chelsea would struggle to finish in the top four.
“But he has already turned them into the most watchable side in the Premier League behind Liverpool and Manchester City.
“I said, at the start of the season, that Lampard was the perfect fit for Chelsea… but I don’t think, in his wildest dreams, he would have envisaged sending out the sixth-youngest side to play in the Champions League and beat Ajax, last season’s semi-finalists, deservedly in Amsterdam.
“Young lads coming through the system at Chelsea can look up to him as a role model for hard work reaping its rewards.
“I like the way he was brave enough to stick by Abraham when he missed a few chances earlier in the season and Olivier Giroud, a World Cup winner, was waiting in the wings.
“I like the way he has put an arm round Christian Pulisic, telling the £58 million winger his chance would come if he worked hard, and has been as good as his word.
“Lampard has absorbed the blow of Hazard leaving – and turned it to his advantage by giving Chelsea’s youngsters a platform to shine.
“Right now, I can’t pay him a much higher compliment than this: Frank Lampard is already in the very top bracket of managers.
And if I had to choose between Lampard, Unai Emery and Mauricio Pochettino to manage my club, Frank would get my vote.”
