Before being instilled as the new Chelsea manager, Frank Lampard was spotted in a directors box at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night to watch Chelsea draw 0-0 with Liverpool.
At the time, nobody knew that he was watching the team that he was about to take charge of, even though Lampard himself may well have had an indication by then.
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But this fuelled speculation anyway and by Thursday Lampard had been re-appointed at Chelsea as caretaker manager until the end of this season.
Many naturally assumed that Lampard had been at the game to speak to the club owners about taking the role. And yes, he probably did do just that. However, the Blues legend says that his invite to the game came 2-3 weeks ago and it wasn’t to speak about taking the manager role at the time.
In quotes picked up by Football London today as part of Lampard’s embargoed press conference yesterday, the former midfielder said: “I arranged to be at the game two weeks ago. I can imagine what it looked like but I can guarantee we had not started talking by then. I had not been back to Stamford Bridge for some time. Before that I had been working and then there was Covid and all these things.
“But for a club I have got this affiliation with, it is a feeling like home when I come here. I wanted to go back to a game, and of course we are here now. That was arranged two or three weeks ago.”
