Frank Lampard’s time as Chelsea manager was an interesting one – the transfer ban forced him to use young players in a way that would go on to help the club for years to come.
It also almost paid off in terms of helping them land Jude Bellingham too. As Lampard revealed a chat with his cousin Jamie Redknapp on Sky Sports.
Lampard explained that he had met Bellingham and his parents to pitch them Chelsea as a next move as the youngster planned to leave Birmingham. His angle was that he was using Mason Mount and Reece James and other young players.
But Bellingham was (quite correctly) thinking that he would get more chances at Borussia Dortmund, and that proved to be the perfect stepping stone for his career.
So close, yet so far…
You can see their chat in the clip embedded here, with this story coming after 1 minute and 40 seconds:
