Chelsea’s Champions League exit is pinned on Todd Boehly (fair enough) and things Thomas Tuchel said a year ago (not so much) but absolutely not Frank Lampard.
Todd warrior
Operation: Save Bambi is in full swing across the fourth estate this morning after Frank Lampard’s Chelsea suffered a fourth straight defeat since his inexplicable return to the Stamford Bridge dugout.
A self-preservation of a team clearly picked with a dignity-sparing 0-0 that suited everyone and snapped his losing streak in the most ‘technically’ fashion imaginable was clearly the aim and we’re beyond certain any other manager on earth would have got at least a little bit of criticism.
Unable to offer any real defence of their man, the big-name opinion writers have generally opted for barely mentioning Lampard at all.
We understand – and agree with – the widespread assertion that Todd Boehly is the greatest problem and main reason for Chelsea’s current predicament, but are still struggling to think of another example where a club is so routinely referred to as the chairman’s rather than the manager’s. There are countless examples of ‘Todd Boehly’s Chelsea’ in the various post-mortems, vanishingly few of ‘Frank Lampard’s Chelsea’.
Oliver Holt’s piece for the Mail is broadly decent and suitably scathing of a club in full meltdown shambles mode, but only after nine lengthy paragraphs does he finally get around to mentioning Lampard by name, and even then it’s to assert ‘this defeat was not his fault’. A sentence that, like so many written about Lampard this season, appears to be missing an ‘entirely’.
‘Todd’ and ‘Boehly’ are the fourth and fifth words of the piece; ‘Frank’ and ‘Lampard’ 392nd and 393rd.
Frank analysis
The pieces themselves aren’t even that bad, but it’s still striking how nobody is pointing any kind of finger at a manager who has now won one of his last 18 matches and lost four out of four since returning to Chelsea. And also how the widespread and justified criticism of everything Todd Boehly has done always seems to stop short of highlighting his most baffling decision of all: bringing back Lampard.
‘Frank Lampard has done all that could be expected of him’ – Martin Samuel, The Times
‘Chelsea have now lost four games in succession since Frank Lampard took over as caretaker manager but this defeat was not his fault’ – Oliver Holt, Daily Mail
‘Ancelotti responded by sending on former…
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