They were once great rivals on the football pitch - but Frank Lampard insists he and Steven Gerrard did not talk much about the prospect of them going head to head as managers once their playing days were over.
Born less than two years apart, the pair were long-time England international team-mates and remain the two highest-scoring midfielders in Premier League history with Lampard netting 177 times in 609 appearances and Gerrard 120 in 504 games.
Everton’s trip to Aston Villa pits them against each other for the first time in opposition dugouts but while Blues boss Lampard is glad to see Gerrard also having embarked down the managerial path, he admits it was seldom a topic of conversation between them when they were younger. He said: “No we didn’t discuss management as players.
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“We discussed it more frequently when we had our year working a little bit in the media. There’s a lot of times to talk in those sort of situations and by then of course we were both finding our way, Stevie was working at Liverpool and I was working for my badges and spending some time at Chelsea so it became much more of a conversation then but we didn’t touch on it loads to be fair.
“I think we’re both pretty similar. We’re different in our personalities but we’re both very driven and we’ll both have had a plan or an idea what we wanted to do.
“I was really pleased to see Steven do it, it’s great to see good young English coaches, it’s different when you’ve had careers the likes of Steven and mine, you maybe get analysed in slightly different ways but we have to put that to the side and just work away and I know Stevie is a hard worker and I’m delighted for him that he’s done so well at Rangers and now at a club with the quality of Aston Villa.”
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