Frank Lampard was destined to shine in football management, according to his uncle Harry Redknapp .
And the fact his Derby side are now just 90-odd minutes from securing promotion to the Premier League should come as a surprise to no one.
The Rams will take on Aston Villa at Wembley a week on Monday in the Championship play-off final, with a £180million bounty and top-flight football awaiting the winner on the other side.
Redknapp said: “I’ve seen everything from Frank that I expected — he’s a very astute, clever guy.
“When I rang Mel Morris when the job became available, I told Mel what he would get if he took Frank and, I have to be honest, he took a bit of convincing at the time.
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“But I arranged for him to meet Frank and, once he met him, he rang me straight away and said, ‘You’re spot on about everything you’ve said and I’m going to give him the job’.
“I’m pleased everything I told Mel about him has been what he got.
“Frank has been fantastic, he has been brilliant.
“He is bright as a button, knows the game, understands the game, he has been brought up with it.”
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Lampard has worked under some of the biggest-name managers in the game — Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti, Guus Hiddink, Fabio Capello and, of course, Redknapp during the early days of his career at West Ham .
Redknapp reckons the work ethic and commitment he has shown throughout his career was evident from the moment he joined the Hammers.
Redknapp added: “His dad was a fantastic trainer and footballer, and Frank is probably the best, if not the second best, trainer I’ve ever seen.
“If he’s not then it will be between him and his dad.
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“I’ve never seen anyone come near either of them and I’m not saying that because we’re relations.
“Every day after training, his dad would put the spikes on and run himself. He was a great full-back.
“He’d be doing his splits, training, when everyone else had gone home, and the kid was exactly the same.
“It’d be dark and I’d look out on the training ground, and 200 yards away there’d be someone doing sprints.
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“I’d say to the groundsman, ‘Someone has got over the fence over the back there.’
“And he’d say, ‘Nah, it’s Frank’.
“Not one day, every day.
“Bag of balls, out there practising his shooting — left foot, right foot, collect the balls, round the cones, left foot: bang; right foot: bang.
“So 20 goals every season wasn’t luck, he practised for that and set such standards on the training ground.
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“That rubbed off on Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Jermain Defoe, Glenn Johnson, they all grew up in that same group and saw how he worked and they all grew into that.”
Redknapp knows the same work ethic that saw Lampard win three Premier League titles, four FA Cups, two League Cups, the Champions League and Europa League, as well as 106 England caps, will have rubbed off on Derby’s players.
He added: “It will absolutely have rubbed off on them.
“They only have to look at his career — clean cut, he’s proper, a class act.
“That’s the only way to describe him.”
