Frank Lampard's sacking completely reaffirms what we knew about Chelsea already — that in their heart and soul they are nothing but cheap and shallow.
They didn’t employ Lampard for his pedigree of winning league titles and Champions Leagues because he didn’t have one.
Nor did they bring him in for his track record of spending a couple of hundred-million in a single transfer market and getting the best out of his signings straight away.
They brought him in with a remit to play the youngsters, to bring back the soul of the club, to give them a visible identity and bring new ideas.
Yet they have sacked him for hitting his first really poor run of form in 18 months — a run which has seen them drop into mid-table, albeit five points behind the defending champions — and because he hasn’t yet got the best out of the players he signed in the summer.
The great contradiction is that, in his final game in charge, one of the former academy stars he brought into the first team captained the side and another scored a hat-trick.
The progress Mason Mount and Tammy Abraham, and others including Reece James, have made under Lampard will be his legacy.
And had Roman Abramovich hired a manager with a gold-standard CV 18 months ago, do we honestly think those boys would have achieved what they have?
What I can’t quite get my head around is the fact Abramovich, Marina Granovskaia and Bruce Buck had a massive opportunity to change direction with the way they deal with managers.
They had reached a crossroads and could have taken a new turn under the realisation that the teams who have had the most success in the last two or three years are those who have stood by their managers.
Then there’s Manchester United, who haven’t had any tangible success yet but, top of the table, they are reaping the benefits of standing by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in a way Chelsea haven’t with Lampard.
United have behaved like the grande dame football club they are, even when the rest of us thought they should have made the change.
Yet Abramovich has stuck with the Chelsea way of doing things, going for the option which could give his club a new manager bump and get them into the Champions League places again, but one that I guarantee won’t win them the title this season or next.
That is the idiocy of Chelsea in 2021 because I’m not sure any coach could have done any better with this group of players than Lampard.
And while Thomas Tuchel — who isn’t a likeable, warm, friendly, cuddly guy — might get the best out of Timo Werner and Kai Havertz, will he do the same with Mount and Co?
I’m not so sure.
As for Lampard, it’ll hurt and sting but he has the abilities and traits to be a top-four manager and I’m still adamant he’ll have at least one more spell at Chelsea.
For now, I wonder if a club like Celtic might be his best bet — a big club with big expectations but somewhere he can make the mistakes a rookie manager makes and still be challenging for trophies, just as Steven Gerrard has done at Rangers.
Were Chelsea right to sack Lampard? Have your say in the comments below
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