Frank Lampard might be new to the revolving door that is the Chelsea manager's job but the old foe of Liverpool has declared that both he and everyone at the London club “desperately” wants to beat the Reds in the UEFA Super Cup.
As the main rival to Anfield icon Steven Gerrard for the dominant role in the England midfield throughout most of the first decade of the 21st century, Lampard has had many on-the-pitch battles with Liverpool over the years.
Incredibly, Liverpool faced Chelsea in the Champions League over five consecutive seasons between 2004/05 and 2008/09 and Lampard started all 10 matches.
During a 648-game stint at Stamford Bridge, the Romford-born player won the Premier League three times, the FA Cup four times, the League Cup twice, the Champions League and Europa League but never the UEFA Super Cup.
Going into Wednesday's fixture at Besiktas' Vodafone Park in Istanbul on the back of 4-0 thrashing at Manchester United on his Premier League managerial debut, Lampard told uefa.com : “It's a cup that the club desperately wants to win. I've never won it, a lot of players in there have never won it, so we have to give it everything.
“Going up against the team with the quality of Liverpool in a final is as tense as finals can be.
“You can lose finals; they're very tough. But what you cannot do is lose it on the premise that we weren't prepared, or we didn't have that hunger or desire or everything you need to try and win a game of this magnitude.
“It's going to be one of my first competitive games as manager of this club.
“Every player in there needs to be aware of the importance of the game to this club and we have to give everything, because it's going to be tough.
“It's going to be tough, but we cannot walk off the pitch and think, 'Oh, we could've done that' or 'We missed that opportunity' or 'We weren't quite ready' or make any excuses for ourselves.”
