Chelsea decided to sack team manager Frank Lampard on Monday and hours after the decision was announced, the club legend broke his silence to make sense of the situation. Lampard admitted he was "disappointed" that the Blues will move forward without him but expressed thankfulness for the 18 months of leading the club.
Following his departure, the former head coach reached out to his followers via Instagram and thanked the Chelsea board, specifically mentioning club owner Roman Abramovich, for the "privilege and ... honor to manage Chelsea, a club that has been a huge part of my life for so long."
Reports indicated that the Chelsea hierarchy initially decided to allow Lampard to see through the end of the season and review the club's performance. But the availability of an immediate replacement, said to be former Paris Saint-Germain boss Thomas Tuchel, prompted management to put the leadership change in motion middle of the season.
Lampard was shown the door in the middle of Chelsea's worrying slide in the Premier League. The club started the campaign on fire with new and expensive signings such as Timo Werner and Kai Havertz. But the fresh recruits struggled to adapt to the manager's tactics and the Blues suffered setbacks in the last few weeks.
Lampard's side is at the ninth spot of the Premier League and an impatient Abramovich made his move. In the end, Goal reported: "Despite his status as the club's greatest goalscorer, Lampard was not immune from owner Roman Abramovich's hire-and-fire style."
Perhaps to underscore Lampard's status at Stamford Bridge, Abramovich issued a surprise statement that came with the firing. The Russian maintained his "excellent relationship" with Lampard remains and the former manager is always welcome at Stamford.
Lampard's exit was far from an overnight development. Chelsea hobbled in the recent fixtures and the struggle can be traced to the growing disconnect between the manager and his players, and this is true both for the senior and new members of the roster.
ESPN reported that the sacked coach failed to communicate effectively with his players as evidenced by some of the senior players getting dropped from the squad for a stretch of period and the new signings being clueless on what to do. For instance, Werner and Havertz were not as sensational as expected and the problem reportedly lies in the lack of specific guidance from the head coach.
Another sore point that allegedly troubled the roster was Lampard's preference for intense training sessions that pushed the players to exhaustion. These problems piled up and distracted the club, thus prompting the Chelsea high leadership to intervene, said the ESPN report.
Tuchel coming in to take the top job vacated by Lampard is hoped to immediately reverse Chelsea's downward trajectory. The German coach was touted as "one of the bright minds in football," and his performance at PSG seemed to support that sterling credential.
The French giants captured a domestic treble last season and nearly won the Champions League last year, and Tuchel has his name written on all those achievements.
