Chelsea have brought Frank Lampard back to the club with a familiar theme of coping with crisis, but the caretaker boss will find things are different from his last spell with the Blues. Two years after he was sacked by the club, Lampard replaced head coach Graham Potter for the remainder of the season with only a week to prepare for the tough task of facing Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-final.
Quite what Todd Boehly’s motivation for bringing back Lampard was is anyone’s guess, given his largely unsuccessful recent spell with Everton. But if his last Champions League knockout tie is anything to go by, it could prove to be another miscalculated gamble from the American owner, whose decisions are becoming more difficult to understand every week.
Back in February 2020, Lampard’s Chelsea were pitted against Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich. Managed by Hansi Flick, the Germans were tipped as sure-fire favourites to overwhelm the London side, but what actually transpired was something of a humiliation for the club.
Bayern destroyed Chelsea in the first leg of their last-16 tie, with Serge Gnabry grabbing two goals for himself and Polish striker Robert Lewandowski rounding off a 3-0 dominant win at Stamford Bridge, which effectively ended the tie as a contest.
After the game, a deflated Lampard conceded his side were not equipped to cope with Bayern’s talented squad, who made them look like amateurs.
“It was a harsh lesson, a reality for the players of the levels we want to get to,” the Chelsea manager said at the time. “This is Champions League football and we haven’t been fighting in the knockout stages, getting through to the back-end of it, for some years and this is the reality of what it takes.”
On that occasion, with several injuries and suspensions, Lampard had nothing to lose in the second leg by fielding young players eager to impress and going for the jugular. It might have been a different story had Callum Hudson-Odoi and Tammy Abraham taken their chances when the score was still 0-0 in Germany.
But when the first goal went in, Lampard’s side collapsed. Lewandowski sunk a penalty and Ivan Perisic stabbed home a second, before Tammy Abraham grabbed a consolation before the half-time interval. The lethal Lewandowski added another late on and Corentin Tolisso completed the rout to down Chelsea 7-1 on aggregate.
Chelsea fans could be forgiven for scrubbing that memory from their minds after winning the Champions League with Thomas Tuchel in May 2021, just five months after Lampard’s departure.
But it points to a worrying trend that, if this squad of misfits produced a similar performance against Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu on Wednesday, they could be annihilated in similar fashion.
Lampard’s words on that day over three years ago will be just as relevant for he takes his side to Spain. Chelsea are currently 11th in the Premier League after a nightmare domestic campaign, and winning the Champions League might even be more realistic than qualifying via the top four.
“They need to use this as a positive effect and it might not feel like that this evening, but what they need to do is understand the levels of the Champions League at this stage,” he added.
Still, Lampard isn’t coaching a mixture of Cobham graduates and seasoned internationals this time. It is a group of underachieving stars, desperate for inspiration, and Lampard will be hoping he can provide it. But if he fails to avoid another hiding – this time at the hands of Madrid – it could be fatal for his hopes of getting the job permanently.
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