Chelsea Football Club has often been pointed out as a popular example of having coaches fired because the senior members of the squad didn’t approve of their methods. From the likes of Big Phil, Scolari, to the most recent Andre Vilas Boas, rumours always went around that the big 5, namely, Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, John Terry, Ashley Cole and Petr Cech, were responsible for influencing their departures. But is there any truth to it? Now with Manchester City on loan from New York City FC, Frank Lampard finally spoke out on this.
“AVB had played his cards and it hadn’t worked, I don’t know if he was too young or whether it had come too early for him.
One thing I will address is that a lot of people said when he and Phil Scolari and some of the other managers left it was all down to player power at Chelsea.
That’s a load of crap. I’m being completely honest. Okay, AVB and I were not very close but I don’t need to be close to my manager – but I am definitely not the type to act up.
No one at the club was. Even Ash [Cole], who I know wasn’t happy not playing week-in week-out, would never have run off and said, ‘Please sack the manager, we’ve had enough of him’. That’s plain ridiculous. We are professionals.
Can you imagine what Roman Abramovich would’ve said to him? ‘I pay your wages, I make the decisions, now f— off and play.’
It just didn’t work with AVB. He then went on to Tottenham and had another experience which was negative. Now he’s apparently doing pretty well at Zenit so good luck to him. We all learn.”
“It had been brewing for some time — there had been a few problems in the AVB era from the start,” Lampard said.
“He was a very young manager and he had been at the club before. But he changed a lot of things all at once to try to put his own imprint on the club which, to be honest, I think he may have been asked to do.
But he did admit that the relationship with AVB was complicated as the former Porto manager didn’t put much faith in the five.
“But it seemed quite clear that he didn’t see me, Didier Drogba and, to a point, Ashley Cole as being in tune with how he wanted to do it or the way the club should go. I was in and out of the team and Didier didn’t play a lot, either.
“I’m not stupid. If I’m playing regularly and a new manager comes in, brings in a couple of new players and then leaves you out for a good few weeks, you understand what it is. We then went to Napoli and he didn’t play me or Ash while he had Jose Bosingwa out of position at left-back.
“It was a disastrous night. AVB went soon after, Robbie Di Matteo came in, me and Ash came back for the second leg, Didier scored the first and the team turned it round.”
What is your take on the existence of ‘Player Power’ at Chelsea FC? Do share your thoughts and views in the comments section below, I’d love to hear from you!
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