It’s fair to say that Chelsea have probably had the best transfer window of all of the Premier League clubs so far.
With there being a general reticence to spend money because of the financial damage that the coronavirus pandemic has done to many football clubs, the Blues’ heavy spending has been very much against the grain.
And by using Roman Abramovich’s hard-earned on the likes of Kai Havertz, Malang Sarr, Thiago Silva, Ben Chilwell, Timo Werner and Hakim Ziyech, there will be a whole new set of pressures for Frank Lampard to contend with.
Lampard is under no illusions of what’s at stake, but also noted in an interview with The High Performance Podcast and cited by the Daily Mail that there’s likely to be a bit of a bumpy road ahead.
“I’m very aware that a club like Chelsea, even though we had a transfer ban, even though the year was difficult, expectations are going to go up hugely,” he said.
“And I just have to accept that as part of the job, and try and go about my job as well as I can. And then if I am having relationships, between managing up (to the board) or managing around me, I have to be as good as I can with those, because they’re really important.
“Because the tough times will come, and I’ll rely on those, all of those little ones. And it might not be managing up, that might be managing the kit man or a member of staff around you.
“Because I’ve seen how the dominoes can fall very quickly. And I think if you isolate yourself as a manager, or you don’t want to open yourself up to all of those relationships along the way, I think they fall much quicker.
“I think you have to be understanding that you’re coming to the messy patch. I think our messy patch probably happened actually back end of the season.
“I think we achieved a lot this season, because nobody expected us to come in the top four. But we lost a cup final, and then we lost to Bayern Munich.
“And it’s a bitter taste for me, I go away and I have a bad feel about those games. So I understand that those issues and problems will come again. It’s just that I, and we as staff, have to double down. We have to work harder.
“We have to analyse why we conceded 50 goals, and not just me saying, ‘yeah, it’s because of him’, and ‘he could have done better’. What could have I done better? So the messy patch is always going to come.
“Even if you’re Liverpool now, who were absolutely incredible. I’m sure Jurgen Klopp has not had his feet up for the last three weeks going, ‘OK, what great players we’ve got, we’re just going to kill it again next year.’
“It will be, ‘where’s next.’ So my version of that has to be, ‘how can I keep going and improving, and be ready for the messy patch.”
