Frank Lampard reveals why he failed as Chelsea interim manager

Former Chelsea coach, Frank Lampard has opened up for the first time about the struggles he experienced during his second spell at the club.

The Englishman blamed the team's poor results on the lack of unity that was among the players when he arrived. Lampard was appointed as an interim manager after Graham Potter's contract was terminated at Chelsea.

He made this revelation to Dragons Den star Steven Bartlett on The Diary of a CEO podcast. He said he knew from training levels that the club was in trouble despite the huge amount of money that was spent on the squad.

"When I got there I could see the team spirit and the togetherness was not there. It was nothing bad, but you have to train elite to be elite. The minute we didn't get through against Real, you're in that end-of-season zone that is not the norm at Chelsea. At Chelsea, we should be playing for something. We played for not so much, another reason why motivation came down."

He also complained about the size of the squad and how difficult it was to keep the top players happy and motivated in training and on match days.

"The biggest thing about the standards thing was the size of the squad and the motivation of players that you're not going to play. In football, that's a challenge with 20 players, which is a modern squad. But Chelsea's got very big, to the point that I can say, and I'm not criticising that player for dropping standards but I want to try and get something out of him. I would try but when you kind of look at it you go, Yeah but he's had this for a long time where he's not playing so he's not being competitive with that player who is playing, so that player is pretty comfortable too because he's not pushing him.
I could see in training the level wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to get a result at Brentford at home or whatever, let alone Real Madrid. When I came in, I noticed very quickly that some players were thinking the season was going to peter out and what the future would look like for them. If I'm a player that's not been playing for seven months and think I might be leaving in four weeks' time, I'm probably going to struggle to motivate that player. I haven't got a magic wand to motivate them. When you have international players in a big number, you're telling internationals they have to stay at home. It's not easy."

The 44-year-old also shared his thoughts about the vision of the new owner, Todd Boehly and what he thinks he wants to achieve at Chelsea.

"Their intentions are certainly good. I know that. I had a good relationship with them Their intentions to do a good job are amazing, they want to take the club and be the best. They have great intentions. They've spent the money because they want to do well. If they're going to address the situation, that is their strategy going forward, but I do think you will see players like Fernandez, Mudryk and Noni Madueke develop and they're going to be big players for the club."

Chelsea had the worse run of results for the first time in over three decades when Lampard took over in April 2023. The Blues played eleven games under Lampard, losing eight games, two draws, and managing just one win.