Lampard hits out at journalist amid growing Chelsea pressure
Frank Lampard has hit out at a journalist over his negative Chelsea pieces amid reports that he could be sacked at Stamford Bridge.
The under-pressure Blues boss admitted he knows well the severity of his situation, after five defeats in Chelsea’s last eight Premier League matches.
High-profile and out-of-work managers Thomas Tuchel and Max Allegri are understood to be eyeing the Chelsea job, should Lampard’s situation change.
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The former England midfielder has maintained such talk is of no consequence though, as he bids to steer the Blues out of their slump in form.
In an at-times terse press conference ahead of Sunday’s FA Cup fourth-round clash with Luton, Lampard broke with his usual affable demeanour to challenge several questions.
One of those came from The Athletic journalist Liam Twomey with Lampard pretty much ignoring his question to have a go at Twomey.
“To be fair, I think their confidence would be shot if they were to read some of the pieces you write at the minute,” Lampard told Twomey during the press conference.
“I read some of them and some of the confirmation bias you always reflect on games with, it’s almost like a social media pundit to try and get a reaction in a negative way.
“I read the pieces when we were doing well as well and they didn’t go both ways.
“So for a journalist to be objective would be a big start. Because if the players do read it, I’d feel like that.”
This is definitely a sign of a manager turning it all around to become a massive massive success pic.twitter.com/mD4cAjvL5X
— Jude Summerfield (@judesummerfield) January 22, 2021
I’m reluctant to respond at all because I’m really not important to what’s happening at Chelsea (certainly not enough to be discussed in a presser), but I’ll just say I respectfully disagree with Lampard’s opinion of my objectivity.
Good or bad, it’s never personal 👍 #CFC
— Liam Twomey (@liam_twomey) January 22, 2021
When asked about how he blocks out the noise surrounding his job, Lampard added: “I don’t listen to it. It’s only everywhere if you want to go scroll through social media or something. I don’t do that.
“I’m not stupid, I know the pressure that comes with managing a top football club but I only do my job. So it doesn’t matter to me.’
Lampard added: “The pressure is fine. You’re obviously more happy when you’re winning games. I was more happy in November, October than I’ve been in mid-December onwards but it comes with the territory.
“You can look around the Premier League and can see teams this season that have had problems, teams now that are having problems that aren’t used to having problems. So I just to get on with the job.
“Players will always make you a good, bad or in-between manager so you have to have buy-in from the dressing room because my opinion is that football is whatever per cent tactics but a much bigger percentage of environment, drive, positivity and desire which are the basics in football.”
