Chelsea boss Frank Lampard has admitted he regrets the X-rated row with Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp last season and plans to apologise to the German.
The incident happened during Chelsea’s 5-3 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield in July.
Lampard told The High Performance Podcast: “I did regret that. And when that broke the next day a friend of mine sent it to me in the morning, I was a bit embarrassed by it.
“I was in the moment, I felt we turned up and it was the easiest day for Liverpool ever. They won the league, they went goals up early in the game. “And a few things happened with the bench, I’m not going to go into detail, but my feeling was, I want to protect my club. And I didn’t have a problem with Liverpool celebrating.
“Luckily enough, I’ve been there with Chelsea where we won the league quite early one year, and you can sit there and everything feels great. My feeling was, I want to be there where they are.”
Lampard added: “I definitely didn’t mean any disrespect to Jurgen Klopp, because I’ve got huge admiration for them.
“It was an impulse reaction, which I will happily [apologise for] when I do see him, I’ll put that one right. “I care about my job, and it came out in the wrong way. And even I explained that to my daughters when I got home.
“And I’ll be brutally honest, it’s not the first time that they’ve heard it from me in the wrong moment. “So I do try and practice what I preach, but I suppose in adult life, it doesn’t always work that way.
“But yeah, I was – and not just my own daughters, because you’ve got millions of Chelsea fans around the world, whether you’re young or old, it’s not the way I like to carry myself.
“But in talking about high level sport, you can’t take passion out of the game. And it just came out of me in one little swoop there.”