According to reports, Chelsea boss Frank Lampard has taken control of transfers since his appointment as Chelsea manager, and he’s not afraid to go against the plans of the club.
Director of football Marina Granovskaia has been in charge of negotiations between clubs to agree deals, and has helped the club to sign up Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner, and is now doing the same with Leverkusen for Kai Havertz. But everything seems to pass through Lampard. A football agent has revealed how Lampard is in charge of everything regarding transfers at the club.
An agent told The Athletic: “Chelsea scouts had attended loads of my player’s games and were always messaging me in advance saying they were going to watch him, that they wanted him for the long-term.
“It had always been driven by their scouting team. “You might argue they are the guys who had done the graft and long-term planning but, when it came to the crunch, Frank felt there was a younger player coming through in that position whom he wanted to give a proper chance.
“That trumped everything else. That’s completely his prerogative, given he’s in charge — it shows his strength of mind, if anything; that he knows what he wants.
“I’ve taken other players as options to Chelsea and spoken with their scouting department, and they’ve come back with, ‘This is what Frank wants, etc’. “A lot of it (the transfer business) at the moment seems to be Lampard, from what I can see.”
This is a welcome development at the club, knowing how managers and the Chelsea board have been at loggerhead over the years. Former bosses Maurizio Sarri and Antonio Conte didn’t seem to have a good relationship with the board, and Jose Mourinho’s time was well publicised.