‘No no, I don’t like it, don’t say that’ – Lampard finally reveals who deserves all credits after Chelsea win the Champions League title
It was Lampard who helped Chelsea qualify from the group stage of the Champions League, in a tough group that had the likes of Sevilla, Krasnodar and Rennes.
Chelsea legend Frank Lampard was in charge of the club last season but was axed midway through the campaign, with Thomas Tuchel appointed to take over in his stead.
However, the Chelsea legend has said that he’s happy to see the academy players he brought in play a key part of Chelsea’s success enroute to winning the Champions League, but he doesn’t want to take any part of the credit, claiming that it was all Thomas Tuchel.
Asked if he watched Chelsea after he left, Lampard told Sky Sports’ The Overlap: “I got quite a few messages after [saying], ‘that’s your team’, and I’m like, ‘no, it’s not’, because that’s how I am.
“Fair play to Tuchel and the club for taking them there. I’ll never take ownership of that.
“The thing I found really strange because I live near the stadium and I was walking the dog the next day, I found it tough watching that game, anyone who works in the game knows that, I’m not sitting there with my Chelsea shirt on [smiling], but when I walked the streets here I had so many Chelsea fans come up to me [saying], ‘you were part of that’.
“When I got over that feeling I felt a sense of it has been my club for a long time and always will be and I should be happy with that, in a way. Once I got over that funny feeling of watching the game.
“It took me a while because the first few times I’d say to Christine [Lampard’s wife], ‘I wish people would [swears]’. It’s not my team.
“As the dust settles I can take some happiness from players like Mason, Reece, Tammy, some of the older players, I hate to reflect, Thiago Silva sent me a beautiful message after the game saying, ‘thanks for bringing me to the club and this happened’.
“People who work with the club, I’m friends with masseurs and physios and fans, when it settles you can absolutely look at that with a much more positive eye than the football side can sometimes take you.”