FRANK LAMPARD

Series Two
Written By Blaise McGowan

Frank Lampard is the current head coach of Chelsea FC. Frank retired as one of the greatest players of the modern era, with his legendary status cemented by his extraordinary achievements and statistics.

When he left Chelsea in the summer of 2014, Frank was the club's record goalscorer with 211 goals from 649 appearances - a truly remarkable return for a consummate professional plying his trade in midfield.

He won 106 international caps for England and was central to the most successful spell in Chelsea's history where he won 11 major trophies, including three Premier League titles, four FA Cups and the Champions League in 2012.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Jake:

Hi there, I’m Jake Humphrey. You’re listening to High Performance, the podcast that delves into the minds of some of the most successful athletes, visionaries, entrepreneurs, and artists on the planet, and aims to unlock the very secret to their success. Now everybody needs a professor in their life, and mine is also a psychologist, an author, not a bad co host either.

 

Damian, as someone who loves the game of football and has studied the game of football, I imagine you’re bursting with questions today.

 

[00:00:22] Damian:

I am, very much. I read a quote from this individual that said he likes people that are straight talking and blunt, so I’ll leave it at that. Just very much looking forward to it.

 

[00:00:32] Jake:

I think you’re on the right podcast, don’t you? Let’s get going then, and welcome a man who won everything he could as a player, eleven major titles in thirteen years with Chelsea. He’s a club legend, he remains the top scorer, and for the past year, he’s managed the club he loves as well. As well as that, he’s traveled, he’s written books, he’s experienced heartache and loss; he’s been celebrated, he’s been criticised. He’s a husband, he’s a father. Yet, through it all, without High Performance, nothing would have been the same for him.

So welcome to the podcast, Frank Lampard. Frank, nice to have you with us. [00:01:03] Frank:

Thank you, good to be here.

 

[00:01:05] Jake:

So what is high performance?

 

[00:01:07] Frank:

Ooh. Hard work. I think anything that -- in anything that you do in life -- I was fortunate enough to be brought up in pretty comfortable circumstances, looking back. Got given a huge work ethic, and probably a message that anything I wanted to do or achieve in life started with hard work.

And I think that rings true in everything I’ve done. And I see it around me in how I work.

On top of that, I would say -- well of course talent, which is always pretty subjective. I got called a player that made the most of my talents, which is like a backhanded compliment if I’ve ever heard one. But I get that too, even when I would sort of look at myself.

 

And then I think the last one, which is -- for me which I think was a big factor is intelligence, and I don’t mean to say I’m intelligent, that would just sound stupid to say it that way. But I mean in terms of how you approach your goals, and how you want to get to them.

 

For instance, in football, I would say it’s how you train smart, how you think smart, how you prioritize the things you need to do to get as high up as you can be.

 

And I think that’s certainly something I feel very mirrored in my playing career to my management career in how I see it.

 

[00:02:15] Jake:

Well let’s start there then. I’m really interested to know where that intelligence came from, because there will be people listening to this podcast who want to be successful, they want to make the most of their talents. They want to live their dreams and achieve their ambitions. And to do that, they need the intelligence to know what to do. Where did that come from for you?

 

[00:02:34] Frank:

I think when I go back to the beginning, and I talked about the comfortable circumstances, I think I was fortunate in terms of where my career went, because I had a father who was a football player.

 

So as I grew up, he was a coach at that point. And then a mother who was incredibly supportive in how she brought me up, and also gave me the nicer touches, and my dad gave me the harder touches. But I think my dad, when it came to football, was very open of making me aware of what my shortcomings were at the time: pace, body shape, left foot, heading, whatever.

 

And so I feel like as I grew up, I had -- I was always listening to that, and I carried that through my career, even when I was playing probably at the top of my game, or as close to the top as I got. I was aware of what I felt were deficiencies, and I just attacked them in the only way I could; which was how I trained, how I thought about them.

And so that’s when I say intelligence, again, I don’t mean it as in getting top marks or anything. It’s just how I tried to approach things, because I felt like I was always open to self criticism, and then, okay, how do I not just look at what I’m not good at, but how do I make it better?

 

[00:03:40] Damian:

So can I ask you about your mum and dad then, because reading about your background, it seems like a big of a ying and yang of your parents. That your dad was very driven and focused in his own career, and he passed on those attributes to you. And yet your mum seems to have been more nurturing and developed the softer side of you.

 

One of the things that I read, a quote that you’d said, a piece of advice that your mum had passed on was that you needed to learn to be kinder to yourself.

 

[00:04:07] Frank:

The ying and yang is perfect because my dad came from a very -- he had a tough upbringing, much tougher than mine. He lost his father when he was very young, and had to fight to become a professional footballer. And he kind of carried that demeanor, very old school, very strong.

Would tell you -- I remember driving home from Sunday morning games, and I’ve said this before, but he would be sort of shouting at me in the car. Looking back I was like, I don’t understand how you can be shouting at me when I’m 12 or 13 years of age. And then I’d get home, and I’d be crying, and my mum would be the one that would bring me my lunch or a cake or something. That’s probably why I was a chubby kid! But she would be the one that would settle me down.

 

And so I’d like to think that I took both of those sorts of sides to it in my professional career. I was driven by my dad in that tough way, but had my mum giving me those sort of little moments. And I remember as I got older, my mum would always be the one -- because I’m quite reactive. If I took criticism when I was playing, I’d want to say something back. I’m a bit like that in life. And my mum was always the one to say to me, just rise above it; I remember her saying that all the time, rise above. Rise above.

 

And when I was younger, I couldn’t quite understand it as much as I probably think about it now. And I still don’t always rise above it, don’t get me wrong. I’m reactive still. But when you have those moments sometimes you think about mum’s words. And probably my dad’s actions were probably what kind of moulded me in a footballing sense for sure, but in a life way as well.

 

[00:05:30] Damian:

Yeah. One of the things that we talk about a lot on this podcast is resilience, and giving your children resilience to deal with the challenges that are in front of them. At the time, it sounds like it was quite difficult and painful to be shouted at by your dad, and to be given some hard truths.

 

Do you think, on reflection, that was him instilling the resilience in you; so that when you got to the challenges of professional football, you were able to draw on the experiences of sitting in the back of that car as a twelve year old, and cope with what came your way?

 

[00:05:56] Frank:

I think he would claim that was the plan.

 

[00:05:59] Damian:

You don’t think so?

 

[00:06:00] Frank

No, I actually think it was just him. And if there was a nice fall out from it for me it was that it did probably make me tougher. And I had some tough experiences as I got on the footballing ladder at West Ham.

 

But with my dad, I think he generally reacted how he saw fit at the time. I felt like -- and I look back -- that he was not reliving his football career through me, but he’d done it; he’d fought to be this West Ham last back for 15, 20 years. And he, himself used to talk about his deficiencies that he’d had when he was young, when he used to use running spikes, and all of these great old stories that your dad sort of tells you. And I think he took me as a bit of a project, as a son to try and see if he could make me into a professional footballer.

 

I didn’t really cut loose from that feeling with my dad until my mid 20s really, of like, I must impress dad when it comes to football. I used to remember looking up in the stands at West Ham, or even my early Chelsea days, and I’d think what he would have thought. And I needed to really grow out of that by that point.

So yeah, I don’t know he planned it; I think it was just how he was. [00:07:00] Damian:

So what led you to cut those ties, that you stopped trying to impress him?

 

[00:07:04] Frank:

I think it was just my development, and I think as I see it, I turned from being a bit of a boy to a man. I think it was a bit like I relied on that. Because my dad was quite dominant of me in a footballing sense, and actually in life to be honest, I became a little bit reliant on that. It was like, follow his word and his lead.

 

And then when I moved across to Chelsea, started playing for England, started probably gaining some success, I kind of thought actually, no, no. When I thought everything dad said was right was when I was 12, and actually, some things I don’t agree with; some things I don’t see the same as he sees them. And maybe I started to look at my mum’s side then, or different things in life.

 

And I actually started to get -- to be my own person really, and I probably moved away. I don’t mean to make it sound like a big breakup, it’s not. But in my professional life, I started to feel differently.

 

[00:07:50] Jake:

When you were getting criticism when you were breaking into the West Ham team, and there were those sorts of accusations of nepotism, and there were those sorts of accusations of nepotism, because your uncle was the manager. And there was that famous scene where -- fans forum, Harry kind of defends your honour against a fan that’s criticising you.

 

Don’t you think you would have seen all of that and been aware of all that at a really young age? Did your dad’s criticism at an even younger age not help you in that situation, because you think, well, I’ve seen all of this before, I’ve had it on a much more personal level from my dad, so I can deal with this. I’m just interested to know where the ability to cope with that came from, because so many people cannot cope with external criticism.

 

[00:08:28] Frank:

Yeah. It might be -- I think it possibly did in that sense. It felt very different at the time. In fact, it made my dad -- my relationship with my dad slightly different at the time, because it was the first time he sort of flipped and realised I was getting a lot of pressure from outside, and he became softer to it, and defended me. My mum played a huge role at that point because I was 17, 18, and I was just sort of moving out of home, I think I got my own flat, but at times, I would be really, really down about warming up and getting pelted from West Ham fans.

 

I’m much more reflective on it now and calmer. I wrote a book when I was much -- in my mid 20s, and I wanted to react, and I wanted to put the story straight and all of that stuff. I wish I had

never done it now because it was definitely something that shaped me.

 

And that period at West Ham definitely helped me as I went through football and the trials of playing for Chelsea, and the good and the bad. And the England, which obviously brings bad when you don’t make it to the World Cup pool finals and stuff like that. Those early days of West Ham, those definitely shaped me. I’m thankful for them now, and I’m also thankful for the support that I did get; as I said, particularly from my mum at that point.

 

[00:09:38] Damian:

That book that you described, I think that you really give some quite powerful examples of how visceral and vile some of the abuse you were getting is. And I think you recount some of those instances of, there was a guy in the director’s box behind your mum and your auntie that would make a point of abusing you for their benefit.

 

And when I was reading that book, it struck me that you were almost an early pioneer of what a lot of people get now on social media, the abuse there. But you were getting it before social media was a thing.

 

Do you think that that helped you now as a manager of this next generation, that you can empathise with them a little bit more?

 

[00:10:15] Frank:

Yeah, it certainly does. I do empathise with them and I’ll be very quick to speak on that level, because when you’ve experienced something like that -- it looks different, as you said, in the modern day. But when you’ve experienced it, it all feels the same. And unfortunately now, every player will get it; whatever period of your career it may be. And when you’re a young player, you can look bulletproof, or give off the impression of being bulletproof, but nobody is.

 

So yeah, I’m very quick to try and support players on that. I’m very pleased that my career’s time has run early and I didn’t hit the real highs of social media, because if you see it, you have to deal with it. And it can be very detrimental for sure.

 

[00:10:54] Damian:

I love the story that you tell about that period, where there was a -- you described a young 14 year old lad that used to abuse you on the bench, and then you went into a bank and his mum told you she was a big West Ham fan. And then you met her outside the ground and it was the 14 year old lad that had abused you regularly.

 

That was a lovely bit where you speak about that phrase you said that your mum had taught you, that you rose above it. Like it made me laugh when I read that you said that you’d considered telling her that her son smoked, and getting him into trouble. But you said I remembered that I had to rise above it.

 

So would you explain about that process of where you learned that emotional control? Because you say you’re reactive, but you’re obviously weren’t in every situation.

 

[00:11:38] Frank:

Yeah. That was classic of that period because I remember going in the bank all the time and the woman didn’t really divulge much to me, and then this one time, she did, and she said, I’m going to bring my boys to meet a West Ham and I expected this young sort of really nice kid coming in with a West Ham shirt, and I’d sign his top or something. And it turned out to be this kid that sat just behind the dugout and absolutely ruined me. It had literally been the week before, he ruined me, swore at me, finger went up, everything.

 

And so it was like -- I suppose like the more you experience that thing -- a lot of that stuff I think can feel worse when you hear it from a distance. I remember my sisters used to come to games and say things to me that they’d heard. And that really hurt me. And then maybe when you actually see it face up, and then you realise the fact that this is just a 14 year old kid. And it’s just a mum who works in a bank who’d been really nice all the time. And this is pantomime that is football. You kind of actually manage to distinguish what’s important and what’s not.

 

And I suppose those little experiences -- and it’s not just me, I don’t want to sound like i’m sort of crying here too much about it, because I think as I’ve said, not just football but in life, everyone has these little knocks that you must get over. And they feel really painful to you at first, and you go at it again, and then you realise. And then I started to play better, I got my foot in the first team, started to believe in myself a little bit more. And those little digs became things that just spurred me on.

 

I didn’t really feel that until I left and went to Chelsea. Because that’s when I felt like, hey, I’m on a different path here. I knew I needed to get away from West Ham because my time there was tainted. I don’t have nice memories of it, and I’m not saying that as a try of a dig at a fellow London club because now I’m a Chelsea man. I just don’t have nice memories of it. But I still -- that’s not to say that I don’t realise how much it’s shaped me, and how much the opportunity that I got given at the club was important.

 

[00:13:22] Jake:

Yeah, that is the key thing I think, is that even if something is painful, it doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable. There’s a phrase I often use which is, it’s never been harder to be ourselves these days, because it’s never been easier for other people to criticise us. In those days it was a kid in the stands, or an adult in the stands, and now it’s all over social media.

 

And I think that that is the key message for a lot of people listening to this, is that, at the time, things can feel really painful, but sometimes you’ve got to understand that to go through that painful stuff is almost necessary. And that’s exactly what your experience is, it feels like.

 

[00:13:52] Frank:

Yeah, it’s just how you react. Sometimes it’s a long game. That’s the tough thing sometimes I think, because in those moments, you don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. All you see is that all I wanted to do is go out and play for West Ham. I love Tony Cottee, I love Frank McAvennie and that was my dream. And then when you get the dream, and you’re on the touchline and some fellow who is much older than you and quite dangerous looking is shouting at you and swearing at you, you go, what is this dream about?

 

So at that point, I could not see the light at the end of the tunnel. But day by day, bit of a better performance, maybe not so good, felt a bit stronger, people around me helping me, all of these things, they actually came together.

 

And not to say it certainly would have gone that way. I mean I mean I was very fortunate in different parts of my career of timing of things that happened, but I’m a big believer in making your own luck. I’m a big believer, if you train extra, if you try to hold your dignity in moments where you could easily lose it, and I’ve lose mine at different times of my career.

 

But if you try and do the right thing, you may get little things that go in your favour. And I probably had them. Coming back to the Chelsea job, my timing was impeccable. No transfer ban, year at Derby and all of the stars almost aligned, and people like to tell me that. But I don’t believe in those things happening without reason, or for what you put in to get there.

 

[00:15:02] Jake:

We talk often on this podcast about 100% responsibility, and I think it can be a difficult mindset for some people, but it basically is, even things that are not your fault, there’s no point not taking responsibility for them, because then you can’t control them.

 

What are your thoughts on that 100% responsibility?

 

[00:15:20] Frank:

I’m absolutely a massive fan of it because one thing I think I’ve seen in football, from being a young man, trying to make it from playing through now to managing, is blame, and any kind of blame culture, or it’s not me, it’s them, it’s that. I hear it a lot…

 

[00:15:38] Jake:

By the way, even if it is them.

 

[00:15:40] Frank:

Yeah, exactly. I think I’m lucky in a way, but I think part of the way I am is that I never want to look at really -- and maybe at times it’s easily said -- I blame, the back four are useless today. I’ll blame the Strikers, because they didn’t finish my -- but really generally though I always inside -- I’m always looking at myself. I was always my own biggest critic on the pitch, and hopefully off the pitch, and of course made loads of mistakes.

 

But you have to take responsibility; if you want to get better, you have to take responsibility, for good or for bad I suppose.

 

[00:16:10] Jake:

And how important is 100% responsibility in the culture you’re now trying to create as a manager?

 

[00:16:15] Frank:

Yeah, it’s of utmost importance, and it’s a message that you really have to drill home, because I think it’s very easy when you’re a coach or a manager, and you’ve been there, and had your career, and you know you’ve made a million mistakes. But when you sit at the top of the tree, or in my office at Chelsea, not to think like the 21 year old who is making those mistakes you made and just think you’re above it. And I see it all when it’s -- you have to get on the level of these players. And they all have different thoughts, they all have different reasons. Something at home, on the training pitch, how they see things.

 

And so I can’t think that my morals and my values just transmit to everybody, and then everyone will be a great trainer like I was and make the most of my talent. Because I didn’t, I made mistakes. Something went out when I shouldn’t have done -- so I have to be very open to that. So

for the players to try to take responsibility is a daily chip away at trying to create something that feels that way. And we’re in that process at Chelsea. Not going to lie, we have not won that battle yet. Because it takes -- it definitely takes time. Particularly with a younger squad, which we have a lot of young players in there.

 

[00:17:15] Damian:

One of the great stories that I like about your early career, Frank, was the fact that you speak about coming in and doing sprint sessions on days off, or you’d often stay behind and do extra training. So when we had Rio Ferdinand on the podcast, he spoke about how he would see you doing it, and he copied you because he wanted to get better.

 

How do you cope with young players that are coming into your club though that don’t have that desire, that do have a different view in the world in terms of thinking their talent is going to be enough to forge your successful career?

 

[00:017:50] Frank:

Yeah, that’s a good question. You can never assume -- I’ve just spoken about my upbringing and I think I was drilled with it as a young man. But you can never assume that another player has that young player. So all you have to do is try and show them why it would benefit them, explain it to them. You can’t just say, you must go out and do 100 sprints, and then expect them to get on with it and everything will be fine. You have to say, here’s the reason why. Put the detail in it behind it, to try and go individually through that group and explain to them what extras will do for them, what that will then do for the team; what that will do for their home life, and where their career might go, and all of these things.

 

And that’s communication. You can’t lay down laws of you must all [do this] directions and then just stand back and watch it from the other side of the pitch. You have to speak to the players, change it, ask why, what do they think about it, and get close to them. So I try and do that.

 

And the reality is, if you don’t get any uplift after a while with that, and you’ve tried and tried and tried, then it might be time where you have to say, you’re not going to reach the level.

Because if you don’t have that attitude, no matter what the talent is -- and it’s a real age old argument. I’m really interested in this sort of nature and nurture, and how much of it is talent, and can you get by by just having pure talent?

 

I watched Naymar recently and I’m going, wow, this guy is an incredibly talented player. But he will have his own version of the hard work and what it takes behind the scenes as well. Won’t

look like mine, won’t look like everyone else’s. He’s an outrageously talented boy.

 

But a lot of us don’t have the outrageous talent, and a lot of us have to put in lots of different types of work around it. And if you’re talking -- asking me, yeah, I will try and push it, but if players aren’t going to do that, I think it has to be done at the top of the game, and then you would put a move on from that one.

 

[00:19:24] Damian:

To go back to that nature/nurture argument then. If we relate it to you as a player, and then expand it out, what would you say the percentage was?

 

[00:19:34] Frank:

Ooh. I could wake up one day and say a percentage and think differently the next, because I like to read about these sorts of things, and just to look at people’s own experiences that you have with sports, people, athletes, actually maybe in life. And I can’t give you that percentage.

 

I know that I didn’t have the talent of a Naymar. I also know that I did have talents in terms of, I could finish -- I think one of my biggest talents that I touched on earlier was being aware of the things I needed to do. I was never the quickest, so I knew I had to get going earlier. I knew I had to read when I was on the blindside of a midfielder to make the run. And the more I did it, and the older I got, the better I got at doing that.

 

So I would probably say I’m quite heavy on the nurture, but I don’t know exactly what the percentage is.

 

[00:20:15] Jake:

How about -- we just talked about 100% responsibility. So what’s the point, in your mind, of thinking, well it’s all about nature? Because if you consider that all my success is down to nature, not nurture, or not down to me, then you’ve kind of given up control.

 

And it’s a difficult one, because even if your players have not had the upbringing that you’ve had, and maybe they’re not born with the same talents that you were born with, you still have to find a way to get them to buy into this 100% responsibility. You’re not responsible for whether Mason Mount has a successful Chelsea career or not; Mason Mount is responsible for that, and every other young player.

 

[00:20:50] Frank:

Yeah, well they are of course, but then -- so I disagree with you. My view on that now as a manager is that I am responsible. And the only way I think you can create an environment which looks like you’re asking for everyone to be 100% responsible is by them seeing that for themselves. So I don’t think it’s a problem to show weakness. I don’t think it’s a problem for me to try to prepare a team for a week, and work on a shape, and then you come up and it doesn’t work on the weekend.

 

To almost be a bit open with the players and say, maybe a few individual moments, I don’t mind that -- and I did my pro license last year, and I like to listen to coaches, even if it was a coach that had a completely different philosophy to mine. Long ball, back it long, go on stats completely or whatever way it might be. If I can gain one nugget from that argument or that idea, that means I’m developing. And I know I need to develop. For a young coach to come in and go, no, no, I know the game of football. I know what it is. Don’t worry, I don’t need to listen to that view. And also, if my players don’t produce, that’s because they’re not good enough. I need better players. That kind of lazy argument is never going to get you anywhere.

 

It’s one of my sorts of things that I really try and do is to look at myself every day and go, what could I have done there? I can’t blame the players for that performance, I can’t. And in moments you’ll sit down in reflection and of course you’ll look at how the squad looks. But I must make myself 100% culpable for Mason Mount as well.

 

[00:22:12] Jake:

Yep. And would you admit that to them after a game? Would you...

 

[00:22:15] Frank:

I suppose I just have. They’re obviously going to listen to this fantastic podcast.

 

[00:22:18] Jake:

But would you ever stand up in the dressing room and say, lads, I got that wrong. Because I sometimes think that you’re only in the very early stages of your management career. If you’re Arsene Wenger or Sir Alex Ferguson, you might be far more comfortable at going, you know what, I’ve had 20 years of being a manager, I got that wrong today.

 

It feels like a braver, maybe more dangerous thing for a really young manager to do, because there is that constant battle early on to convince certain people that you’re okay to be a manager.

 

[00:22:45] Frank:

Yeah, I haven’t done it in that way, but what I have done with individuals is, for instance I know this year I have not played players, and I’ve sort of wrestled with the selection problem.

Deciding not to play a player has not gone so well, and I’ve said to the player, that was a mistake. I made a mistake not playing you there. And little things like that.

 

[00:23:02] Jake:

Yeah. I bet that’s quite powerful actually.

 

[00:23:04] Frank:

Well I like to think so because I kind of think, what would I want to hear as a player? And I think to have -- and a good friend of mine recently told me, we were talking about communication, and he was saying, if you don’t communicate, the wrong understanding will just contaminate that space of not communicating.

 

So if I drop that player, don’t say a word, feel like it went wrong myself, don’t mention that to him, and pick him or don’t pick him or next week, I’ve got no idea or control about how we’re going to take that. Where at least if I can go and say, yeah, I made a mistake there. I feel that, and I feel you’ll get something back there. Whether you get a blank face, an angry face, whatever, those difficult conversations fortunately are part of the calls for me in the job I do.

 

But if I don’t, and take the easy way out, which I have at times. Last year at Derby when I first got in, it was like, oh, these are difficult conversations, I’m going to put that one off. And maybe sometimes you still do, but generally, you’ve got to try to hit them as much as you can.

 

[00:23:55] Jake:

So what would you say has been the single biggest thing that you’ve learned in the couple years that you’ve been a head coach now then, Frank?

 

[00:24:04] Frank:

There were so many things tactically, so I won’t kind of touch on that, because I think that’s a big part of that. But probably that one of personal relationships with the players, and the group relationship that you have with them. Trying to strike that right balance.

 

Because for me, a high performing group, or our team, say, it has to be a balance between being really positive, but being slightly on edge. So it’s like, how positive can I be but I don’t want to sound like I’m just trying to be a cheerleader here, and not see that we’ve lost two games on the bounce or something. I can’t just keep being positive.

 

And when we’re winning and it’s great, how can I keep them on edge so that they don’t think, yeah we’re going to win every game. Because I’ve seen that one before many times and then you lose the next.

 

So I think I try to create that kind of balance. And I’m still striving for that, I still think a lot about that, and go over it myself. And go, have I been positive? Have I spoken with that player enough? Did he get what I felt there? And how can I help each individual? And I think you do have to keep analysing that one, because it’s always different.

 

But I think that’s the thing I’ve learned, that you can’t neglect that side of it and think I’m just going to be the master coach. Because I’m not. I’m not the master coach, and I’m not the great psychologist. But I’ll do my best to do what I can see in front of me, and hope people get success.

 

[00:25:15] Damian:

Yeah. It sounds very much like -- we go back to that yin and yang of the way you were parented, the hard message, as well as the nurturing support and encouragement.

 

Which leads us to this really interesting area that I want to explore with you; this idea of family, and how important family bonds are to you. So when you speak about the West Ham experience, it sounds that a large part of your emotion came from the fact that you felt betrayed. You’d grown up in an East End family, you were seen as a family club, and yet, they rejected you.

 

How do you think it’s possible to create a family atmosphere at a club where you have those bonds; where you can be hard at times, but you still have that relationship where people know that you’ve got their best interest at heart?

 

[00:26:02] Frank:

Yeah. I mean that’s what I’m striving for. I mean I agree, the fact -- you’re right, and the family thing, my nan lived around the corner for West Ham, and I felt like -- well I was, a crazy West Ham fan. And then when it went the other way on me, I kind of questioned, not the club, I questioned people.

 

But then as you get older, you realise that you’ll end up questioning people all your life, no matter what you do, because everyone is different and [there are] different circumstances.

So I think probably to answer the question about now is that just tackle what you’ve got in front of you. And you try and be there for your players, you try and be open with the players. You try and create a togetherness between them as a group. And it’s hard, because we play at the top of a league sport. I’ve got 25 players, whatever our squad is, at any time. And I can pick 11, and the other ones generally probably don’t like you on Saturday afternoon or whenever it is.

 

It’s the easy one after a win, and I come out and speak afterwards, or the players are going, yeah, you’ve got great team spirit here. And then when you lose, you kind of go -- all of a sudden you have to go, what, is the team spirit not so good this week because you lost?

 

So it’s not like a simple one to say we’ve created a great family atmosphere. That can only come at the right end when you’ve probably won or feel like you’ve achieved such great success, and then people put it together.

 

The building blocks for that are huge, because it’s a really easy thing to say. But to have a family feel, and a really competitive, high performance sport is tough and takes a lot of work, and it doesn’t look like the ideal family. It doesn’t look like that.

 

[00:27:34] Damian:

Sure. But what would you say are the building blocks of doing that then?

 

[00:27:37] Frank:

Well communication for sure. Making the message clear to the players, of what you want from them on the training pitch. Having an idea with the players that I want us to be a group of good people as well as good players and a good team. I think you have to have respect amongst each other, and you definitely at the top of the club sent that tone. Like that is definitely on me, I’m 100% responsible for that one. And you try and promote that regularly in how you train, how you act, and if you see things that you don’t like within the group, you have to act upon them.

 

I don’t want a beautiful family; I want players that can rely on each other when they go out on the pitch, that are going to be tough, and back each other up at the right moments. And as I said, that doesn’t look like the beautiful family.

 

And that’s life. Lots of things in my family, without going into detail, are not perfection. But that’s life. And you just try and do your best.

 

[00:28:25] Jake:

And how do you get the balance between having a close relationship with a player? So that, when the time is right, you can put your arm around them and tell them that you’re there for them? And at other times, making it clear that they are the players, you are the manager, and there is a big distinction there.

 

I wonder whether that’s something that you’ve wrestled with, particularly in your first year at Chelsea and probably at Derby as well.

 

[00:28:45] Frank:

Yeah, no, I do wrestle with it a lot. I think you can do it. I think when -- the idea of being straight with a player always helps. And honestly, it’s a difficult one, because sometimes it’s really hard to be honest, because you can say things that could really hurt the player if you wanted to be absolutely honest. But I think you can be straight and be very caring in how you speak to the players.

 

I think they’ll accept the good and the bad. They might walk off not liking you, they might go and tell someone else, I don’t really like him so much or whatever. But I do think -- because I’ve had managers that I worked for that at the time I probably didn’t have the best relationships with. In my reactive way, back in the day, I would have gone, I don’t like him because he didn’t pick me as much. Now that I’m older, I get it. I get the problems that they had trying to deal with me.

 

So I try to sometimes -- when you speak to the players, don’t just try to be the kind of manager that’s making the decision, give them maybe something -- not a story, because they definitely don’t want to hear my stories all day, but give them an experience maybe, or talk about a bigger picture. Maybe try to come at it from a different angle.

 

Because I do think players sometimes respond when you actually -- I spoke to a player recently who was having a tough time playing. And I referred to tough times I’d had playing, and I was understanding of that fact, because I’ve had many a tough time. I took my foot off the pedal sometimes, just played bad in certain games, took criticism at times. And as I said, it always comes.

 

So I think to try and speak to the players in a pretty grown up way, and explain that this is it, means that you can sell both sides, the good and the bad moments too.

 

[00:30:10] Jake:

And you spoke earlier about the way to communicate with people. And I’m in complete agreement with that, because I think if you are doing your best, and it comes from the heart, and you’re doing it for the right reasons, you can never cause an issue by communicating.

 

And it’s one of my frustrations, my other job as a football presenter, I always want to speak to managers, and particularly directors of football; people who set the agenda at a club, people who decide on the culture of a football club.

 

Because when things go wrong, they don’t talk, so people just jump to conclusions and assume that they either don’t care, or they don’t know what they’re doing. And if they were able to come out and talk more openly, and explain why a certain move, or a certain player, or a certain situation hasn’t worked out positively, I think it would help them. Because people would realise, oh, they do care. Like everyone, things just go wrong sometimes in life.

 

I think as long as there’s a manager, you’ve got the best intentions. It’s never the wrong thing to share how you truly feel with your players. And I wonder if that’s something that’s changed.

When you were growing up, managers were kind of autonomous a lot of the time, weren’t they, in those days, and it’s either my way or the highway.

 

And I think now managers like you, and Jürgen Klopp and Mauricio Pochettino, it’s about taking those players with you on the journey, isn’t it?

 

[00:31:25] Frank:

Yeah. I was interested when I listened to you speak with Pochettino actually, because I think he mentioned -- I’m pretty sure it was on your podcast, he mentioned about coming in with non negotiables as a manager, and then realising that you couldn’t quite stick to those.

 

And I absolutely got that because, when you come into management, and you can have a really firm idea, I will not accept somebody being late. I will not accept it if they don’t -- I will not accept that kind of performance. And then when you come in and go, he’s been late but we need him on the weekend, you have to say -- you know what I mean?

 

And as a manager, you get probably about, I don’t know how many, but loads of them every day. And if you come in with an iron fist and you want to say, this is how I am, almost to promote myself, I’m the young manager but don’t worry, I’m really tough. I think you’re going to get players that go, come on. And that’s not to say that I don’t have...

[00:32:10] Jake:

But you still need non negotiables. There have to be certain -- what are your certain things that simply are not acceptable?

 

[00:32:16] Frank:

Work ethic on the training pitch is absolutely -- to have work ethic. To not respect your teammate, I suppose, if you’re out on the team and you don’t support the group, that’s absolutely

-- and I understand a sad face on the bench or in terms of an angry face, I want to play, but to not be part of the group, then that’s almost the start of the end if that develops. So you can’t accept that.

 

We have a lot of rules -- there’s a big thing when we did our filing system at Chelsea, because it was quite chunky, the numbers were big. And I kind of wanted to -- because I felt I’d been told about how things had been the year before, and I don’t like people being late and all of those things. But I’m also a human and I get it, and there are loads of things around that that have to -- you have to move on slightly, because this is life. It can’t be one certain way; we all see things differently as we go through it.

 

I think what you try to do is lay down those rules because you want to give the players a guideline of where you want to go to. And I think once they start to respect that, and you feel that, I think you can then move on to the next stage, where you’re kind of like, okay, don’t forget them lads, but there they are and what’s the next thing. How can we get better on the pitch, which is obviously clearly the most important thing. And firing people for being one minute late is not necessarily going to make you better on the pitch.

So that’s kind of -- I think those pieces are pretty movable at times. [00:33:22] Damian:

The story that I’d read about Marino following you into the showers, to tell you that you could

be the best player in the world. Would you do that to a player?

 

[00:33:35] Frank:

Yeah, I would, because it was exactly what I needed. It might look slightly different to how Jose did it. I get asked about that mument a lot, and what’s really clear to me as I’ve gotten older is that he knew I wasn’t the best player in the world; probably didn’t think I was going to be the best player in the world. But that doesn’t mean that he was faking it or actually lying to me. I think it was great man management. It definitely gave me the lift I needed at the time. And

another manager later on in my career did the absolute reverse of that conversation, and it hit me really hard as well.

 

So I would certainly have a positive conversation like that. I think the absolute beauty in it -- and it obviously makes it better when you’re storytelling, because I keep getting asked about it -- is the fact that the image of him naked and me naked, like showering ourselves whilst having quite an important conversation. But that was a beautiful thing as well. That’s what kind of let -- made me learn or think about in management that not every conversation has to be, come into my office and sit down.

 

[00:34:26] Damian:

The symbolism in there.

 

[00:34:28] Frank:

Yeah. It was the way that it was -- so those conversations can be on the road, on the side of a training pitch, over a lunch, and those sorts of things. So I certainly would.

 

And the benefit of being absolutely positive and telling a player how good they can be sounds so simple, but why wouldn’t you do that?

 

[00:34:42] Damian:

You played for a lot of different coaches over your career. And you know that phrase that for people outside of football is often used, when a coach loses in the dressing room. What do you understand by that then?

 

[00:34:56] Frank:

I’ve seen it many a time, and I think the communication one is a big deal. Like we keep coming back to it, and it’s interesting the more you talk about it. Because if a player, or a group of players, don’t feel like they have something back from you, for good or for bad, I think you start to lose. That space gets filled with the negativity that we talk about.

 

I think sometimes there’s a blame thing in football, where maybe at times -- and I’ve been involved in this again, where the group of players, for some reason, feel like the manager is the one that’s letting them down, and then you start to feel that relationship break down that way. And some of it I think is an unfortunate -- and it’s quite a cutting phrase, isn’t it, sounds terrible. If a manager has that and you read that, you’d be like, oh my god, that’s really what I don’t want, that’s horrible.

 

But I don’t think it’s as simple as that always. I just think sometimes the balance between players and management or whatever can break down somewhere along the line.

 

So I think you can’t work in fear of that; I think you have to work as well as you can, try and communicate, try and make the message clear. Because I think if you don’t have a clear message on and off the pitch, it’s an easy excuse for players to go, well I didn’t quite understand that. So you can never assume that players expect that I come in and that I want to play a different way that means switching the ball from one side of the pitch to the other, rather than short passes. I have to hammer that daily, and train that way daily.

 

And then at the end, if I lose a dressing room when I’ve tried to do everything I can, or lose a dressing room as that headline might say, I think you can probably walk away pretty comfortable with it.

 

But I think if you lose a dressing room where you haven’t addressed loads of issues with players, you’ve made it a bit negative, you’re not the positive face every morning, and you come in and you’re upset because they’re not doing what you think they should do, I think then, as a manager, you’d have to take that as a slant on yourself. And maybe accept you’re going to lose people if you’re not going to work in that way.

 

[00:36:35] Jake:

And have you become comfortable with the fact that football is a bit of a crazy world? We’ve already touched on 100% responsibility in this podcast, but you can take 100% responsibility, you can do your very best job, but your success or your failure is still dependent upon the performances of other people.

Have you become comfortable with that fact? Or is it still one that you wrestle with a little bit? [00:36:55] Frank:

It’s one of the reasons I think management -- there’s a lot of reasons -- is a lot more stressful than

playing. One of them is because, as a player, you have much more responsibility yourself and that’s it kind of thing. As long as you prepare right and play as well as you can, of course you want to be a team player. As a manager, your responsibility starts on Monday, finishes at the end of the game on Saturday, and then just restarts for the next game, all the time, consistently.

 

And you know that whatever you’re doing -- I’ve had games this year where I feel like I

prepared as well as I possibly could. That’s great, I know what we’re playing against, the patterns were right, the shape of the team is good, my selection feels right. Bang, you lose. I’ve had ones where you didn’t feel good during the week and then you win.

 

And I know that’s life generally a little bit, but there are lots of businesses out there that you can actually kind of have markers towards getting to where you want to get to if you feel like you did the right things. And then probably at the end of the year, you can kind of go, yeah, we succeeded, because look, look where our stock has gone up, or look where that’s ended up.

 

Football doesn’t work that way. So it’s very important that you reflect at the end of a season, say, and look back on how well you thought you did. But you have to understand that there’s that crazy limit that you talk about. You can’t rely on it, can’t be an excuse, because if I keep saying

-- like I mentioned earlier, if I want to blame the players, then I might as well forget about it, because I have to take the responsibility completely.

 

But it’s why football is stressful on the line, because some days you feel like you’ve done everything right, and it’s not happening on match day. And that’s one of the unfortunate parts of the job, I suppose.

 

[00:38:15] Jake:

It’s also a recruitment business, because every business in the world is a recruitment business. Whether you’re running a shop, running a factory, or running a football club. So as long as you get recruitment right, you should be okay. I’m not talking about getting the best players, I’m talking about getting the right players.

 

How do you judge what is a right player for you at Chelsea? What are the things that you look for before you decide, yep, he’s the man for me.

 

[00:38:38] Frank:

Well you have to look at it in the context of the squad that you have, and I had a long year to look at as I got to Chelsea, because we didn’t -- we couldn’t bring anyone in. So we had some loans that come back, but they’d been -- they were in fact normally pretty young, and they’d come from the championship. So I’ve had a long look at it this year.

 

In football terms, it has to be joined up. You need to have the club, and yourself, and the scouts, and people around you; hopefully pointed in the same direction.

[00:39:00] Jake:

We haven’t even touched on the challenge of managing up to a board or a chief exec or anything.

 

[00:39:05] Frank:

Yeah. And you have to do it. It’s step one in the coaching badges, managing up is a huge thing that they talk about. I think every manager in the premier league or in football will have different experiences of that managing up. And so they all look different.

 

You have to look at the balance of the squad of where we need to improve. That’s clearly a huge thing. And then you go through the process of looking around, and what kind of profile you’re looking at, depending on what position it may be. What do I want my team to be, do I want them to be physically great, do I want them to be really technically great? Somewhere in the middle?

 

You’re obviously going to then recruit players along the basis of those lines. That’s what your job is as a manager, that’s why most managers will come in and go, can I make two or three sign ons with my vision, because it will help affect this team. Because they’re the type of players we want to bring in.

 

And I didn’t have that in year one at Chelsea. Now hopefully we’ll see in year two that I can bring that to the team, to help it. So when I can stand up and talk about my team, I’m going to say, yeah, it is quick and pacey and lots of energy, because look, we work hard on the training pitch, that’s always rule number one. But the players we’re bringing in are taking us in that direction and they’re improving us.

 

So I think that process of recruitment is really, really tough. But I think it’s pretty simple when you want to break it down like that. They have to improve you, they have to go along with the idea of where you want to go with the team. And then they have to be good people and good…

 

[00:40:15] Jake:

How do you judge that...

 

[00:40:18] Frank:

You do as much as you can, in terms of looking at the -- this is not brand new for me today, but the scanning systems are not just looking at players now, they’re actually looking at their life, their social media.

 

[00:40:30] Jake:

When you say a good person, how would you define that?

 

[00:40:34] Frank:

I want them to be players that want to come in and feel like they play for Chelsea. Feel like they want to help us and be successful, and be part of a team.

 

They’ll obviously come with a selfish demeanour. I don’t want the perfect teammate, that sounds too corny. But they have to be a good teammate, of course. They want to come and actually be good for themselves. Whatever their motive might be. They might want to play for Beyond Madrid in four years time. That’s just life.

 

But when they come to Chelsea, I want them to come and be straight into the team, and want to work, and be hungry, and come in and want to win, and not cause problems. And not be badly selfish, like it’s all about me. I want someone who wants to do well, because they want to be part of a winning team.

 

It sounds easy, it’s really easy to say, because you never know until you actually get them through the door. But you can learn quite a lot by a phone call, a face to face meeting, a talk with someone that’s worked with them before. You can do as -- you have to do as much as you can.

 

[00:41:20] Damian:

I think you’re in a really interesting stage of your career, coming into Chelsea, Frank. Because you see a pattern emerging from a lot of coaching careers, that you get to the initial excitement stage, where you come in and then people start doing something differently. And then you hit that messy middle stage, which is where, in football coaching, that’s where most coaches get the sack -- go back to the start and yet sustain success requires you to get through that messy middle, and start to make progress to where you are.

 

So looking at your career now, you’re about to enter the messy middle stage of that second season. So what problems do you anticipate are likely to come your way?

 

[00:42:05] Frank:

I agree with you, and I think you have to be understanding that you’re coming to the messy patch. Because you have to accept that. And I think our messy patch probably happened actually back end of the season. I think we achieved a lot this season, because nobody expected us to come in the top four. But we lost a cup final, and then we lost to Bayern Munich. And it’s a bitter taste for me, I go away and I have a bad feel about those games.

 

So I understand that those issues and problems will come again next year. It’s just that I, and we as staff, have to double down. We have to work harder. We have to analyze why we conceded 50 goals this year, and not just me saying, yeah, it’s because of him, and he could have done better. What could have I done to do better?

 

So the messy patch is always going to come. Even if you’re Liverpool now, who this year were absolutely incredible. I’m sure Jürgen Klopp has not had his feet up for the last three weeks going, okay, what great players we’ve got. We’re just going to kill it again next year. It will be, where is next.

 

So my version of that has to be, how can I keep going and improving, and be ready for the messy patch.

 

[00:43:00] Jake:

A club like Chelsea where there’s a big turnover of cultures that you’ve experienced through your time, how do you manage to make sure that you get that patience, to know that the pattern is going to be turbulent at some stage. How do you ensure that you get the patience to keep faith for these other...

 

[00:43:15] Frank:

That’s not easy. That’s not an easy answer. Now I think you can just do your job as well as you can. We’ve come back to communicate, and again, I certainly think communicating up is a good thing, because when your tough times come -- and it’s easy to obviously send an email or make a phone call after a great win, because it’s the easiest call after. But after a loss, if you then go quiet and you’re not really explaining -- and I understand that, if I was the owner of a club watching, I’d go, okay, so this fellow, we’ll see what his reaction is going to be with the team next week and all of the things. I think if you can communicate, I think it certainly helps that relationship. Whether it buys you time or not, I don’t know.

 

But I can’t get too far ahead of myself. I can’t talk about two or three year plans too much. I may say it to the media sometimes because I think it’s a good thing to kind of lay out there. But at the same time, I’m very aware that a club like Chelsea, even though we had a transfer ban, even though the year was difficult, expectations are going to go up hugely next year. And I just have to accept that as part of the job, and try and go about my job as well as I can.

 

And then if I am having relationships between our managing up or managing around me, I have

to be as good as I can with those, because they’re really important. Because the tough times will come, and I’ll rely on those -- all of those little ones. And it might not be managing up, that might be managing the kit man or a member of stuff around you.

 

Because I’ve seen how the dominos can fall very quickly. And I think if you isolate yourself as a manager, or you don’t want to open yourself up to all of those relationships along the way, I think they fall much quicker.

 

[00:44:36] Jake:

Yeah. It comes back to understanding, doesn’t it? And it’s a hard one, because as the manager, you’re kind of the scratching post of that football club for everyone with an issue from someone like the kit man, right up to Roman Abramovich at the top.

 

But particularly when it comes to managing up, and lots of business people listen to this podcast to get decent takeaways for their own business life, and a lot of them will manage up as well.

You need to understand, don’t you, what Marina is going through, what Roman is going through. Not just from a Chelsea perspective, but from their personal lives and their own challenges that they have on a daily basis as well. And what Frank Lampard wants is not the be all and end all of Chelsea Football Club always.

 

[00:45:15] Frank:

Yeah. I mean it’s one of the biggest things I noticed about going from Derby, which was a big club, Championship club, and going to Chelsea, which is a Champions League club. It’s bigger, the network is huge. Where the training ground is huge. I walk from my office down to the canteen and there’s four, five, six offices with people doing different work. More numbers, more people.

 

And then I realised that Derby actually was pretty easy for relationships, because there weren’t so many people. And when you walk into Chelsea, I think I can walk in with an idea and okay, I think this is how, in my opinion, how medical should work, how loan department should work, how recruitment should work, and all of these things. And if I walk in and think I can actually make everyone think the same as I think, I don’t think I’m going to do that in two seconds.

 

And I think that’s coming back to that sort of non negotiable thing. I have to go in -- and even if I don’t quite agree, or don’t quite like it, I have to work with people. I don’t have to like them, they don’t have to like me that much, but they have to respect me in the workplace.

So I noticed that Chelsea was huge. And on a bad day, it’s easy to go in and kind of ignore some of those offices because we’ve lost, and kind of -- you have to open up all of those conversations, so that it’s not just managing up, it’s understanding how the analyst feels maybe. We’ve got a great analysis team. How they feel if we have a loss and they might feel a little bit of responsibility.

 

Unless you then speak to them about that, and take on responsibility yourself, then you have a little bridge burned there. I’m guessing in lots of industries, that would be a similar thing. You cannot go in and think, I know everything, and because I’m the manager, you will all play to my tune. No, no. I’m very open to understanding, trying to understand. It doesn’t mean I have to agree, but try and understand.

I’ve learned that a lot these year, to be honest, Jake ,from the difference of being at Derby. [00:46:50] Damian:

Who coaches you, Frank?

 

[00:46:52] Frank:

My staff definitely, in terms of, I’m very open with the staff that I have. And I like to throw things out there. I don't like to come in -- some days I’ll come in and say, I’ve thought about it last night and this is the way I want us to train today. But I ask for their ideas and opinions, and so sometimes you get things back that help you become a better coach. Clearly because you trust in them. I don’t go searching for conversations. One I always get asked is, do you speak to Jose Mourinho? Do you speak to Harry Redknapp? I’ve had those conversations if I have respectfully but I don’t go searching for that. I feel like I’m taking responsibility by just trying to learn day by day. So if I can become a better coach, I think it’s up to me. It’s up to me to be open and take in things.

 

[00:47:30] Jake:

What about at home, with your wife, Christine? Because she’s not worked in football.

 

[00:47:35] Frank:

Oh, she definitely coaches me.

 

[00:47:36] Name:

Well there you go. Because I don’t think you have to just come from a football background to be able to give advice, because your entire life, as soon as you arrive at Cobham or Stamford

Bridge, is only about personal relationships. It doesn’t matter what walk of life you’re from; if you know how to deal with those, and I’m sure she does.

 

[00:47:50] Frank:

Yeah. I’m very fortunate on that one, Jake. I might give you a great headline out of this podcast if the papers nick this. Because I do throw a lot of things off Christine, and she’s not picking like what fullback we’re going to play that weekend. But at the same time, if I have certain issues which are life issues, and actually football issues sometimes, I can definitely go home. I’m fortunate to have that, because I think she’s very work oriented. She’s had a really good career in what she does, and I really sort of -- I obviously love her very much but I really respect her for how she’s got on in her career and works, and how diligent she is.

 

Like when we’re at home, and she’s been working recently doing a TV program, an early morning one, and we’re sitting and I’m doing my patterns at night. We’ve got a young baby there, and she’s doing her notes at night. I think I said this to you recently, but we’re sitting there for two hours. And we kind of look at each other and go, did we really expect to be in this position? Is this really -- we haven’t spoken for a while, because we’re working away. Don’t get me wrong, we have lots of downtime, but I love the fact that I have somebody there that gets working environments.

 

And I love to bounce -- because it’s a different view, a different opinion. I can get bogged down. I spend so much time on Cobham I almost live in my Chelsea tracksuit sometimes; I have to take it off when I get home. Because I’m looking at the Chelsea badge, I’ve been at Cobham all day in an environment with my staff all the time. It’s great sometimes; I go, Christine, what do you think about this problem, I’ve got a player here and he didn’t turn up for training yesterday. But we still probably need him on the weekend, what do you think? And she goes, does he have a girlfriend, a wife? Is there a problem? Have you spoken to them? Maybe you should speak to them. And I’m like, yeah.

 

So she’s not my life coach as such, but I’m very fortunate to have someone to bounce things off of at home.

 

[00:49:18] Jake:

And please don’t take this the wrong way, take it in the spirit it’s intended, you’re only a football manager. Whereas she looks at this without all the baggage you carry of football being this huge business, and this great world, and the happiness of thousands of people is reliant upon you doing a good job. The fact that she isn’t in that probably makes her a better person to give you

advice than going to Jody Morris, who I know is a brilliant assistant for you. Sometimes it’s better maybe for Christine, who is not in that world, to give you the advice.

 

[00:49:48] Frank:

Definitely, Jake. You’re right, I’ve got great staff, Jody Morris, Joe Edwards, Chris Jones, my close staff.

 

[00:49:54] Jake:

It’s more rounded from her.

 

[00:49:55] Frank:

Yeah, it’s more rounded, and again, I appreciate -- you can become -- not bogged down, but it’s the same message. We sit for hours at work talking, obviously planning and discussing things. But to come on that -- like Christine has a bit of a joke with me at home when we’re watching football constantly all the time, and she’s like almost fed up. And I’m talking football in the conversation probably becomes a bit boring, and she does reflect on the fact that it’s only kicking a ball, and it’s only like a game.

 

And she’s not criticising on that point, she’s almost like, you’re becoming really, really intense about this, and maybe not seeing a bit of clarity in this instance. When really you’ve got to look at it as it’s a game, and you’re dealing with people.

 

And that’s kind of the most important thing really, very simple, there’s a lot more to it of course, but come back to that sometime to make sure you realise what it is.

 

[00:50:38] Damian:

Yeah. But see that surprises me that you described that you can be quite myopic, because again, like if you go back to your early childhood, you went to a school that was preaching more about being a rounded individual. Again, reading in your book, you say that you take a real interest in politics and life outside of football.

 

Do you feel that football management is sort of making you that way, more myopic? Or make sure the…

 

[00:51:05] Frank:

Yeah. I think I’m changing anyway, but it’s definitely changed me. Simple things like my interest in politics, the year I worked in the media, I spent a lot of time with Jake, and I used to like read

certain newspapers, read articles, read different kinds of books. I don’t, I’ve just started watching a couple of Netflixs recently, but I haven’t watched Netflix. I like interesting things I can watch, and I came away from that with a lot.

 

And I’ve just watched football, and I sit and do patterns, and plan training, and talk football. And I think for your own health actually, and for sometimes a bit of balance certainly in your life -- lockdown brought that back to me a little bit. It was really nice to not go, game, game, game for a period. And reflect, and think, and talk about different things.

 

You do have to be obsessive. You do have to work pretty much every bloody hour you can to try and...

 

[00:51:56] Damian:

Do you?

 

[00:51:57] Frank:

Yeah, you do, you do. Because I think otherwise, everybody would be like Pep Guardiola. It’s not like that. He’s the best, and Jürgen Klopp are the best and Pochettino had great success because of the input from them themselves. I can’t sit here and say, what is high performance? Well, hard work, and then come away from that. It has to be there in a huge sense. But I’m just talking about more balance there.

 

[00:52:15] Damian:

Well let’s say -- like when you read about someone like Guardiola, that one of his best friends is a poet and a playwright. Like he’s got -- he does seem to have a rounded friendship group that isn’t just all about football with him. And I’m just interested that -- like again, reading that you say you’ve got friends that work in the city, friends that do a variety of jobs.

 

[00:52:36] Frank:

Yeah. But they’re not poets. They can drink about ten pints in an evening maybe, but they’re not…

 

[00:52:42] Damian:

But I’m surprised that you think you have to be an obsessive about it to be successful. [00:52:48] Frank:

I think you can be both. I’ve read a few books on Pep Guardiola and his time in Bayern Munich, and he became obsessive about the system. He was struggling in the beginning to get it, and there were stories of him sitting up through the night and all of these things. And this was pre management for me when I read this. And I was like, wow, that’s intense, and I understand why this fellow is as good as he is. Because without that detail, you can’t get to where you want to be.

 

Not in the modern day. I mean the old days of the great Liverpool team of the 80s, and I hear pundits say this sometimes, oh it was great, we’d have five offsides every day, we used to move the ball so quick, we were a great team. That cannot be done anymore. It cannot be done on that level. You need to be absolutely on point in terms of detail, because otherwise someone else will be. And the adage of you can’t blame your players would be a very true one. Yes, of course you need good players, absolutely you need good players. But if you don’t have that detail, and everyone will have probably their ways of -- my friend is a poet, I read about Pep Guardiola speaking with people who play chess and -- kind of from a different angle. And those sorts of things I really respect. I do search for those kinds of things.

 

But when it comes back down to it, I do feel it’s the input of how much you want to work around your team to be better that is going to define you in management.

 

[00:53:58] Damian:

Does burnout concern you then?

 

[00:54:00] Frank:

Yes, I think I can see it. I can see it. I read Jürgen Klopp the other day talking about he may take time off, and luckily enough he can probably absolutely choose when that is, and rightly so. And he may enjoy that and may not come back, and I get that thought process.

 

So I get burnout from the idea of the manager, I get it maybe from the idea of the message from the players up to the manager. You hear about great managers and teams that have like a three or four year cycle. I understand that from both sides. And I think this job we’re in is so intense, and there’s so much expectation and pressure, that I think burnout can be -- and I think you need to take every mument you can to recharge within the year. And I understand managers that want to take time away from it.

 

[00:54:38] Jake:

Why do it then?

[00:54:40] Frank:

I do love it, and when I had my year off, it was the most beautiful thing to do because I was very intense as a player on myself for a long time, and I needed to break away from that. But then I had a burning desire to get back in. I have a burning desire to try and be the best I can be at what I do. And I’m lucky I do love football, and I want to be the best I can be in it.

 

So if you took it away from me tomorrow, and that’s always possible in this game, I’d miss it. I know that for sure. I love doing it.

 

[00:55:08] Jake:

I just wanted to finish by taking it back to your mum, and the quote that we both read in the book, where you said a great bit of advice from her was to just be kinder to yourself. How are you getting on with that?

 

[00:55:18] Frank:

Yeah, I’m okay with it. Because you mentioned Christine, I’ve got a fantastic, supportive wife. I’ve got three daughters, one relatively young and my elder two. We have all just been away for a few days in the break that we’ve had. And those are moments that are just brilliant for me and actually come away from -- so I try and be. Be kind to yourself, maybe it sounds a bit like a false kind of motto now, but I do have to have time. But when you have good people around you, and you look at your daughters and your wife, those are the moments that I can be. And I’m in work mode a lot. I can’t change that. Christine snaps me out of it sometimes of our own personal moments. I try and enjoy them, and I do enjoy them.

 

[00:56:00] Jake:

That’s why it’s important I think of people around you that nourish you away from the world that you’re in. And you have to be quite ruthless I think sometimes. Rio Ferdinand spoke about this, and Robin Van Persie, about cutting away the drains and only leaving the fountains. It’s a hard lesson.

 

[00:56:15] Frank:

I have a lot with that, Jake. My phone and my messages, sometimes you get a lot of people messaging and different things, and it’s not all negativity. It’s not, of course it’s not. I’ve got friends that I don’t see as much as I used to and all of those things. And that’s not like the cut loose I heard from Robin Van Persie talking, and the specific reason I think that he moved away which helped with his career. I generally don’t have the time, the way I work at the mument now. And I feel bad sometimes. And I’ll try and find the time, but you have to put things on hold. But

the inner circle, and the right people around you, yeah, you have to rely on really good people, because this job is extreme in terms of football, and it takes a lot out of you.

 

And I’m very lucky that I can have the wife that tells me to snap out of it in a good way, and we go on and have a date night, or a dinner, or we do something different. Those things are great.

And then I have to not talk about football for two or three hours. And that’s it, that’s the balance you try and strike.

 

[00:57:00] Jake:

We’re going to move on to our quick five questions in just a second, but before we get to those, just a final one about your daughter, Patricia, who is how old? Two years old?

 

[00:57:10] Frank:

Two, nearly two.

 

[00:57:12] Jake:

Nearly two. Of all the things you’ve learned, all the journeys you’ve been on, how do you employ that now, having this beautiful little almost two year old, and you’re such an important part of her life. How do you take those lessons you’ve learned to give her as much as you can?

 

[00:57:25] Frank:

I try and be the dad, as I did with my two older daughters as well, and obviously still try and do as they get older as still obviously the relationship changes. But with Patricia, lockdown came, obviously a difficult time for everyone in the world. But for me, in terms of home life and being able to devote more time to her, it was the big plus of a tough time for everybody for me at home. Because I could give her more time, and I do -- we talked about the relationship with my mum and dad. I want to be a parent more like my mum. I am more aligned to that, to have calm words, be a smiley, positive face and all of those things as she grows up. And I try and do that.

 

I’m always the dad that seems to go away to work quite a lot and probably come back, in her very young years. But sometimes you get that big, bubbly smile because you are the one that doesn’t do all of the nitty gritty jobs that Christine has to do, and I just have to come back and make her laugh and be funny. It’s just a great position sometimes. But that’s all I want to do.

 

And bring her up with good manners. I want her to be a polite young girl, as I try to do with my older daughters, because that’s what would make me proud. I don’t care -- well I do care that

they get their great grades when they get to the GCSEs and A level time. But if they’re good people, then that’s all I really want from them.

 

[00:58:30] Damian:

I thought there was a really nice comment you made in that game at Anfield earlier this year, where you were caught making some comments to Jürgen Klopp. And I really liked the fact that when you were interviewed, you said your main concern was that your elder daughters would see you using bad language, and that was the bit that you regretted. Not necessarily…

 

[00:58:54] Frank:

Yeah, I did regret that. And when that broke the next day -- I clearly felt it as I was doing it -- but when it broke the next day and a friend of mine sent it to me in the morning, I was a bit embarrassed by it. Because I was in the moment, but 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. I’ve been 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. I definitely didn’t mean any disrespect to Jürgen Klopp, because I’ve got huge admiration for them. But what I felt had gone on, it was an impulse reaction, which I will happily -- when I do see him, I’ll put that one right.

 

But also 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.

 

[01:00:10] Jake:

Right, here we go then, quick fire questions. The three non negotiable behaviours that you and the people around you have to buy into?

 

[01:00:20] Frank:

I feel like I’m going over myself again here, but hard work, to take responsibility for yourself, and be a nice person, I suppose.

 

[01:00:25] Jake:

That is almost every time the third one, isn’t it? The people go with the hard work and the relentless, and then they’re like, actually, you’ve also got to…

 

[01:00:35] Frank:

I think you can do both. You can do both.

 

[01:00:38] Jake:

What advice would you give a teenage Frank just starting out?

 

[01:00:40] Frank:

I think to be -- to stay calm through tough times, and be -- and see the big picture, because it’s very easy to react, in good and bad, and different ways. I feel very fortunate to have had the career I had and now be manager of Chelsea Football Club. But within that, there’s loads of things that go on.

 

So I would sort of almost say to be prepared, young man. Be prepared for good and for bad, and just be a good person. And then when you work, work as hard as you can.

 

[01:01:08] Jake:

Dealing with the good and the bad leads on to this one. How did you react to your greatest failure?

 

[01:01:12] Frank:

Well which one of my failures do you want to choose?

 

[01:01:15] Jake:

Whichever one you think is the greatest, I guess.

 

[01:01:18] Frank:

Yeah, I mean, look, we’ve gotten knocked out of World Cups. 2006, I had something like 30 shots and didn’t score and got absolutely crucified for it. How did I react to that? I probably

consumed a fair bit of alcohol on the evening of the game that we got knocked out in, as you tend to do.

 

And probably I’ll make myself sound like the best sportsman ever if I go, I went away and worked hard and got better again, because it’s never that simple. Of course sometimes you take it on the chin for a while, but I think probably hopefully you learn as you get older with the failures. I’ve had a lot of failures. Is that the older you get, you kind of understand what they are.

 

Keep your head down. When you’ve failed, the last thing you should do is open your mouth and start shouting about what went wrong and who else maybe was involved in that. It’s to stay quiet, and then just perform. Just come back and perform at a later date.

I think I hopefully did that most times that I failed. [01:02:06] Damian:

Are you happy?

 

[01:02:08] Frank:

Yes. Yes, I’m very happy in my home life, which is the most important thing, of course. And I’m happy in the job that I’m in, and I love doing it.

 

[01:02:18] Jake:

How important is legacy to you?

 

[01:02:20] Frank:

Not that important, and I’ll give an example of that quickly is that if I was worried about my legacy at Chelsea, I wouldn’t have taken a manager’s job. So I’m happy that it’s there, that can’t be your goal. Maybe when I’m really, really old man, hopefully if I live long enough and you sit back at the end of it, you can go, yeah, legacy of that period, or that period, or that period.

 

But the minute I don’t think about it, I think legacy is something to think about, or for other people to talk about with you. So I’m not that concerned about it.

 

[01:02:45] Damian:

And if you could give one golden rule for the high performance life, Frank, what would that be? [01:02:50] Frank:

I think you probably know it by now.

 

[01:02:52] Damian:

Hard work again surely.

 

[01:02:54] Frank:

No, but I mean, listen, a high performance life, career, team, whatever, looks different for everybody; so it’s really hard to give advice. Sir Alex Ferguson had an incredibly high performing team for a long, long time. So did other managers. And they all look different, and I appreciate that.

 

So I wouldn’t try and give that. I’ve spoken a lot there about working hard and having the right ethics, but it looks different for everybody. So I suppose do it as you feel it, as what you see in front of you; with absolute demands on yourself to try and be as good as you can be.

 

Because desire to improve daily is a huge thing that maybe I haven’t quite picked up on enough there. But every day you wake up, it’s what can I do better, and never settle. That’s probably one of the main things.

 

[01:03:34] Jake:

Thank you so much for agreeing to be part of the High Performance podcast.

 

[01:03:35] Frank:

Thank you, cheers. Absolute pleasure, thanks.

 

[01:04:03] Jake:

Damian.

 

[01:04:04] Damian:

Jake.

 

[01:04:05] Jake:

It’s always a pleasure, isn’t it, to hear from someone like Frank, or Ole, or Sean Dyche, because it gives such an interesting window into the world of a professional football club, and how it’s being operated at the moment.

 

[01:04:18] Damian:

Yeah definitely. And I think what I found really fascinating with all three of those guys, and Frank that we just listened to there is the fluidity of it, that they’re learning in the moment. So there’s very few things that they’re rigid or fixed on; they’re always learning new ways of doing it. Like Frank speaking about his coaching group, how he got them together. It’s a real window into how fast moving and dynamic that world is.

 

[01:04:42] Jake:

And I love how he talks about his new understanding of communication, taking people on the journey with him. And we’re not just talking about taking his players on the journey, we’re talking about every one.

 

And I think that’s a great lesson for anyone listening to this podcast is that whether things go well or go badly, if you tell everyone what you’re intending, and why you’re intending it, and how you’re going to try to go about getting there, well even if you don’t complete the journey, they’ll still come with you.

 

[01:05:05] Damian:

Yep, very much. I think that phrase that he used around nature abhors a vacuum, so if you choose to ignore an issue, however difficult or thorny it is, people will automatically -- it’s sticky and it’s more memorable to assume it’s something negative. Whereas what I think he’s learned then is just fill that vacuum with honesty.

 

[01:05:25] Jake:

I also get the impression that when he talks about how his mum brought him up with that much softer side than his dad, without it being too much, because you have to be tough at times in his job, I think that’s a really big part of the way that he manages people.

 

[01:05:36] Damian:

Yeah, I think that was a really telling phrase for anybody listening to this, whether you’re a football fan, a Chelsea fan, or whether you’re just listening to it for your own reasons of high performance outside of sport. I think the idea of just, be a decent person, just treat people with respect, come in and offer value; take an interest in the human side of it.

 

It’s one of the great under-looked areas of high performance. This isn’t just about relentlessly going after targets, it’s about bringing people with you, and doing it with humanity at the very heart of it.

[01:06:08] Jake:

And if you’re listening to this podcast and someone says to you in the not too distant future that Frank Lampard was lucky, or Frank Lampard had an opportunity that others didn’t have; or Frank Lampard hasn’t tried hard, or he hasn’t put the hours in. Ask them to listen to this podcast, because the one thing I take away from this, Damian, above all else, is the constant relentlessness to improve every single day.

 

[01:06:30] Damian:

Yeah. I mean right from a very early age, I think his dad’s messages, however much he says that he veers away from that, I think the sheer discipline, the determination, the focus and relentlessness that his dad had given him at a young age, is something that he’s carrying with him in his own career.

 

[01:06:50] Jake:

Thanks ever so much. It was a pleasure, wasn’t it?

 

[01:06:52] Damian:

Oh, it was a real treat. Thank you.

Blaise McGowan
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