Frank Lampard opens up on Pochettino delay as he delivers firm Chelsea message

Frank Lampard has backed Chelsea’s decision to explore all options with their managerial appointment as the club close in on Mauricio Pochettino. 

 After sacking Graham Potter last month, Chelsea’s recruitment team have interviewed a number of candidates including Julian Nagelsmann and Luis Enrique. 

But former Spurs manager Pochettino, who has been out of work since he was sacked by Paris Saint-Germain last summer, is now expected to take charge at Stamford Bridge once Lampard’s interim stint is over. 

 Chelsea had considered appointing an immediate permanent replacement for Potter but Lampard says he understands why the club’s next coach will want to wait until the campaign is over. 

 ‘Do they [Chelsea] need to take their time to get the right manager? Yeah, they absolutely should do,’ Lampard said. 

 ‘We are at that stage of the season now where we understand that we are not going to get into Europe, and other managers are probably going, 

‘I’ll take a look at this and wait till pre-season when I can enforce what I want to do’. ‘It’s not silly on their part, we’ve got the top four in the run-in and that is going to be a difficult process of games.’ 

 Lampard also claims Chelsea need to abandon their previous strategy of frequently changing managers in order to build long-term success. 

 ‘I don’t think there is always an obvious method but I do think that if you are trying to work for something, you look at the successful models at the top end of the league at the minute and you see managers that have been working there a long time,’ Lampard said.

‘Recruitment is aligned with the type of squad and identity they want to bring and it works in a direction. 

 ‘You see City, Liverpool and Arsenal [have success with long-term managers]. So, clearly, if you want to get there it’s something that hopefully aligns. At the moment for us it hasn’t. We have to find a way that it does. 

 ‘I was always part of the Chelsea team that changed managers regularly. With casual hindsight it is easy to say I had great success. I won three [league] titles but I should have won five or six. That’s my feeling. 

 ‘We might have won more titles if we’d had more consistency and been able to work in one direction. And I feel like we should have done.’