Short-term mentor – Newspaper Kommersant No. 13 (7458) of 01/25/2023

Former footballer Frank Lampard has been plagued by setbacks in his attempts to launch a coaching career in the English Premier League (EPL). Lampard, who was sacked in the middle of his second season at Chelsea in 2021, only lasted 12 months with his new team, Everton. At the time of the dismissal of the mentor, the club, whose personnel capabilities, although they did not look chic, clearly did not expect a catastrophic fall, shared the last place in the national championship with Southampton, and had not known victories in the tournament since October.

The dismissal of Everton head coach Frank Lampard has turned into a very high-profile football event in England. It led to the disastrous results of the Liverpool club in the current season. Lampard’s resignation came shortly after Everton’s 0-2 defeat by West Ham in Matchday 21 of the Premier League. It extended the team’s series of matches without victories, which opened in October last year, to eight.

Everton, who have won only three out of 20 league games, are currently second to last in the league table with the same number of points as last-placed Southampton.

This event is noteworthy primarily because of the background of its central character. 44-year-old Frank Lampard is one of the most famous English footballers of the recent past. He has long been a leader in Chelsea and England midfield. With the London club, Lampard took many trophies, including three national championship gold medals and the 2012 Champions League title. In addition, he received several prestigious individual awards. For example, the English Football Association (FA) in 2004 and 2005 recognized him as the best player in the country.

At the end of the previous decade, Frank Lampard decided to start his coaching career, and her start turned out to be extremely effective, one that suggested a luxurious continuation. Lampard’s first club was second-tier Derby. And he almost brought him to the top division on the move, cutting off only in the decisive match of the play-off tournament against Aston Villa.

This misfire, meanwhile, did not at all embarrass the management of the team that brought fame to Frank Lampard. In the summer of 2019, he signed a three-year contract with Chelsea, whose fans were enthusiastic about the appointment to the key post of the club legend. But reality did not match expectations at all.

In Lampard’s manager’s debut London season, Chelsea finished fourth in the league and reached the FA Cup final, and second, despite a strong summer transfer campaign, taxied to a real collapse.

The grand club parted ways with Frank Lampard in January 2021, occupying ninth position in the championship, and the events that followed the resignation only underlined the correctness of such a step. With Thomas Tuchel, who was entrusted with the post vacated by Lampard, Chelsea crept close to the top three of the championship in the spring, and also won the Champions League.

Frank Lampard, however, quickly found a new and also quite prestigious job. Everton, which, of course, is not included in the list of English football giants, but often stays close to them, replaced the experienced Spaniard Rafael Benitez exactly a year ago: under him, the Liverpool could not jump far from the relegation zone. The rest of last season wasn’t too bad for Lampard, as Everton finished 16th, but the first half of this season has been a nightmare.

I must say that the position of the Liverpool team in the table absolutely does not correspond to their capabilities. They sold leading striker Richarlison to Tottenham in the summer, but Everton’s roster still has a lot of great players like Jordan Pickford, Idrissa Geye, Amadou Onana, Sheamus Coleman, Yerry Mina. Transfermarkt evaluates its cost of €409 million, and this is the 11th indicator in the Premier League. However, the well-known footballer in the past, and now BBC expert Gary Neville, suggested that Everton’s problems are not excluded, not only in the coach, but also in impatient management, drawing attention to the fact that over the past ten years, the club owned by Farhad Moshiri managed to lead seven mentors of different styles: Roberto Martinez, Ronald Koeman, Sam Allardyce, Marco Silva, Carlo Ancelotti, Benitez and Lampard.

In England, bets on who will be eighth are already popular. Argentinean Marcelo Bielsa, who was expelled by Leeds in 2022, is listed above all. But there are several other names on the shortlist of possible applicants for the vacant position, including the name of the outstanding striker Wayne Rooney, who played with Lampard for the England national team.

Alexey Dospekhov