Frank Lampard has claimed he's judged differently to other bosses at big-six clubs because he's a young English manager.
The Chelsea coach was appointed in the summer of 2019 after one season managing Derby County in the Championship, in which he led the Rams to a play-off final. That makes Lampard the only English manager in charge of one of the Premier League's biggest clubs.
Asked whether that meant he was judged in a different way to his fellow managers, the 42-year-old replied (as per The Mirror): "Possibly, yes; I think when I got this job a lot of people were questioning me getting the job.
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"A lot of people told me, 'Are you sure you want to take it?' Because of maybe opinion. And I think when sometimes people can be very quick to form opinions straight away, for whatever reason, and being a young English manager with one year at Derby some of that I understood.
"But at the same time I think sometimes we just have to judge people on face value, like we do judge any manager. It doesn't matter where you're from, I think all managers should be judged the same."
Lampard led Chelsea to fourth place last season and an FA Cup final, all while a transfer ban was hanging over the club. That performance divided opinion with some claiming it was a solid first season when nobody realistically expecting a title challenge, while others questioned the defensive setup as the Blues conceded 54 league goals (the most of any side in the top half of the table).
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Speaking ahead of a Champions League group game against Krasnodar, however, Lampard defended the performance.
"I was pretty proud of what we managed to achieve last season in terms of coming in the top four,'" he said. "In fact I thought we could have actually done even better than that for different reasons. But I was happy with that.
"I can't get swung on opinion though, because if you do that managing a Premier League team if you look at opinion and read and listen to everything, it will affect you every day.
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"So I just have to do the job as well as I can. And hopefully, the opinions will speak for themselves. I'm certainly very pleased I took the job. I'm very proud to manage this club every day."
It's intriguing that Lampard believes he perhaps receives greater scrutiny because he is a high-profile English manager. Others might argue that Lampard only finds himself in this position because of his status as a Chelsea legend and that, in fact, being a renowned ex-England international has helped his rapid progress in management.
Criticism along a similar is often levelled at a non-Englishman in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, with some maintaining that the Norwegian has been given a role well above his proven experience due to his status as a Manchester United great. It certainly means both Lampard and Solskjaer are subject to increased scrutiny.
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Whatever the truth in Lampard's case, his club invested over £200 million in the summer, signing the likes of Kai Havertz, Timo Werner and Ben Chilwell. So this will undoubtedly be the season on which his qualities as Chelsea manager will be truly judged.
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