Frank Lampard opens up on 'behind the scenes chaos' at Chelsea in honest interview

Frank Lampard has lifted the lid on what is going on behind the scenes at Chelsea, revealing the main issue that caused their troublesome 2022/23 campaign.

The former Blues and England midfielder was originally appointed manager at Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2019, where he struggled to stamp his mark on the team and was fired in January 2021.

He later returned as interim manager after Graham Potter's dismissal, but failed to turn the tides, winning just one of Chelsea's remaining 11 games.

Lampard has now sat down with Steven Bartlett for an honest conversation about his time as manager on The Diary Of a CEO podcast.

When the former Everton boss was asked about the 'chaos' of the ownership at Chelsea, Lampard pinned the blame on a lack of basics.

"I'm doing everything I can in this job to try and improve but I knew behind the scenes there were a lot of things," he said.

"When you lack those basics, it's really had to get where you want to get to, and as I say there is an understanding at the club that that has to change now."

Lampard went on to reveal that the main issue behind the team's struggles was the sheer size of the squad, following a flurry of signings.

"The biggest thing about the standards thing was the size of the squad and the motivation of players that you're not going to play," he continued.

"In football, that's a challenge with 20 players which is a modern squad. But Chelsea's got very big, to the point that I can say, and I'm not criticising that player for dropping standards but I want to try and get something out of him.

"I would try but when you kind of look at it you go, 'Yeah but he's had this for a long time where he's not playing so he's not being competitive with that player who is playing, so that player is pretty comfortable too because he's not pushing him'."

"And at the minute for whatever reason there's a transition of maybe new ownership... You can't have success without that team spirit and togetherness. But when I got there I could just see that the spirit and togetherness was not there.

"You have to train elite to be elite, but at Chelsea when you did that you'd have to go 'right, if I want to really focus on the 10 or 11 for tomorrow, that means I've got to have like 18 players over there' and you kind of saw the body language of some of them, and they were like, 'Again?', because they have been having it all season."

Topics: Frank Lampard, Chelsea, Football, Todd Boehly, Premier League

Joe Adams

Joe is a Journalist for SPORTbible with a primary focus on football. He has previously covered a number of other sports including boxing, rugby and F1. Wishes he was born left-footed.

@joeadamsjourno