Time Frank Lampard won respect back?

By: Rob | April 15th, 2009

Back in 2005, Frank Lampard was the toast of the footballing world. Second in the Ballon d’Or only behind a peak-era Ronaldinho, lauded by his manager as the best midfield player in the world, talked about by Johan Cruyff has the most intellegent player of his generation, and voted England’s best player by England fans.

Then came the 2006 World Cup, where he became the scapegoat for an underperofrming team. His tendancy to shoot-at-all-costs had crossed over from Chelsea into his international game, and the England fans were fed up with the fact that off-form, Lampard wasn’t hitting the net.

He’s become an odd-boo-boy and his reputation has completely plummeted. Now, after a season where he has been Chelsea’s best player yet again, and one of the best players in the Premier League, he isn’t even on the shortlist for the PFA Player of the Year.

Isn’t it about time we started showing him a bit of respect again?

After a summer of will-he won’t-he move to Inter Milan, where he had supposedly given Jose Mourinho his word that he would, eyes were on Lampard from the start of the season. But he’s lived up to the pressure very well.

In fact after his start to the season, it looked like he was going to kick Steven Gerrard out of the England team. Untill Fabio decided (rightly, I might add) he couldn’t drop them both in the form they were in.

This has been the year that Lampard has grown into a genuine all-round footballer. Instead of shooting every time he picks the ball up from 20 yards out, he looks for a pass. His feeding of Drogba and Anelka this year as led to great spurts of form to both when they could be bothered.

He has been scoring goals as well. His run of form at the start of the season saw him get five goals in his first 11 games. Not bad for a midfielder. It also saw him reach 100 league goals – and before you say it, yes 18 of those were penalties (Steven Gerrard, who also takes penalties, meanwhile is back on 68. I’m not really into saying one is better than the other, but I don’t understand why Gerrard is so loved and Lampard so loathed). Not bad going still, I’m sure you’ll agree. (Don’t give me that nonsense about deflected goals either. That’s a ridiculous argument)

He’s also shown he can head the ball – witness the beauty against Middlesbrough. More importantly perhaps, he’s getting in the right positions to head the ball, whereas before he’d tend to lurk looking for a rebound.

Most importantly, he provides a Chelsea side, that this season has liked to pass the ball around, with the cutting edge that makes all the difference. His incisive passing and ability to make a goal from nothing means – that like Gerrard for Liverpool – Chelsea can always hope for a last minute goal.
He’s currently on 12 goals for the season in the Premier League, which is three behind Anelka and Ronaldo, the leaders. He also picked up Wembley’s 500th goal.

He’s the highest paid footballer in the Premier League, and to be honest, he’s one of its most valuable assests. I’ve been thinking about doing this post for awhile, and the PFA Awards are really the final straw, its just got silly.