Frank Lampard: Was he any good for the Club?

[RamNut]

12 minutes ago, Ambitious said:

Obviously the signings have turned out to be pony, by and large, but as it's been stated numerous times. The players are put forward by the recruitment team. Lampard didn't come in and bang on the table demanding we sign Brentford's winger, who I'm 99% certain he had never even heard of prior to recruitment team showing him a highlight reel. 

 

I think he probably did actually. He spoke about how he’d been watching brentford during his year off.

[GlastoEls]

32 minutes ago, MuespachRam said:

One good game in the season

Can't agree with that, firmly.  Off the top of my head:

Reading away 2-1 - the Lawrence goal

West Brom away 4-1 - performance

Norwich away 4-3 - comeback

Rotherham home 6-1 - goals and performance

Bristol away 2-0 - performance under pressure

West Brom home 3-1 - performance under pressure

 - Let alone Leeds...

[Coneheadjohn]

He knew how to do the Conga so it’s a yes from me.

[Yani P]

He was a breath of fresh air at the moment looks a bit like the rose in a turd sandwich..

[TomTom92]

When Frank was first announced I believe there was a sense of excitement/anxiety amongst fans as Frank has always come across as a nice guy. Obviously a very very good player but as we've seen with Shearer/Neville that doesn't always mean a good manager. I think it was widely accepted that providing their were green shoots of promise most Derby fans would've accepted a mid table finish. Frank came in got the good vibes going and took us to a play off final which is no mean feat. However looking back on the squad we had it could be argued that Frank underachieved and if he was more tactically astute we may well have got the promotion we crave.  

On the signings front I think its been widely acknowledged already that his permanent signings have been poor/not value for money which in turn has seen us cut our cloth accordingly over the last season and a bit. However I believe the main blame for this must lie with the recruitment team and Mel. I mean as much as Mel must be praised for taking a risk on Frank he must also be criticised in hindsight for backing a manager in his first season so handsomely at the detriment to a more experienced manager in Cocu. However I have no doubt that we would not have got Tomori, Mount or Wilson without the draw of Frank and although some people are against loans, I personally don't have anything against them providing they improve the squad which in this case they certainly did. 

I think the biggest negative towards Frank was how it all ended. The line up for the Villa game was totally wrong and as a lot of posters on here have said, once I saw the team news on that fateful day I knew our goose was cooked. Then we had the farce of Chelsea dragging their heels which only had a negative affect on us out of the three parties concerned. Maybe I'm naive but once Frank knew he wanted to leave surely he could've asked the hierarchy at Chelsea to pay up asap out of respect to us. I also hold the opinion that Frank should've stayed and not gone when he had the chance. I think he's a promising young manager and to be given a job like Chelsea so early on in his career could see his career finished before it starts. Assuming Chelsea is his dream job when he eventually gets sacked in the next season or two where does he go from there? That said its all irrelevant now and I'm obviously blinkered with the fact that Derby is my team and not Chelsea. 

Overall I believe Frank was a good thing for the club, the season was enjoyable and I quite enjoyed the cavalier football on display. It also enhanced our reputation in the game and was probably a factor in Cocu coming. At the time the managerial options available were not great and I was buzzing when Phil was announced. Skip forward to now and I'm less than convinced on our future and unfortunately we are now feeling the affects of Mel's generosity during Frank's tenure. But as a young, ambitious manager I don't blame Frank for not penny pinching and we did receive I believe £2m for his compensation which is not to be sniffed at. The only bad thing I'd say against Frank is that since his departure I would've thought he may have sent a couple of good youngsters our way which has not happened. Whether Cocu/the recruitment team don't have an interest in any Chelsea youngsters or whether there's something more negative between Frank and us only one man knows and that's our uncle Mel.

[Nuwtfly]

[GlastoEls]

4 minutes ago, TomTom92 said:

The line up for the Villa game was totally wrong and as a lot of posters on here have said, once I saw the team news on that fateful day I knew our goose was cooked.

+1

Ain't that the truth.

[Anon]

45 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

Ok, he took us to the playoffs, and gave us a few exciting evenings during his 12 months. He perhaps was also instrumental in bringing Rooney into contact with Morris, and also meant that someone like Cocu could be persuaded to look at the Rams as a good step back into football management (although a number on here would say neither of those are positives).

To me he appears to have spaffed an awful lot of money on average footballers - Marriott, Josefzoon, Malone - and probably overpaid for Waghorn (albeit contract negotiations/fees was not his domain). You might give him credit for getting a couple of squad players in cheap in Holmes and Evans, but they both seem bog standard Championship players with little hope of taking that next step up.

He also brought in 3 young players on loan and developed them, and their value, for someone else. I wonder how much we paid for that little exercise. At the same time other than Bogle he didn’t give any of our own young players many starts.

Arguably he then went and left us in the lurch, personally I think that might be an unfair accusation, but it doesn’t seem since leaving he has wanted to do us too many favours, in fact one wonders whether him and a Morris even exchanged Christmas cards.

I think when we want to apportion blame as to what has gone wrong for the Club between 2016-2020 Lampard should take more share of the blame than Pearson, Rowett or Cocu. In fact he was close to being toss as you can see in this caption.

 

I think Lampard gets away with Marriott and Malone because, whilst they were dreadful last season, he used them regularly in a mostly successful team. Malone was his favoured left back and Marriott scored a decent number of goals.

The key with Mount, Wilson, and Tomori is how much we had to pay for them. They were hugely important to our success that season and as long as we weren't paying the kind of exorbitant sums requested by Liverpool for Wilson this year their loans have to be viewed as a positive for Derby.

I think it's massively unfair to criticize Lampard over using academy players. We have to consider that he was picking up the squad from a manager who basically acted like we didn't have an academy at all, so there was a huge amount of work to be done in developing a pathway to the first team for young players. I remember working out that Lampard had given academy talent more minutes on the pitch in his first 6 games than Rowett had done in an entire season. It wasn't just Bogle either. Lampard used Bennett and Roos extensively and started bringing Bird into the fold.

Lampard doesn't owe us any favours, so I don't understand that point of criticism. Do people seriously believe he should be farming Chelsea youth players to us out of gratitude?

There's no way on earth you'll convince me that fat Frank was worse for this club long term or short term than Pearson and Rowett.

[Zag zig]

26 minutes ago, GlastoEls said:

Can't agree with that, firmly.  Off the top of my head:

Reading away 2-1 - the Lawrence goal

West Brom away 4-1 - performance

Norwich away 4-3 - comeback

Rotherham home 6-1 - goals and performance

Bristol away 2-0 - performance under pressure

West Brom home 3-1 - performance under pressure

 - Let alone Leeds...

He over achieved by bringing in quality loans, those wins show no one game wonder and you’re missing the cup nights too, Old Trafford and to a lesser extent Southampton were fantastic games to be at, perhaps a forerunner to Leeds in knockout terms.

Unfortunately, when they all left it was a chasm to fill for whatever manager; that’s why I’m still giving Cocu support - the bloke inherited a poison chalice in many ways.

So yeah, short term good memories, long term did nothing but create more pressure.

 

[richinspain]

1 hour ago, Jourdan said:

To be honest, I was never a huge fan of Lampard. I wanted to be, but I think post-Wembley, he showed his true colours.

I think if he had stayed with the club and tried to finish the job he started, he would have won the hearts and minds of all Derby fans. I certainly would have more respect and appreciation for him. 

That said, one thing you cannot take away from is that he generated a feel-good factor at the club and the players, the owner and the majority of the fans really believed in him and the work he was doing.

Personally I was never sold. Every game I watched, I thought to myself: what am I missing? Is this it?

Like with every manager we’ve had, he did some good but also made mistakes that were in danger of overshadowing the good times. By this I mean team selections, tactical decisions and so on.

I don’t really think you can attribute the recruitment to him. He was coming into his first job. I suspect he relied heavily upon the recruitment team, and you would imagine even Mount and Tomori were the recommendations of Jody Morris. How much would he have really known about the Championship and below?

I think those ‘expensive mistakes’ were more likely to be the fault of the boys in the recruitment department and the key people involved in negotiating transfers.

 

 

54 minutes ago, Ambitious said:

We had our moments, but plenty of times during that season we really struggled to create chances and won a lot of games from goals outside the area. We were far from a free-flowing attacking side for the majority of that season - miles off what we were under McClaren. 

Obviously the signings have turned out to be pony, by and large, but as it's been stated numerous times. The players are put forward by the recruitment team. Lampard didn't come in and bang on the table demanding we sign Brentford's winger, who I'm 99% certain he had never even heard of prior to recruitment team showing him a highlight reel. 

We are where we are for a multitude of reasons where everyone's had their impact. The only positive thing about the club, really, is the academy who have had to keep rebuilding their squads due to the requirements from the first team. They seem to be able to recruit really well and do a lot of things well that our first team simply don't, ironically. 

 

 

40 minutes ago, RamNut said:

I think he probably did actually. He spoke about how he’d been watching brentford during his year off.

I think @RamNut is right, and also that uncle Harry suggested that Frank should sign him.

[ariotofmyown]

My biggest disappointment was what he did after the home defeat to Villa.

The 4-1 away win to WBA was an incredible performance and we possibly played even better at times in the 1-1 draw at Boro the following game.

We then went to Chelsea and should have taken them to penalties. As the game wore on, they couldn't deal with our pressing and get out of their own half. Mount was not fully fit though and shouldn't have played.

We beat Brum next up, not as good performance, but looking up the team that day, we had a back 4, Hudds, then Holmes, Wilson, Waghorn, Lawrence and Marriott. Tomori was on the bench so only had 1 loanee starting. We beat them 3-1 and it seemed we were starting to get an exciting team that could be successful.

Villa came to us next, already starting to improve and with Grealish, McGinn, Abraham in there, they had some very good players.

Lamps went with 5 attacking players again and I remember the first half was close. They were much better than us 2nd half and scored 3 goals starting in the 74th minute. We were chasing the game too though.

He then changed things round and he abandoned something really promising after one setback. We could have kept going for teams and put the Villa result down to a bad day at the office vs some very good players.

We started to play poorly then, culminating in that tragic performance away at Villa. A good finish and a lucky win at Leeds meant he got the Chelsea job. Probably for the best, before he was allowed to waste more yet more money.

 

[LeedsCityRam]

I always tend to look in terms of legacy i.e. did he leave the club in a better place than he found it? Lampard's reign felt a bit like having a week long house party with his departure feeling like the clear up & bill to pay at the end of it.

Of his permanent signings, he had around a 50% success rate with Holmes, Waghorn & Evans integrating but Malone, Jozefzoon & Marriott finding themselves surplus to requirements little more than a year after he left. His loan signings caused the biggest impact though - both in terms of artificially improving the team whilst they were here but crucially leaving a massive hole when he left. The sum total of all this activity was another big financial investment by the club - again without any progression to show for it. Going into August 2019, the squad Lampard left was not in a good place.

From a playing point of view, it was a mixed bag. The headlines were obviously the playoff final & the cup runs but throughout the season we often looked pretty ordinary & relied heavily on the brilliance of Wilson, Mount & Tomori to eek out impressive results. Coming into April, the team was a bit of a mess - after a wretched display at Blackburn, we'd won 2 in 10 & there were a few posters on here who were openly calling for his head. After Blackburn, we went on a fantastic run (including the playoff semi) which skews memories I think. Utlimately, he achieved the same as McClaren, Wassall & Rowett and despite some great memories, he left us exactly where he'd found us.

He improved the profile of the club but the bottom line is Lampard benefitted the most from our year by getting a platform to pitch for the Chelsea job. The takeaways from that season are exactly the reason I do not want Rooney given the manager's job here at any stage.

[Yani P]

Think people are also underestimating the positive impact having Jodie here would have had on the accelerated progress of our youngsters. Cocu and his team have certainly benefited from that.

[nogbad van 50]

Great reading some of these comments and how “likeability” can overcome some peoples’  judgments.There were some good games under Lamps, especially when Mount,Wilson and Tomori were performing well.There were also some abject performances on his watch as well. He admitted to signing Marriott without seeing him play and went solely on John Terry’s recommendation! Lumbered us with Malone,Jozefzoon and Evans and arranged the worst pre season I can ever remember. The excuse mongers are out in force now blaming the recruitment set up,Mel,previous managers etc etc but conveniently forgetting his protracted move to Chelsea and who could forget that awful song “should I stay or should I go?” that he seemed to revel in. Cocu inherited a weakened and unbalanced  squad , due to the loan players leaving, and several mediocre under performers on bloated salaries and, to his credit ,has redressed the situation by removing some unwanted players whilst overseeing the introduction of several promising U23 players.We all know it’s far from perfect but football never is. I can remember Sir Alex Ferguson getting the same grief and it took him 4 seasons to get to where he wanted. Lampard raised the profile of this club and we’ll always remember the bounce but,for me, he was an articulate speaker who benefited massively from the loan system but has dined out too long on the Leeds away game, as enjoyable as it was.When it mattered he fluffed his lines.  

[nottingram]

1 hour ago, rammieib said:

Your first four paragraphs suggest he was?

I still shudder on the play-off final line up.

Then I think back to the day we played West Brom away. I remember being at the ground and sending a text to my dad which said "He's playing 5 strikers" (Mount, Wilson, Lawrence, Waghorn and Marriott). OK, not quite 5 strikers but 5 attacking players with serious intent. Just imagine Cocu doing that!!!

No need to imagine it

[Curtains]

Frank gave us some great times.  

Ultimately in retrospect no he wasn’t. 

But I love the guy. 

Not sure if he and Mel had their differences though mid season 

[Dethorn]

Yes he raised the profile of the club

Yes that new profile must have helped us get Cocu and Rooney

Yes he got us to the play off final (Good season)

Yes we had some great results and performances of which that Dirty Leeds one was just one. (Just a side note - that fast pressing game when he got it to work for me knocks spots of our last two games!!) (I know there are a lot of marginal reasons why Cocu's hand has been forced a bit but I think generally I would rather watch Lampards style over Cocus,)( But then I loved Cocus style after the Stoke game)

No I do not think he showed enough loyalty over his leaving and the way it happened.

I think the question is if we are near the bottom three and Mel sacks Cocu in March and Lampard has been sacked by Chelsea for underperforming would you be pleased to have him and Jodie back??

I think I would !!  Although part of that would be because I would feel if it had failed at Chelsea we might be a longer term project and part of that would be down to Jodie Morris too

[RadioactiveWaste]

More or less a one night stand type, yeah it was fun but left us with Substantially Troublesome Invoices (STIs)

[Mafiabob]

2 hours ago, RamNut said:

I don’t think the penny had dropped with the club regarding the full implications of ffp

and you have to remember what an utterly poo team and playing style Rowett left us with.

frank restored the bounce and played some truly great games

just lost his nerve on the last game.

That utterly “poo” team was not so.

70 goals scored, big and countless away wins, got some average players playing very well.

Rowett was a good manager for Derby. This  “his football was Poo” argument is absolute faux outrage in my eyes. It’s like a sense of entitlement. It’s just a shame it ended the way it did. 
 

I was wrong on Lampard and admit it freely on here, it does make you laugh when you see other posters say “hindsight’s a wonderful thing” it must surely mean the OP is correct in his thinking.

Rowett gave us some fun times, as did Lampard..... the difference between the two? Lampard was a media darling, Rowett wasn’t.

Also, the culture at the club changed under Lampard. Silly videos of Jody getting hammered with “Boysie” - conga lines and bar bills after Leeds surfacing. We were a celebrity club and we are now paying the price.

Bang on @i-Ram

[Van der MoodHoover]

1 hour ago, Zag zig said:

So yeah, short term good memories, long term did nothing but create more pressure.

 

This bit is spot on. Also - examining his permanent transfers, the further up the price ladder he went the worse value they seem to have been, although the jury i suppose is still out on Waghorn and we may not end up spending the full whack of what £7m?

Mind you, only our recruitment team could unearth a £5m gem who the season before was available for 200k.....and that can't be laid at Frank's door.