I couldn’t agree more with Jeff Powell’s article about Frank Lampard today – ‘Junior’ is one of the very best players in the world, and has a footballing x-factor that ranks him up among the greats, yet seems to somehow struggle for recognition with the public.
I feel privileged to have watched him blossom as a youngster at West Ham. Never gifted with the physical abilities that Rio Ferdinand had alongside him, Frank somehow developed this canny knack of making undetected late runs into opposition penalty areas, and he has now developed that into an incredible 20-goal-a-season habit. What he learned in the years since he left our club is the ability to dictate play from midfield – at West Ham has was almost always ahead of the ball, but now I rate him among the best midfield passers of the ball in the modern game. There’s a fizz to his play that I just don’t think you can teach.
Perhaps that’s the reason the public struggle with him – he is one of those midfielders that you just don’t necessarily understand. Watch Gerrard and you see the man’s raw power – he bullies the ball into submission, where Lampard strokes it. Where a Gerrard drives forward with the ball, Lampard hangs back and arrives late without it. Lampard is not an out-and-out matchwinner – he’s a creator of the conditions for winning.
Where Lampard has disappointed is on the international stage – not that he hasn’t played well, but he just hasn’t ever found that inspirational contribution that perhaps you need at that level. If England were a successful outfit then Lampard would be a vital cog in the machine, as Bobby Moore was. As England have underachieved over the years, Lampard has become associated with that. To play the number of games he has played for his country is an incredible achievement, but you can’t pretend that it’s been the glorious bit of history it perhaps should have been. That is partly just bad luck of course.
But I feel a sense of pride as a West Ham fan towards what he has achieved – he has surpassed any expectation you could possibly have had of the player as a youngster. The same with the other outstanding players of that era – Cole, Carrick, Lampard and Ferdinand have all proved themselves world-class performers among the elite of World club football. And though all players develop over their careers, these players basically are the same as when they were produced from the West Ham academy. Our club is special, and produces special players.
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