Chelsea coach Frank Lampard has leapt to the defence of his former coach and mentor Jose Mourinho, insisting that the current Spurs coach remains a ‘top manager.’
With the two sides squaring up this Sunday in the London derby, Lampard was full of praise for Mourinho, who helped mould him into a quality footballer.
Mourinho arrived in England in 2004 and quickly transformed Chelsea’s into a winning team, with Lampard, who became the club’s all-time top scorer, the poster boy of the team.
However, the Portuguese manager has come under scrutiny in recent times following an eventful second spell at Chelsea and his perceived failure at Manchester United. He is, however, redeeming himself at Spurs, who he has led to the top of the table after nine games this season.
When asked about the status of the former Real Madrid coach, Lampard insisted that the criticism of Mourinho was “so reactionary.”
“Of course, he is [still a top manager],” Lampard stated in his pre-match press conference as quoted by Goal.
“You don’t have a record as decorated as Jose Mourinho has a manager without being a very talented coach.
“For all of us, the game is so reactionary at the moment and particularly in the modern era with social media reactions form will always be judged very harshly for any manager. Tottenham are in good form. They are on a good run; they have good players, they have a good manager.
“It will be a very difficult game for us. I played in the fixture many a time, and the fact we’re in good form towards the top of the table adds spice, we’re in positions we want to be in and we’re all fighting for those.
“So it’s a game that remains special for those reasons, and the league positions, of course, all eyes will be drawn to it.”
The two managers have met twice since Mourinho’s appointment with Frank Lampard winning their only League meeting so far.
Yeah like the critics who said Kane was a one season wonder. Imbeciles.
Agreed with a lot of that, but ultimately if Everton do finish mid table, along with West Spam and the Toon, 2 teams who will finish below Everton, we have made a rod for our own back. 7 points dropped is a lot when the top 6 ‘usually’ only drop points against each other. The Man City win gave us a bonus 3 points so we are on -4. Any positive result against Chelsea will be a bonus too, especially with our record there. We have much better players than Brighton, WBA, Burnley etc so we should be able to dominate games like that. We did it against West Spam and the Toon, but we didn’t win due to a combination of poor finishing, dodgy VAR and awful decision making. We definitely need to find a middle ground of scoring loads of goals and not letting any in!!!
Stop playing 2 defensive midfielders would be a start against the bus parkers. Proper winds me up when there are 2 banks of five and Sissoko is an option in the final third. He would have trouble throwing a brick down the street, never mind play an intricate pass in a congested area. Hojbjerg alongside Ndombele and Lo Celso would give us more of an attacking threat. Against Chelsea though, Sissoko is a sensible starter.
It is a tough run but at least the teams will attack us ,I worry about the teams that park the bus . We have had a bit of luck a few times this season already so need to change tact and master how to go about winning those games. The top eight will all take points of each other ,I think.we will be around the top towards the end and if you win your last 5 games you probably win it. What certainly help is playing a b team on Thursday nights ,a massive difference so well done levy for supporting your manager ergh and your business.
Even if we lost all these games we’d still be in contention so I don’t know how important they really are…tough run now, easy run end of the festive period/start of 2021 :/
Obviously incredible if we win them all, but having all your tough games in a row when you’ve built a bit of a cushion…I’d say we don’t need to win them all to stay in the race. I don’t think it’s a case we’ll have collapsed like a deck of cards if we’re 4th or 5th with our festive fixtures
I really like Aurier for this one, Doherty I don’t think will produce Wolves form till next season, abit like Ndombele is so much improved in every way from last season.
But what Matt has done is forced Aurier to raise hus game or get comfortable on the bench.
Aurier played great against Man.C & would like to see him get another game, I think Jose agrees with me that’s why he played Matt on Thurs.
I think & hope Rodon is ready to start & if not [whatever the result] I’d be more than happy for Tanganga to start along side Dier.
Then it’s Sergio,Sissoko,Hojbjerg,Ndombele[although I think Jose will start Lo Celso & bring on Ndombele for the last 30 of so].
Then Son,Bergy&Kane
If Bale comes on late on don’t be surprised if he does something special ….he likes the big occasion
Can’t wait for Sunday
These next run of games as they say will tell us alot.
But they said that about Man.U Away before we run over them.
They said that about Chelsea in the league cup [we normally lose this fixture in the cup] before we Malcolm X’d it “by any means necessary”.
They said that about Brighton & Burnley away, but we were patient & tooK our chance at the end of the match
They said that last week about Man. City away when we took their best & countered them like it was last season, but only better.
We lost once & drawn twice to teams that may struggle to finish mid table, “Yes, I said it! Everton will fall away.
I guess we have to remind them again.
[From previous blog]
Starting with our imminent “Battle of the Bridge”, confronted with a run of some tough fixtures ahead when if conquered is the stuff of potential champions, now that we are entering the crucial month of the day of reckoning yes it’s probably make or break time en route to finally accomplishing the holy grail or quickly collapsing like a pack of cards to an all too familiar nearly label of yet another Spursy powder puff false dawn!! Comforted by a manger controlling a strong squad having rediscovered his lost mojo lets hope exciting times lie around the corner to eventually winning a deserved pot of silverware!!
Cometh the astute self confident Jose, cometh the defining month.