"Everything has improved" - Captain Azpilicueta makes telling admission about Lampard's Chelsea reign
His comments perhaps suggest there was more to this story than meets the eye
I really don’t want to be so extreme as to say that Cesar Azpilicueta has hung his former team mate and boss Frank Lampard out to dry, but these comments are pretty telling.
“Six weeks ago we weren't at our best,” Azpilicueta told Mundo Deprtivo (as translated by The Daily Mail).
“Now with Tuchel everything has improved. The team has better feelings.
'The solidity has recovered, fewer opportunities are granted and that speaks of the work of the group, from the first attacker to the last defender. With the new coach we try to control the games with and without the ball.”
There are a number of ways you can look at this, and I’d hope that Azpilicueta is simply pointing towards the positivity at the club right now and where they are heading.
Is that a bad thing? Well no, not for us, not for Chelsea, as positivity and belief in the new coach like this is only a good thing.
But for Lampard, I think it probably points to the fact that many more things have happened behind the scenes that we might not ever know about.
Azpilicueta played alongside and enjoyed success of winning trophies with Lampard, they were close team mates. You’d expect that of anyone in this current squad, Azpilicueta would be the one fully still supporting Lampard and perhaps being more diplomatic with his words.
Speaking specifically about Lampard's dismissal, Azpilicueta continued:
“The results just weren't good. Frank has been a myth as a footballer, I was lucky enough to share a dressing room with him and after he trained me, but (Roman) Abramovich and his executive were the ones who decided to change course.
“The dressing room is responsible to the extent that we do not earn enough, but nothing more.”
Wow, cutting words for Lampard. But if this is just Azpilicueta being honest and telling it how it is, then fair enough.
As I always say, there are things that we do not know behind the scenes, and things we may never know about.
But this should probably at the very least reiterate that Lampard could no longer stay, especially if he had lost the true support of his own captain.
However you look at this, whether it is Azpilicueta hanging Lampard out to dry, or whether he is just trying to build positivity around the new boss, or perhaps just a case of poor translation, it’s certainly a surprising interview.