Kevin McCarrafinds Chelsea's Frank Lampard in defiant mood as he defends his manager and team-mates

Frank Lampard has more to stretch him these days than even the endless running between penalty areas. As if he were not busy enough trying to steady Chelsea's tremulous defence of the Premiership title, the midfielder this week turned his attention to the many debates surrounding the club.

Considering that Chelsea, six points behind the leaders Manchester United, face Liverpool at Anfield today, Lampard, who is deputising for the injured captain, John Terry, knows that strong-minded comments are essential. With Andriy Shevchenko recalled as a substitute, Lampard's backing for the Ukrainian goes beyond the formulaic.

"I'm not having that one," he replies to the suggestion that, at 30, the so far ineffective forward arrived too late in the Premiership. Lampard counters with the example of Gianfranco Zola, who got to Stamford Bridge at the same age and spent seven cherished seasons there. "I don't believe it's because of the age," Lampard said of Shevchenko. "He's got a lot to offer and, as the pro I've seen that he is, he's certainly not done bad things to his body to make him finish early. I think he's got a lot left in him. Hopefully with time and a bit of adapting he can come good.

"I found him a nice fella, a very good professional. His wife and my missus get on very well, so we've had dinners and talked about football many a time. There's certainly nothing in the idea of Sheva being an outcast or a potential grass to upstairs. It's ridiculous. No one sees him as anything like that.

"He's come from the Italian league where he is rightly respected as one of the best strikers in the world. The man's there and he hasn't opened his mouth and said a million things. He's working as hard as he can in training to put things right. I respect him for that."

At the bleakest moments of late, the Chelsea squad has seemed to be divided between those who are injured and those who might as well be. Michael Ballack falls into the latter category in many people's minds. There is a theory that he and Lampard are too similar, but within the club it was discussed and discounted in the summer.

"(Mourinho) was explaining how we could link up well together," Lampard recalled. "He arrives in the box more for crosses, whereas I maybe arrive in different situations. The manager was saying there was no reason why we should be stepping on each other's toes."

If Ballack has not headed goals as he did in the Bundesliga, Chelsea's wingers could be to blame. For the time being nothing functions reliably in a squad that so recently looked like a machine for mass-producing victories.

Lampard still hails Mourinho, the designer and chief engineer whose future at Chelsea has appeared in doubt. "What he has done is to improve me," said the midfielder. "Before, I maybe just carried on playing and wanted to be a good player. He made me want to be in a position where I could get voted second-best player in the world. He has given all of us that stronger mentality and demanded that we react as he reacts. He wants to win."

Three consecutive draws over the festive period therefore pained the manager, but Chelsea are nonetheless unbeaten over 14 matches in all competitions and a resurgence cannot be ruled out. Lampard has adjusted to pursuing rather than front-running and is not obsessed with Manchester United's result at Arsenal tomorrow: "Next week we'll go again and keep trying to be positive about how we're going to break into that lead."

He knows that the most intense phase will have arrived when the texts flood in from his pals at Old Trafford, Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand. "That's how it is with friends in football," said Lampard, "you get on well but you want to beat them."

Outdoing United is no longer so simple for a side chasing its third Premiership title in a row. "It feels like every team wants to beat us even more," Lampard admitted.

He has had more reason than many to feel under strain this season, following a World Cup in which he was unable to score and missed a penalty in the shoot-out defeat by Portugal. When asked whether Villa Park was the ground where the crowd had chanted "You let your country down", Lampard answered wryly: "Among others. I didn't let my country down. It's as simple as that."

Lampard has clearly been nettled, though, by the sneers of Manchester City's Joey Barton for England footballers like him who brought out an autobiography soon after the World Cup. Barton satirised the trend: "We got beat in the quarter-finals. I played like shit. Here's my book."

The Chelsea player is not smiling along with the mockery: "I don't think Joey Barton should talk about me and Steven Gerrard. Joey mentioned that he was running at six in the morning and then he wondered if me and Stevie G was doing the same. When I read that, I was thinking 'I was doing that when I was 11 years old.' That was the difference. I've been training my socks off, and I think Stevie G has as well."

The team meeting should be animated if Barton is called up by his country for next month's friendly with Spain. Nonetheless, Lampard does claim to be more detached now that he has a fiancee, Elen, and a daughter, Luna.

"I would probably have struggled more to move on when I was alone a few years ago," he says of the World Cup aftermath.

Lampard speaks of becoming a father and realising Luna was the "most important thing" in his life: "God forbid if anything happened to her, that would be it."

The feeling leads him to see beyond himself in a more general way at a club emphasising its efforts beyond the field. Chelsea invested £4.34 million in their "corporate social responsibility strategy" last season and, at 2.8 per cent of annual turnover, that is four times as much as a United Nations report recommends companies contribute.

Lampard appreciates that such initiatives could let Chelsea be seen as the embodiment of more than just brute capitalism, but also believes charitable work has to be undertaken for its own sake.

He is irked that players can be sneered at for "showing off" when they use their fame to attract attention to a cause. "It's so easy to say a footballer is thick, earns too much money and has a girlfriend who spends it all with the credit card," Lampard protests.

"I'm in football and I know there is a lot of good, genuine lads out there that are the same as you, me and everyone who works on the street."

Guardian Service