As Frank Lampard stood on the sideline waiting to come on with 15 minutes left at the Etihad Stadium yesterday, you looked at Manuel Pellegrini and wondered: how has it come to this?
City are a goal down and a man down to a José Mourinho team, and the manager of the Premier League’s richest club is reduced to bringing on Lampard to try to turn the game?
The 36-year old had made his City debut the previous week at Arsenal and had been withdrawn after 45 ineffective minutes. Now Pellegrini was hoping he could make the difference against the league’s most ruthless defence? Two years ago City headhunted Txiki Begiristain from Barcelona to oversee long-term squad construction. What, you had to wonder, has he been doing?
Seven minutes after Lampard's introduction, James Milner crossed low towards a figure in light blue moving into an unmarked position 12 yards out. John Terry saw the danger too late. As with so many of the goals Lampard has scored down the years, the finish was slightly scuffed, yet the expert placement gave the goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, no chance.
Lampard sprang to his feet, puffed out his chest and walked away with an expression of scrupulous solemnity. He had just scored one of the most significant goals of the Premier League season so far, but the 13 years he spent at Chelsea precluded any possibility of a celebration.
After the game, Mourinho gave the impression that if he’d been in Lampard’s position, he might well have celebrated. “I don’t believe in these histories of passion and heart,” he said. “Maybe I’m too pragmatic.”
Lampard, of course, is pretty pragmatic himself. Otherwise he would never have joined a club who are now his old club’s direct rivals.
A win for Chelsea yesterday would have meant they led City by eight points. Mourinho's history in the Premier League suggests that, even this early in the season, such a lead would be difficult to overhaul. So Lampard's goal was potentially a defining moment in the title race. As Lampard stammered his way through a slightly awkward post-match interview, he seemed confused as to how he had ended up playing for City against Chelsea. "I'm sort of lost for words," he admitted.
Blue flag
The truth is that the blue flag has never really meant anything to Lampard. Chelsea were always just a vehicle for the intense personal ambition that has driven him through 20 seasons of a brilliant Premier League career. That ambition is the reason why, years past his physical prime, he can still come on in a game like yesterday’s and make the difference.
Of course, to admit such a thing in public would be viewed as being in bad taste, like celebrating against your former club. So Lampard, the arch-professional, affects conflicted emotions when, in reality, he’s feeling nothing but deep satisfaction.
That professionalism has been Lampard's signature quality. It's doubtful whether there has been a player in English football over the past 20 years who has got more out of his talent. There is a line in Jamie Carragher's autobiography where he compares Lampard with his old Liverpool team-mate Steven Gerrard. Lampard, Carragher says, made himself a great footballer, while Gerrard was born one.
Carragher means this as a compliment to Gerrard, and he's taking up a theme you often come across in English football: the notion that the best players are born and not made. What Carragher says echoes what people said for years about Kevin Keegan: that he was a good player who turned himself into a great one through blood, toil, tears and sweat. There is something faintly condescending about this judgment, as if Keegan's propensity for hard work should constitute a sort of asterisk next to the career of the only English player to win the Ballon D'Or twice.
Mental strength
Lampard could never quite match Gerrard’s skills or springy athleticism, but the mental strength he had ultimately proved more important. While Gerrard was always prone to moping, Lampard never doubted himself. Gerrard might have had more talent, but Lampard ended up with more goals and more medals.
English football likes its heroes to have a hint of vulnerability and Lampard's air of bulletproof self-confidence is one reason why he tends to inspire respect rather than affection. His autobiography, Totally Frank (2006), offered little in the way of penetrating insight (sample quote: "Mr Abramovich had a very humble start in life and has made his own luck") except when Lampard gushes about how wonderful it was to borrow Abramovich's yacht and hang out in the Mediterranean with the likes of Eddie Jordan and Bono.
If Lampard’s boring book sometimes made him seem a little shallow, Gerrard has possibly been too soulful for his own good. Twice he decided against joining Chelsea, where he would have won the Premier League title that has always eluded him. You couldn’t see him now joining one of Liverpool’s rivals, while Lampard might well win another Premier League medal this season. For a man who has never been afraid to follow his ambition, it would be the perfect way to sign off.
