Frank Lampard previews Fulham vs Chelsea and discusses his rivalry with Jamie Carragher

Hi, yes, good afternoon. Join us in mid-rehearsal with Jamie Carragher and our special guest tonight, Frank Lampard, his former club, Chelsea, make the short trip to Fulham on the Monday Night Football. Frank, very good to see you. It's lovely having you with us. Thank you. How have you been since we last saw you on the touchline at Stamford Bridge? Yeah, good. Less stress, enjoying the family. No, I think it comes with the territory we've managed in, and especially the stresses of the Premier League. You know, the expectations, et cetera, in any job. So I think it's important you try and find the time out of the game to recharge a bit, enjoy things you don't get the chance to do when you're working, so I'm probably in that spot at the minute. Much more relaxed, yeah. I mean, just how stressful is it when you're in the thick of it? Well, you know, I suppose there's a balance of feeling fortunate you're in a job like this, you know, working in the Premier League, to work at Chelsea, Everton, huge clubs. But yeah, the expectations are great from the outside. I think any manager of your sort puts a lot of expectation on yourself, responsibility is big in these jobs. So I think you try and balance it and manage it as you do it, but it's not always easy because you want to be the best you can be. So yeah, as I say, when you're out of a job, that is your time to maybe come away and take a bit of perspective and then realise family time at home is a real positive of that side. But of course, Chelsea is a big love, whether you were playing there or managing in two different spells. Have you been keeping a close eye on their progress? Yeah, absolutely. You know, to spend my time there at the end of the season was a very unexpected period. It's a club very close to my heart, clearly, 13 years playing there and a big part of me taking the job from my end. So I sort of was able to see it, able to see a lot of things that were going on, for good and for bad. The club's in clearly a form of big transition. So I'm definitely paying attention to see where it comes because, you know, with a lot of the connections I have with the club and where you want to see it go. We're talking a lot about Chelsea, obviously, with Frank tonight, touching on Everton as well. There's also this great rivalry, although there was a great rivalry between you and Frank back in the... Still is! ..2000s. About who gets this job long-term. Tell us a little bit about that rivalry at the time, Jamie, between Chelsea and Liverpool. It was brilliant. I loved it. And I think, when I think back of my own career, probably the games, probably as much as probably Derby games and Manchester United, that I look back on and, listen, won some, lost some, that's the nature of the game. But I just think of some of the atmospheres, the intensity we played in, in those games, and they were a far better team than us. There's no doubt. That's not the debate tonight, for sure. But I was probably proud of my club at that time for almost making it a fight, making it a battle, because, really, in terms of quality, you know, in squads and what you just went on to achieve in terms of league titles, there was a big gulf. But we closed that gap for one-off games in a four- or five-year period. And the games that we all, you know, we look back on, and that's where that rivalry is spoken about. There was no sort of Liverpool-Chelsea rivalry before that. And it's probably still there a little bit today, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. I remember starting with Rafa Benitez and Jose Mourinho. There was a bit of that. And as players, yeah, you're right, Jamie, I don't think you realise, even until you retire, you look back with a real feeling about what the games were. And they certainly closed the gap. Those atmospheres at Anfield, when we used to go there, European nights particularly, were really, really sort of a leveller from our point. If we did feel we were any way superior, and we had a strong squad, I agree with that, but those nights were special. Really tough, really tough. And we seemed to play each other so many times in different competitions in that period. There was that history, wasn't there? Yeah, what I thought was interesting is, when you talk about that rivalry of Chelsea and Liverpool still going on, you actually took it when you were a manager of Chelsea, didn't you? Yeah, I did. With Jürgen? Yeah, I did. Yeah, it'll probably never leave me, will it, I guess. Do you know what I mean? Do you regret that? I regret the language slightly, because my daughter was, you know, my daughter was 13 at the time, and the next day she was, like, showing me not to be proud of it. So, no, I don't regret the emotions. I think it's a game of emotions, but I regret some of the language at the time. I was like that at the game when we played Chelsea. Yeah, it's true. Regardless of who you play. It's a big night for Chelsea, that is for sure tonight, taking on Fulham. It's not been a great start for Mauricio Pochettino. Of course, we're talking about that in the build-up to the game, which kicks off at eight. And as well, as you would expect, we're giving a lot of attention tonight to the most talked-about game of the weekend, Spurs-Liverpool, and the fallout from that as well. We might have a different take on things on Monday Night Football. Join us for that at 6.30 tonight.