Ep 5 & 6 | Lockdown | Football Returns | Frank Lampard: Coming Home

The Premier League was today suspended until the 3rd of April due to the outbreak of coronavirus. To take on the challenge of something like lockdown, you have to try and be the calm one, the consistent one and get us through a very tough period. We literally left the training ground one day and didn't see each other for a very long time. The Everton game at home was one of my favourite games of the season in terms of our performance. It left me very happy after the performance to see the work that we've put in through the year. When you see a performance like that, you know, it means that things are coming together. Chelsea's Callum Hudson-Odoi tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday evening. The full squad have now gone into self-isolation. At that point I knew that there was going to be a break and it was going to be an indefinite break. People must stay at home. I remember very well the moment that I heard or was aware that lockdown was coming in because it was in a football sense and football feels pretty small when lockdown actually and the issues that we had with the virus came really home to roost over the next weeks. So it was a confusing time for us all. The unknowns were everywhere. We literally left the training ground one day and didn't see each other for a very long time. Obviously with the boys, you're with the boys and you're mixing with them and having banter and that and then next minute I'm stuck at home on my own. You kind of take so many things for granted on match day, playing matches at Stamford Bridge and stuff. That's something I've kind of realised that you can't take it for granted and you never know what's going to happen and what things can take away. We wanted to make it feel like a real family unit and the Chelsea family as such and the club from above and that means from the owner himself making incredible gestures in terms of our charity link-ups and making the hotel at Stamford Bridge available for the NHS. It was an honour to be part of Chelsea at that point and manager of the club. I have to say that I think as a collective effort, everybody did their utmost to act and behave in the right way and with a real positive attitude. There were a lot of responsibilities that we had to take as Chelsea and a big part of that as well was to stay in touch with the fans. The players were speaking regularly to making contact to fans who were in difficult periods not being able to leave their houses. There were things that were becoming much more important than football. For myself it was speaking to a Chelsea fan who was a surgeon and working through a terribly tough time working in the hospitals. What I'm going to take from this whole experience is this whole collective effort and everyone is giving everything they can. Everything looked very different at Cobham. We had to take real care in how we behaved around the training ground and staying socially distant. Making sure that we handled the sessions right and also with an eye to games are going to start soon. Frank Lampard's Chelsea will be back in action away at Aston Villa on the 21st of June. To come back training in the best shape and with a real positive attitude when football came back that they wanted to finish the season in difficult circumstances but finish the season as well as they could. That made me very pleased when we came back and we saw how everybody had come through it. We all had challenges but I think we as a club and the club as a whole which made me very proud to be manager made as good a job as they could at getting through that tough time. I think one of the really positive things about the recent happenings and the movement that's happening is the togetherness that the players are showing, clubs are showing, everyone involved is showing to try and move forward. Every day you're seeing players, clubs come together and that's a great thing. That's what this is all about is being together moving forward and we have some work to do and we'll all keep doing that. Frank, good to see you. What do you think this spell will demand of you as a manager because this isn't the football that any of us are used to in fact it's very different in so many ways. Yeah, I think there are a lot of challenges. A lot of them I think we've already encountered in the short period to try and get the players fit for these games. They were off for a long time. We've had to try and guard against injury whilst getting as fit as we can and I think we'll see that in the early games. There are things that are different but one thing that pretty much remains the same is the players on the pitch realising what's at stake in these games and performing to the best of their abilities to try and win for Chelsea. Our first game of restart at Aston Villa was very different to say the least. It was very easy to speak about no fans and new procedure and risk assessment but to actually go through it and play in the Premier League for me is the best league in the world for many reasons but one of them is the fans, the support that we have for the clubs. Us at Chelsea here, our away fans are always fantastic and I've had some of my best days in a Chelsea shirt at Aston Villa. To not have any fans there supporting you, to not feel that on the day when you turn up it was very strange. On that point I think the players performed very well. We controlled huge parts of the game. So credit to the players. I thought they dealt with it very well and we had to get used to a new normal. It's strange obviously to come back after three months, over three months without fans. It was strange but we have been working for this a long time. I think we all miss the competition so we were looking forward to playing the first game today. Facing Manchester City was our first game at Stamford Bridge. Even though it's at home we knew it was going to feel really different. For me personally, I've been playing here so many years and feeling that atmosphere drive myself and the team on to return here as manager against Leicester at home and feel such support from the crowd. We know that will pull the team through and the players through it so many times. That was obviously not going to be there. I felt that we could try and make positives out of the situation and against Manchester City there's always times when you're not going to have the ball. There's always times when it's your work ethic and resilience that will help get you a result if you can. We just focused on that. We took our mind away from the fact that we won't have an atmosphere four against us and they performed excellently as you have to to beat Manchester City. It was a big result for us during the whole restart period. That was one that gave us real belief when you beat a team of City's level that it could be a successful end to the season for us. When I look back at the period as a whole I think we can be pretty proud how we handled those tough times. This situation has helped everybody to know each other better. Hi Tom. How you doing son? FaceTime me, see how you're getting on me. He hasn't took my beautiful looks. I can tell, I can tell that. He's a charmer. Playing with my little brother I don't get to see much so that's a positive side. You play the piano. You're a surgeon. You've got biceps three times the size of mine. You're a busy man, aren't you? We were probably a team not expected to be in the top four at the start of the season. By restart we were sort of expected to be in the top four because of how we performed to that point. And that's a different kind of pressure. Let's go. Looking back at the season there are certain key moments that I feel showed me the team progressing. Gave big results in the second half of the season against Liverpool in the FA Cup. And against Manchester City in that restart period which was so crucial to where we end up in the league showed we can attain levels but we must improve those levels to get to where we want to go to. The Manchester United performance in particular at Wembley with the pressure on and probably underdogs from the outside to many showed that with the team and the focus that we have and the preparation that we can do and execution of that preparation and plan on the pitch against a high level team when it's right we can compete against every team in the Premier League. And to win a game with that much on it made me so pleased because we won it comfortably. And it wasn't something you expect in a semi-final against Manchester United but every player to a tee turned up on the day and worked brilliantly. Chelsea through to the FA Cup final. We were so happy to get to the final by beating Manchester United. We come into the game with that extra motivation that we have something to prove and we need to get one over on them. And then when we got the goals and got the confidence from that I think we played our stuff and we were brilliant. That performance was brimming with personality brimming with work ethic and quality. To come up against a Manchester United team and beat them pretty comfortably was a brilliant collective effort. When the Arsenal game came along I asked the same of the players in terms of preparation and focus they had to understand what an FA Cup meant to the fans, to the club the history of the FA Cup, even without fans. A lot of things conspired against us. We had two serious hamstring injuries a dislocated shoulder a red card that wasn't a red card and we went into the game with some people who were out of the first eleven that would have had experience of playing these kind of finals. And it's obviously a frustration at the end of the season that I don't think we played as well as we can do. And I think the difference between Manchester United and Arsenal is a bit of a symbol to us of the work that we need to do to get consistency as we move forward. And I think for the players it's something where we can kind of say we didn't play as well as we can if you turn up to the final and don't do that it's going to be very difficult. We were very upset, I was very upset after the final. Because I know what it means to Chelsea to try and win the FA Cup final. But we didn't. And it's important that we take the lessons of those type of games as we move forward. The FA Cup run this year was something that made me really happy barring the final of course. But when you think that to get to the final you're going to have to try and beat Liverpool the best team in the country that season. Leicester who at that point were third in the league. Manchester United who were on a 15 game unbeaten run or something. To beat those teams was a big deal and a sign of the team that I think we are but more importantly I think that we are hopefully going to become. Fourth place for us I felt was an achievement this season. It's obviously very difficult to say that as a Chelsea person because in a modern era we've been fortunate enough to be competing most seasons to win the Premier League title and generally competing to win Champions Leagues or FA Cups or whatever competition we're in. And when you lose a player of the impact of Eden Hazard and we know that the players relied on his moments of magic to sometimes win his games. It was a case for me of what is another way around this and how can we try and fill that gap. I fully understand why most pundits from the outside didn't give us the chance to come in the top four because when you have players coming back from loan from the Championship who you are going to rely on and play plus 50 games. Mason Mount, Rhys James emerging as a player this season other players getting their debuts. You have to also understand that it may not be smooth through the season there will be learning curves. There will be difficult times but we must go through them to try and get to where we want to be. So to be able to sustain Champions League football for next year was a huge thing for the club. And it also should give confidence now and now we must go okay fourth was an achievement this year but I don't want to be saying that next year. If we keep moving forward in the right way we want to be saying how can we close the gap going forward and that's now our challenge. Looking back at the season there were certain key moments that I feel showed me the team progressing. When you look back to our Champions League group ride and to see us go and play with the way we did away at Ajax. It was one of the first performances where I felt it was a really full performance for us as a team. It was work ethic off the ball it was quality on the ball and handling a really hostile stadium away from home in Europe. And there were some negative moments but sometimes you learn as much from them as well. Against Bayern in the Champions League a game when I have to analyse a game throughout it wasn't our best performance. We were well beaten by a team that probably showed us where we are at to some degree and where we want to get to. But it was a big learning curve I think for the squad on that day. I expected those tough times but we still should hold our head up high and know that to go away to Tottenham in a tough time in the year and get a result so convincingly. To go and win against Arsenal away from home around that same period were big moments for us because we know what they mean to the fans. My thoughts on next year will be can we improve on this season? When I say that I mean can we improve from day one of pre-season? So younger players now have more experience so the challenges and the expectations on them will be more and they have to react to that. Players that we are bringing in and we've brought in two players we do that with a view to improve and that must up the levels of us as a group. And me personally I have a real desire to never settle for where we are today. I always want more. I don't want to set huge markers for where we are going to be by the end of the season. I think that would be the wrong way to approach the season coming. I think we have to say let's work daily to improve. Let's set out with probably a general idea that we must close the gap that's above us. We must find more consistency in ourselves. But we must also believe because we've shown a lot of things this year that give us reason to believe in the way we can play here. And the situation of where we are as a club now and when I look at our performances I have a really clear idea of where I see the need for improvement on and off the pitch for Chelsea. So I'll keep working for that and hopefully the fans can see that. My first season back at Chelsea in management has been an unexpected, crazy season for many reasons. I think the challenges I knew coming into this job at the start of the year of the transfer ban and the transition that it felt that we were in to achieve Champions League football for next season gave me lots of positive feeling for how we can go forward from here. There were some tough moments along the way which I certainly took on board and have learnt a lot about the squad and where we want to get to. But I think the real feeling I've come through is a positive one that I'm back managing the club that I love and now I just want to take this forward.