Frank Lampard has the numbers to tell you how good he was for Chelsea and England – but the stats tell you only half the story of the classy midfielder

THE numbers alone can tell you how good Frank Lampard was, for club and country.

But the numbers alone can only tell you half the story.

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Frank Lampard officially retired from football after a storied career[/caption]

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A player who turned himself from a kid who many felt only got his chance because of his father and uncle into one of English football’s greatest ever.

A great goal scorer. AND a scorer of great goals.

More importantly, both on the pitch and off it, a class act and a serial winner.

At West Ham, they never forgave Lampard for leaving to go to Chelsea, although the impetus was the way his dad was sent packing by the club when his uncle Harry Redknapp was told it was time to go.

They forget, far too easily, what he brought them in his six years at Upton Park, still learning his trade, finding his feet, discovering how to play.

But at Chelsea, they will always remember a player who, along with John Terry, summed up what made the Blues into a trophy-winning machine.

Just look at those numbers. Double-figure Premier League goals returns for 10 successive seasons. TEN. From midfield.

A total of 211 goals in 648 appearances across all competitions.

Three Premier League crowns. Four FA Cup triumphs. The League Cup twice. The Champions League and the Europa League.

Jose Mourinho revealed how, early on in his Chelsea reign, he sidled up to Lampard in the showers at the club’s dilapidated then-base at Harlington and told him “You can be the greatest player in the world.”

 

 

Lampard may not have been. After all, he was competing, at various times, against the likes of Kaka, Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and others.

But he played like he believed he was.

Led those around him like he believed he was.

Ghosted in at the edge of the box and found the back of the net like he believed he was.
Time and time and time again.

For all those goals, though, for all the attacking instincts, arguably his greatest night came in a game where he barely had the chance to play the ball.

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The Allianz Arena, Munich. May 2012.

Chelsea without the suspended Terry, Ramires and Branislav Ivanovic, while Florent Malouda and Michael Essien were barely fit enough to sit on the bench.

Against Bayern Munich, in front of 80,000 screaming Bavarians.

Chelsea, under Roberto Di Matteo, looked like being overwhelmed and submerged under the relentless red wave.

But Lampard refused to accept it. He made tackle and tackle.

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Lampard led a makeshift Chelsea to the Champions League trophy - scoring his penalty in the shootout[/caption]

Filled in the gaps.

Dragged his team back from the brink through sheer force of will.

And when it mattered, of course, steered home his penalty in the shoot-out settled by Didier Drogba, another of those pillars of the Blues.

His international career, by contrast, was all about “what might have been”.

Three goals at Euro 2004, the tournament England should have won, after he had forced Sven Goran Eriksson to pick him.

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More shots than any other player - but without a goal - in the 2006 World Cup, a campaign that ended with Lampard among those who missed in the shoot-out against Portugal in Gelsenkirchen.

And, memorably, the moment in Bloemfontein that changed football.

The “goal that never was” against Germany which forced even Sepp Blatter, technology’s most implacable foe, to recognise goalline cameras had to be introduced.

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After leaving Chelsea, against his will, there were two more stops. Manchester City, controversially - you don’t have to guess who scored the equaliser against Chelsea early in the campaign - before New York.

But Lampard will always be associated with Chelsea blue.

With one lion for club, Three Lions for country.

With his retirement, following on from David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Steven Gerrard, Ashley Cole and Rio Ferdinand, the Golden Generation, which promised so much and brought so little for England, is over.

But there will always be a golden glow when Lampard’s name is mentioned.

And not only in SW6.