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When you get that call, had you known the context, the behind the scenes, that unhealthy culture? Honestly, do you think you would have made a different decision?

I think I can say this. Frank Lampard! Lampard has found an egg! Premier League icon, Chelsea legend!

I read that your dad was the biggest influence on your career and then I read a separate quote saying sometimes I hated him. You know

my dad was a tough man, pushed me very hard on the football front and it got probably a bit too much. The fear of failure was a huge driving force but it made me what I was and gave me the career I got in the end.

Chelsea fans will be listening to this because they want to get your opinion on what's just happened because since you've left we've not really heard from you.

I came back here because this was an opportunity to come to Chelsea, a club close to my heart but I could see in training the level wasn't enough. The size of the squad with players that will test you and question you. Questioning you.

And then Chelsea spends more money than anyone's ever spent in a window. It seemed like chaos.

You could see that the players were ready for the season to finish.

But low standards are a symptom of something further upstream that's happened.

We didn't get the results I wanted. And I know a lot of the reasons why.

Like what? So... 1 moment occurred in your life that really tested you at a much deeper level. The passing of your mother. And while you were playing at the very, very highest level.

I was a mummy's boy. I lost the closest person to me, you know, everything to me. The emotional support. I want to say something more, you know, I couldn't.

What would you want to say? Frank is a legend. There's absolutely no denying that. But so much has happened in recent times in his life as a manager, that unanswered questions remain. And I wanted to have a conversation with Frank, an honest, open conversation, to see if we could get to the bottom of some of those unanswered questions.

What was happening behind the scenes? How did it actually feel for Frank? Is anyone to blame? What does Frank want to do next? And how and what caused Frank to be the man that he is?

And that's maybe the most fascinating question of all. Because there's some things that Frank has just never talked about before, but he's made the decision to talk about them today. And if you have unanswered questions, I don't think you will at the end of this episode. ♪♪ Frank, How are you doing?

Really well, thank you.

There's always a short and a long answer to that, isn't there?

I was waiting for your secondary.

What's the long version of that?

No, I'm doing really well. I'm currently on a break, I suppose, from working, which is a pleasure in ways, because obviously the work of a manager, I was gonna say Premier League manager, but any manager in football is intense. So at the moment I'm on a break, it's sort of holiday time for me a little bit, family time and probably when I'm out of work, I learnt this when I left Chelsea actually, it was I had a year out after that. And I really learned to try to improve my appreciation of when you're out of work, you're fortunate enough to be able to be out of work, whatever that circumstance is, but try and enjoy your family and be very, very present. So at the minute I'm pretty present at home, which is a good thing, hopefully for my children and wife.

And I'm in a pretty good place.

I remember my brain would often drift off when I had my time out of work. And I would think about things professionally. So I'd think about things that I could be doing, or you think back to the past when you're when you're having those moments where you meet and your kids are running around and you have a moment where your brain drifts off to work. What is what are the subjects that your brain starts thinking about professionally?

You think a lot in management about people. So if I reflect on situations like leaving Chelsea or leaving Everton and those things, there are a lot of things that are out of your control. You get to a point where you kind of can get probably

70%

of them and lock them away and kind of go, I'm all right with that. You know, results you can't control, but 70% you're kind of, you're okay with. And there's 30% that you kind of niggles at you. That's how I am. And a lot of those things when you become manager and maybe sort of like people things, I think there's sort of tactics and all these things are huge in a modern game.

And I'm certainly a coach, I'm not a manager, but when it comes to managing, I don't know,

25, 30

players, managing a building, because you are the head of a building when you're the head coach or manager. I think sometimes when you're reflecting, you can reflect on things. Did I have that, was that interaction right? Would I have dealt with that right? Could I dealt with it differently?

And hindsight is like the best, best thing. You know, it's so simple to sit there with hindsight and think, you know, I should have done that. So I suppose I had moments where I go over things like that, but they're all with a yearning to sort of be a bit better or learn that you might've done something wrong or actually you come to a conclusion, no, I maybe did it right. So, you know, I dip in and out of that stuff. And that probably is, you know, as I say, I wouldn't say I'm the only 1, but I certainly am someone that is, you know, I can never control when those moments come.

I can be, you know, pushing the swing, you know, with my kid and then my mind goes back to something or thinks ahead to something, kind of, you know, that probably means that I'm absolutely invested in what I do.

Yeah, I can relate to all of that. I think anybody can. And I also really liked your analogy of once you get to like 50, 70% peace with something, it's kind of resolved as much as you know. And then there's other things which feel kind of unresolved, I guess. Or there's more wisdom to garner from those experiences.

Well, I think if you don't get to peace with the 70%, I think you can get yourself in a bit of a mess. You know, I think you can go over everything, can correct yourself. And then what is the answer going forward? So I think kind of understanding what you are and then going, no, no, that was fine. Whatever the result for a win or for a loss.

I've had games as a coach and as a player where we've won a game and I know I got something wrong in the game, but you take the plaudits afterwards, but inside I know I got it wrong. I've had games that we've lost and you get criticism from the outside. And I know my prep was right, you know, in my head. So I think those sorts of things, you can kind of stack up and go, no, well, that's fine. But then there's always the 30% and we'll always strive for, and it might be less, I don't know, 30% sounds a big number when I say it, sometimes I reach 10% to try and make you as good as you can be.

So I kind of go over that stuff, because when you're out of work, when you're not working and you don't know, in football you don't know what your next gig is, you know, it's very hard to jump too far into the future because everything looks different there. So how can you stack yourself up as good as you can now?

I want to get into all of that. But I want to take a step back because I think I feel like there's more I need to understand about who you are as a person and your characters and your character and really the the like the foundations you're built upon to understand all of these things, the things we're gonna talk about. So what do I need to know about Frank Lampard in terms of the influences and the experiences that shaped your character, the character of the man that sat in front of me. Cause you know, I've spoken to a lot of people about you in preparation for this conversation. No, but they all seem to sing from the exact same hymn sheet.

They all say, everyone says you're just a wonderful man, like a really good, solid gentleman. And it's, people don't know this, but we were meant to have this conversation before. But you've just been a total class act in even not being able to come last time because of reasons outside of your control. The way you conduct yourself, you just conduct yourself as a real gentleman. And then in terms of your mentality, when I was reading through your early years, it's clear that there was this real obsession to be better.

I mean, Harry said, Harry Redknapp said that you were the hardest training, hardest working person he's ever worked with when you're a young man. Tell me, Why is Frank Lampard the way he is?

I grew up in Romford in Essex. So I would call it probably a middle class upbringing in terms of my dad had been a professional footballer. And so I went through a pretty comfortable upbringing where I was down to school every day, aspiring to do pretty well at school, training pretty much every day and playing at the weekends. After school, we'll go and train at Tottenham and Arsenal and West Ham. At 1 point I was training all 3.

You could in those days. Now it's different. I was playing cricket. I was playing for Essex as a child. So that was on Monday night, having nets at Chelmsford.

And then on Saturday I went to school because we were in a school on Saturdays, which I was devastated with at the time, as we

all were,

but that was how the school worked. And on Sundays I played. So my week was so busy, but it was content, very content. In terms of relationship of my family, I had a dad who was pushing me very hard on the football front, very, very hard. He was quite a hard taskmaster.

What does that mean in reality?

That means that probably when I was, probably started kicking the ball when I was like 4 or maybe it seems like a walk, but you know, like remembering my early days would be 4 or 5. And then, so that was me in terms of, I loved the football, but probably by the time I was 8 or 9, I was probably getting like coached or pushed in what a 15 or 16 year old might be when they're sort of going into an academy at West Ham, say where I ended up. As in work on your weaknesses, go over the park. You need to have more stamina. Your left foot's not good enough.

Your agility is not good enough. So I was like, used to put down the cushions in the front room and have me doing reaction for our ball against the 1 reaction jump. I'm a kid, I loved it, don't get me wrong, but there were times when I didn't love it and it got probably a bit too much. I'm not gonna cry about it because it made me what I was and gave me the career I got in the end. And then on the other flip of that, so I had that pushy kind of thing.

And so after a game on a Sunday, we would lose and I would get, he would give me some criticism on the way home and I would be a bit emotional. And fortunately for me, when I think about sort of fate and how things work together to maybe get you to where you got, you end up being, my mother was the flip, the emotional support, the, you know, arm around you, the quiet word. I was a mummy's boy and that was completely my upbringing. So as I say, it was pretty comfortable. And in the end it led to me leaving school with my GCSEs, getting decent grades and then going to sign on as a YTS at the time, an apprentice at West Ham.

I read that quote about your father. I think it was in the Independent that your dad was the biggest influence on your career. And then I read a separate quote saying that I have an awful lot to thank him for, but sometimes I hated him.

Yeah. I stick by that quote. I think you'll probably find it a lot in stories similar to mine. And in the modern day, I think it's changed because I think parents now, the thing with my story then in a different era was it felt pretty organic. My dad had played.

He saw probably a bit of talent in me and pushed and drove in an old school way. I want you to be a player son, you know? And it was like, I think he found a new sense of pride in pushing me there. Now I think some parents get excited about all the bright lights that may be and they push their children. And I think that's another story, but I think mine was real.

You know, my dad was a tough man, is a tough man. And he pushed me and I remember being over a park and it was raining and it was crossing balls for me to head. Heading's never been a strength of mine, then and now, so it never, throughout my career. And I couldn't, you know, I couldn't connect. I was missing them and he was shouting at me and I remember sort of stomping off and being emotional about it.

And those things stick in my head. And again, they were the building blocks of myself as a person. So, you know, this isn't a sob story. It's just a reality of what I went through. As I said, I had a lot of other comforts, so I, you know, other people don't have it as good.

And it was without that, who knows, in a football sense, if I'd have got to where I got.

And how does that, What relationship does that make you have with your work and progress and self-improvement at that very young age? Because you signed at West Ham when you were what, 14 years old-ish? 15,

maybe. 15? Yeah, 15. And I mean, as

I said, I read that Harry Redknapp quote that you outworked everybody else. What is your relationship with your work from that very young age?

Well, I'm sort of really interested in this kind of nature versus nurture thing. What was in me already was ingrained in me maybe to be this kind of very work ethically kind of person. I think I had physical capacity. I was a chubby kid to be fair. I was quite chubby.

I do cheeks, curtains as you had in those days. And I remember like, I know I needed to get fitter and get stronger. So, and then being pushed by my dad, particularly and encouraged by my mom probably gave me this real desire to, and an understanding that if you don't work you're not gonna get there. And that, you know, that's what I would try and pass on to my children now. But it really stuck and it became me.

So by the time of being, you know, 16, as I remember it probably being at West Ham my early years, I'd probably been forced into a bit by my dad, but I took it on board. So, you know, I wanted to get faster. So he put me in running spikes and I had to run after training, go and run over the back. And I used to hide my spikes, go out the back. So I didn't want the other players to see me because I felt embarrassed.

I'd go in on days off. I would practice extra shooting. I would do everything I could to improve. And it probably was looking back, a desire to be the best. And I was never the best.

I was probably like the second or third best kid in pretty much every team that I played in, in whatever I did, cricket or football. But I had a real desire to, and I also had a fear of failure. And as much as that doesn't sound like a nice driving force, it can be a really strong driving force, I think.

Where did that fear of failure come from?

I don't know. I don't know. I think it's in my makeup maybe. I don't know. It's probably just how I am.

I probably have it still these days. I think it can be really positive. It was in my footballing career and it carried on throughout, probably still in my management career. It can probably be the flip of that in my life because if I fear of failing something, I won't approach it. And that's me, I don't want that.

You know, my wife will always, Christine jokes with me when we go on holiday and you want to paddleboard or something, I'm like, I'm not going near that because I know I'm going to fall off a lot, you know? And so she would laugh at me. So I'm like, you paddleboard, I'll lay on the beach or I'll lay on the lilo or something like that. I actually used a paddleboard as a lilo. That's like, that's the joke.

But in the biggest sense in my life, you know, that fear of failure is, and it can probably maybe make me not try things I should do, but in terms of my footballing career, the fear of failure was a huge driving force. And I don't think it's a bad thing because I think there's a certain humility to it. And my mum would certainly have been the driver of me as a young person to say, stay humble, son, stay humble, never get too high, stay there and you'll be fine in your own head. So I think I had a real understanding of my weaknesses and I thought, well, if I can work on these constantly, and then I started to see results really step by step. Sometimes you go back, you go forward a few, but I can certainly say looking back at my career from start to finish, I didn't leave anything on the table in terms of work ethic and training.

You know, I don't want to sound like an absolute machine. There'll be days when you get older, where you come off it a bit, or you start to find life affection different ways. But when I look at my peers in football, I certainly had a training ethic that at least right at the top where the others can say the same maybe, but I felt that.

I mean, that's the Harry Redknapp quote. He says that during his career, he never met anyone that trained as hard as Frank. He would be out there on a winter's day practicing, shooting for hours, left foot, right foot, et cetera, et cetera. That fear of failure though, I can see how it becomes a driving force and makes you stay out there on a winter's day, left foot, right foot, and then leaving no stone unturned. But with all these things, there comes a more, a cost on the other side of the coin, right?

And you,

I mean, you talked about the paddleboard thing, which is that like kind of, if I don't do it, then I won't fail. But 1 of the things that I was assuming is that it would also make you quite a chronic overthinker. Because I think people that have that fear of failure, they try and think their way through a situation before it happens. Typically, what is the cost of having that fear of failure?

Well, the overthinking thing is maybe a cost. And I think that can be a positive too, but I think it can be quite taxing on yourself, for anyone who thinks like that. And, you know, sometimes I would, I've tried to make myself, you know, not an overthinker, however you do that. I don't know, because I've not found a solution to that 1, because, um, I think when it's, when you are that, um, it's in you. So, um, probably the, the, the, the negative or downsides have been probably a bit taxing on myself, but I think you learn to live with that too.

And I think you understand it. I think it's something that I'll never master and It can probably cause you into over-complicating situations, like you're saying about, I don't wanna get into that, but if you do get into something and you really overthink it and you have to get into something, I now try and step back and simplify it and say, stop overthinking it, simplify it, because for me, anything in life, if you can simplify the basics, you probably get quicker to the solution. So that one's just a struggle that I put up with. But as I say, I think it's just part of my makeup. If I wasn't an overthinker, if I didn't have that sort of obsessive, sort of perfectionist training drive, I wouldn't have got to where I got to because I was not Lionel Messi, who has got this God-given talent that's there.

Wherever my talent was on the spectrum, I needed to push it and I constantly tried to.

How do you enjoy the process if you're overthinking?

I weirdly like, I've really grown to like the stress of what it brings. And that's, you might start thinking I'm a strange person. I don't know, but I loved stressful training, you know, to put it on a physical side, for instance, I loved like that feeling of like almost feeling sick on a preseason run or, you know, really intense training sessions. I really enjoyed that. Maybe not always in the moment, but you know, when you get to the end of it and you go, I got through that and that was so intense and hard.

And maybe in life sometimes I set myself challenges and maybe I make it more complicated than I should, but I don't mind that stuff. And that's probably when I started off talking about that relax when you're with your children. I think I'm still juggling that 1. And I think probably a lot of people are, I don't know. I think being overthink is not something unique to me.

It's completely everywhere, But I don't know what else to say and that's what I am.

That enjoying the pain, like the preseason run, if you feel sick, then you feel good about yourself. Yeah. Why? I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, I went to the gym this morning and I really didn't want to go and I bought the dog and the time limits getting shorter. I was like, I'm gonna go in, I don't wanna go, but I'm gonna go in so I know the buzz that I'll get off afterwards. And that's kind of my drug. And it always has been.

And, you know, it probably starts from all those early days of, you know, you must work hard, you must push yourself. You must be as fit as you can be. And it probably just stuck. And it's probably a bit of a lifer for me. But I do, thankfully, I enjoy the stress of hard work and physical, but less now I've finished.

Now it's more to not get too unhealthy and I'm fit. Whereas when I was training and playing, even when I finished playing for a couple of years, if I went for a 5K, I need to beat my 5K PB. I have to try and beat it. Now, when I do a 5K, I'm just gonna complete it. Do you know what I'm completing in like 20 or 30 seconds less.

So I've dropped that 1 slightly and maybe I transfer into other parts of my life, I guess.

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Thank you so much. Back to the episode. When you finished your footballing career, you know, there's many options you had. Punditry. I mean, I'm just talking about the typical path that footballers, sometimes they just go into business.

A few of them go into coaching and stay in football, but you made the decision to stay in football. Why? And was there anything else that was tempting you?

Well, I did punditry for a year, so I spent a year working mainly on BT and doing some different things, BBC. I did a few bits and I really enjoyed it. It was great. I was working a lot with Riyad Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard, Jake Humphrey, he had them recently and just really good people. And it was like a step in the game and a step I've retired so I can do other stuff.

The life of a pundit is much easier than a manager. We all know that. So I kind of put my eggs in both baskets at that point. I did that and I did my coaching badges and I wanted to kind of see how I felt a little bit and I didn't want to be a manager in my twenties. When I got to my thirties, I was like, that's interesting people, managers, what are they dealing with?

I just thought about myself in my twenties more. And then when I finished, I did my coaching badges, I started to quite like it. And then I got an offer out of the blue to go and manage Derby, Derby County. The owner, Mel Morris kind of went out on a bit of a limb. He was speaking to Harry Redknapp, who's my uncle.

Harry said, speak to Frank. We sat for 2 hours in Chelsea in a hotel and he offered me the job. And it was like, Christine has a saying and it's like jump and the net will appear. And we sat in my front room and I was like, you know, I do my coaching badges, but this is a proper job. I go to Derby, they've got some problems and it's going to be a difficult job or whatever, as all jobs are.

And I jumped. Why? That inner probably drive that I have, that inner desire, it wasn't something that I, I am an overthinker. So that probably made that process of those couple of days where I had to make a decision really intense, but at the same time, I like a challenge. I love a challenge.

And as much as I enjoy punditry, it was, it's challenging, you wanna do it well, when you wanna do it like, the top boys do it, You have to put everything into it and do it really well. But I was, I wanted more. I wanted to get on the grass. I wanted to work with players. I wanted to try and improve players.

I wanted to see if I could do it. It's probably more if I'm honest, probably can I do it? And can I, you know, do something? And I was probably naive at the time because the minute I walked into Derby, I was like, wow, this is different. You know, I've got to hold him.

I am now holding the meeting rather than 1 of the 25 players sitting, listening. And as much as you can think, I'll do that. The minute you walk in and you see those 25 faces, and then you walk to say hello to Jeanette, who's your secretary and this 1 and the player liaison, I'm like, oh shit, have I got to manage all this as well. And you do, you have to sort of, you know, the building is yours to kind of set the tone. So that first year, some of it was good.

You know what I think sometimes in management, a great manager said to me this, he said, and he was, he's old, he was old. And he said to me, I think I was a better manager when I was young in many, many ways. He said, because when I, as I got older, I started to really sort of overthink things and become a little bit more cynical. And, you know, you kind of go over these things. And when I was young, I just make decisions and I was kind of free to do it.

Now, I think there's a balance to that. Experience is obviously a clear, can clearly help as you go along, you learn from mistakes. But I understood his point when he said that, because I walked into Derby fresh and I made a lot of mistakes, because you always will. But I also had a freshness and a bounce and a feeling inside me that was kind of like, I want to take this on. And even though there's moments of fear, you know, that kind of, when you feel like a bit of imposter syndrome, should I be doing this?

And you got hired in, like, I remember having a whistle for the first day in front of, in the training pitch going, I'm going to blow this at the end of training. And I've been used to hearing, this sounds so stupid, I've been used to hearing coaches go, end of the session, stop. I was a bit like, what kind of whistle am I? I didn't want to do like a little, you know, I remember going, let alone I've got to pick a team and set the tactics and set the tone. I was about all those little things.

And I think every, if they're honest, I think, you know, people in business yourself, I've all had those moments, the most simple things where you're sitting there going, wow, that little basic thing that I didn't consider is now in my head. So I had a lot of those and it was, you know, we got to the playoff final, we got to Wembley, we lost a final against Aston Villa to get to the Premier League. And I was so disappointed for the club at Derby and the owner had given me, you know, put everything into me and we'd had a really good year and got there and we lost it. But in terms of that first year of management, yeah, my drive took me into it and it was just a huge learning curve and it was a really enjoyable year.

Imposter syndrome, I mean, that's somewhat linked to, I guess, your fear of failure. Have you, how does, we talk a lot about imposter syndrome on this podcast because it's a double-sided thing. On 1 hand, you have that feeling of, which I can recall when I became a Jagger on Jagger's Den and I'm sat next to Peter Jones and Deborah Medan. Peter Jones has been there for 21 seasons since the beginning. Deborah Medan has been there for 17 and I feel like I've just walked into the TV.

Like your little whistle thing was me like, how do I say I'm out?

Like on a pitch, you know?

But being at peace with that, like how have you dealt with that in your career? Because you went from being a pundit to managing a club that was trying to get promotion to then Chelsea. These are huge leaps forward. Huge leaps forward.

I think I probably managed to get coping mechanisms along the way that have put that to the side. And in simple sense, I've become much more confident in myself away from work, actually at home, much more content in myself. Again, it probably comes back to being really settled in a relationship. I'm 45 now, just turned. But in the workplace as well, I've, that first year I remember feeling it a lot.

And when I moved to Chelsea, like it should be a huge move, it's a huge jump to the Champions League club. Even though I knew the club very well, it was a huge jump to deal with players of a different stature, et cetera. Um, but I found that imposter syndrome thing much less than I had just had coping mechanisms where I could kind of just go, okay, you're nervous taking this meeting because you're a bit out of your comfort zone. You've got to be critical of a player. So you're going to go in on someone, you're going to show a video of the game the other day, and it's like, that's, that's not a comfortable thing to do always.

And I just probably have found mechanisms to be able to go, right. You almost go into the character. I'm not going to sound like an actor too much, but you're going, I'm just going to go into it. And the more I think you do that, the better you can be at coping with that thing. And then you just kind of also have to get a realization that you know, you can feel a bit like that.

You can feel a little bit like, I'm out of my comfort zone. You can make mistakes. I think showing that you can make a mistake in front of a group of players is not the worst thing. You know, they're there to, players will get it. You made the smallest mistake.

1 of those 25 at least is going to go, what about when he said that, you know, but I think you've got to come to peace with that. And you can even joke about that after the event, because you'll keep making them. So I'll probably come to terms with being able to deal with that side of it, I think.

I was thinking then as you're speaking actually about my experience being a dragon. And 1 of the things I've always wondered about players when they go from being a player to a manager, and especially when they've been managed under a legend of a manager. So like I was thinking about Olly, Olly Gunnar Solskjaer and Alex Ferguson. How hard is it to like be yourself versus be the successful manager that you saw win? Like, Because even when I became a dragon, I think for the first 2 years for sure, I was trying to be a dragon, not being Steve.

And that's a journey. But do you understand the question I'm asking?

I completely get it. I get asked it a lot. And I'm not in exactly the way you get asked, but I get asked it by football journalists who say, so what did you take out of all your managers, your plan and all this stuff. And, you know, just to jump to 1 would be Jose Mourinho. It's a good 1 to jump to because he had a huge effect on my career as many did, but he came and probably elevated me in my playing career to a different level.

And what I learned from Jose, and as I then went on to managers after that was the thing that impressed me about Jose, there was a real authentic nature to him. Like when he was self-confident, overconfident kind of brash Jose, that's him, you know, that was him. And, you know, maybe he's playing up a bit now and again, but I saw him behind the scenes. And then when I've worked with other managers that maybe were probably striving to be something like that. And I think after Jose, there were a generation of managers that were a bit like, okay, I'm gonna wear this scarf and I'm gonna tie it, you know, or act a bit kind of, you know, say those things he used to say or does say.

Um, and I didn't, I didn't buy it as such. And even from outside, when you're watching managers, you know, you have that impression. So I think probably you go, okay, can I take things from all these managers? For my journalist question. Yeah, I did from some and not from others, blah, blah, blah.

But when you come to it, you have to be yourself because you'll get found out. And you're probably right in my early days, I also did that. I did my first meeting at Derby again was like, right, I'm an ex-player. So anyone who wants to knock on my door, come and see me and I'll tell you the truth and we'll have it out. Or I'll give you the answer that you want.

And I remember like the first 3 weeks, they kept knocking on the door. I was like, I had to do another meeting and say, lads, if you're going to knock on my door, come to me with like facts of why you should play, you know, how's your training, you know, come with something. I don't want you just, I didn't play on Saturday, Monday morning, it's like 5 on the door knocking and you know, open policy in a door is good. But at the same time, it was like, those are like learning curves for me. Like I probably said that, that phrase, because I think I needed to say it.

Right. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, cause there's a play, it's a really, it's a really cool thing as a player. I want the manager to be able to speak to me all the time. And when I said it, I was like saying what I thought I should say. And then, you know, you learn a little lesson, you know, my door hopefully is still open now.

But at the same time, I was probably playing the part of a manager. And then you kind of go, what's real to me here? You know, like, do I have to say that? Is there another way of saying it or whatever?

And that kind of brings me to a question, which is wouldn't it therefore have been great for you to go and learn those lessons when the stakes weren't so high? Because even the stakes are super high at Derby because you're figuring out Frank the manager there. And sometimes you don't want to be at the poker table playing with real money. And so you've learned.

But that's my life. You know, I know what you're saying. And I think as a, as an, as a, I think, I think I can say this, I think as an English ex-player, Steven Gerrard, others that have played at a high level, you know, played a hundred times for our country, et cetera. I think the culture in this country is to sort of say, right, now you're a manager going on your stripes there because being a player of that level doesn't mean you're going to be a manager.

So I

think that could have been a route where you can kind of get a lot of play. Fair play, he went down to, you know, Division 2 and he's showing what he's doing and there's a process. The reality is that path wasn't for me, you know, and Mel Morris asked me to do the, take the derby job, it was a question. Yeah. Challenge.

Yes, please. I'll take the challenge. You know, when I had 1 year there and Chelsea came to me, it was a difficult time. I had a transfer ban, you know, Ed and Hazard was leaving. It was a real transition, young players, what's going to be there next year.

I think probably some big managers have turned it down. I know that. So it was like, yeah, you know what challenge I'll take it. So, you know, I don't want to try and recreate the past. I think, why didn't I do that?

Because, you know, I've managed in 4 years of management, I've had some experience And for all the, you know, you'll always get criticism. You know, you leave Chelsea, people will criticize you. You go to Everton, you stay up, you get relegated, people will criticize you. But at the same time, I am resilient enough to deal with all that stuff now. And that's been probably the beauty of having a long career in football.

And so my thing is I can manage Derby, I can go and manage Chelsea and do it to a good level as well because I've had successes as well as when it hasn't gone so well. I mean, that's the modern day manager. So I think I probably crammed in a lot of work in 4 years and working at a high end level with players that will test you and question you because Champions League players question you. So it's just my path.

I mean, that's it. So Champions League players questioning you, You don't ever assume that happens. I mean, I don't know a ton about what goes on in the room, but...

Yeah, no, I think when I say that, I think in the modern day player, particularly, I think in previous eras, it probably would have been more vocal. And, you know, but now the modern day player, They have a good understanding of the game. A lot of them have been coached in academies very, very well to a high level. When they get to the top, they also, when you, when you, you know, are setting out tactics, they will have questions for you. And you have to buy into that because, you know, the reality is what you want is them to understand what you want, or sometimes they say something, you go, okay, we might change that, you know, or whatever it might be.

And I think when you get to the top level in football, you have to understand that that's there. Now, they have to understand you're the boss and you have to make that very clear. But at the same time, there will be lots of players that will challenge you, what do you mean by that boss? Come to you, but what about if that happens? You know, and you get a lot more of that.

And I remember reading Pep Guardiola once said that even if you don't know the answer, pretend that you know

the answer.

And you know, so There is a version of that because, you know, when you're getting things thrown at you, sometimes it's like, you know, football is an active game. And I think sometimes in the modern day, we look at the, you know, on Monday night football, you see after the event, you know, they should have done this or people are imagining what, you know, Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp or fantastic coaches are doing and it must be this amazing complicated thing. For sure, they're amazing coaches, but it's an active game. So if you can give a good message, then the rest is down to the players at the same time. So you just have to prep them as well as you can, but they will challenge you.

That got me thinking about when I sat with Jamie Carragher and he was telling me about all the managers he had had above him when he was playing at Liverpool. And then hearing from all the United players, Nanny and Ever and Gary and Rio about what Sir Alex was like. And then reading through all of the managers that you've worked under, I mean, there's so many of them from Jose to Angelotti, so many of them. I mean, there was 1 period where, I mean, the managers were being sacked every 6 months, it feels like at Chelsea. And the thing I garnered from all of them is that there is actually not a successful blueprint to being a successful manager.

There's not like a blueprint. There's not a way to be a successful manager. Some of them are tacticians, some of them are man managers. Is that accurate?

It's very accurate. I agree with that. And Chelsea is a bit of a unique example because in my time there, they changed manager a lot, as you say. And I don't think that's the most productive way to run a business in an idle way in terms of football, because in an idle way, you kind of go, we trust in this manager, let's work with it. Here's the idea.

We're going to go with it. And of course it's the prerogative of the owners to change that. What we did have at the time was a fantastic unit within the dressing room of high talent, high personality that led the dressing room. So we had a great team and a great squad. And when I say that we had a spine of players of John Terry, myself, Peter Cech, Didier Drogba, Ashley Cole, I could go on.

And there were personalities that sometimes would clash, but we knew our place. We knew we could rely on him. I knew that I would run for him and he'd run for me. And we also had high talent of a player that Didier Drogba would score in every final pretty much. So I think we kind of like bridge that gap of changing managers.

And so I think when you come back to the question of great managers, I think sometimes it's a case of compromising what you're working with. You have to get the people skills right. And that's the first thing I learned as a manager is the difference in playing is that you have to deal with people. You've got to try and inspire every player within that group and inspire the collective. So every player will have a different motivation.

It might be money for 1. It might be, I want to be the best striker in the world. It might be, I want to be in front of him because I don't like him, whatever that is, you try and tap into. And I think the greatest of managers, my opinion, and I played under, as you say, a lot, and I'm trying to be 1, is that they give you something that you believe in, that you can strive for, and you will buy into. And sometimes it's a messy process.

You know, you watch Man City lift that treble just now and you look at the Champions League, there will be so many things that we don't know behind the scenes. This player's unhappy, Pep had to do this, all these things that come together and give you that amazing moment. And I had that as Chelsea as a player. And so for you to say, go on, tell me what a great manager is, and me to go, here's an answer for you in 1 minute. It's like impossible to say.

Man management, that's what all the United players said about Sir Alex. The only thing that they all completely agree on. They would say he was the best man manager. And an inconsistent leader, which is an interesting concept. And what I mean by inconsistent leader is he would treat Gary in a different way to Nanny, to Evra.

And they all told me this stories and Rio as well told me about when Sir Alex brought that bottle of whiskey to his ill grandfather's bedside. And Ria doesn't know how he knew the favorite brand of whiskey and how he knew his granddad was ill. Gary told me he used to tap him on the shoulder and say, think about your grandfather's shrapnel, which is still in his shoulder when you go out there today, that kind of bespoke tailored approach to leadership, which is, seems to be Sir Alex Ferguson's highest accolade.

Sure. And I think that runs into the modern day that we get very caught up in tactics and rightly so, the game's moved on from those days tactically, but those people, and you'll know yourself, you know, inspiring people and as you say, to be bespoke and kind of individualize it and look within the group and have moments. Cause you know, if you asked me about my career, you go like, Frank, what do you remember out of those 20 years? Like, what do you remember the meeting where Jose, you know, played you a bit higher up? I wouldn't.

He said, would you remember the time that Jose said those words to you that inspired you? And it could be like 1 sentence. I go, yeah, I remember that. Do you know what I mean? Like things that stick with me that I remember that made me go, I'm gonna run for this man.

He's gonna make me better. You know, and I had that. And I think so what you just said there about Sir Alex Ferguson, I think the great managers have, you look at, and they have it in different styles, Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, everyone will have a different style of that. And that's a huge part to their success, I think.

What are you like as a manager? If you had to do like a self assessment.

I think you got to ask somebody else now. I don't know. I know I try and be close to the players. As I say, my open door thing. But at the same time, I think I try and find a balance.

I think the important thing for me was when I became a manager was to not expect anybody, any player to see it how I saw it or train how I trained or whatever, you know, for good or for bad. And you have to, that's, I think a bit of a skill, which, you know, Sir Alex probably had perfectly. So I try and be as close to the players. I try and learn all the time. I'm a coach.

I want to coach on the pitch. I think my biggest pleasure is coaching and improving players and particularly young players. And I've had the, you know, the fortune to work with some really good young players at Derby. I had Mason Mount, Harry Wilson, Fekai Otomori, and then at Chelsea, obviously Tommy Abraham, extra ones and Evan and Anthony Gordon, et cetera. So I think they are the real sponges that are a real pleasure to work with.

And I love that part of it, being able to speak to them and you do find, and it's a reality, and I remember being an older player, you're a bit more cynical when you're a younger player, you're like, they're like a blank canvas

and

you can, you know, push them and try and push them and that. So I'm probably quite intense with the younger players. I try and be, as I say, inclusive in that, and I'm always trying to learn and try and just trying to be me. It's a hard answer that 1. I think you'd have to ask, you know, maybe a member of staff or a player.

I picked the right player. Cause you probably get different answers because when you work with, I worked at Chelsea recently with 30 players, I pick, you pick 11 for a game and like 8 subs in it. The subs, 8 outfield subs, the subs don't really like you because they're not starting, let alone the other 10. You know, so it's a really hard balance for the modern squad to get there, but you have to try and make it inclusive because if you're going to get anywhere, you've got to go all together. And that was 1 of the problems for me in Chelsea this season, 30 players, it's not possible to manage that.

Well, and the other, this is maybe this is even more difficult question. What are you trying to work on then? What are the areas of as a leader, as a manager you're trying to work on? Because I can think for myself, I can think of a number of areas where I go, do you know what, that is still somewhere where I have a recurring, when I reflect in hindsight, I go, fuck, I need to get better here. What is that for you?

Quite a few things I would say, because the overthinker thing comes in again, And I'm a bit of a perfectionist. So, you know, I always want to try and improve, you know, my tactical and the personal touch and those things. But I think when I came away from Chelsea, I realized I needed to delegate time better. That was something I was certainly not great at. I've got, you have your staff for a reason.

They're there to support you. And at times they'll be better than you at certain things. So give them it, you know, and give them that you obviously oversee that thing. And I probably spent a lot of time, um, trying to be across everything, whereas really I probably could have come back from that and save my own energy. So I think I certainly try and improve that side.

I did between Chelsea and Everton for sure to try and save that. I can be pretty overreactive sometimes if I see things I don't like in terms of, and when I say that it's always effort or standards. And I think that's 1 of the things I'm biggest on is that, you know, if you are going to make a mistake in a game, I've got no problem with that. If you are going to not run for your teammate, if you're not going to train through the week with an idea that when I train on Monday, that's got a direct relation to what Saturday is going to look like. If that feeling isn't there, then I probably can either get upset with a player or maybe kind of distance the player.

And I think when you're working with a group, you have to be careful of that 1 because not every player has your mentality. So you have to either try and bring them up to the party Or if not, then they're going to have to not be there if you're going to have success as far as I see it. And that sounds really harsh, but it's 1 of those things where you go, if you can work in a team and you're going to take it to exactly where you want it to be, out of that squad of 25, if you've got that kind of, I remember managers would say this, you have, you know, there's your 6 or 7, you know, we're gonna get every day. We're gonna train, they're gonna come in, they're gonna be so active every day. You're gonna have the middle group or somewhere in the middle, you're gonna have the ones that maybe, you know, I'm just coming to training, you know, or, you know, I'm a bit sore today, You know, that sounds simplistic to say, but you have to try and work.

If you want to work in a full direction and go, okay, those 6 are with me, right? You try and

go out

of them. Those are the ones that can kind of pass the message. Those ones in the middle, okay, can we keep pushing and working between me and the staff to try and improve them. And then the ones that are there, come on, can we help them? Can they come with us?

If not, you have to speak to the club and that's where a club has to be aligned to go, okay, if you want to go in that direction and we're with you, okay, we'll work that out. And that becomes a recruitment or players leaving the club. I mean, that's, you know, that's the reality of how it has to be.

And that's the reality of business as well. I've just finished writing this book and it talks about these 3 lines. And basically says, if everybody, think about a person in your team, and if everybody in the team represented their cultural values, right? Which is what you're talking about with your 6 disciples there. If everybody represented the cultural values, would the bar, would the overall bar be raised or lowered?

And

you'll have some people who would, imagine if everyone was like them, like a Frank Lampard or a John Terry, how high that the cultural values would be raised. And then you have other people where if everyone was like them, you'd be relegated.

Yeah.

And what to do with those 3 cohorts of bar raisers, maintainers and bar lowers. So that's kind of what

I- That's a good way of putting it. I mean, And I think the bar raisers can take some time to raise the bar, but the bar lowers can get you very quickly. That's kind of my experience because that kind of, when that kind of that consistency or whatever it is, you know, like this, Why are we doing this training? Why do we have to do it? Or whatever, that kind of negativity, which can slip in, can be really contagious.

And then in a winning sport, and as much as we're talking here about great managers, winning is everything, you know, and that's obviously relative to if you're a Man City or an Everton, like Everton will win kind of 35, 40% of games at best at the moment. And you know that, so you know that they're going to be 65 or so percent of weeks, whereas not that great, the bar lowers can go and they lower it quickly. Whereas, you know, if you can get the raisers to take control, then I think generally you can kind of get there. So it's a really important thing. That that's probably 1 of the interesting things that, as I say, the transition from player to manager, trying to get that, because if you, whether you were 1 of the bar raisers or you're in the middle group or the lower group, when you become a manager, it doesn't matter what you were, you've got to kind of get that, get the script of what it is and kind of just push.

So that's something that I think, I'm trying to improve on everything all the time and coming away sometimes gives you nice time to have perspective and just kind of go, I'm gonna put it in line a little bit. And it looks a bit different to what I thought before that experience.

Yeah, I mean, I guess this is why some of the greatest managers of all time, they hold on to their Gary Neville's and their disciples. And I've spoken to Gary about this. Gary said to me, in fact, when we were filming Dragon's Den recently, he said, for those last 2 years, Sir Alex kept me there because of my impact in the dressing room. Not my impact on the pitch, but

on the

dressing room. I could keep the standard high. In the modern world, I was reading the stats, managers are getting fired quicker than ever. And it must be so difficult to establish authority when the player's aware that the manager is going to be the 1 to be taken out if things don't go well. In business it's not like that as a CEO because I own the company and I am the manager.

So if there's

If there's behavior underneath me that's toxic and contagious, I can act. The center of authority is with me. Whereas it seems like in a club, the center of authority is really like the chairman, the owner. Sometimes the manager manages to get there, but in the modern world, we don't let managers last long enough to build that authority.

No, and that's the tough world that it is. And I think, you know, you probably have to earn the right as a manager to get to a club, maybe, when you look at the perfect models right at the top, you know, Manchester City is a good 1 to talk about. Now I worked with the City group, I had 1 year playing there, and I could see when I was there, they hadn't arrived at that point, but I could see with the stability from above and how it run and the vision, it was like, we're going to get, they were going to get somewhere because they had a great structure and it wasn't like it was going to get pulled and pushed and pulled for, you know, a small period of time, it was like we're going to get there. And then they hired Pep, you know, they had a not difficult first year, but the first year was kind of him finding his way. I need this, I need this.

And then he's fantastic coach and they have great players. But if you don't have that aligned thing, where, as you said, the most important person at the club in the modern day, in my opinion, is the owner. And it is a structure at the top because they really, they set the tone, maybe it's financially, maybe it's with the sporting directors and recruitment because you will be as good as the players you recruit. A great manager again, I don't want to sit here and drop names, it said to me, it was when we finished my first season at Everton, we just stayed up, skin of our teeth. And he was like, rang me to say congratulations.

He went, Frank, don't rest. 80% of your work for next season will be done in the next month. So it was recruitment. So like

20%

will be what you do next season. And now the 80% is like bringing the right players. So I think, you know, like that alignment as I keep saying there is something that, you know if you can get an owner and there are great owners and are great sporting directors and recruitment and the manager and the manager is so critical to it. But when you look at last season, 13 managers left their club, I think it's 13 out of 20 clubs. And you're talking about, you know, Antonio Conte and you're talking about Thomas Tuchel, you know, managers had huge successes.

It shows you that the landscape's changed to the point where the manager will be culpable. And I think you have to come, you have to be at peace with that, but you have to try and get to the point very quickly where you have success. And that's tough because winning is, and the modern world of social media and reaction is like, get him out, you know, get the next 1 in. You know, sometimes maybe they're right. Maybe the manager is culpable, but other times there are, there are many things.

And to come back to your original point about players and those stalwarts and the Gary Neville's and the James Milner at Liverpool in the last whatever years, you know, people on the outside, I think it's very easy to look at the superstars and Mo Salah's and that. I can guarantee you, and I know this firsthand from speaking to people, people like James Milner and Jordan Henderson have absolutely set the tone of that club for the last whatever years during great success. And If you don't have that kind of those drivers within that top 6 or 8, I think it's very hard to sustain it success or get success. And again, back to my Chelsea days, we had that naturally and we were actually quite diverse. So it was like John Terry was like the real captain, like heart on his sleeve, You could see it in him every day.

I was probably like more quiet, but like a trainer and standards and myself and trying to hope that that would bring people with us. Didier was this sort of charismatic from the ivory coast and kind of brought in, you know, that section of the dressing room and he took a peta check, spoke 5 languages. Ashley Cole was such a nice lad and best left back the country probably ever seen. So we had this amazing group. And like, if others aren't gonna follow that, then very quickly it was like, you're not gonna make it.

Regardless of the manager change, it's like you won't survive the dressing room. And that's kind of how it was.

It reminded me of a quote that I've said on this podcast before, which is when the culture is strong, the new people become the culture. And when the culture is weak, the culture becomes the new people. Because when you have that core of disciples, someone coming in, they'll stand out so much if they don't fit in with you, Didier, Frank, et cetera, that they'll instantly be expelled. But when the culture's weak, someone will come in and they'll actually influence the dynamics and that's when you really, from my experience in business, is when you're really, really screwed.

No, that's interesting. Cause I think in football as well, cause it's so topical, it's so much conversation around it. But no, I managed a Chelsea for 7 weeks, I think I did. And I spoke a lot about standards and I was a bit, am I saying standards too much?

I saw you say it in every post-match.

Yeah I know and it wasn't like, I'm not trying to be clever and go, I'm just going, this is my line now, standards, But it was like, it was very evident to me when I walked in, because, you know, having worked at Chelsea as a coach before and as a player, I do know the standards. I do know that. And this is not a direct criticism of the players either, because when I look at the player situations where they were and I understood how it had been a long year, I walked in with 10 games to go, they've been there for the whole season and a lot of players were not playing, they were probably going to leave, which we're seeing now, whether they were going to leave or the club wanted them to leave or they hadn't been playing with the previous managers. And I could see in training that it wasn't, the level wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to go and get a result, you know, whoever you might want to say, at Brentford at home or let alone Real Madrid.

It wasn't enough. And I can say this now because I said this to the players. And again, it's not an individual criticism of the players, because I also, when you're trying to say you want to be a manager, you have to have a personal understanding of like human nature. If I'm a player that's not been playing for the last 7 months and I think I'm leaving in 4 weeks time, I'm probably going to struggle to motivate that player. You know, I'm not, I haven't got a magic wand to motivate that player.

So I think it was that probably my biggest learning out of Chelsea was when you talk about standards and culture, I think people go, he talks about his standards, you know, all he talks about is culture. And I, you know, maybe I had to catch myself on and not say every interview, but at the same time, it was, if you don't have a building block of standards, then that winning culture that everyone goes, what's winning culture? You go, well, let me, I'll try and explain it to you, but it has to start with a basic standard. And which for me is always like train to a level where you're going to push your teammate, he's going to push you. And then we're going to be as competitive as it can be.

We don't have to win. Not every team can win. You know, this Manchester City pretty much win the league every year at the minute. So what's success for everybody else? For Brighton, it's coming sixth or whatever.

For Newcastle, it's wow, Champions League, that's huge success. So everyone has a version, but my guess is those teams that have over performed, outperformed, they've got something there, which is a basic standard that they just build on. And to be fair to Chelsea, they're in a position now where that needs to be worked on again. It's a transitional time.

That brings me to the quote you said after your Newcastle game, which was the standards collectively have dropped. I can be honest now, because it's your last game, I might not see them for some time anymore. But low standards are a symptom of something further upstream that's happened. And we saw this at Manchester United. I'm a big Man United fan.

I've seen a decade, 5 years of just like chaos where we've got these amazing players, but 1 plus 1 equals 1.5.

We

call it diseconomies of scale. In great culture, 1 plus 1 equals 3,

you

know, where you can make great average players together play the football of their lives. The furthest upstream thing, where did the standards start to slip? What is the thing that happens in a club like Chelsea in your experience when you went back there that had caused that dropping of standards, which we now saw on the pitch with your sort of 10 games there?

Well, I think when I was tongue in cheek, by the way, when I said, I'm not going to see them again, because it was a bit like, as I say, I wouldn't say I've hadn't said it to him and I've said it a few times, but the position of it was that, and I think the biggest thing about the standards thing was the size of the squad. It was the motivation of players that you're gonna not play or you're out of the Champions League squad or these things like, it's like asking, you know, 1 of you, I don't know, you maybe love doing this. This is like 1 of your great moments. I want to sit and you want to speak to all these fantastic people that you speak to. Go, thanks for your prep, Steve.

And now Peter Jones is going to do it. You know what

I mean? You're like, cheers.

You know what I mean? How long are you going to go with that? So, and I think in football, that's a challenge with

20

or so players, which is the modern squad. But with Chelsea, it's got very big to the point where, this is how I felt, where I can say, you know, I'm not criticizing that player for dropping standards. I want to try and get something out of him because I had a short period. I want to try and get something out of him. So I would try, but then when you actually look at it, you kind of go, yeah, but he's had this for a long time where he's not playing.

So he's not now being competitive with that player who is playing. So that player is pretty comfortable too, because he's not pushing him. So you kind of get these thing where you're like, you know, we probably took it for granted in some of my better days at Chelsea, when we were successful of like this kind of thing that works, you know, it wasn't even a thing you said, you know, you didn't have to sort of have a meeting every day and go, you know, 1 of the standards, culture, you know, nice pie chart. And that's what that is. It was almost like, this is what we do.

And at the minute, sometimes for whatever reason, there's a transition of maybe new ownership. You know, not everything was perfect before the new ownership. I was there before the new ownership as well, like to find consistency as Chelsea would really want of winning Premier League titles and challenging has been a good few years now. So I think that getting the squad right, being able probably a fresh voice as a manager coming in now, who's obviously a fantastic manager with a great record to come in and go, this is the way and now the squad looks compact. You're gonna compete with each other and try and create a great environment.

Everyone needs a great environment to have success. You know, you cannot have a success without team spirit and togetherness. So when I got there, I could just see that the spirit and the togetherness was not there and it was nothing bad, you know, like it was not bad to go through the week, I could just see like, You have to train elite to be elite. You have to. And that's not, you know, in the modern day players play every few days sometimes.

When I say that, it's not like, show me how many sprints you can do every day. It's like, okay, if we're doing prep tomorrow, give me that intensity of thought about what this is for you. And let me see it in your face. But in the Chelsea, when you did that, you had to go, right, if I want to really focus on the 10 or 11 for tomorrow, that means I've got to have like 18 players over there. And you kind of saw the body language as they walked off some of them, that they were like, again, because they've been having it all season, some of them.

So on a human level, I completely understood. And in the end it was like, I came back here because obviously this was an opportunity to come to my club, Chelsea, a club close to my heart. But as soon as I got in, I realized that probably I thought, you know what, 30 players, I can motivate in 6, 7 weeks because it's not like a long-term thing. I can come in and be fresh. But in terms of when I came in, I noticed very quickly that some players were probably thinking about the season's gonna peter out and what's the future gonna look like.

And that was a difficult situation.

It never crossed my mind that the size of the squad has such a big impact, but it makes perfect sense because you need that sort of healthy competition. And I believe your first team was, was it 32 players?

Yeah.

Which is more than you're allowed to register for the Premier League or Champions League. So you had this kind of surplus of-

A lot of players, a few are always injured probably, you know, so that comes down a bit, but it's a surplus and it's a surplus of, the makeup of the squad is international players generally. Because if there were a couple of young players, but when you try and build a squad, it will be like, this is, you know, this is my core kind of 15 or 16. And then you go and maybe these 2 experienced players that might not need to play really well. And then we've got these kids that are waiting and they're like just happy to be there. They want to play, they're going to be training.

And if you give them an opportunity, they'll be like, but when you have like international players in a big number, then of course, you know, you're telling internationals, you've got to stay at home. It's not easy. And you know, to have the conversation every Friday with them and get them lined up coming in is also not easy for your own energy. Do you know what I mean? So that's not easy.

I don't care how, what kind of a man manager you are. Like it's like next, you're not playing. Okay, next you're not playing, you know, like whatever, however you try and box that up to a player, eventually they'll probably go, I know I'm not playing, you know, like stop telling me this shit. Do you know what I mean? So I think, you know, that was an interesting learning curve for me, like an interim job is what it is.

And I kept getting asked, you know, people, it was kind of frustrating at times, like, are you finding this so hard? Are you finding this so hard? I was like, you know what, I'm back home in a club that I love, you know, a fantastic training ground. I'm doing everything I can in this job to try and improve it. But there were, I knew behind the scenes there were a lot of things, you know, myself and my staff, we want to improve, we want to coach, we want to sort of, when you, when you lack those basics.

And as I say, I think there's an understanding in the club that it has to change now. I think it has to change. Then if you like those basics, then it's really hard to get where you want to get to.

How does that happen though? So there's these 32 players and then Chelsea spends more money than I think anyone's ever spent in a window, in that sort of January window. You bring in all of these players on these long contracts, which I've never heard before. I think it was like 8 year contracts. And they're all like class, amazing individual players.

Is that because the new owner doesn't understand those dynamics of football? Because that's what it seemed like for me. I thought either this is a genius or an idiot. You know, I don't want to criticize anyone on a personal level, but as a fan looking at it, I go, signing these players on 8 year contracts, they're great players spending all this money, the impact on culture when you just throw stars in at such quantity, it looked like inexperience and naivety.

I think that's understood now in terms of what it's meant with those 30 players. And I think you've seen that now in that already, I think I'm 678 players have left. So I think, but the intentions are certainly good. I know that cause I worked, The owners gave me an opportunity to go in there and I had a good relationship with them. Their intentions to do a good job at Chelsea are amazing.

They want to take the club and be the best. You know, they have great intentions. So now I think those younger players now with, um, a new voice, a new manager, the squad coming tighter, I think they'll have a greater chance to show what they've got anyway. And they're talented players. And you know, I remember being in Chelsea when Eden Hazard arrived, the preseason, it was like, is this kid, he was a bit lazy looking, you know, and he was a bit kind of strolling around, is this kid definitely, and then that first season, it was like, I know he's really good.

And then on the second and third season, he's like, no, this kid's 1 of the best players of Premier League scene or whatever. Thierry Henry, Didier Drogba, you can go through all these players who were like absolute legends. Now, if you're asking, you know, those 567 players to come in and hit a ground running in a difficult moment for the club. It's understandable. So I think as a Chelsea fan, you know, you look at it and kind of go, right, okay.

That, that, that is positive. There's talent there. Okay. It needs to be worked with. Now I'm sure that you can see the squad's getting trimmed.

And as I can say, hand on heart, the intentions of the owners is absolutely, you know, they're spending that money because they want to do well. Now, if they're going to address the situation a bit, that's their strategy going forward. But I do think, you know, you'll see players like Enzo Fernandez, Mudrik and these players, Maduiki, young players, they're going to develop and they're going to be big players for the club. You have to get the structure right and the strategy right going forward.

What's a, my thing is that adding like, I don't know, 6 or 7 of these players all at once, pretty much halfway through the season, in a squad that's already struggling to figure out who it is under Graham Potter, it begs the question, like, who's doing the recruitment here because at other clubs, it's a much more, it seems like a much more strategic and intentional and football-driven approach to recruitment, Whereas from what I saw at Chelsea, and I have actually spoken to some people at Chelsea who are involved in recruitment, it seemed like chaos.

Yeah, I mean, I wasn't there for that period. So that was in, I got there in April and like, so January was the last window and obviously they spent last summer, but I think the, the, the change of ownership and then obviously some people moved on who were in the hierarchy of the club. And so there was changes. So there was a big change of structure. So I think you have to give, um, some time and some leeway for the process.

And there certainly now are sporting directors and recruitment people in there, having worked with them who are very talented, very hungry, you know, good to go. And I think now it will be up to them to take the club forward. They haven't signed bad players. I think this, maybe the strategy of bringing them all in at that time, you know, it looks a bit excitable at the minute as in terms of there's a lot of players for success, but I think probably there's a long game and I think there's a plan And I think probably most huge clubs like Chelsea have had a version of what this period is. Manchester United, you mentioned there, Arsenal for quite a long time, Liverpool for periods.

You know, so I think we have to give definitely, I think to over judge now when I think they have some good players, would be to be overcritical. I think at the moment, I think the proof will be now how these players develop. Once now it feels a bit more settled going forward.

I think that's all true. I think, what's the optimal way for player recruitment to happen in your opinion? Because you often hear about these stories of where an owner will take charge of a club and then they'll just decide who they want, which is probably what I'd be like if I was

an owner.

I think I would, like football manager, I think I just buy who I wanna buy, who I think looks good. Manchester United suffered with that. It felt like our decisions were commercial decisions as opposed to footballing decisions. Then when Eric Tenhaug's come in, it feels a bit more like it's football decisions. And then I did speak to some people at Chelsea because I actually went to, I was invited to sit with Richard Arnold and a couple of the Manchester United executives, and when we played Chelsea at Old Trafford, I was in the director's box.

So I sat with the new sporting director at Chelsea, and he said there's now 2 sporting directors, I believe. So it was interesting to talk to them, but what is the about the optimal way for recruitment to happen in your opinion?

Well, I think you have to understand what you want the philosophy and the identity of the club to be. So, for instance, I think Manchester City are quite firm in the idea when Pep Guglio has come in and the sporting directors have worked at Barcelona previously with him, that this is how we want to play. This is a manager that's going to deliver that style. So here's how we recruit for that style. Chelsea has always been a bit different for me.

The beautiful game, the tick attack, as you call it Man City, it's not been Chelsea style. It's been more of a winning machine in a different kind of way. In my day, it was more of a powerful team that was probably good on the eye, but we were not that kind of, you know, pass, pass, pass, we were like powerful and effective. So I think you have to understand what you want to be. And once you get to that point, you probably, the first thing is to recruit a coach that, you know, works within that.

And, you know, that's the kind of coach you want, because this is what you want to be, those conversations are an interview process. And then once you get to that point, I think the recruitment has to be joined up, depending on how active the owner wants to be. And I, I respect and appreciate active owners, it's their clubs, their prerogative. And then the sporting directors and the manager, and then obviously recruitment, which brings all the data analysis into the picture. And it has to be joined up and you have to be all very confident by the time you want to bring in a player that you're going, yeah, this is the player we want to bring in.

There are always 1 or 2 or 3 options because you may not get target number 1. But I think you have to be able to recruit for the style that you want to be. So the coach really has to have a big buy into that as well. But you, as a coach in the modern day, you understand the process. I appreciate being aligned and having other people, not just responsible for who you're bringing in, but also like giving me something that I don't know.

I'm not there siphoning through the data. You know, they have to show you that data. And here's the reasons why, the videos, people that have watched them, and also the personality of the player. Because not to say you're gonna sign, you know, 10 James Milners because their character's amazing and their professionalism, but you need to know that they're gonna come in and the dressing room is gonna, they're gonna be good for the dressing room. And they're gonna help in terms of how you drive forward in terms of their personality.

1 of the key questions I wanna answer, and I wanted to ask you today is like, how would you have, what would have had to happen to avoid the situation where you had that unhealthy culture at Chelsea behind the scenes and those when you came back in as the interim, what could you have done to avoid that happening? Say you were in the, if you could in hindsight have a wand and correct things that were done. I get the first point, which was about smaller squad size. What else? What else avoids that?

Mate,

from my first day in

there. You're a genie. And you can, knowing what you know about what you inherited there, what would have had to be done previously to avoid you inheriting that? Smaller squad is the first thing that I got.

Yeah, smaller squad, I mean, some things are just a bit, you know, like there are phases, you know, And I think Chelsea, they won the Champions League. I left, they won the Champions League like 3 or 4 months after I left. And at that point you kind of go, okay, where's the next move? And you kind of go, how was recruitment then? How, what things worked then?

And maybe some players left during that period, maybe in terms of recruitment, you wanted to bring in maybe some people would be like the future in terms of, when I was at Chelsea before, I wanted to bring in Declan Rice. I was like, this kid's gonna be the captain of Chelsea for the next 10 years. It didn't happen, but anyway. But I think in terms of those things, it's hard for me to sit here and kind of dissect, you know, other people's work in that period in between, you know, like I would have maybe had an idea. It wasn't my idea because I'd already left the club.

So maybe Like when I came in, it's really hard for me to kind of dissect all those moves. You know, I came into what I came into. So, you know, that's, I think I'd probably be a little bit casual for me to kind of go, they should have done this. You know, like it's a hindsight 1.

Yeah, it's kind of me wondering just cause I've been a Man United fan and I've seen that happen. And I saw obviously Sir Alex Ferguson leave.

And

then we just had these 10 years of what I describe as like confused chaos.

And I'm

trying to figure out almost like how in a Sir Alex Ferguson situation, how he, we could have avoided that if at all possible. I mean, it's such a big figure.

That's difficult, isn't it? I don't know enough about Manchester United, but I can understand why after Sir Alex leaving, and also some pivotal players will probably come into the end of their time, during the same time as him leaving, to replace that and keep moving forward. I mean, you can, there might've been mistakes and it's not my thing, but I can understand why it feels like a long period for a club the size of Manchester United. But it just shows you that I think that how cutthroat and fast moving this Premier League is, because if you come off the gas, gas in terms of recruitment or whatever or you have a bad time, climbing back up there, people think, oh yeah, you know, Chelsea will be in the Champions League again next year or Arsenal you'll be there, like, Arsenal had to work a long time to come back and challenge for the league last year with a lot of work and you know people were criticising Mikel Arteta in the beginning and now they've worked together and stuck together and recruited really well and now they're ready to go. So I mean, it's not, I don't think we should expect even you being a Manchester United fan or me having a Chelsea head on that, our next year is gonna be great.

Like Everyone else is moving forward too.

When you get that call, the interim call, you've just left Everton. You're out of work. Grandpa has been released from his responsibilities. What's going through your head when they say, we want you to come back in and take an interim manager role. If I was a fly on the wall when that phone call happens.

You nearly were. So I know, yeah, I mean,

I wasn't going to tell the story, but.

No, I could tell it for you. I was coming to meet you and I rang you to say, sorry, I'm going to become Chelsea manager. That meeting, you know, people arrived at my house that afternoon. So.

Well, just to be clear, you didn't tell me that exactly. You said, I can't come and I can't tell you why.

Then I told you after.

Yeah, then you told me after. But I'm not an idiot. I kind of inferred maybe that.

Okay. So anyway, I mean, no, I think probably that it's normal that I consider everything. And you know, I probably considered it as in, firstly, it's a club very close to my heart, as I said before, a challenge of working and it was like, we had 2 games against Real Madrid and we had the season to pan out, difficult running. So I was fully aware of that. And I know maybe like, you know, I do love a challenge.

If that challenge had been probably any other club other than Chelsea, I probably would have said no. I was very happy to be at home as such in that period. I wasn't fighting to get a job at that period. So it was probably a bit of head and heart. I'm not sure what probably, heart probably was a bit more substantial in this 1 than the head, because I suppose if you look back again, we're in that hindsight position, but you know, what were my positive outcomes?

What were my negative ones? The minute we didn't get through against Real Madrid, which probably a lot of people would have bet on, you're kind of into that zone of end of season and what you're playing for as a club like Chelsea. And that's not the normal Chelsea should be playing for something. And in the end we played for not so much. And of course, another reason why motivation come down.

So I probably could have been a bit more ahead of the game in that, whether that would have changed my mind. I don't have a regret about doing it. I went back there. If people from the outside want to, you know, criticize or have a view on it from the outside for 6 or 7 weeks work, I've got no problem with that. I worked at Chelsea before, I worked at other clubs and it's another experience.

It wasn't my most favorite experience in my footballing career. I won't lie, but it's an experience and I have learned out of it. Not so much, but I've mentioned a few of the things.

Not your favorite experience. Did you enjoy it, be honest?

I enjoyed the first few weeks. I felt like I was back at Cobham. I know so many people there. I was like into the challenge. In the middle bit, I probably started to understand more that there's, there's a lack of, you know, what we've spoken about.

And then in the last week we had Man City away, Manchester United away and Newcastle at home as our run in. And I was like, okay, let's get through this week. Cause I could see that the players were ready for the season to finish. You know, again, some of it I've got on a human level.

Does that not hurt you to some degree? Like, cause you love this club so much and you're a winner. And if you see these players have checked out, you know, it's not just they're checking out on you as a manager, but they're checking out on the club that you love.

Yeah, as a general, it didn't hurt me because having worked in football for a period, having been a player a long time, I've seen a lot of these instances and I'm not holding the players to my standard as such. And a lot of them, I did know the backstory and the side stories. I could get that they were moving on. So, you know, if a player's moving on, they might just not, you know, they might not be ready for those last few games. It might have a bit of an issue or something.

And, you know.

But there's no way that you can accept that.

No, but, but Is it, well, put it this way. I don't want to, I don't want to come here and shout too much because in a short period, um, it's hard for me to make too many statements. What I will say is that I think I understood, I understood the role of being interim. And I understood that probably there was not much, There's certainly not much to gain from me saying, oh, that was so bad or that was so bad now, because when I look back, I'll probably just try and take my own thing out of it. And I don't wanna go there.

I didn't work long enough with the players to be there the 1 going, and I can't believe that happened at the end of the season. You know, I walked into a position where some of them are a bit disenchanted or whatever. And I'm not going to tell that player that you shouldn't feel like this. But I'll try and drive them and drive them amongst the group. But it's not for me to go because a lot of players, a couple of players sat with me and said, listen, I'm going to be leaving in the summer.

I'm finding it a bit difficult. I'm like, okay, I get that. I'm not going to change that in 4 weeks or whatever.

So what was the objective then in the 4 weeks when you're thinking about, when you realized that what was the sort of behind the scenes context, do your objective shifts slightly and go, okay, success here now looks like this for me.

Yeah, in reality. And I didn't get that because it would be results, you know, because everyone would judge me on results. So in terms of me, it would be success here to have got better results in that period of time and come through there working at a high level club again, we know it's extreme pressures, it's the media, it's the players, it's everything is trying to get results in games. And in some games we competed against Real Madrid, we competed against Manchester City, we competed, but that wasn't to be, but that was my version of success. But you know, football is not that simple, you know.

So many journalists ask you after if you kind of like regret taking the job and your answer has always been like, no, because I've learned a lot. It's your club, it's Chelsea. However, had you known the context and this is only something we can know in hindsight. We can't know it in foresight. If there was some magic genie that could have shown you the context, the behind the scenes, the dynamics, the 32 players, the culture, honestly, do you think you would have made a different decision?

Because I think I would have. But we don't have hindsight, obviously. It's a magical thing that.

Yeah, but I think probably, and you might think I'm wrong for saying this, but you would probably be taking some emotion out of it from my point. And also just how I am about the challenge of going into that. So if you say, all right, all the context is here, Frank, but you're not gonna know what the results are yet, but here's all the context. You know, this player is disenchanted. I kind of knew that.

This is how it's working. I'm not, I would be like, okay, this is what I've got to work with. Can I get results? And whether I was misguided in my own thoughts, I probably would have gone, yeah, I will do that. If I've got a belief, it's too easy for me to say I wouldn't have done it for that.

And nobody gave me that, what you said, I mean, if you had that in an ideal world, I understand what you're saying. And again, That's why people might look at it. I don't, I generally don't have a problem with, you know, someone, I would possibly have a view from the outside and someone doing what I did. I don't think it's like changed the world. I think my, I played for 13 years at Chelsea.

I coached them before in the champions league for 2 years on the trot. Like I don't think that, whether people want to have a view on me, I don't worry about that. I went back for that challenge at that period and we didn't get the results I wanted. I know a lot of the reasons why I'll take the responsibility for my reasons why. And that was it.

You know, I don't have a big issue with it. It's like, cause it's Chelsea, it's so topical. You manage Chelsea, 1 of the biggest clubs in the world. And it's 1 of the clubs that takes so much, especially in the Roman Abramovich, is so much interest because there's a turnover. You lose 1 or 2 games and it's like, ooh, what's happening here?

So, you know, I'm big enough and strong enough to handle that stuff.

So you would have, having seen the context, you would have backed yourself regardless?

I don't know, regardless. That sounds like I'm thinking I'm some superman that turned out not to be superman, do you know what I mean? I don't, I don't, I don't know. You're asking me so hypothetical.

The season ends eventually. Relief? Relieved in any way? How do you feel?

The last, as I said, the last couple of weeks were quite tough because it was seeing out of season. That's not, for someone like me and for a club like Chelsea, like it's not a nice place to be. You know, I want to challenge the things and that's, that's not nice. So release probably, yeah. Um, because I knew it would end and it ended and it wasn't that nice a time.

Time to have holidays that I'd planned before. Yeah, for sure. Um, and time to reflect and I haven't got a huge amount of reflections on it. You know, a lot of people have, but I haven't, I've got more reflections on the year at Everton and 18 months at Chelsea before and Derby. This, this period was so abstract in a way for me, that interim role was so different that I can't put it into a context of like, I wish I'd gone on a meeting on day 1, if I'd have done a meeting about culture, I think it would have changed.

Like I don't, it wouldn't have changed, you know, if my tactics were slightly different in that game, I don't believe it would have changed. And me overthinker would definitely think that if it was there. So, you know, I might be right or wrong, but so I don't, So relief and a feeling of like, I wish that had gone better. You know, that's human nature. You know, I wanted it to be better because I'm Chelsea person, you know, the Chelsea fans are fantastic with me.

Now in this modern world, I'm not saying flick online, you'll find everyone fantastic. But in terms of Stamford Bridge, I think there's an understanding at the moment, the club's not where it wants to be. And Chelsea fans are actually pretty good with that. There's some other clubs that would be like, we lost at home to Brentford 2-0 and like, there'll be some clubs that would be fans that would be a bit more vocal. They were actually pretty good.

I think, you know, they're waiting to see something better this year, but they've also, Chelsea fans watched the team in the second division in the 80s and seen some struggles over the years, you know, the older fan. And so I do think that the success that they've enjoyed as a club for these 20 years or so, there's a real appreciation of it. And you know, I don't want it to go on forever, but I do think they understand it's a difficult moment. I certainly felt that at Stamford Bridge.

Yeah, they were super, they were chanting your name even at Old Trafford when I was there, even though the scoreline wasn't great. And I actually do think that the Chelsea fans have understood that the new ownership, what you said, to their intentions are good. And I think they can respect, they've brought really good players. There's a transitional moment, but I think they all appreciate that. All of that stuff, all of that noise online, Christine, you, family, you mentioned scrolling online.

How does 1 keep those 2 worlds apart so that you can focus on your job without letting the outside world in too much? What is, have you got a strategy?

I don't scroll too much.

You don't scroll? No.

Do you scroll at all? Very, very occasionally.

Do you have the apps? The social networking apps and stuff?

I have Instagram.

Right, okay.

Which I'm not, I have an Instagram page, but I'm not very active on. It's just not really me. So I don't really, I scroll for like nosiness, you know, what's everyone up to, and you know, a few friends and stuff or whatever. But I don't actively do it because I don't have the time to do it in terms of myself. It's just not something I appreciate.

Anyone else wants to show themselves, you know, sunbathing or in the gym, that's their prerogative. I've got no problem with that. I just, for me, it's just not something I do. And then to, that's a nice line. I'm quite a boxer in my life.

When I say that, I mean, I box off things and when I want to box off, I don't want to hear that, um, the, you know, what some fan in Sanso is going to say about me here and flick on the comments from a Chelsea post. I would just flick by that. I try and stay aware of media because I think I do press conferences every 4 days. You have to understand what the tone is of what maybe people are writing about you or the journalists.

How do you do that? Have you got like someone that comes and briefs you

in the morning?

And they tell you what you need to know?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yes. And I would tap into a bit in the week whether I'm flicking on certain websites through the week and I wouldn't obviously go into the story, into the comments, I would kind of go into, because you've got to be across things.

I would do that, but I think it's very unhealthy to scroll. Like I found as a player, my playing career missed out the social media, came in towards the end and I'm so thankful that we used to just have the newspapers given us like 3 out of 10 when we played for England and we got knocked out of the world cup. And that was hard. It was like looking at the paper to see what they gave you. And that was the version of that.

And then the social media. So I don't envy the modern player as a manager. I think it's a bit different. I'm not in a place where I scroll through. I don't envy these younger players, men and women now, that are coming through and have sort of household names and it's getting so much attention and so much of it's negative.

I think it's incredible that we've got to that stage, that there's that amount of hate for, it's so easy to be hateful and my, I would try and say to the young players, don't look at it, but the minute the game finishes, they're flicking and it's difficult.

In your professional career, what do you kind of count down as the hardest moment in terms of scrutiny in your professional, like your playing career and your managerial career, what has been the hardest moment for you?

Playing for England.

Really? Yeah. 2006,

the... 2006 World Cup, I think I had, broke the record for shots at goal without scoring.

Classic. Wasn't there a disallowed 1 that should have gone in?

That was in

2010.

So 2006, I think I had like 32 shots or something. I went in as England player of the year. I'd had a good year or 2 playing for England, so I'd got myself in there and was becoming, you know, a fixture in the team. And then I went there having scored some goals in the lead up, scoring at Chelsea and just had a tournament and it wouldn't go in for me. And then that played on my mind in games, I was like second guessing myself a little bit in the game.

And probably off the back of that there was a lot of criticism. For myself, for some others, I remember us Chelsea boys getting a lot of criticism for the next 6 months every away game that we went to. It was like, you let your country down,

it's the song. How does that compare to being a manager in terms of criticism?

I found it harder as a player. I don't know whether it's just maturity because as a player I don't know, maybe in my 20s I found it harder. As a manager I think it's a different version of criticism and I think as a player I don't know why I found it harder.

If I'm a fly on the wall after a bad defeat, what do I see?

You probably see a bit of a face, you know, and a going over the situation kind of face. And it's different. I have certain games that they will affect you and it might not be the 1 you'd expect. You know, the Manchester United you talked about that we lost 4-1 was it? And that 1 might be different because I kind of know where we're at.

This season, Peter and I, you know, we played some good stuff, whatever. And there might be another game that, you know, we'd lost and it really affected me because maybe think something I did or should have done or a substitution. So on those bad ones, you would see the face and, you know, like I would, you know, I kind of go into my shell, I was not like I'm sulking in my bedroom. I'm big, big boy, you know. Um, But you know, maybe have a glass of wine, chew on it, don't get to bed till quite late.

And then you have to go again, you know, like it's a great sort of adage that you can, people go, you learn more from defeat. You don't feel like that straight away, but you have to be big enough to go over the game again. What's the strategy now? What's the solution to that? What did we do wrong?

And that's what it is. You can't get 2 down, but we're all human.

When you were 29 years old, 1 such moment occurred in your life that really, I think from your own words, tested you at a much deeper level. You described yourself as being a zombie for a year after the passing of your mother. She died at 58 years old while you were playing and while you were playing at the very, very highest level. That for me struck when I was reading through the way you described that moment in your life struck me as a real sort of destabilizing moment in terms of focus and all of those things. The question that I had is how, as a player, when you're playing at the highest level and you have something like that happen, how do you show up and maintain those standards and be Frank Lampard.

That's probably what I meant when I said zombie because it became autopilot. And I think when you talk about mental health, that's the 1 time that I've been challenged to the extreme with it. And, you know, a lot of people go through this. And the really interesting thing I found, because I have some perspective now, these years later, is that when it happens to you, and it's unexpected, it's very sudden for me, you've never thought about that kind of thing happening before. The only thing I'll say is this, I was a mummy's boy, as I've said before.

So I used to have these weird moments. I don't know if you have them. I have them sometimes when I think about death and I kind of go, oh God, when you die, there's nothing. And I have those moments And it hits me in the stomach for about like 4 seconds. I'm driving along and I'm like, there's nothing.

There's absolutely nothing. And then you go, oh, don't worry, you've got to go to work. You know, and life carries on. And I used to have that with my mom. I don't know if it was probably reliance I had on her.

She was like, I was so like mummy's boy, you know, growing up. I remember as I got a little bit older, like to my teens. And I was like, I imagine mum wasn't there for a moment. And I was in panic for like 10 seconds. I remember them.

And then because I was 29, as you say, and it was very sudden, I was in a hotel that we used to stay at pre-game. We were playing Wigan in the evening at home. I got a call from my sister telling me that she'd fell ill. And then I kind of went, okay, she's going to hospital. Okay.

That's a bit dangerous. So I went to sleep. I didn't sleep. Supposedly would sleep. I was kind of laying there a bit like tossing and couldn't get off.

I'm angsty. I got another call. And as we get on the bus to go to Stanford Bridge, it's like 2 a mile, I get the call that, no, no, she's getting much worse. So I'm like, right, I'm in Frank, I'm a sportsman, go and do your job mode. And then I just kind of broke a bit on the coach.

Kind of, well, I felt myself go gray. And someone said to me, you went gray. But I felt myself go like, oof. And I got to the stadium, said to the manager, manager, this is what's happening. And he was like, go.

So I was like in my track suit, drive over to East London, mum's in hospital. So when I get there, mum's now on the verge of going into intensive care. So she's got the stuff on and stuff and I walk in, I'm in my tracksuit and my mum had the oxygen mask on and she hadn't been speaking. So she's taken really ill in a day And she lifted a mask and said to me, what are you doing here? I'm in my Chelsea track suit.

And I didn't know what to say, because I didn't want to go, you know, I'm here because this is a really bad situation. I'm just here to see you, mum, you know, and then sort of put the mask back on. And then she was really, And then they kind of wheeled her in. She held my hand, which I'll never forget. And then she went in and was put into intensive care.

So that was a 1 week process of my mom in intensive care. So she started to get better. And then a few of the family were kind of getting, not excited about it, but it was like, it's progress, you know, mum's out, she'd been on every machine possible. And I'm still having to think about going into work. I can't remember if I trained in that period.

I can't remember that week. It's like a blur. I just remember being at home a lot, you know, in really, you know, in a bad way. And then we had champions league games coming up against Liverpool. I played 1 away, I came back, mum was getting a bit better.

And then we got the phone call that she'd passed away. She'd had a brain hemorrhage. That just as she was getting better, everyone was excited. She passed away there and then. So it was like the biggest devastation.

I can't explain it. As I say, years later, I realized that this happens to so many other people. And when you're a young man who hadn't really lost anyone, you don't have that real feeling of what that is. And I lost a person that was the closest person to me, you know, everything to me. And I'll never forget the feeling in my stomach.

If I talk about it, I get it instantly again. And I lost, you know, what was my best friend, the person that had given me all that kind of emotional stuff I'd spoken about, the warmth and the sudden feeling that someone's not going to be with you. Like it doesn't compare to anything when you're that close. Um, so, you know, in terms of work after that, probably some of it, if I look back, I probably go, maybe I should have just come out of it. Like life is bigger than that.

But it was like my, probably a tiny coping mechanism for me. We played a game against Liverpool, the second leg and I scored a penalty. We won the game. Now we're getting sent to the Champions League final. And I remember sitting in the dressing room afterwards and I had this almighty, um, like sense of fatigue and, you know, body and mental fatigue.

Uh, I went home and sort of opened a beer and I couldn't even drink it. I went to bed and it was like, it's like everything came out of me then like a week or 2, a full blast of, of this pain. You know, it's just this complete pain. And then you lose your best friend and the person that, you know, I've still got her number in my phone and I've still got a couple of voice note things. We were never a big family for videos and stuff.

And I wish we were. Um, The only thing I have is my mom's sister is Sandra, Sandra Redknapp, Harry Redknapp's wife. And every time I speak to Sandra, I hear my mom. They look very similar, they sound very similar and it's like in the first period it was painful, now it's kind of nice, you know, because that's a memory for me. But the, you know, it's the feeling of grief, you know, it catches up with me now.

And again, many years later, I think I probably had a year, I was single. I was like probably drinking a little bit. I was playing fantastic football. I had a really good year of football. It was weird.

And then I met Christine and thank God Christine came along around that time because I was a little bit, you know, not right in that period. So it was a really, obviously, you know, anybody who loses someone so close to them, but she was so big in my life and was such a balance in my life. And then, you know, that sudden thing is just terrible.

Did you process that? Because it sounds like because you had football commitments back to back to back that there wasn't really an opportunity to like sit and.

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I've been through the experience and that zombie thing I talk about is like, I couldn't comprehend it. I felt empty and weak, but I had a job to do and the job was so secondary. I certainly wasn't trying to be a hero.

I just didn't know what, I think if I'd have laid around all day, I would have really taken more of a hit. It was almost like getting up and going to work in that period and having something to aim for was just almost like, that's what I should do. And then I definitely took the hit later on for that. I definitely took a kind of deferred moments of grief. And I talk about them, like I say there, it could be anything that would be a couple of glasses of wine and something said at a dinner table, a moment of someone else and I feel bad about this talking about their mother or something, you know, and they're talking glowingly about their mother and you kind of get hit, you know, or another parent's birthday, like crazy things.

I've got no right to be upset about it, if you know what I mean, but it just hits me and you kind of, and that sort of get on with it, like hard nose, get on with it son, kind of feel which has stuck with me. That was the 1 time I remember being absolutely broken and tested on that because I had no, and I got some anger as well. I remember having road rage a couple of times, literally the few days after I pulled out of my drive. And it was a Chelsea game. So I wasn't playing it because of what happened, but I was at home and I was driving to go and see my sister or something.

Someone sort of drove across me and I got out of the car and I went for them and it was a Chelsea fan. He went, Frank, calm down. I was like, yeah, sorry. And I had these moments of anger in a period afterwards, it would just come out of me out of nowhere. And I wouldn't say that they've stuck with me from now, but it definitely changed me as a person.

I don't know how to explain it, but it definitely made me have a different take on things and be a bit more, I don't know if ruthless is the word, but more, you know, that thing about kind of like cutting out some people that are in your life that you maybe would have got on with. I just kind of took a little bit more of a direct approach in my life after that, amongst some serious moments of grief within it. You know, it's a tough time. The only benefit, it sounds really warped, I said this to someone the other day, the only benefit is that now, you know, I don't have to go through that again. That sounds really strange.

It was such a tough period for me. But the only thing now, and I see, you know, Christine's family are there and other people around me have friends and family. And I miss my mom so much, like every day. And as time goes by, of course things balance out, but I can't envisage ever going through that pain again about what I did because my mom was the only person would be now, now Christine is obviously that person in my life and my children, of course, but in terms of what she meant to me at that time, the only thing that is like, I can go, that is so painful. I really couldn't go through that again.

Now that's it's a, it's a weird way of looking at it. And I hope that doesn't sound strange. It's just processing. It was too difficult. And it's almost like, uh, it was almost like a dream.

I, it was, my life was never supposed to be like that in my head. You know, my mom was 58 and I felt like she was quite old. And now I started doing the math, I'm 44, you know, like, and you kind of go, it wasn't old, you know, like I was 29 and mom felt a bit older at a point. Now it's like, she should be mid seventies now. And, you know, as I said, the sudden nature of it meant you couldn't speak to her as well, which was like, as I've got older, I've realized that my mum would have known exactly how I felt about her.

But at the time it was like, I want to say something more, you know, I couldn't.

You want to say something more?

Just like, thank you. You know what I mean? Like thanks to, for being the balance, for being the 1 who, you know, in those tough moments when my dad was being harsh or something there, for being the 1 that would, when I was crying in the bath after a game and coming and knocking on the door, it's like for making me food, you know, things a great mother does, she just was that, you know, my mum was there to sort of, it might be sound old school now, but she was a hairdresser by trade who then became a house wife and a mother. And, you know, for everything that has gone on in my family life and lots of things have, she was always the 1 that was like the real stand up 1. I look back now, I understand it even more that she had the ethics and everything about her.

And then I would love to just be able to say that, it's like those, an emotional song can get you going. It's like, can I speak to her 1 more time to say, here's a monologue for you, you know, like just to, to hear it? But with time, I definitely have got more strength in the fact that she knew that. And that's, that's it.

And when everyone I speak to says that you are that class act, you are the, you're kind, you're empathetic and all of that. Now I know where that's come from.

No, I don't know. Listen, I knew you were going to ask me this because I've seen, you know, it wouldn't, you know, it's part of my story and I didn't want to cry. I'm surprised I haven't. Um, but cause I've cried probably enough at different times. Um, but it's, um, it's almost something like it is strangely therapeutic to speak about it.

And this is very public and that's not normally how I am. I'm very private. Our lives, Christian, are very private. It's how we like to live. And sometimes when those moments where I say the really grief stricken moments over a glass of wine, I kind of feel better after them because that's probably what I held in when I was like hitting that penalty and people giving you huge plot.

I remember when you scored that penalty, when your mama just died, as if it was like a hero moment, it wasn't, it was me just kind of going, I've got to try and do this and, and do my job. And then these moments now sometimes are quite therapeutic, if I'm honest, but it's, uh, you know, especially for other people that have gone through that and much worse, you know, a lot of worse things can happen in different ways. But until you feel that loss, you know, I remember, I actually remember thinking when I lost mom, It was like a couple of my friends lost their parents when they were younger. And I remember then thinking I've never really broached that subject with them. You know, a couple of my friends are like 14 and lost, I met at school at that age who had already lost their parent or were in the process.

And I never really kind of went and they were like 14, I was 29 and I'd never even not thought about it, but you know, you kind of go, oh, sorry, mate. And then you move on and you go, imagine what's, you know, all the things and I had to process it at 29, it's slightly different. But those things, so, you know, life kicks you sometimes. And that was the biggest kick I think I'll, I've had to this point, you know, and hopefully for a long time.

Do you talk about your emotions with Christine?

Yeah, I do. I do. I think I'm quite good about that. She will say to me sometimes I'm quite closed for that stuff. And then that kind of kicks me into talking about it because-

I'm really good at that, aren't they? Yeah. My girlfriend's really good at that. Yeah. Annoyingly good at that.

Yeah, no, they're really good. And I don't mind, she sees me going into the zone kind of thing sometimes and she'll be like, what's bothering you? And I go, oh, well, it's this, you know, it's probably something that's a bit irrelevant or something, but.

Is that the first answer you'll give? Cause mine's usually nothing.

Yeah, I'll do that.

No, I definitely do that too. Cause I don't want to open the box. No, that's true.

But it's good. I think is that I definitely want to don't come across as this, you know, like I said, like this get on with it thing is certainly not me. I look at myself as being, you know, the balance again of my mother was that when she gave me that kind of empathy, I associate all the empathy with my mother that I had, because that's how she was, was always with me. So when I, you know, it's just, I also have a mechanism that kind of keeps it there, but it's definitely inside. And maybe children also help with that because when you see your child and their smiles and their sort of innocent nature and how they are, I think that also helps you become a little bit more emotional because you start to care about that more than pretty much anything else, which is, which has also been a beautiful thing.

Over the last few years, I've realized that my first foundation is my health, something you've heard me talk about a lot. Nothing matters more than that first foundation. So that is why I'm so excited to be involved with a company like Whoop, who are leading the charge when it comes to bettering your health. All my friends have received free Whoops from me because once you've tried Whoop, I think it's like lights turning on to your health. That's the only way I can describe it.

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A quick word on Huel. As you know, they're a sponsor of this podcast and I'm an investor in the company. 1 of the things I've never really explained is how I came to have a relationship with Huel. 1 day in the office many years ago, a guy walked past called Michael and he was wearing a Huel T-shirt and I was really compelled by the logo. I just thought from a design aesthetic point of view, it was really interesting.

And I asked him what that word meant and why he was wearing that t-shirt and he said, it's this brand called Huel and they make food that is nutritionally complete and very, very convenient and has the planet in mind. And he, the next day, dropped off a little bottle of Huel on my desk. And from that day onwards, I completely got it because I'm someone that cares tremendously about having a nutritionally complete diet. But sometimes, because of the way my life is, that falls by the wayside. So if there was a really convenient, reliable, trustworthy way for me to be nutritionally complete in an affordable way, I was all ears, especially if it's a way that is conscious of the planet.

Give it a chance, give it a shot. Let me know what you think. What's the future like for you, Frank? What do

you think? I don't know, I'm very, it's hard to know. A lot of people say to me, oh, you should get into punditry. It's easy. Put your feet up, do what you know.

And it's certainly, I get my enjoyment. I get my, it gets my blood flowing, is working and being a coach. So that's what I want to do. And I'm in no immediate rush to do it. The reality is off the back of Everton and Chelsea, it's probably time for me to take my time anyway, because of what opportunity there might be out there.

There may be no opportunity. There may be something that comes up that I want to look at and say, does that work for me on all purposes? Because I get your point with the Chelsea 1. It's like, did you really need to take that? And the jobs I've taken have been quite challenging.

And a lot are, I'm not saying I'm going to be given this like, here you go, this is going to be great. So I would try and choose well, without sounding too picky because you know, I want to work. Um, And in the meantime, do the things that make me happy, which is being around my family. I like to travel. It's like the 1 thing that I really like to spend my money on, but you know, it's when I travel, I want to go better than home.

And if I don't go better than home, I'll stay at home. And I've got a nice house. You know, so I, we, we love that. So I'll, you know, use the time to travel a bit, be with the family and my children, spend more time. My elder daughters are doing A-levels and GCSEs now and be around that and that's nice.

And sometimes, you know, I think that's good for me because I am so driven. It's like, I feel like I should work, I should work. And actually sometimes you go, actually I'm 45 and I've done all right in my life, maybe I don't need to work. And that's not a bad place to be. I'm fortunate, I have gratitude for that.

So at the moment, it's the gratitude of that, enjoy it and then try and work again.

And what will be your sort of decision-making framework when people call and they say, what about this job? Or what about this? What's the, how would you decide whether it's worth taking the...

Well, it's hard to say, but from my experience, I would wanna make sure, I would wanna have conversations to find out what the job is. And I can't sit here, feel this way and talk to you about being aligned and they need to feel the way that I'll be the coach and they're going to do this and work together and probably take another job where it doesn't feel aligned. You know, I shouldn't do that. So I'd want to have a conversation and be like, what, what can I do for you? I have to sell myself clearly, that's the point, but what can, how will it work together and maybe get something that feels a bit like, and I don't mind, I will work, you know, in the UK anywhere, I would travel if an opportunity came up.

I would certainly prioritise a bit of family to make sure that it's something that works for my family. Ideally. I don't know. I don't know about that 1.

Everyone seems to be going there.

They do. I mean, I would prefer to stay in the UK for sure. And I don't mind. I went and lived in Everton for a year, lived in Derby for a year. I miss my family a lot, but you have to make those big decisions.

We're fortunate in ways. But I'll see what comes up. It's hard to call before it comes.

If we sit here in 10 years time in this chapter, this next sort of 10 years, this next decade has been a success. What does that look like? What would have had to have happened for it to have been a success this next decade? Well, 55 year old Frank and me. 55,

well I'm here, so that's good at

55.

I think my, you know, obviously the family to be well and healthy, you understand that more when you hit, for me it was him, probably 40 health and understanding. Maybe you check yourself more on those things and lifestyle. And then, um, to be, hopefully have managed and had success coaching. You know, that's, that's what I want to do. I can't tell you what that looks like, but I would love to be able to show myself consistently in a job, what I can do.

I haven't had that opportunity yet for whether that was me or whatever the circumstance had been to do that. So I'm very determined to do it. I'm good like that. I'm determined and I like to work. Like anyone who knows me will know that, like regardless of what my career has been, if you put it in front of me, I'll tackle it head on.

And then, you know, I'm always trying to improve. So hopefully in 10 years, I can show you that.

There's gotta be a part of you that wants to go back to Chelsea someday. Knowing, if I know you half the way I know you, there's gotta be a part of you inside of you that's like, you know, 1 day I'll go back.

It's funny, you know, like you talk about, should you have taken that job? I reckon if you'd have asked me that before going back, I might have said no, as in not like, I don't wanna go back to Chelsea, but I would have certainly seen myself. No, no. Like that's chapters done as a coach, but now I've been back, I would think about it even more. And it's strange.

And I think, you know, the fact that the ownership has changed at Chelsea and it's gone in a different direction. I think it can be a really positive thing for the club. I think people might not see that now, but I think it really can. Um, but obviously I have a lot to do to be part of that ever, but like, I don't, you have to make a clear decision. When we, I played 13 years for Chelsea, I said, I'll never play anywhere else.

I ended up playing at Man City. Some people criticized me for that. It's fine. I didn't expect it, but Man City was an amazing experience. I went to New York City.

It was an amazing experience. When you become a manager, you can't say, I'm going to be Chelsea manager. I'm going to be this. You have to take the journey Because that's the, those are the rules for all of us. You know, you can be, you know, a success for a moment at Everton and everyone goes, well, you stayed up and then you're next job.

What is it? And I would, I, you know, I've respect for so many big clubs that, you know, there are certain clubs I wouldn't manage. I'm not going to declare them because that just sounds like cheap. And, but I think it's important. I respect my time at Chelsea as a player and what the club means to me, but I don't see it as the be all and end all.

But as I say, having been back there, it did really light a fire. I left Chelsea in COVID as a manager. I didn't have any fans my last period. So I kind of walked out like a little bit through the back door in a sense. And this time it felt different and that wasn't a great period, but it is still a huge club for me.

So maybe.

I'm really excited to watch what happens next. You did a great job at Derby. Obviously, then you got Chelsea into the Champions League, I think finished fourth that season under a transfer ban.

And

then you kept Everton up on the last day of the season, which again, most people had kind of counted Everton out. So obviously there was that interim period. I look, it's funny because I'm gonna be honest. So I, when we were meant to have this podcast last time, then you called me and said, listen, I can't come, can't tell you why. And I kind of put 2 and 2 together and figured it was the job.

I looked at that and thought, look, I don't know, Chelsea at 11th or 12th at the moment. Like what's the worst that can happen really? What I didn't know is the back context. So if I was in your shoes, in hindsight, and we don't have hindsight in the moment, I would have probably, I would have not taken the job if I was in that situation, but in foresight, I definitely would have. 100%.

For all the reasons you said. If Manchester United called me now, I'd take the job.

And I have no experience.

But I think what we're gonna, I'm really excited to see what we see next from you and your sort of managerial career, because I mean, the experience you've had, warts and all, is worth a ton, you know? All different levels, all different phases, transitional, relegation battles, all of that is worth more than

a

lot of successes are worth and you've had that in a short window of time. So really, really excited about your next chapter whenever it comes.

Thank you. Is there

anything at all you would say to Chelsea fans that are watching this now that are, that would love to, you know, Chelsea fans will be listening to this because they want to get A, your opinion on what's just happened, but they probably want to get your opinion on like, what you think the future looks like, I guess. And also I think a lot of them do want to like, check in on you, because since you've left, we've not really heard from you in such context.

Yeah, and I've enjoyed that. I've enjoyed not speaking, it's been nice. No, I think for Chelsea fans, I would say that in terms of what do I think is next, I listened to Poggiacino, spoke yesterday, it was his first press conference and he spoke very well and he spoke about bringing a unity at the training ground and a family feel and then winning, which is Chelsea DNA. So I think we've got a really good manager in charge and I think the players will definitely develop with their, you know, as they, as they develop naturally, they're good players, young players. There has to be some patience in putting that together.

Cause I think that's, that has to be clear and the owners have a big intention. So I think as things settle, it may not be straight away, but I think that there's a really positive future for the club and I was in it and it was tough, but you know, I know how quickly things can change if you get the strategy right. In terms of me, I'm absolutely fine. And I'd certainly appreciate the support I had from, as I say, a majority, a lot of fans that would contact me, albeit at Stamford Bridge and for anybody that was on the other side of that, I was like, why is Frank backing the job? I think they, maybe I've explained some of my part in it today.

And some of the challenges, I'll always take responsibility. I wouldn't walk back into that challenge without sort of saying this might not go right and what's my responsibility. So, but Chelsea is always a huge club. And as I say, I never went back to Chelsea until 3 days before I went and took the interim job manager and I went to the Liverpool game and ended up having a conversation. And it was a difficult period for me for some reason.

I left in COVID, as I say, and I moved on to Everton And it reignited that kind of feeling being back at Stamford Bridge. I have to say, not that I lost it, it just reignited it. And, you know, so to Chelsea fans, I'm fine. I'm fine. I appreciate their support.

Even my playing career, it's nice when you finish playing because your playing career is there and I can look back on it with a lot of pleasure for a lot of the good moments. When you're in it it's like what's next and you're sort of like always challenging yourself. When you finish you kind of go yeah you know that was good, that was all right, there's a lot of good stuff. So They were good times and I was very thankful to be part of a great club and we'll see.

You gave Mason Mount his start?

Yes, I think it's a great signing for your...

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Thank you for that. He's fantastic. Why is he leaving Chelsea? He's born and bred, isn't he?

Yeah, I think it's a complicated 1. And in the end, I think it's, he's got a year left on his contract. What I'll say about Mason is, all the things I spoke about, you talk about like modern players and how the game's changed. He's a throwback to the attitude and the commitment and the quality, you know, that was the beauty of working with Mason was that he gave you so much in terms of his effort every day, anything you'd ask him to do, it was like, yeah, and he kind of got it. And I think any great player has to have that kind of intelligence and that desire about them, you know, like, what do you need me to do?

I've got it and I'll do it. I'll repeat it. And also quality. So in terms of what he'll bring to Manchester United, it won't just be what Mason brings. He will bring loads of talent, but he's just going to go and levels

around. Yeah,

I think so. And don't get me wrong, the bar raises already there with Bruno Fernandes, but he will absolutely, yeah, Casemiro, but he will absolutely fit in with it. If you're trying to build, which you're saying, you took a group mentality of a team and you know, players that are just gonna give everything and have talent, which top team need, he fits it. So I've seen some sort of alternative reactions to that. It's like, oh yeah, Mason Mountain's a good boy, why would you pay that for him?

Mason Mountain's gonna be a fantastic player there, my opinion.

It's really nice to know, because actually I was a bit on the fence in regards of don't really know the character of the man, but I have heard from inside Old Trafford that Eric 10 Hag is really ultra focused on exactly what you've said above everything else. He's focused on that core values, so Casimiro, Bruno, et cetera, et cetera.

And so

it's nice to know that Mason is a bar raiser. Why is he leaving, do you know? Seeking a different challenge?

No, I don't think so. I think probably Mason would have envisaged 2 years ago that he'd stay at Chelsea for a lot of his career. I just think circumstances, his contract situation, I know he's got a big love for Chelsea. Also in the modern day, I think more than even in my day, players do move and I don't think the challenge of moving, now it's come to that. For Mason personally, it's a good challenge for him.

I would have liked to have seen him start at Chelsea because I think he's, he would have been central to it but it didn't happen.

We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest and I have to say this is the longest question that has ever been left for anyone else. It's quite abstract as well so we're both going to have to kind of figure this 1 out but the question is, you're going to be surprised by this, when broken down to its roots or origin the word enthusiasm begins with n, theos, which means with God. For people who have not identified something which they are truly passionate about pursuing, can you suggest a way to cultivate that enthusiasm? That is a good question.

So I

think the real question here is just in this line here, which is when for people who haven't identified something which they are truly passionate about pursuing, how do they go about that?

Wow. Thanks for that 1.

Yeah, it's a stitch up, isn't it?

I don't know. This is a good point actually, because my daughter's now, my eldest daughter is going, getting her A-level results this summer. It's talking about uni, but she doesn't really know what she wants to do. And I actually felt, Uh, not bad. I went to school obviously, but my pathway, you know, looking back was like, fortunately it was that, I didn't have to think about much else.

And I, so I haven't got any big answers for, and also like from a modern woman, you know, where, where is the path? What does she want to know? I asked her that question and she's not sure, which is completely understandable. So for me, I think for her, if we're flipping it there, it's maybe whether it's a passion or not, but my thing, and it probably goes back to my roots is to the work ethic thing is what I say to her is to get out there and, um, get in the workplace and meet people. Because I think in the modern world with my daughters are so engrossed in social media, they have a lot of answers about life, you know, a lot of answers.

And I'm like, okay, I don't agree with that 1, but I'll let that 1 go. I don't agree with that. And then I started to feel like a dinosaur, but I do think that they kind of get caught up in that and all the answers are there and I go, okay, what are you going to do then? And they go, I don't know. And you kind of go, okay, well, fine.

You've got all this information. It's the modern world, but what are you going to do? Go out and get a weekend job. If you're going to go to uni, go out and experience what the real world is like, rather than this alternative world that you're slightly looking at. And then I think something might ignite it.

So that was my, and again, that's probably as deep as I could go, cause I don't care where it is. You could be in a coffee shops, you could be in this shop or that shop or whatever, but this is my adult story, obviously. So it was more about getting out and meeting people. And I guess probably, and to bring that question back to me, myself going out of my comfort zone and leaving Chelsea to go to Manchester city and then live in New York for 2 years ignited a million things in me and none of them were like big hobbies or something like that. It was just like, wow, there's a different world, a different culture.

People who approach things with positivity and energy that I've never seen in England and it changed my approach. So maybe my answer would be come out of your comfort zone and do something which is different. I was fortunate to do it, I worked there, but I was living in probably what for me is possibly the best city in the world. And it changed me as a person. So maybe, you know, to get the passion, try something, take yourself out of the comfort zone and it might just appear for you.

Makes perfect sense. And I think, yeah, exactly what I heard there is that often we, when we're too within familiarity, we're not gonna get the inspiration of what might be our passion if we're searching for it. But going to a New York or just getting out into the world and having experiences can lead us there. Frank, thank you so much for your time today. And thank you for doing this.

Cause I want to say like, you are a man of your word. Because we were going to do this last time and you could have easily not done it, but you messaged me and said, I want to get that back on because I said I would. And again, that's just another example of you just being a class act. The whole process of you canceling last time because you got the Chelsea job and then coming back, you've just been an absolute class act. You're a man where no 1 can question your integrity and your principles.

And then on top of that, I see a man who is incredibly keen to work and do well in whatever he applies himself to. And because of that, you've led this fantastic career, both as a professional football player and as a manager, which is, I think you're just halfway through. And there's this whole new season as you get up to, you know, 45 years time you're going to be 90. And I'm so excited to watch that story unfold because of all the wisdom you've garnered in the last 45. So thank you for being an inspiration to me for giving me so many great memories in football as an England player, less so as a Chelsea player, because you guys were really fucking good through that period.

But it's a real honour to get to know you and thank you for all your wisdom. Thank you

very much. Thank you.

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