Former Chelsea manager Avram Grant could be set for a return to Chelsea in a back room role, according to Sky Sports this afternoon.
They claim that Roman Abramovich wants to bring Grant back to Stamford Bridge in order to help support Frank Lampard with his experience.
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No brainer right? I’m all for this. Grant coming in with his experience of the game working in a number of different backroom roles as well as being a manager, alongside Lampard to give him that essential wisdom and advice that you can only get by being in the game as long as someone like Grant has been, I can only see positives here, and many of them.
But this move if it does transpire, also shows the willingness that the Chelsea board has for Lampard to succeed at the club in my view.
Roman calling on his friend and former employee Grant to come in and help steady the ship alongside Lampard, rather than downing tools and replacing Lampard, says all you need to know about how the club are backing Lampard and trying to change their hiring and firing ways of the past.
They’ve invested a lot of money and time in Lampard, and they have always seen this as a project. Results recently have put Lampard under pressure and things certainly need to improve, but this shows that they are looking at other ideas and other plans rather than straight sacking the manager.
Grant has already joined in the public debate on Lampard last week, offering some wise advice to the Chelsea manager after a bad run of form.
He said on his Instagram (cited by Chelsea-News):
“About the current situation I can say only this. You need to be strong when things are not going well, when things are going well everyone is a genius and knows what to do.
“What I can say to Frank and the others at the club is be patient, and more than this do whatever is necessary to do that’s for sure. Two things: never lost it even when things are going well, don’t lose your fighting spirit at the highest level.
“And second, don’t lose what you have here [points at head] you need to think right and look for solutions. If you do that then everything will be okay because the quality is there and there is a potential like there was [at Chelsea] in my time.”
I guess the signs were here when he was writing this last week, it will be interesting to see if anything happens here and the reports turn out to be true.
An excellent idea,Grant is calmness personified and could be an outstanding buffer between Lampard and over zealous criticism !