Frank Lampard is proof we’re too quick to judge former players as managers

So far had Frank Lampard’s stock as a manager fallen that when he took charge of a Coventry City side sat 17th in the Championship in November 2024, there were those who felt the job was beyond what he deserved.

The reaction was mixed to negative. Yes, that was partly down to the sense that Coventry’s sacking of Mark Robins was harsh. After all, Robins had led them to the FA Cup semi-finals the season before, and the play-off final the season before that.

But the disdain towards the appointment of Lampard may have been the same if he was replacing a dud. Plenty of critics argued he was only getting the job because of his ability as a player, not as a manager.

But how far down the leagues would Lampard have had to go for some people not to think he didn’t deserve it?

His performance in his previous managerial roles underwhelmed some, but should not be remembered as abject failure. First, he got Derby County to the Championship play-off final. There was strength in that squad, but those who argue he should have led them to promotion overlook how much talent there was in the Aston Villa side that defeated them too. The Championship is a tough league to get out of.

Then, Lampard returned to his former club Chelsea in a move that did feel like it was too big a jump. But on the backdrop of a transfer ban, they wanted someone to bring through their own talent, which Lampard achieved.

The likes of Reece James and Tammy Abraham being bedded into the first team, as well as his former Derby loanees Mason Mount and (to a lesser extent) Fikayo Tomori, symbolised Lampard’s success at that particular task as Chelsea achieved a top-four finish.

But he clearly wasn’t the man to take them to the next level. He was replaced by Thomas Tuchel midway through his second season in charge, and it was Tuchel who went on to lift the Champions League trophy by the end of it.

In Lampard’s next job at Everton, Premier League survival was secured. The danger of that not being repeated, though, led to his sacking after just shy of a year in charge.

A caretaker spell in charge of Chelsea again followed, but winning only one of his 11 games back at the helm seemed to put the final nail in the coffin of his top-flight managerial prospects .

Or so it seemed. Lampard is now on the verge of becoming a Premier League manager again and he has done it the harder way: by merit.

Coventry are in pole position to win promotion from the Championship after a 25-year absence from the top flight. With five games left, they have a 12-point cushion in the automatic promotion places.

Elite he may not be, but of course Lampard was a worthy enough Championship manager to warrant another chance in the second tier. Coventry’s faith is about to pay off.

What he is on the verge of achieving underlines a broader theme of how young coaches – just like young players – need patience as opposed to being written off, regardless of their background.

Lots of former pros have tried their hand at management and been deemed to fail. Their dreams of aspiring to bigger jobs in the future have been crushed.

Many argue that they haven’t earned their coaching jobs on merit, at the expense of coaches with lesser playing backgrounds. And yes, there should be fair opportunities for such people. Some of the greatest ever coaches had only modest playing careers, if any at all.

For every Lampard, there have been more ex-pros who haven’t been good enough after being a glamour appointment in the Championship. But some never get a second chance like he has.

We live amid a landscape of collective schadenfreude , where fans revel in the downfalls of ex-players early in their managerial careers. Some of those would-be managers are giving up altogether as a result.

Like it or not, it’s not good for the coaching pool in the country.

Does it stem from jealousy? These individuals were astronomically better than us ordinary people at kicking a ball around. When it comes to management, we all think we could do as good a job as them. But don’t we always…

These managers are often under more scrutiny having been at the very top of the game as players. People hold them to the same standards as managers, and many fall short. That doesn’t mean they can’t still be decent.

Maybe they don’t deserve those top jobs straight away, but there is nothing wrong with them taking a different route and learning their trade, and trying again if it doesn’t work out.

Some will still fail, let’s not pretend otherwise. Some will succeed. Some might get caretaker opportunities at the clubs they played for, do reasonably well and that might be as far as it goes.

But are we too hastily writing off individuals who may have something to offer the game?

In 10 years’ time, where will Lampard be? His prospects now look better than they did a couple of years ago.

Could he eventually be capable of another spell at Chelsea? Maybe not, but that’s fine. He still has a lot to prove until then, but has become a more-than-adequate Championship manager and will soon be able to attempt to achieve that status in the Premier League too.

What of some of his former international teammates like Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney, both out of work for more than a year after their departures from Al-Ettifaq and Plymouth Argyle? They have held ambitions of taking the reins at Liverpool and Manchester United, but have not been good enough in their most recent jobs and those dreams look laughable now .

Does that rule them out of rebuilding their managerial careers altogether, though? Gerrard did a good job with Rangers up until five years ago. He wasn’t up to scratch for Aston Villa and his Saudi experience may have lessened his credentials, but – with a Rangers return having been considered earlier this season and then declined – he doesn’t deserve to fade completely into the managerial wilderness.

And yet he too will probably be judged before he has even begun if he does take on another manager’s job in England. Rewind a decade and it was hard not to envision a future in which he would be managing Liverpool.

We must remember these old players have put the work in with their coaching badges, or else they wouldn’t be allowed to be there. If they under-perform in a job, of course they should be scrutinised and face the consequences. They are not, we must stress, entitled to the big jobs because of who they are.

But they equally do not deserve to be banished into managerial oblivion just because they might not be the second coming of Pep Guardiola.

Some of these players turned wannabe managers will have given up 10 years from now, or even sooner. Will it be a loss to the game?

In some cases, maybe not. But when England need a new manager in the future and the shortlist is uninspiring, perhaps we can wonder if we could have better nurtured the country’s former players with interest in coaching.