With Frank Lampard nearing the end of his contract at Chelsea, the obvious rumours of whether he would return to West Ham will pop-back up. However before we start convincing ourselves that we should have him back, maybe we should be considering whether we need him back.
It is fair to say that this season our midfield have been a stand out factor within our team. They have worked hard every game and are also the position that has the most goals between them, with Nolan, Diame, Noble and Jarvis all scoring. Lampard has scored three goals himself this season also, which is less than our captain Kevin Nolan’s tally of five. Although Lampard’s number of goals may seem quite seem compared to Kevin Nolan it is fair to say that West Ham do need all the goals they can get. Lampard would definitely add to West Ham in this sort of respect as he is always a consistent goal scoring midfielder. Frank also tends to get plenty of assists, although this season he has not got any, it is almost a certainty that come the end of the season he will have a fair amount.
The midfield does seem a very competitive position, so where who would have to make way for Lampard if we did sign him? I think regretfully it will be Noble and probably as he is the youngest of our midfielders. I have said Noble as I will not see Big Sam dropping Nolan as he is a favourite of Big Sam, but he is also our captain and is adding to the team’s goal tally. Another reason I have Noble is because if Lampard couldn’t play in Nolan’s position of sitting behind the lone striker, then he would have to settle for the next best thing which would be Noble’s position.
Lampard would help add experience to the team and would also help out our youth. He would help out our youth as our younger players could learn a lot just from training around him everyday. Frank could also provide moral support to the players hoping to break through to the first team as Lampard was part of the Golden Age of youngsters that came through ranks of the Academy of Football.
So how realistic is it that Frank would actually come back to West Ham? Well not very likely. This is because now ex Chelsea boss Roberto Di Matteo was trying to persuade Abramovich to hand Lampard a new contract that would tie him down to Chelsea for the rest of his career. How much he succeeded in persuading him we do not know. He has also experienced a very glamorous career at Chelsea collecting a number of Premier League winner’s medals and also winning the Champions League last year. A final reason he would not join us is because he would demand a high wage.