Lampard: 'I'll always be grateful to Sven'
Frank Lampard has expressed his undying gratitude towards Sven-Goran Eriksson and insists the head coach’s departure in July will not affect England’s World Cup chances.
Lampard has been voted England’s player of the year for 2005 by fans – the second year in succession he has won the award – and that represents a remarkable turnaround for the Chelsea midfielder who did not even make the 2002 World Cup squad.
Eriksson is leaving his job after the finals in Germany, two years before his contract was due to expire, and Lampard knows he is in debt to the Swede.
Lampard told www.thefa.com: “I will always be grateful to Sven. Not just at this moment, but always. When he came to England I had one cap and now I have 38. He has given me that chance and I have thoroughly enjoyed playing under him.
“In terms of ‘will it make any difference that we know he’s going after the summer?’, I don’t think it will make any negative difference at all.
“In England terms, we are not looking past the World Cup. The World Cup is all you can look at.
“We are not looking at what is going to come after or who is going to come in, we just want to finish what we have started with this manager.”
Lampard also finished second in FIFA’s world player of the year award behind Ronaldinho, and the midfielder is now one of the key members of the England side.
He added: “There are a few individuals in our team that fans will look to, to change games for England. I like to think I’ve been in that bracket for Chelsea for a while and obviously doing that for England is another level again.
“Before I properly broke into the team I was watching people like Michael Owen, Steven Gerrard and David Beckham change games for England and I wanted to be there and do it alongside them.
“Hopefully I’m doing that now and we’ve got the added plus of players like Wayne Rooney doing that too.”
Lampard described his reaction to the news that he was England player of the year again as “a brilliant feeling”, and believes that winning awards will inspire him still further.
He said: “Awards make a difference to your confidence and you have to use that. I’ve always had a confident mentality about myself but when you are receiving the awards it does make you realise that not only are you thinking that about yourself, but other people are seeing it too.
“Coming second in the FIFA award was a massive achievement because that is voted for by international managers and captains, while the England player of the year comes from the fans that follow you and watch you every game.
“They are the two groups of people that you want to impress the most.”
