Joe Cole believes Frank Lampard can lead Chelsea back to title contention

Former Chelsea star Joe Cole believes Frank Lampard has the credentials to transform the Blues into potential title contenders once. The west London giants have been far from competing for the Premier League in the past two seasons and that could remain the case for the forthcoming campaign with the club not able to strengthen the squad due to a transfer ban.

Speaking to The Mail, Cole said that Lampard has the opportunity of changing the culture of the club and blood more youngsters into the first-team squad. He added the 41-year-old won’t need much time to adjust to the surroundings being a Blues legend and he is the right man to change the club’s fortunes in the Premier League.

He said: “This is an opportunity to change the culture of the club, change how the club is perceived. The culture is fine in the sense we’re a successful team but there can be improvements made. We need to use this time now to blood the youngsters, get a settled side, settled staff, settled fan base. Frank has got many things in his favour and one of those is being a club legend. He’s got other attributes as a man and manager in that he can deal with any type of dressing room, any type of character. Nobody knows the club like him and the intricacies of it. He’s in a perfect position to sort it out.”

Lampard’s predecessors Maurizio Sarri and Antonio Conte preferred to go with the senior players in the starting lineup and the teams for the league games largely remained unchanged regardless of the outcome. In the current pre-season, Lampard has shown the desire to offer more opportunities to the young players with Mason Mount and Tammy Abraham among those excelling and it remains to be seen whether he would continue with the trend when the real season begins next month. Chelsea start the Premier League campaign with an away encounter against fierce rivals Manchester United.