I was on Twitter on Thursday night when the teams were announced for the Tottenham- Chelsea fixture at White Hart Lane and picked up on an article by a fellow Football FanCast contributor.The piece bemoaned Frank Lampard‘s conduct as he slowly slipped out of first team contention at Stamford Bridge and made comparison between the England midfielder’s circumstances and a similar decline affecting Liverpool‘s defensive stalwart, Jamie Carragher.
Carragher, it was argued, displayed grace and humility in the face of his inevitable dips in performance and urged Lampard to follow a similar script as he himself becomes a bit-part player in the months ahead.
My intention is not to rubbish the opinion of another blogger, however the sentiments contained within the article are symptomatic of a bizarre witch hunt that appears to be coursing through the printed press at present.
If we deal first with Carragher. The affable Liverpudlian may be the ultimate team man, however his performances have been increasingly poor for the best part of two and a half seasons- the spotlight shone elsewhere in the top flight has meant the man capped 38 times by England has been allowed to wind himself down slowly.
Frank Lampard, on the other hand, is not winding down.
Throughout his career at the pinnacle of the English game, Lampard has suffered no little criticism from observers of the sport- his astronomical goalscoring feats and raft of remarkable statistics have never prevented the midfielder from facing a barrage of criticism at every opportunity.
Times are certainly changing. Players are no longer judged on their numbers in the way they may have been five years ago. The rise of the non-tangible midfielder is a remarkable facet of Premier League football over the last 18 months.
Instead of judging creative midfielders by assists and goals- a usual benchmark for judging worth- many fans work on arbitrary principals of how they pass a football or how good they look in possession- clearly highly subjective criteria.
Luca Modricwas given a reported £40 million price tag over the summer after a “sensational” season in 2010-11. He scored four goals and provided three assists in 43 games. His worth, some will presumably argue, cannot be shown in numbers. But is that sort of return worth that amount of money?