Chelsea legend and manager, Frank Lampard, has won Premier League's Manager of the Month for the first time in his career after previously winning the Premier League Player of the Month four times in his career (September 2003, April 2005, October 2005, October 2008).
Frank Lampard
— Premier League (@premierleague) November 8, 2019
The @ChelseaFC boss wins @BarclaysFooty Manager of the Month for a perfect October #PLAwards pic.twitter.com/j0RHTtkPk0
Chelsea played four games in October, winning all of them as the Blues’ perfect record saw them solidify themselves in fourth position, 6 points ahead of Arsenal, who are fifth at the moment.
Chelsea's October in Premier League started with a 4-1 destruction of Southampton away from home. Then came a 1-0 win over Newcastle, a scoreline which flattered the opposition as Tammy Abraham missed two huge chances but ultimately, World's Second Best Striker™ behind Tammy, Marcos Alonso stepped up and scored to give Chelsea the win.
Last but not the least, another strong performance saw Chelsea cruise to a 4-2 win over Burnley which easily could have been a 4-0 win, had the Blues not collectively switched off to gift Burnley two goals.
3 matches, 9 points available, 9 points secured with a goal difference of +6 is extremely good performance indeed. In fact even outside the Premier League, the Blues won all their matches in Champions League during this month as we won away to Lille (1-2) and Ajax (0-1) both. Only blip was Chelsea's loss (1-2) at home to Manchester United which sent the Blues out of the Carabao Cup.
Lampard sure seems to love October as he has also won Player of the Month twice before in this month too (out of the four times he has won it). Here is what the gaffer had to say about this achievement.
"Winning an individual award like this, my first one at the club, it is the perfect time to appreciate the close staff who have worked so hard since pre-season and the players, as they are the ones who go out and perform. I am delighted for everybody.
"I would probably say out of the Premier League games we played in October, the one away against Burnley was the highlight because of the way we were so dominant in our performance and Burnley is a very tough place to go. People may have questioned the fact that we are a young team and with the physical nature of the challenge, but we responded very well and played some really good football.
"It was a tight turnaround after a big performance physically for the lads at Ajax and with the travel back. To go up to Burnley at any time is difficult but we managed the game really well."
While this is certainly a great achievement, especially for Lampard whose career as a top flight manager has just started three months back, he is not letting this get to his head. He knows far too well how easy it is to lose momentum, especially in Premier League, where the competition is as difficult as ever and any slip up could lead to your rivals getting further away from you, as Gerrard would testify.
"I won’t get excited because these awards are also very nice as they keep you grounded. You realise the hard work put in to do that because of the competition from teams like Leicester with Brendan Rodgers performing so well, and others as well. All the nominees are very worthy in their own ways so I appreciate that. It also makes you realise that to get these things again or regularly, we have to all keep working to improve.
"I do believe in the group but I also understand how hard the Premier League is and the competition and teams like Liverpool and Man City, who have recently found consistency that others have not matched, so it just shows you the levels.
"It was a good month for us and it took a lot of hard work to get those results, each and every one of them. It is a good marker to show us what we need to achieve long term if we want to be successful."
-Frank Lampard; Source: Chelsea FC
While this was certainly a good month, it’s worth noting that we’re still on the same points as Leicester who are in third position with a far better goal difference than us (+19 as compared to +8 of ours) and two points behind Manchester City in second position.
While Liverpool, who are 8 points ahead of us might be nearly impossible to catch, these two are certainly beatable especially with Chelsea’s next two matches being against Crystal Palace at home and Manchester City at Etihad and if we win these two, we could very well be in 2nd position, considering Manchester City have two tough fixtures in the form of Liverpool and as previously aforementioned, Chelsea.
Meanwhile Leicester’s next two fixtures are against Arsenal at home and Brighton away. Considering all this, next two gameweeks in Premier League could turn out to be amazing for the Blues if we execute our gameplan and may end up with Chelsea second in the Premier League table, something very few expected.
Time to get back to work then.