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BURN BRIDGES
Burnley fans have their heads in the clouds not wanting Lampard or Parker as boss… owner needs to ignore the buffoons
The two options have enjoyed success in their careers before their most recent jobs
WHEN Frank Lampard’s spell as Chelsea’s interim boss ended last year, he insisted his managerial days were far from done.
On Sunday ‘Super Frank’ will indeed be in the Stamford Bridge dugout once again... although probably not in the way he envisaged 12 months ago.
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Lampard, together with Uncle Harry Redknapp, will boss England in this year’s Soccer Aid match, raising millions for Unicef.
Of all the challenges he has faced over 30 years in football, getting a tune from the likes of Danny Dyer, Eddie Hearn and Stuart Broad will rank alongside any.
Yet if history tells us anything, you’d still back him to come up trumps.
Whether it’s the same story with another one in front of him, though, might be a bigger problem.
One that gives weight to the ever-growing number of all-our-yesterdays cynics who keep telling us “the game’s gone”.
After the past few days, it is actually difficult to disagree. A sense of footballing reality appears to have finally packed its bags and gone for good.
And, irony of ironies, it has come from fans who have long relished their place as pie-and-peas punchers above their weight in a Premier League land of Champagne and caviar.
So why are they spitting out their bene ’n hot? (google it, you’ll be surprised). The news that Lampard, together with Scott Parker, were on a shortlist to replace Vincent Kompany.
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Now bear in mind that Burnley have just slid back to the Championship. They won five games last season.
Only bottom side Sheffield United had a worse goal difference or scored fewer.
Inside incredible new 'Cube' soccer stadium with seven-storey front door being built for Frank Lampard's former club
Two seasons before that, they won seven in the Premier League and went down.
Yet when Bayern Munich were hunting for a boss, they decided Kompany was their man and he was off to the Bundesliga while Burnley prepared for Blackburn and Bristol City.
And as Clarets owner Alan Pace began to seek a replacement, his eye fell on Lampard and Parker as ideal candidates. Both men were up for the challenge as well.
After a career at the top — in Frank’s case a place among the modern-day greats — there is little need for either to work again.
But both can’t shake off the football bug. Never mind the wonga, it’s the winning that warms their bellies.
And the pair of them are willing to get their hands dirty to achieve it.
They’ve made a pretty decent fist of it as managers, too, at various stages. So you’d imagine Burnley supporters would be happy to see such big names linked with the job.
Not a bit of it. Which is where that loss of reality comes in. For it isn’t the 106-capped, one-time European champion Lampard who is sneering at the prospect.
It isn’t twice-promoted manager and ex-Footballer of the Year Parker thinking a former mill town in East Lancashire is beneath him. It’s actually the other way around.
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In the eyes of the Clarets cognoscenti, they should be getting better than that. In the court of public opinion, these two are guilty of not being good enough.
They don’t see Lampard as a man who led Chelsea to the FA Cup final in his first spell. Not the one who led Derby to within a gnat’s nudger of promotion to the Prem.
Instead it’s the one who was sacked by Everton, despite the fact Jesus, never mind Jose, couldn’t have handled that basket-case of a club.
Likewise, they don’t see Parker as the manager who led Fulham and Bournemouth to the top flight, but the one who lasted only three months at Club Brugge.
And instead of a pair who are steeped in the English game, who have enjoyed more success than most, Burnley are fluttering their eyelashes at foreign myths instead.
Such as Copenhagen’s Jacob Neestrup, whose top-flight managerial experience is two years in Denmark.
And Will Still, late of Reims, who has never won anything of note but whose laptop and stats background makes him unbeatable at Championship Manager.
What’s that saying about not arguing with stupid people because they drag you down to their level and beat you with experience?
You only hope owner Pace sees beyond the buffoons and doesn’t listen. Although you wouldn’t put your house on it.
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Lampard and Parker are grounded enough to graft their way back to the top. Burnley fans, it appears, still have their head in the clouds.
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