http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/comment/article333648.ece Graeme le Saux: How Frank Lampard came to rule the world Published: 17 December 2005 Among the Chelsea squad in the summer of 2001 there was one response that proved more common than any other when the news came through that we were signing Frank Lampard from West Ham for ￡11m. "How much?" we spluttered incredulously. He was English, he had a great football pedigree and there was good sense in buying a young player who could be developed. Spending that much money to sign him was the part that no one could quite believe. When Frank arrived at Chelsea he did so as one of the first signings of the new manager, Claudio Ranieri; well, at least that was how it appeared. I was never sure whether it was Ranieri or the managing director, Colin Hutchinson, who was making the signings that summer I found Ranieri's methods difficult to take seriously. He would have us train in one formation for five days and then change to another for the game on Saturday. You thought you were in the first XI all week and then on match day he would drop you. Our first taste of the Ranieri regime, and Frank's first experience of life at Chelsea, was the new summer training camp at Rocca Porena in Italy. As the birthplace of St Rita of Cascia it had religious significance but very little to capture the imagination of bored, tired footballers. A place so unpopular that on the bus to training the younger players would sing - to the tune of "Copacabana" - "Rocca, Rocca Porena/So shit we all went insane-er". This was Ranieri's way: two training sessions a day under his fitness coach, Roberto Sassi, who was not well liked. It was a tough regime and we carried on the hard running into the season, so much that I dread to think how tired we often were in the last 20 minutes of games. But much as I disliked it, I can see how it must have helped Frank. Not only did his fitness improve immeasurably but, with all that tinkering Ranieri went in for, he also learnt to be adaptable. And when it came to learning and improving there was no one as determined as Frank. Looking back, it's clear to see how Frank began to transform himself into the player he is now, and, although I feel Ranieri failed to move the club forward, he must take some credit for the development of Frank and John Terry. When I compare my introduction to the club from the unforgiving Chelsea squad of 1987 to the kind of characters who were there when Frank came in 2001, I can only think that there were better people around for him to learn from. The captain was Marcel Desailly, who was a very experienced player and had won so much. I would like to think that myself and Gianfranco Zola also offered a b it of wisdom and we all wanted to see Frank develop and progress. Mourinho spotted the kind of player he had in Frank from a very early stage and built his team around him. The deployment of Claude Makelele as a holding player freed Frank to go forward, score goals and play to his strengths. What frustrates me about Frank's treatment under Eriksson is that, unlike Mourinho's Chelsea, England do not get the best out of him. That midfield should be built around Lampard instead of occasionally moving him out to the left of the diamond formation or asking him to do a defensive job in front of the back four. Anyone who understands football can see that to play his true game he needs the freedom he is given at Chelsea. When he arrived at Chelsea we knew Frank had potential, but to go from Rocca Porena to the best midfielder in the world in just four years tells us that there was always a lot more to him than we could ever have known. --

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