FRANK LAMPARD has revealed that he and two other Chelsea players were blamed for England’s disastrous 2006 World Cup campaign.
The Three Lions topped their group with wins over Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago and a draw with Sweden.
England were able to edge past Ecuador in the Round of 16 before being knocked out by Portugal in the quarter-finals on penalties.
In that game, Wayne Rooney was infamously sent off for stamping on Ricardo Carvalho.
However, Lampard has insisted that it was himself, John Terry and Ashley Cole who took the blame “everywhere” after the tournament.
He told the Stick to Football podcast: “We must take responsibility – that is the test of international football, to be able to go and be adaptable and understand.
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“We got told for about six months after we got knocked out of the World Cup [in 2006] – everywhere we went, me, John [Terry] and Ashley [Cole] were getting pelters letting us know it was our fault!”
Lampard, 45, went to suggest that the England team at the time played to “rigid” and that it failed to get the best out of the players.
He also claimed that the players did not have the right environment and club loyalty sometimes got in the way.
Gary Neville agreed with the former Chelsea star as he admitted that they “disappointed” ex-England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson.
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He added: “I’ve always taken the same opinion as Frank – I look back and think as players that we disappointed him [Sven-Göran Eriksson]. We fell below our standards and other countries had great players.
“When I look at how we played under Terry [Venables] in Euro 96 or under Glenn Hoddle, we were rigid for about eight years and compact in defence.
“It’s difficult to get out from that – the ball was being kept off us by teams that were inferior to us. You wonder whether it would’ve been different if we’d have gone for a more progressive system.”
Lampard also argued against England’s Golden Generation tag that they were given during his time in the team.
The side boasted talent such as Paul Scholes, Steven Gerrard, Rooney, Michael Owen, Sol Campbell, Joe Cole, Rio Ferdinand and many other stars.
He said: “The Golden Generation tag was nonsense anyway – no one proclaimed us as a Golden Generation, there’s some good players in that squad but so did Italy and France, who had Andrea Pirlo and Zinedine Zidane.
“International football is always a challenge to win, and that’s an old story now.
“Of course, it’s always nice to rehash the story – I don’t want to cry too much here, because every manager has a tough run.
“Every manager will be top of the tree after a few wins and then a threat of getting the sack after a few, whether you are part of the Golden Generation, just an English manager or a foreign manager.
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“I would say probably in the recent period, there’s not really been a young British manager that has come and been a standard bearer for it.
“With foreign managers, probably starting with Arséne Wenger, and then Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp, they have made a massive difference to the tactical nature of the game in 20 years. Not an English manager in that list.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
