Mourinho says Lampard's departure was right for the club, hails Terry as the best defender in England
Chelsea head coach Jose Mourinho is not one of those managers who regret the choice that they have made in their managerial career, and letting their all-time record goalscorer Frank Lampard leave the club for free was indeed a right decision. Well, that’s what Mourinho believes.
According to the Portuguese, his departure from the club was seen as an opportunity for the young midfielders in the squad to grow as he told reporters, “It’s his life, nothing to do with us.”
“He left Chelsea as a free agent and chooses his life, we can't complain about it. That’s football,” Mourinho said. My view is that when you want to look forward, look for the future and have people like Fabregas and Matic and Oscar which are the next 10 years of the club, and the project is prepare for the next 10 years not for the next year, we made the right decision.”
Lampard had scored the only goal during Manchester City’s 1-0 win over Leicester, and City boss Manuel Pellegrini might want the 36-year-old midfielder to extend his loan at the club till the end of the season.
To further clear his motives of selling Lampard, Mourinho shed light on the situation of veterans John Terry and Didier Drogba. Terry was retained by the club while Drogba was brought last summer for a second stint at the club.
“You can argue ‘you have John Terry and Didier Drogba’. Different,” he explains. “Didier Drogba is a striker that is coming to help and support the development of Costa. John Terry is the best central defender in English football and it doesn’t matter how old he is.”
“And the nucleus of the team that has to be developed, if you have a big player like Frank we would stop the development of the other guys.”