5 instances when world class players failed to click with each other
There have been many partnerships throughout footballing history that have clicked immediately. Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke at Manchester United is a prime example of when two players are on exactly the same wavelength. It is instinctive and can be poetic at times. But what of those double-acts that didn’t work? And not just any old players; world-class exponents who tried and tried but just couldn’t hit it off. Just because today’s exponents are paid millions of pounds for their services, it still takes nous to fuse together the best elements of a football team to turn them into a team of world-beaters. We take a look at five instances when world-class players failed to click with each other.
#5 Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard
English football fans could never understand why the two best midfielders of their generation – Liverpool talisman Steven Gerrard and Chelsea legend Frank Lampard – looked ordinary when paired together for England. The devil is in the detail, of course.
Both players liked to play much the same role and it was never going to work trying to get one to sit and hold whilst the other burst forward at every given opportunity. Goalscoring midfielders par excellence, in Lampard’s case he became Chelsea’s greatest ever goalscorer before departing for MLS. That Gerrard should join him there is one of those strange football oddities.
As each England manager tried and failed to integrate the pair, not one had the foresight to play either Lampard or Gerrard. Of course, the England manager’s job is a poisoned chalice at the best of times, and media and fans alike would never have forgiven, whomsoever was in charge for dropping either player.
Sometimes you have to look sideways in order to move forward.