Frank Lampard admitted Chelsea’s Champions League triumph was bittersweet but he watched on with pride.
Roman Abramovich pulled the plug on Lampard’s stint as Blues boss in January after an inconsistent start to the season.
Frank Lampard admitted Chelsea’s Champions League triumph was bittersweet
Lampard made way to German Thomas Tuchel who led them to a second European crown after beating Manchester City in the Champions League final.
But the former England midfielder said he was proud to see academy graduates he nurtured like Mason Mount and Reece James star in the showpiece.
He said: “When you work towards something you want to be there, you want to be the manager but I will never lay claim to that.
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“I was part of the early foundations potentially but Thomas has done a fantastic job getting us there. I will say when I watched it, first I am a Chelsea person.
“The Chelsea fans are happy and the club deserves that, but secondly to see Mason and Reece perform at that level and people like [Edouard] Mendy, [Ben] Chilwell and Thiago [Silva] who came in in my time there makes me pretty proud.
‘But it was a great achievement by them and they were very well managed.
“I’m proud of the job I did, it was an honour to manage the club.
“I came in at a tough time with the [transfer] ban and loss of Eden Hazard.
“We worked hard in year one to get into the Champions League, and developing young players like Mason was a huge deal for me.
“Every team had problems this year, as did we and I lost my job. I can’t go back and look back in a negative way.”