Chelsea News 24/7Writer: Merlin 
Date:Thursday December 27 2012
Time: 5:23PM
UK time is: 17:59:03
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Who is telling the Truth?
On a slow(ish) news day, I thought I`d ask the question.
Our friends over at The Sun have run an article this morning that infers that Frank Lampard was left out of the starting line-up, at Norwich on Boxing Day, because they`d run the article whereby it had been decreed that Frank was free to look for a new club from January 1st.
However, deep into the same tabloid we have Rafa Benitez explain that he left Lampard out to take full advantage of John Obi Mikel being available again and wanting to use him before he departs for African Cup of Nations duty.
Now, who do you believe is telling the truth as opposed to porky-pies?
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Your Comments
the Sun??....please their journos are a disgrace to journalism....
layorh12
Frank is a true blue and knows our system. From a tactical point of view I see no sense to let him go now. We have fairly little players capable of playing deep midfield while Mikel is away, expectedly until the end of the African tournament. I know Chelsea don't always think as one would expect but let us hope this time the papers tell us crap.
1970Blue
Why should a coach explain every decision he makes??this is BS!
bluekid
Well we can't know if Rafa was telling the truth or not but I'm pretty sure Sun isn't. Have they ever? Rafa's quotes where in official CFC site and he explained rotation and needing to rest players who'll play a lot during the ACON.
Apparently club did speak with Frank before Villa but they didn't ask him to leave. They just offered a possibility which he declined.
Finn-fan
Well we know the sun are pretty *****,but Frank has good friends at the Sun,so they can't entirely be disputed. Due to Rafa's rotational policy its understandable and justified to play Mikel.
nelyvanile
'frank has good friends at the sun,so they entirely cant be disputed' really??now talk about leadership,is this the type of leadership he passing to the youngsters;discussin club matters with the press..geeez
Ken4CFC
frank is a disgrace.runs to press when his not happy.is he and co only players at cfc.roman must not let player power to continue any more.we are tired of these players dictating even the manager that comes.to hell with fking low par legends.
mzee69
However,i believe our manager rafa,in his statement lies a more realistic explanation,mikel would be off to afcon soon so we have to take full advantage of his availability now
Ken4CFC
mzee69...I take you read the sun and believe every word they say. "Frank is a disgrace"... that says a lot about you and what sort of chelsea fan you are....plastic and shallow.....go **** off and support Citeh or ManUre... Lampard is a club legend period...
Embers
embers or shembers thats ur opinion .i ment no legend is bigger than a club.if is ur idole give them the contract as us loyalty is just drop of shyt to someones business who is roman.
mzee69
embers or shembers thats ur opinion .i ment no legend is bigger than a club.if is ur idole give them the contract as ur loyalty is just drop of shyt to someones business who is roman.legend ass lickers.
mzee69
embers or shembers thats ur opinion .i ment no legend is bigger than a club.if is ur idole give them the contract as ur loyalty is just drop of shyt to someones business who is roman.legend ass lickers.
mzee69
i just dont want super frankie to leave, he is still needed in the team. As for Rafa, i cant wait for the season to end so that he can leave(dont know what to say about him, but he is doing a good job).
darilngblue
@darling,why do u want someone doin a good job to leave??*smh*
Ken4CFC
mzee69, ...try typing something that's readable.!!!!
If you mean no legend is bigger than the club than why not actually say it first time round. The rest of your post makes no sense what so ever....try again and lets discuss what you have to say
Embers
and was shembers supposed to be 1. funny or 2. an insult...
Embers
@Embers..i observe you have a really good sense of humour...loool
layorh12
Benitez will hardly admit he left him out because of bad press or because they don't want him in the line up anymore, right? This is not the first time he is left out and it would be pretty silly to think it's not because he is being phased out slowly. He's 34-and-a-half years old and it's in everyone's interest to look ahead and find a replacement (which is certainly not Mikel!).
ElMagicoNino
i could care less who is telling the truth. we won.
bleetoe
@mzee69, Frank is a disgrace? Strong words m8, he is a legend of our club and deserves respect and well wishes when we part company. As for players yapping to the media, I don't condone that all as it only entices the younger lads to do the same if they have an axe to grind.
ForeverChels
RE: the article, I think the latter is a better explanation of leaving Frank out of the starting line-up. Hoping Obi & Moses will come back injury free from AFCON. Speaking of, what is the favorited country this year for the tournament?
ForeverChels
@forever,lookin at caliber of teams that qualified for the afcon,i think ivory coast is the topfavorites,then ghana,zambia,south africa and nigeria are also in contention but u never know if 1 or 2 underdogs springs up a suprise like zambia earlier in the year
Ken4CFC
Lampard is probably on high wages, he is not starting material any longer.
So club probably offered reduced wages or so, he is not happy
obviously and obviously wants to leave. Now everyone here is putting
it on club but why don't you question his loyalty to the club?
I say if he doesn't want to take 50% cut in his wages let him go. Even better if we can get some money for him.
NikolaTesla
Agreed with NikolaTesla
Prince_Mathew02
Lampard with 150k per week salary, I wont bother to renew his contract when it expires, unless he lowers his salary to 60k per week. Otherwise, any sensible person can buy a quality replacement for him at 70k per week and remaining salary used as transfer fee....and Dont talk about something like leadership on pitch...the same leadership under which we had lost to Ath. Madrid, Corinthians, etc...
Blu_run
I do believe that Rafa is trying to rotate his squad, but i think he should have subbed Luiz with Lampard rather than Mikel..bcos, I want Luiz & Ramires to start against Everton and not Lamps & Mikel...
Blu_run
@Ken thx m8
ForeverChels
@Nikola, if what you say turns out to be true re: Frank being unhappy with reduced wages then I 100% agree with you. So many members here love him including me but, if he doesn't accept that he can't be earning 150k/week from next year on then is his love for the club and for us fans in vain? It is in the club's best interest to reduce his wages and give him a reduced role to allow the youngsters to flourish - me thinks as this saga continues that Frank is only concerned about Frank, and not the club, and that saddens me b/c so many ppl adore the guy. He deserves one last fat contract no doubt just like Didi rec'd but not here, FFP will eventually bend us over if we don't make cuts in wages for our vets.
ForeverChels
Does Rafa really have to explain himself everytime he leaves Lamps out?? It's no wonder Lamps won't get a new contract with Chelsea, there's too much outside influence that he's done well building :(
@Mq
No squad player deserves to earn above 60K/ week, regardless of status. With a 100K+ salary we can get 2 decent young players that can do the job much better actually, matter of fact I'm sure if McEachran was here it'd be better using him instead of Lamps as the squad player, it'd work well for the future of the club
@Mq
are we going to start believe in press now?and thenare we start backing rafa now ? oh my oh my ... :P
JackSufre
It bemuses me atimes the way we comment in here without looking at the big picture, lamps played 2 consecutive games and he is 34, there are younger players who are on the bench who needs game time, why can't u see that he is being rested? English media are terrible and very bad for english football, why can't they say his presence in the 2 games he played is so immense we scored and won with high margins in both games and scored lower when he didn't play against norwich, we have a tight schedule now and whatever our performances are in this period will have an impact in our season, hence we need to rotate intelligently at this time and milk the likes of mikel and moses of whatever they have to give the club before we allow them to join their country.
Desmondadonis
Each time lampard gets benched the british goes viral with stupid speculations..is lampard indispensable??
Ken4CFC
**british media**
Ken4CFC
The problem is the press (specifically the red tops) print basically what they like, they make retract the odd statement every now and then, but they use the "un-named inside source" to allow them to make any thing up and say it has some credence. What I hate is people quoting the papers esp the sun, mirror or star and then slagging off players based on what the papers say. As with most things to do with Chelsea we may never really know the truth as its dealt with behind closed doors. Lets be honest when a paper say Roman wants to do this or Roman wants to do that .. you know they are talking ****e....Roman hasn't even spoken to Chelsea TV for an interview, so why would he be speaking to the Sun.......
Embers
exactly embers. couldn't agree any more with you. most of the above is utter tripe posted by people who give credence to gutter press and readily pay the wages of the knob heads that write this trash.
trueblue44
Keep Lampard as a squad player. Give 1 yr rolling contract with much reduced pay. I'm sure he wont accept it and he will move on.
Blu_run
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