Cloud Cockoo Land

According to reports, Frank Lampard’s agent has described his man as “about as indispensable to Chelsea as anyone” and “a marketing icon” whose “shirt sales outstrip any other player by four to one”.

Leaving aside the rather strange notion that there are degrees of indispensability, it’s difficult to imagine Frank, often referred to as ‘Lumpy’, as a marketing man’s dream. Is it the stocky build, the national service haircut or the film star looks? Or maybe it’s the electric pace, or those trademark sideways and reverse passes, or the idiosyncratic way he runs with his thumbs upturned, or the heavyweight shooting from outside the box, or the ritual ring kissing when he scores?

Whatever the reasons, Steve Kutner’s remarks can mean only one thing – it’s contract negotiation time and the agent’s job is to talk up his player’s value to the club for all he’s worth, while casting none too subtle hints that if the Indispensable One isn’t offered an obscene amount of money he’ll take his extraordinary talents elsewhere.

Which presumably means we’re back to all that nonsense about the second best player in the world. Welcome once again to despatches from Cloud Cuckoo Land.