By MARK IRWIN
FRANK LAMPARD admits that his days as an attacking midfielder are nearly over.But the Chelsea and England ace is adamant he will still be adding his name to the scoresheet as he enters the twilight of his career.
Lampard, 34, is eager to be involved in the World Cup qualifiers against Moldova and Ukraine over the next week as he edges closer to his 100th international game.
He won his 91st cap when he led the team in last month’s 2-1 friendly win against Italy and insisted: “I’ve enjoyed every little bit of my England career.
“It’s unfortunate that we’ve never won anything, never gone past the quarter-finals, and people always like to knock what’s happened with England.
“They are always throwing that rubbish about the golden generation at us, even though it’s not something we ever brought up ourselves.
“But England is one of those things that gives you a massive high and I will look back with a lot of pride on my international career.
“I love playing for my country and I’ve been very fortunate to have played so many games for England and for Chelsea.”
Lampard understands that he might no longer be an automatic first choice for nation coach Roy Hodgson and has already come to terms with his new defensive duties following a major overhaul of the Chelsea squad.
For while Eden Hazard, Oscar, Victor Moses and Marko Marin have arrived at Stamford Bridge this summer, the recent departures of Michael Essien, Raul Meireles and Josh McEachran leave Lampard, John Obi Mikel and Oriol Romeu as the London club’s only central midfielders.
Lampard said: “If it’s the case that I’m going to be playing as a holding midfielder, and it looks as though it could be that way, then why not?
“We had such great success at the back end of last season with that formation. It gave us a new lease of life.
“A lot of the players we’ve brought in fit into that role just behind the front man. So it means I play in a slightly different position.
“But I did it last season and I’ll do it again now. It’s not a problem.
“We’ve got a lot of attacking young midfielders but we must have the strength that the Premier League dictates you need. You aren’t going to win the title with a completely attack-minded team.
“That’s normally our strength — we’ve got a very solid goalkeeper, back four and midfield.
“If we can get that blend right, then we can really do something and I don’t think it will affect my ability to score goals too much.
“I’m going to have to be more selective with my runs into the box.
“Certain games dictate that you have to stay back and in position, like the Champions League semi-final in Barcelona when we had to dig a trench to keep them out.
“But there will be games in the Premier League when we have more possession and I’ll have the opportunity to get forward and score.
“I’ll always have the potential to do that and the change of position won’t affect it an awful lot.”
In 11 years at Chelsea, Lampard has scored a remarkable 188 goals for the club, just 14 short of Bobby Tambling’s 202-goal record.
And he admits that he would be confident of becoming the club’s all-time top scorer if he could extend his stay beyond this final year of his contract.
He said: “If I could play on with Chelsea for another few years and go on to break that record, it would be one of my proudest achievements.
“There is a bit of a new look at Chelsea — it’s something that people were saying had to be done for the last couple of years because we had a so-called old team.
“This club is always looking to regenerate and bring in younger players.
“It’s something the Chelsea fans want to see and there’s no better time to do it than when you’ve just won the Champions League.
“It shows that we’re not messing about and the owner has demonstrated his desire to get a fresh new team.
“No club can stagnate and not bring in new players.
“You can’t keep trying with the same players, even though we’ve had huge success.
“If you do that, you find yourself stuck in a corner where you don’t want to be.”
