A Tribute To Super Frank!

Easily The Most Consistent Player In The World Over 2004-09

I’m not writing this post just because Frank Lampard Jr. is the player I like most in the world, but because any sane Chelsea fan would say the same for this highly underrated midfielder that swells Chelsea’s might on the pitch. Ask any neutral what they like about Chelsea (which isn’t saying much because everyone is so busy hating Chelsea), and they would definitely say Captain Fantastic JT or The Drog. I agree they are good players, but they fail to see who actually pulls the strings for Chelsea. For me, Essien and Lampard are the 2 best players Chelsea have.

Most argue that Frank isn’t one of the greatest midfielders in the world just because he doesn’t perform at national level. It would be quite unfair to a player who has been a runner-up in the race for the title of best player in the world at one time, and a man who averages 20 goals a season for a club. 20 goals for any midfielder is a dream come true, and hardly any of them get even close to that total. Just goes to show you how important Frank is to the Chelsea cause. In the past 5 season, he has been everpresent for Chelsea, with only a few injuries bogging him down.

Statistics speak for themselves, don’t they?

Frank’s now averaged approx. 20 goals for a straight fifth season. In percentage terms, that’s equivalent to 0.39 goals for every game he plays in.  No wonder he’s the only Premier League midfielder alongside Matthew Le Tissier to have scored more than 100 goals.

It’s not just Frank’s goals either.  Alongside Dimitar Berbatov he boasts the most number of assists in the Premier League creating goals for everyone, especially Malouda, Drogs and Anelka who have thrived on the sharp angular passes that have set them loose on goal.

Even at the age of 30, he continues playing game-in, game-out for Chelsea. And he doesn’t just play, he produces some of the best performances of passing and creating goal-scoring chances for his team-mates. Now, who’s laughing about the £11 million we paid for him when we got him from the Hammers?

Lampard recently(2008) signed a new deal committing him to Chelsea for the next 5 years for a whopping £39 million . And let me tell you, at the rate Lampard keeps going, he isn’t going to stop playing even when he’s 35. As some great player remarked (I don’t remember who), Lampard is one of those players who can keep going till he’s 40. And for an outfield player who outruns his younger colleagues and never stops running to get a goal for a team, that is very remarkable. Again, any comments on why Lampard deserves the money he gets?

Most Chelsea fans are still baffled as to why he never got any nominations for any awards this year (PFA or FWA). Gerrard won the FWA award?! Gerrard probably beat out United boys Giggs(??~@#$) and Rooney for his hardware. The PFA list was even more hilarious. It featured six players, five of which resided in the red half of Manchester. Ludicrous? As Drogba would say, “It’s a fucking disgrace”.

Why Lampard has yet to win a PFA award is just as bemusing as his omission this time around. This year’s honor, which covers part of 2007-08 as well, should have been all Frank. It’s quite an easy argument, really.

This season, at the time of the announcement of nominations (mid-April), Super Frank had already punched home 19 goals from 46 appearances while adding 17 assists. That’s more than a goal every three matches, an astonishing tally for a midfielder. I have also read that Lampard, as of late April, had created 131 scoring chances for teammates — a number more than double that of Gerrard, who sat at 70. This was said to be a new Premier League record.

As of right now, Lampard has 20 goals and 20 assists in 67 starts in all competitions. Those are phenomenal numbers, my friends.

And remember, much of this was done with Chelsea imploding from nearly every angle. At one point, Scolari was sinking the ship; Drogba was nowhere to be found. And we were on the verge of plummeting down the Premier League standings. Maybe those drab performances through the middle of the season — seeing as votes have to be submitted by the end of February — skewed the eyes of voters. It should have been the opposite; this man continued to flourish while so many around him were floundering.

His performance in Chelsea’s 4-4 draw with Liverpool in the second leg of the Champions League quarterfinal was exquisite. Netting twice, the last of which capped the night, Lampard was superlative. He was, simply put, the star of the game of the season. If that’s not worth a nomination, I don’t know what is.

Over the past five years, I’d wager no player in the Premier League — native or foreign — has been as consistently good as Frank Lampard. This will be his fourth consecutive season with 20 goals. Let me break that down for you: 20 in 2005-06, 21 in 2006-07 and 20 in 2007-08. He netted 19 in 2004-05. Simply put, this kind of achievement is amazing. A midfielder with a 20 goals per season average? Crazy.

There it is. I rest my case. When it comes to Premier League performers, there are few — if any — better than one Frank Lampard.

Disclaimer: Some of this post has been copy-pasted from some of my favourite sites. I’m not claiming it to be my own. But I loved the way the guys expressed their love for the most consistent player on the planet.

Reservoir Pigs

The fever is upon the world. I doubt you’d even think I’m talking about the IPL, what with empty stands selling like hot cakes in SA, nor would Lok Sabha polls be on your minds. I’m talking fever in the literal sense, viral fever contracted from pigs. You heard me right, pigs. Don’t believe me? Look up your newspapers. Swine flu sounds la-di-da, but it is what you would call getting sick after frolicking with pigs.

What with South Park airing in India, with the necessary *beep*s every 1/1000th of a second, the first thing that comes to mind is Cartman with his “I’m a piggy and I have a snout”. Shows you just how popular pigs are in our culture. Every 3rd person is called a pig, and a pig immediately brings to mind a pink, plump creature with nice ears and a very wet snout. Americans connect pig only with a nice fat piece of meat on the table. Yet, our complacency towards these creatures of the mud has resulted in a nice soup for all of us. And I do not mean pork soup. I Do Not talk literally all the time.

Swine flu is in the air, pun intended. A guy who was probably looking for a nice fat pork chop for his enchilada touched a sick pig. Man caught the ‘flu. Other people came in contact with man’s saliva, breath or skin, got pig fever. Slowly started spreading to other Mexicans. Mexican government probably thought it was another conspiracy by the drug mafia at taking over their quesadillas and Salma Hayek (who is probably an American by now). So they were complacent and did not raid India’s “stockpile” of Tamiflu. India, surprisingly, has been stocking up on Tamiflu in case Swine Flu travels the Atlantic and the Indian or the Pacific to infect us perennially ill Indians. Also, it comes as a surprise because pigs are socially unacceptable in our circles, and it is considered to be downright rude for a pig to share a table with the family.

My dad was joking about how we’d never contract Swine Flu, or even Bird Flu, for that matter, because we’re resistant to all kinds of diseases. Well, I doubt the Chinese would contract the illness either, what with suffering no side effects from eating monkey brains. The least I’d thought would happen to them was they’d jump around in just their underwears and probably try to eat each other’s lice. Surprisingly, they have shown their vulnerability to the pink, plump viruses of the pig variety, and our case for being benign about a world pandemic has been duly chucked out of the window.

However, actors and actresses of Bollywood, along with the Elitist SoBo crowd, does not have any qualms about travelling to North America for their annual dose of Botox and nude Hawaiian chicks. Some of this points towards that swine flu seems to be considered a lower-class disease. Whenever viruses see the royal blood that seems to flow in the veins and arteries of the rich, they suffer from cold feet. It is evident from the fact that a certain Arsenal striker, Carlos Vela, seemed to escape his home nation without so much as a rhinovirus to his credit. Other celebrities, basking in the warm sun of Mexico City, seemed to miraculously avoid the disease.

Moving on,but sticking to the world of football, WAGs from the EPL club of Middlesborough decided they had to spread their infectious natures around the club. With Middlesborough already deep in relegation trouble, it was no surprise that the players weren’t in the mood to have sex, or even come near them. Probably saved them from pig fever, that the girls were suspected to be carrying, instead of their usual designer bags.

And finally, coming to the repercussions it’ll be having for India. For once, the vegetarians will be in with a reason to stop people from eating meat, and with the killing of those nice pink plump pigs. PETA will probably bring in more topless celebrities to oppose eating pork in the world. Kate Moss will probably pose with whatever is left of her body, and Oprah Winfrey might just about give everyone a peek. Back home, Maneka Gandhi will probably whine in all papers about how pigs are fed hay and how they should probably be fed Beluga caviar with some nice truffles. But that’s Maneka for you.

And to encourage strokes of brilliance in names, this is what a certain team of quizzers named themselves:

Pigs Fly, Swine Flu.