‘I felt terrible, I don’t know whether you get over that or not.’
Frank Lampard has admitted that he “felt terrible” over comments he made about Paul Pogba while working as a pundit.
After finishing his playing carer in 2017, the Chelsea legend spent a period of time working as a pundit for BT Sport, before beginning his managerial career with Championship side Derby County.
The 43-year-old has since discussed the difficulty of analysing the performances of particular players while covering games live, adding that there is always the potential for ‘awkwardness’ when seeing the player afterwards.
Speaking on Gary Neville’s The Overlap YouTube channel, Lampard spoke about one specific example of that occurring, with the ex-England midfielder bumping into Paul Pogba at the 2018 FA Cup final, where Chelsea faced-off against United Manchester United at Wembley.
When Neville asked Lampard whether he enjoyed his time as a pundit, he explained: “I did, it didn’t feel formidable because it was so new to me and I think you still have an in-between period where you still feel a bit like you’re a player.
“You’ve still got some mates in the game, you still remember that feeling.”
The former Chelsea midfielder – who made 648 appearances for the Blues and won the Champions League and three Premier League titles – then went on to recall the situation with Pogba, stating: “It’s hard – I’d like to think that I’m a decent person, I remember saying some things about Pogba in the first year.
“He’s such a sort of dividing character within football and I remember saying some things as a midfield player and when I came out of it, I actually met him.
“I bumped into him, I think we got to the final and United were playing, I walked into him and you know when you are kind of like ‘oh god I don’t want to bump into you’.
“I felt terrible, I don’t know whether you get over that or not.”
Lampard also admitted that punditry wasn’t giving him ‘the real buzz’ that he was looking for, and that he knew he wanted to go into coaching.
He added: “I think you have to be honest, you can’t sit on the fence and you have to say it straight,” Chelsea’s record goal-scorer added.
“I felt like I was finding my way of doing it, I was enjoying it, but it wasn’t giving me the real buzz that I craved which was to go into coaching and do that.”
Lampard has not yet returned to top-flight management since their departure from Chelsea, although he was heavily linked to the Norwich job following the sacking of Daniel Farke, before Dean Smith was named as the Canaries’ new manager.
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