Chelsea return boosts Lampard after England woe

Frank Lampard admits he couldn’t wait to put England’s World Cup woe out of his mind by returning to action with Chelsea.

Lampard is adamant there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on the lacklustre manner of England’s performances in South Africa and he is happy to be back at his club as they prepare to defend the Premier League title.

The 32-year-old midfielder doesn’t expect to suffer any hangover from the World Cup and he is determined to help Carlo Ancelotti’s team make a fast start to the new campaign.

“I have to be honest and say that the disappointing summer is not affecting anyone at Chelsea,” Lampard told The Sun.

“Of course I am disappointed about England and the World Cup but it is a breath of fresh air to come back to Chelsea.

“No one wants to go to the World Cup and get knocked out. I’m sure that Brazil, Argentina, Italy and all the other big teams who didn’t get to the final feel the same.

“But I’m not going to dwell on it and there has been no niggling mental effect for me because I’ve come back to a club that has just won the Double.

“It’s an exciting time to be at Chelsea and I think the players and the fans all need to enjoy the fact that we are the Premier League champions.

“It’s much better to be starting the season as the champions than trying to win the title for the first time in two or three years.”

Chelsea’s opening league fixture is against West Bromwich Albion on August 14, but their preparations for the home clash will be disrupted by England’s friendly against Hungary at Wembley three days earlier.

Lampard is likely to be selected for the England match and he admits the fixture couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“It’s obviously not an ideal situation,” he said. “I’ve only been back in pre-season training for a week and a half and a lot of clubs are having the same problems with their World Cup players.

“All the teams want to get players fit for the start of the season. But England also need to prepare for the European Championship qualifying games.

“Right now I’m just excited to be back at Chelsea. But the Hungary match has always been there on the calendar so as a professional playing for your country you go and you play.”

After scoring over 100 goals in the Premier League last season, Lampard admits Chelsea will find it harder than ever this season because teams will be determined to shut them down.

“It’s going to be hard to top last season and we probably won’t score more than a hundred goals again if the truth be known,” Lampard said.

“We know teams will try to stop us doing things like that again this season. We’ll try to perform as well as we can but to be honest I don’t really care how we win the League as long as we do it.

“Every year there is always a lot of talk about winning the Champions League, but my first priority is always to defend the title.”