Jody Morris says he told Lampard Chelsea should sign player who ended up at Arsenal

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Jody Morris has suggested that he was pushing for Frank Lampard to sign one player for Chelsea before he ultimately ended up signing for Arsenal.

Frank Lampard‘s first spell at Stamford Bridge threatened to be a brilliant one for the Blues. Despite working with a transfer ban, Lampard led the club into the top-four in the Premier League in his first campaign. And they actually went top of the table in the months before he was sacked.

Perhaps history would have been different for Lampard had he listened to his assistant Jody Morris.

Jody Morris urged Frank Lampard to sign Declan Rice for Chelsea

Speaking on the No Tippy Tappy Podcast, Morris shared how he pushed for Chelsea to sign Declan Rice while he was at West Ham.

“I messaged him when we were there and said, would you come back? Because obviously, he was released from Chelsea as a 14-year-old. If you actually spoke to Dec, I don’t think that he would have thought that he should have been released. But there was quite a few of them that thought maybe he shouldn’t have been released,” he said.

“It’s probably the best thing for him. He’s gone on to amazing things at West Ham. But while he was there, going into the second season I was on at Lamps all the time going, Dec would be unbelievable for us. We need more legs because Kante hadn’t played for us a lot. He’d only played about 40 percent of the time, he kept getting injured. And I said, would you like Dec? And Lamps said I don’t know, I haven’t really seen enough of him.

“About a month later, he was like I’ve been all over Dec since we’ve been having a closer look. I messaged Dec saying would you come back, otherwise there’s no point Lamps going to have the conversations with anybody if Dec is still [not looking to leave]. And he went, no, no, I’m a Chelsea fan, of course I would. So that got put in motion and Lamps started speaking to him. And it was on.

“The upstairs at the club were speaking to his dad and talking about a few things. It was pushed behind a couple of other signings and didn’t get through. I think at the time they were quoting around £60, £65 million, so that would’ve been an absolute snip.”

Blues’ loss is Arsenal’s gain

Chelsea’s loss has certainly proved to be Arsenal’s gain. Rice would stay at West Ham for another couple of years, helping the Irons win the Europa Conference League in what would prove to be his final appearance for the club.

Rice has since gone on to prove to be an amazing signing for Arsenal. It is remarkable how quickly he has adapted to life in Mikel Arteta’s side. And he has continued to improve, firmly establishing himself as one of the best midfielders in Europe right now.

Rice meanwhile, may not rue missing out on a move to Chelsea. The Blues’ current side, a few years on, is flooded with international players. Many have played at World Cups. And yet, Mauricio Pochettino’s side appear to be in a real mess right now.

So there are perhaps no guarantees that the 24-year-old would have been able to have the same impact he has had on Arsenal at Chelsea.