Soccer MLSPremier League

NYCFC And MLS Fans Are Overreacting To Frank Lampard Saga

Frank Lampard playing for Manchester City

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You would think New York City FC was a national institute given the recent outcry regarding the Frank Lampard/NYCFC/Manchester City saga. And at this stage, it undoubtedly is a saga; a farce, even. But still, things have to be kept in perspective in regards to the landscape of each of the parties involved.

NYCFC is a franchise that doesn’t have a full team, a stadium or even a single game under their belt at this point in time. They’re a franchise still in the infancy stages of their development. So when their Abu Dhabi owners — who also own Manchester City — chose to keep Lampard in Manchester with the reigning Premier League champions, it shouldn’t really have come as any surprise to anybody. Does that make it right? No, of course not. But, embarrassing? Please.

City is the bread winner in the family right now. NYCFC is the baby of the family. The baby will grow and mature, of course, but as it stands at this very point in time, for right or for wrong, the owners are going to do what they have to do to support City’s assault on both the EPL and UEFA Champions League this season.

The club’s owners clearly made an error in miscalculating the level that Lampard is still able to perform at and the team has now inadvertently become somewhat reliant on the English midfielder. Like any other top EPL team, City need at least four central midfield players for all of the competitions that they are involved in, and Lampard is one of their four right now. And with Yaya Toure soon to depart for the Africa Cup of Nations, sending Lampard back to NYCFC as well would have been suicide.

Obviously the owners have lots of money, but they’re not magicians, they cannot just replace two players like Toure and Lampard in January. They clearly expected Lampard to contribute less on the field and they would then replace him with a player of a similar level in the new year. But Lampard’s contribution has exceeded all expectations and the Englishman has been phenomenal both on the field and in the locker room.

It’s safe to say that City never thought it would come to this, but they absolutely need Lampard in the role he is in. That, of course, is not the fault of NYCFC or their fans, but fans of the incoming New York franchise are still going to be privileged in the coming years having the owners that they do.

This saga is a mess; it is a terrible look, but in the long-term, the good will significantly outweigh the bad for NYCFC fans. Even in the event of Lampard staying in Manchester on a long-term basis — which is being reported in the British media — NYCFC will still get a replacement star player that the rest of MLS will look at with envy.

In addition to Lampard, the club was also linked to Barcelona‘s Xavi Hernandez last summer — one of the greatest midfielders to ever play the game — and this shows you the level of player that the NYCFC owners are looking to sign. Another wonderful player in Wesley Sneijder was recently linked to the club too. How embarrassing, eh?

Yes, NYCFC have had to take a backseat somewhat to the EPL champions right now, but is that really such an outrage? Such a shock? Not at this point in time. The men employed by Sheikh Mansour to run City at the highest level of the club know exactly what they are doing, as they have demonstrated in the way that they have grown City to where they are now. And in time, they will grow NYCFC in a similar way.

But that will take time, and, unfortunately, at this particular moment in time, City’s run at Europe’s biggest trophies over the next four months has to be the priority. But in the long term, NYCFC fans will win anyway with both the direction that the club will move in, and the players that they will ultimately see playing for their team in the near future.

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