Chelsea 'prepare Frank Lampard to be their manager by offering him coaching role with the first team'

He spent 13 years as a Chelsea star, winning almost everything possible with the Blues and now, four years after leaving the club, Frank Lampard could be returning as a coach.

According to The Sun, Chelsea want their all-time top scorer to return to the club as part of their first team coaching staff with a view to becoming manager future.

Since retiring in 2016 Lampard has been working as a pundit for BT Sport but revealed recently that he is working towards his Uefa ‘A’ coaching licence and already turned down approaches from MK Dons and Oxford United to become their manager in order to complete his coaching badge.

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“My A License will be finished in the spring, in the next few months or so. That gives me the opportunity to work. The Pro License will start in the summer – that is what you need to manage in the Champions League and will take a year,” he said to the Standard.

“I could get a job before that [completing UEFA Pro license] but I wouldn’t be able to take charge of a club in European competition. If the right opportunity comes up then I’ll take a view on it.

“I had conversations with Dave Jones, who is on the board at Oxford, in the summer about the role and it went as far as that. They were just conversations but there is no truth in the current link.”

He has also been helping former team-mate Jody Morris coach the Chelsea under-18s for the past year and now the Blues want him to make the step up to the first team.

Current manager Antonio Conte is under pressure and looks set to leave the club in the summer, with Carlo Ancelotti and Luis Enrique linked with the job.

Owner Roman Abramovich has reportely kept in contact with Ancelotti, who won the Premier League and FA Cup double as Blues boss in 2010, with the Russian also impressed with Lampard’s progress on the coaching pitch.

“I’ve put together a lot of experience now and I am in a good place,” Lampard told talkSPORT. “I’m keeping my eyes open in terms of what I want to do in management.

“No matter what level it is I do think you have to come back down to the beginning and start learning again. I’m in that process. I’ve worked quite hard at that and now I’ve got to wait for the right job.

“I’m trying to put together all the things I’ve learned from all my managers, I’ve had a lot. Hopefully I can do that and create my own ideas and philosophies and see if I can make it work.”