Frank Lampard has revealed he and Petr Cech use the personal touch when they bid to lure transfer targets to Chelsea.
A successful transfer window for the Blues has seen them splash out over £200million on high-profile recruits Timo Werner, Hakim Ziyech, Ben Chilwell and Kai Havertz.
Thiago Silva and Malang Sarr have added experience and youth respectively to Lampard’s defensive options ahead of the new Premier League season, which starts for Chelsea with an away match against Brighton and Hove Albion on Monday. Lampard has discussed how he gets involved in transfer negotiations with players, also highlighting the involvement of his former team-mate and current technical advisor Petr Cech.
“You understand when it is the competition with the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City that you need to state your best case to the player,” the Chelsea boss told reporters.
“I think having been that player at one point, the idea as a manager is to try and sell the club and how I want to move forward.
“Petr in his role does the same and I do that to the best of my ability when I speak to players.
“With a player like Timo, we were very, very keen to bring him in. He needs to feel that from us. I loved everything he said to me in those kinds of conversations. And the same with all those kinds of players that I have spoken to.
“I think that the manager-player conversation is really important because our relationship needs to be good and positive going forward.
“All you can do is do your best as a club because you know the competition is doing their best, so I think we can be happy that we have brought in players of their level. That is just how we tried to work.”
With Werner and Havertz expected to feature against Brighton, Lampard added: “I am pleased and now it is stage two: it is about getting them settled and playing to the best of their abilities.
“We need to give them all a bit of time, the players that are coming in to hit the ground running. “We will do our best to have the environment to have the group working well to help individuals in that.”