Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho insists that Cesc Fabregas has not been
bought to fill the void of Frank Lampard as he believes Lampard is
"irreplaceable."
After his contract expired at Chelsea this summer, Lampard, 36 --
Chelsea's record goalscorer -- has joined Premier League champions
Manchester City on loan from New York City FC for the first half of the
English season, a move confirmed earlier this week.
The
Blues spent around 30 million euros bringing Fabregas to London from
Barcelona, but Mourinho told Rio Ferdinand during a preseason event at
central London's BT Tower, that such a legendary player as Lampard could
not be replaced.
"Frank is Frank, he is irreplaceable, no chance," he said in quotes reported by the Independent. "We have to forget Frank because as you know he is a very special man but very, very special player.
"I
think we can never say, in spite of Cesc, who is a fantastic player as
you know, you can never say, 'This guy is coming to replace Frank',
because Frank is Frank. One day he will be with Peter Osgood in a statue
[outside Stamford Bridge] because he's fantastic."
Mourinho
also hopes that Fabregas' move back to the Premier League can help spur
Chelsea in their fight for silverware after an unusually dry season in
2013-14.
"Fabregas is the player we need to modify a little bit
the profile of our game, which we need," Mourinho added. "We want to
give the next dimension to our game in midfield and Fabregas is this
kind of player which I like to call 'the 7', because he's not the 6 and
he's not the 8."
"Normally the 7 is the winger, I also call the 7
the guy in midfield who's not the 6, he's not the 8. Or he's a 6 and 8
at the same time. So he's a 7 and we need him a lot."
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