Lampard laughs as Drogba suggests De Bruyne was kept out of Chelsea team by forgotten player

Harsh

Simon Lloyd

Lampard laughs as Drogba suggests De Bruyne was kept out of Chelsea team by forgotten player

Ah, Marko Marin. Remember him?

Perhaps not, but rest assured that Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard very much do.

The German spent four years on the payroll at Chelsea, where he was teammate of both Lampard and Drogba. After failing to make a proper impact at the club, he eventually left on a permanent deal to Greek side Olympiacos a couple of years ago.

His name cropped up on Saturday as the BBC looked ahead to Belgium’s World Cup game with Tunisia.

Following a feature on Kevin De Bruyne, Gary Lineker asked Lampard and Drogba – both in the studio on punditry duty – how the Manchester City forward had failed to make an impact during his time at Stamford Bridge.

Many have pointed fingers at Jose Mourinho for failing to get the best out of De Bruyne, who left Chelsea to join Wolfsburg in 2014.

Lampard, however, disagrees. Instead, he explained that the depth Chelsea had in terms of attacking players prevented De Bruyne from making a big impression.

“I don’t think they missed it [De Bruyne’s talent],” Lampard said. “The talent was there. We were there at the time and technically you could see everything he had.

“The problem he had was there was an embarrassment of riches for Chelsea.”

Looking across to Drogba, Lampard then started to list the names of some of the players rivalling De Bruyne for a place in the team at that time.

“They had Hazard, Oscoar, Mata, Schürrle…” he began, only to be interrupted by Drogba.

“Marko Marin,” he added, enough for Lampard to start to laugh.