What gets massively overlooked is thst in his first season he lost Hazard, who essentially that entire Chelsea team had been built around for the past 3-4 seasons, throw in the transfer ban and his first season was actually a very good one
What also has to be noted, what Kepa was awful that season. Like statistically amongst the worst GKs in the PL awful, with a save % at about 50% (60% and below is very bad).
I know people dont like it, but on metrics (Xg) they were the 3rd best team, and neck and neck with Liverpool in 2nd (who ran very hot). In all honesty, for Lampards 1st season this was an outstanding achievement. He just had a GK who basically threw them in the net.
Theres loads of negatives to the appointment too. We dont have as good youth set up as Chelsea, so hes not going to have the easy wins of having a James, Abraham, Mount and Tomori ready to stop in. You might say, Dobbin, Onyango, Gordon could be relative equivalents for a 10th place team.
What you would hope, is the DOF is saying, how can we find him as many 19-22 year olds who are at the point your Mounts and Tomoris were when he first got them and developed them. They should be affordable transfers for us. Whether anybody has enough sense, and the owner is strong enough to pipe his mate down is another matter though.