While he admits that he understands the fans' disappointment, New York City FC head coach Jason Kreis says he views Frank Lampard’s expected July arrival as a “positive thing.”
Kreis publicly addressed the postponed arrival of the English Premier League star for the first time during the MLS SuperDraft in Philadelphia on Thursday, and said that Lampard's summer landing could provide NYCFC with a shot in the arm right when they need it.
“For me, I look at it as if we can do our job and be a good team before he comes,” Kreis told reporters. “Imagine that, we get to add Frank Lampard to what’s already a good team, and that’s our objective.”
Kreis also said he had no concerns about the fitness level of the 36-year-old midfielder following a full season with Manchester City in the English Premier League.
“If you look at the situation, he comes in, and he’s adding something to [Manchester City]. He’s not being asked to play 90 minutes every single week,” Kreis said. “I don’t think the drain is there for him physically, but he’s still training at an extremely high level. So I think it’s a really great situation for us.”
The SuperDraft capped what has been a busy week for NYCFC, starting with the announcement on Tuesday that they had signed US national team midfielder Mix Diskerud.
“He’s a guy who has pretty useful tools: He’s dynamic, he’s creative, hard working, he’s able in the middle to give us that technicality and movement we’re looking for,” Kreis said. “For me, he’s an extremely exciting player.”
He’s also the player Kreis said he had in mind when NYCFC picked up the No. 1 spot in the MLS Allocation Ranking in September before making the now infamous snafu of not selecting the top pick in the USL PRO/NASL Player Priority Ranking.
“He was the one we were thinking about when we did that draft, and I said clearly to everybody that was our first intent, to have that No. 1 allocation ranking,” Kreis said. “And then I messed everything up. Remember that? Claudio [Reyna, NYCFC sporting director] had to remind me we still got the one thing we really wanted.”
Building the roster isn’t done yet, though, and Kreis and Reyna both admitted another announcement could come soon.
“We’re looking to add a piece or two pieces, maybe three pieces,” Kreis said. “But to talk about what we expect to happen I don’t think would be wise. I can say very clearly we’re very happy with the group that we have right now. Do we think we can improve upon it? Yeah, probably a little bit around the edges.”
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According to reports out of Colombia, that next piece could be 23-year-old Javier Calle, who plays right back and right midfield for Independiente Medellin.
“Sticking to what we’ve done in the past, we don’t really comment on any speculation or rumors,” Reyna said. “We’ve been linked to many, many players since Day One, since we didn’t even have a coach and I was the only guy on board. We are looking to strengthen the team. We will have some announcements in the near future.”
