Frank Lampard has highlighted Manchester United's vulnerability following the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid. The Chelsea midfielder believes that Lionel Messi is "the only player" who could have replaced the Portuguese but it would have been virtually impossible for United to buy the winger from Barcelona.
United lost 1-0 at newly promoted Burnley on Wednesday night and the reigning Premier League champions had won by that same narrow margin against Birmingham City at Old Trafford three days earlier. Sir Alex Ferguson's side have been laboured in these matches and Lampard feels that they have no one with the mercurial talent of Ronaldo. "Lionel Messi is probably the only player who would do it," he said.
Lampard also drew a comparison with Chelsea, who have full points from their opening two matches. "It's one of our big pluses this year that we didn't lose a big player," he observed.
Michael Carrick had a penalty saved at Turf Moor that could have given United an equaliser and it was inevitable that people speculated on what would have happened if the Portuguese was still in charge of those duties. "Ronaldo would probably have scored it," said Lampard.
The England midfielder remembers the impact Ronaldo regularly had during the bulk of his six-year spell at Old Trafford. "You'd put on the telly," he said, "and see that he'd scored and they had won 1-0 or 2-0. And he had his free-kicks, which were very special."
Lampard insisted that he was not shocked by United's defeat to Burnley. "We all know how hard these games are early in the season," he stressed. "You don't want to play the team who have just come up because they fly out of the blocks to try and get the points in the bag. It wasn't completely unexpected. I thought it might be a difficult game. It's good for us because we've now got a little bit of a lead over United and Liverpool. It's nice to have your nose in front."
Lampard appreciates, too, that Ferguson cannot even attempt to find a successor to Ronaldo. "I don't think he'll look to replace him," said the Stamford Bridge player. "He'll look to make the team strong as a whole because that's all the only thing they can do."
Frank Lampard was speaking at an event at Wembley to mark the participation of over one million children in the FA Tesco Skills Programme since its inception in 2007
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