The area in question is part of football that our caretaker manager points out will naturally take time, especially when new, young players are being assimilated into the system, but the rewards are there as other examples demonstrate.

It is a project for the club he indicates will stretch beyond this season and involves developing understandings and partnerships on the pitch, with Lampard acknowledging one goal is for this work to lead to a more settled starting line-up.

‘In a broad sense, and I am not just talking about with myself, this season the numbers show that we are the team that changes its 11 the most,’ he begins, ‘so coming in at this point for me is trying to find the connections within the team, the partnerships within the team, which are crucial.

‘We all know the great teams out there that we have witnessed over the last however many years, and you can name the connections in them.

‘When those things are not settled, it is very hard to get a consistency of what you want and you end up searching for it. That can be difficult and that is probably why people call it transition and that is a challenge.

‘In my position now, as much as we want results, because results will get thrown in your face, we also need to try to find those little connections within the team for what will be going forward. Some of the younger players who have come into the club have maybe not had the opportunity to settle, to feel comfortable in the team, to understand that the full-back is going to overlap them or the midfield player is going to support them.’

Lampard explains that this type of integration needs work and it is not the type of work he has been able to prioritise so far.

‘This role as interim feels less in practice about coaching to that degree because things that mean you’re interim mean you are there for a reason,’ he says, ‘and the first things that are priority are normally motivation and confidence.

‘That has been an interesting point for me, how this works on a coaching level. With time those players who have come in and are trying to settle will need a lot of work on the training ground to form the connections to hopefully give a more stable team that is picked, because history tells you those are the successful teams.’