As a player he was the man for the biggest occasions - not least when his goals fired the team to the league title at Bolton in 2005, when he provided the vital pass for Didier Drogba's winner in the first FA Cup final at the new Wembley, or when he led the team in John Terry's absence in the Champions League final in Munich.



Lampard's brilliance was not just limited to the deluge of goals he netted over the years, nor was it confined to the significance of so many of those strikes. What really stands him out as one of the all-time greats was his extraordinary consistency.



He netted 20 or more goals for five consecutive seasons and according to Premier League statistics, he supplied the fourth-highest assists figure in the competition's history. He also made a record-breaking 164 consecutive league appearances between 2001 and 2005, still the highest for an outfield player.



Through this unflinching commitment, he blossomed from the solid Premier League midfielder he was when he joined Chelsea in 2001 to become the runner-up in the FIFA World Player of the Year awards four years later. No such global recognition has been bestowed on any other Chelsea player, before or since.

