LONDON -- The last time Frank Lampard walked onto the Stamford Bridge pitch in away colours, he was booed. It was January 2015 and he had come on as a 77th-minute substitute for Manchester City, having left Chelsea "through the back door," as he puts it, seven months earlier and controversially joined their biggest Premier League rivals.
Walking in through the front door is an altogether different experience, and one you sense that even Lampard -- who has been back to Stamford Bridge many times since his retirement from playing -- was a little unprepared for. Chelsea supporters greeted their record goalscorer, now a mere opponent rather than an enemy, with such unadulterated adoration that this lively Carabao Cup fourth-round tie felt like a footnote to the love-in.