The jury is still out on Chelsea legend Frank Lampard as a pundit, as while he quite clearly knows the game and is an inoffensive on-screen character, he's still caught in that grey-area of recently-retired player not wanting to say anything too controversial.
Tonight, as Manchester United drew 0-0 away to Manchester City, we saw one of his better moments of analysis as he hit the nail on the head regarding the total idiocy of Marouane Fellaini.
With roughly 10 minutes remaining in the game, the big Belgian head-butted (when we say head-butt we mean the football version of a head-butt which is touching foreheads in an aggressive manner) Sergio Aguero and was shown a red card.
What was so spectacularly stupid was that Fellaini did what he did seconds after making a foul which could have seen him shown two yellow cards in the space of 'about eight seconds', but instead he was shown a red. Lampard did his best at explaining what he would have done in that situation, and it was spot on.
It's hard to sum it up..
He gives away a solid yellow card, we all know it's coming, it's a yellow card foul. I think you get about eight seconds until he commits another one, that might not be a yellow, so if I'm Fellaini there I'm thinking...
'How do I get out of this? Act like I'm a bit innocent.'
And then, BANG! A head-butt.
You can talk about Aguero, he went in his face, but the forward motion, it's a head-butt, so he needs to go and speak to his teammates who've played 80 minutes and he left them 10 minutes running around with 10 men trying to defend. He needs to apologise to his teammates in the dressing room.
What normal midfielders think:
Ok, play it cool, there was nothing in that...
What Fellaini thinks:
HEAD-BUTT!!
It really does boggle the mind.
Solid stuff from Lampard, we really weren't expecting much from the combination of himself and Theirry Henry, but that was a good point.
Fellaini has now left Mourinho with further selection troubles, and after putting a solid run of performances together he has made himself public enemy number one yet again.
