• Frank Lampard says Chelsea have moved on from last season
• 'Older you get, more you appreciate what you have got'
Frank Lampard has hit back at critics who claim Chelsea's squad are past it – and declared there is more to come from the Premier League champions.
Carlo Ancelotti's men have started the new campaign the way they finished the last one with three successive victories, including 6-0 routs of both West Bromwich Albion and Wigan Athletic, while they are yet to concede a goal.
Much has been made of the age of the Blues' senior men, such as Lampard, 32, John Terry, 29, and Didier Drogba, who will be 33 in March.
However, the England midfielder Lampard – who is currently sidelined by a hernia problem which forced him out of tonight's opening Euro 2012 qualifier against Bulgaria at Wembley – rejects any suggestions the Chelsea players are over the hill.
Speaking to the October edition of the club's official magazine, Lampard declared: "It is a load of rubbish when I hear talk about there only being one or two years left in our spine. This has been going on for a year or so.
"Sometimes that is mind games from other managers or press talk and we proved them wrong last year.
"We have got players here who are experienced and you can't buy experience in football – look at Didier, he is a specimen and he will overpower any 24- or 25-year-old.
"People have been waxing lyrical about Paul Scholes, and rightly so, because if you take him out of the United team now, they will want to replace him and they probably won't be able to."
Lampard may have a trophy cabinet full of honours, but the former West Ham trainee maintains his hunger for more success. "Every year I set my goals again, I don't lose any ambition or drive," Lampard said. "I would love to win the Champions League one day, but I would love to win more Premier League titles as well, so it's quite easy to self-motivate.
"I think also that, the older you get, the more you appreciate what you have got as a footballer. I think it's one of my strong points that I always want to do more because you don't play forever. If I can keep my level up to the way I am playing now I believe I can go on playing for many more years."
With 14 goals from the opening three Premier League matches, things are certainly going to plan for Chelsea, who saw experienced midfielders Joe Cole and Michael Ballack leave on free transfers during the summer. "I think our game feels more natural now – you can see that from the way we finished last season and started this one," Lampard said.
"Don't get me wrong, we had difficult moments last season when it wasn't flowing, but it became more natural to us and after winning the Double and celebrating that, I think we came back here in the summer wanting to step up again to another level."
Lampard paid tribute to Ancelotti, who delivered the club an historic Double in his first season. "The manager is very involved – his method, his training, his personality and his calmness is something the players have related to more and more over the last year or so and that's making us stronger as a unit," the midfielder said.
" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/sep/03/frank-lampard-chelsea-old">Frank Lampard says there is nothing wrong with Chelsea's old boys 
Last season's third place cannot conceal the fracturing relationship between Nottingham Forest's manager and chairman, Billy Davies and Nigel Doughty
In football, nostalgia has always been the file that smooths the rough edges off the good old days. Supporters of certain clubs will always hark back to the past, very often because they don't particularly like the present. They just prefer to cherry-pick the moments to reminisce about, getting dewy-eyed about the good times, airbrushing out the bleak ones.
Nottingham Forest are the classic example. This is a club whose followers have been going on about the past for longer than they would care to remember: the league championship, two European Cups, the 42-match unbeaten league run, the annual trips to Wembley and that once-in-a-lifetime manager, leaning out of the dugout in a green (though sometimes yellow) sweatshirt, wagging his finger, or maybe giving John Robertson a thumbs-up.
As for what came in the years BC (Before Clough), that period is seldom spoken about. All those years of obscurity, plodding along, scarcely being noticed. There were a few highs, the best being an FA Cup win in 1959, but mostly it was a story of a club treading water, seldom threatening the football establishment.
Eleven years have passed now since Forest dropped out of the Premier League and the events of this summer – or the last seven months, to be precise – can tempt the thought that the club are stuck in that same rut again. After a few years of going up and down they have discovered they can no longer even be classed as a yo-yo club. The string has snapped and not been repaired. It has been a decade of mismanagement and boardroom buffoonery, of sieving five goals at home to Yeovil (live on TV), of four-paragraph match reports in the national newspapers and the gathering sense that Forest have become the dreary operation Clough grabbed by the testicles when he took over from Allan Brown in 1975.
All of which may sound slightly harsh considering they finished third in last season's Championship, losing in the play-offs to Blackpool, and were the bookmakers' favourites for promotion only a couple of months ago. But there is another story here, one they would rather not publicise.
Were Forest in the microscope of the Premier League, we would probably all be familiar with it by now. Instead, the political infighting, the divisions, the fall-outs, have largely gone unreported. To outsiders, Forest have been depicted as a club on the up again. In reality, there is a messy, deeply unsatisfactory rift destabilising the entire operation. It is one that could yet lead to the manager, Billy Davies, leaving and if that is the case it does not matter what PR gimmickry is applied to the press statement: this would be mutual contempt rather than mutual consent.
The last transfer window has brought everything to a head, although tensions have been simmering since the start of the year, and maybe even before. Davies had targeted "four or five stellar signings" he felt could help the club win promotion. Instead, Forest did not manage to bring in one permanent deal, just as in the January window. The team have yet to win a league match and went out of the Carling Cup to Bradford City, currently fifth bottom in League Two. More Forest supporters would probably bet on a below-halfway finish now than promotion. There is talk of protests at their next match, largely directed towards the owner, Nigel Doughty, and the chief executive, Mark Arthur, although the situation is more complex than that, and the truth is that Davies must take part of the blame, too. In short, they all need their heads knocking together.
Those who are acquainted with Davies will recognise the symptoms. Davies is a talented, driven man who has got the team playing the Forest way (ie the Clough way). When he took over from Colin Calderwood two Christmases ago the club had the chilly fingers of relegation closing around their throat. But Davies somehow got a stagnant team out of the bottom three, despite often having to use youth-team players.
He described it as the best achievement of his career, even better than taking Derby County to the Premier League. Then, last season, he led Forest to the top two of the Championship in January. In their first league match of 2010 they went to the Hawthorns and took apart a West Bromwich Albion side that would eventually be promoted, winning 3-1 and playing the best football a Forest side had put together since the team of Stan Collymore, Bryan Roy and Lars Bohinen in the mid-1990s.
But Davies made the mistake of believing the club's ambitions matched his. This is a man, to quote one former colleague, who "wants to manage the world XI, and yesterday". The targets were Nicky Shorey from Aston Villa, Victor Moses of Crystal Palace, the Swansea City midfielder, Darren Pratley, and Gareth Bale, then in the Tottenham Hotspur reserves. But Shorey was on big money, Moses had offers from the Premier League, Swansea dug in their heels and Bale was about to re-establish himself at White Hart Lane. Doughty pulled out and Forest, without a left-back for the run-in, predictably ran out of steam, just as Davies had predicted. Over the course of several months the manager has made it clear where he believes the blame should lie.
Davies is a complex man, unpredictable and difficult to describe. He has a considerable ego, regularly referring to himself in the third person, and describing himself as the most successful manager in the history of Preston North End, the club of the Invincibles. He can be charming, good company, a man's man, generous with his time, a fine raconteur. He is also fiercely competitive and could argue about a game of Pooh sticks. But the people who have worked with him say there is a level of insecurity, even paranoia, and that he can often end up falling out with people.
A few years ago, when he was in the process of getting the Derby County job, a football reporter from the local paper rang the Lancashire Evening Telegraph to find out more about him from his time at Preston. "He's 5ft 5in, he's from Glasgow and he owns a Rottweiler called Axel," was the verdict. "You make up your own mind." Davies is a "nippy sweetie", to use the words of Alex McLeish, which is basically Glaswegian for a little man with a loud voice. But he is clever, too. And there is a political edge that should not be under-estimated.
At the worst points he has seemed on the point of spontaneous combustion. Davies is not a fan of the club's transfer acquisitions panel and has made sure everyone knows it, often with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. But Doughty assembled this committee – comprising himself, Arthur, the club's football consultant, David Pleat, the chief scout, Keith Burt, and the finance director, John Pelling – for good reason, so they could research potential signings properly, mindful of some of the wasteful buys made by previous managers. Most clubs have a similar operation – the difference is that Forest gave theirs a silly title – but Davies has issues with Pleat and Arthur and has taken just about every opportunity, using an obliging local media, to argue that the manager should be given more authority when it comes to transfer business.
The situation had deteriorated to a point at the end of last season when he was openly advertising his potential availability. There was a vacancy at Celtic and Davies, even as a Rangers man, was keen. "There is not a job that I would not consider," he said in one of many interviews. "From my point of view I certainly would not turn my back on any potential interested party if they make it official to Forest, if they agree compensation, and they do what is necessary."
His solicitor, Jim Price, said Davies would review his position in the summer. "It does not automatically mean he will be leaving Forest. But I can't lie to you. What happened during the January transfer window will be high on the agenda."
Behind the scenes at Forest those remarks have been described as "beyond belief". Information also reached the club that Davies had been put forward for the Bolton Wanderers job before Owen Coyle's appointment in January. Doughty summoned Davies to his office in Pall Mall on 20 May and made it clear he would not tolerate what he perceived to be blatant disloyalty. Davies gave his word that he was still committed and left Doughty with the impression that he would stop the moaning. The meeting was described as a success.
Then, on the eve of the new season, Davies was asked by a television reporter about James Perch's £1.2m transfer to Newcastle. He said he had not known about it until he received a telephone call from Arthur after the deal had been closed, the clear implication being that the player had been sold behind his back. The club were furious, Arthur making a rare pubic statement to explain when and how Davies had been kept in the loop. Doughty is then said to have dished out what has been described as the biggest rollicking he has given any manager during his eight years in charge.
Since then, there has been a "Mexican stand-off", to quote one observer, not helped when Davies apparently sat next to a Forest supporter on a flight from Glasgow to East Midlands airport, and the details of the alleged conversation appeared on a fans' website the following day. The content was extraordinary and, while it is still not clear whether the posting was genuine or malicious, the men in power at the City Ground took it seriously enough to investigate.
And so we arrive at the latest transfer window, ultimately clanking shut on Davies's fingers. In their defence, the club did turn down bids from Celtic for Kelvin Wilson and Blackpool for Nathan Tyson, and they finally recruited a left-back at long last, Ryan Bertrand arriving on loan from Chelsea. But Davies wanted Shorey for that position, as well as targeting Pratley, plus Peter Whittingham of Cardiff City.
One theory is that Doughty did not want to give transfer funds to Davies after everything that has happened. Alternatively, it has become a standing joke among supporters how many times the club will be accused of making "derisory" offers. We may never know the full reasons, though, because the men in power rarely speak to the fans.
Arthur, a well-spoken man with a cricket background, has become a popular target for an increasingly agitated fanbase. Doughty, whose personal worth is estimated at £128m, polarises opinion. Davies, by and large, has the sympathy of most fans, though certainly not all. His reputation should be as one of the better managers outside the Premier League, but he has already left Preston and Derby on bad terms and if he makes it a hat-trick with Forest he may just find that, in terms of baggage, he will be carrying the equivalent of a breeze block under his arm. Football-club chairmen tend to shy away from employing managers who may make life difficult for them.
The question is what happens next. There is a bad vibe and, as often happens, it seems to have trickled through to the players. The supporters are frustrated and angry. In the 1-1 draw with Norwich City last weekend (a game that could have finished 3-0 to Norwich) they took it out on Paul McKenna, booing the out-of-form captain when he was substituted. McKenna was the club's best player for six months of last season. The booing was boorish and stupid, but would never have happened had the mood not been so fractious.
In the meantime Forest are trying to leave the City Ground, the place of so many great memories, and build a shiny new stadium for the 2018 World Cup. The club have devised a nice scenario whereby they will be established in the Premier League by then and will have doubled their current crowds. Something is going to have to give.
" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/football-league-blog/2010/sep/03/nottingham-forest-billy-davies">Nottingham Forest a sea of troubles as Billy Davies and Doughty clash | Daniel Taylor 
Charles N'Zogbia's failed transfer and Robinho's departure show that players have all the power
Fifty years ago a young Lancastrian working on Tyneside wanted to change his job. It should have been a simple matter of working out his notice before moving on, but this was football and at that time a player who wanted to leave could not do so as long as the club held his registration. Newcastle United would not let George Eastham join Arsenal so he went on strike and took them to court.
Three years later Mr Justice Wilberforce ruled that the retain-and-transfer system operated by League clubs was an unreasonable restraint of trade. The Eastham case did not win players full freedom of contract, they had to wait another 15 years for that, but it was a start.
While all this was happening the clubs, threatened by an all-out players strike, agreed to abolish the £20-a-week maximum wage, which in terms of today's purchasing power would be worth about £850. Not a bad income, then as now, but still paltry seeing that in 1960 an entertainer topping the bill at the London Palladium was getting £1,000 a week or more.
Most fair-minded people had agreed that a reform of the transfer and wages system was long overdue. Even Alan Hardaker, the hidebound secretary of the Football League who once declared that he "would not hang a dog on the word of a professional footballer", thought that retain-and-transfer "was not only ludicrous but would clearly not stand up in law".
The freedom footballers won to ply their trade for reasonable money probably helped England to win the World Cup in 1966, since it contributed to a general improvement in playing standards. In the longer term, however, it is difficult to avoid the feeling that the arguments of those opposed to change are now being borne out. The clubs believed that if players were at liberty to come and go as their contracts permitted the wealthy teams would buy up the best talents with the less well-off struggling to survive. Which is about where we are now.
Consider the latest flurry of market activity during the summer transfer window. Eastham knew the value of a bob or two – his manager at Newcastle, Charlie Mitten, tartly described him as having "long pockets and short arms" – but could hardly have envisaged the sort of situation at the end of last week that led to Charles N'Zogbia's proposed £9m move from Wigan to Birmingham fall down because, if reports are to be believed, the Frenchman was demanding a sum which, while it would not have put him in John Terry's earnings band, was too much for Brum.
Javier Mascherano may have agreed to join Barcelona for less than the £70,000 a week he was getting at Liverpool but the manner of his £17m transfer still mocked the ideals of those who were fighting to loosen players' chains in the early 60s. Roy Hodgson was prepared to hold the Argentinian to his contract, which was supposed to keep him at Anfield until 2012,but then admitted that he had been forced to let the player go after Mascherano had missed Liverpool's 3-0 defeat at Manchester City.
Mascherano insists he did not at any time refuse to turn out at Eastlands. Nevertheless, the Liverpool manager felt compelled to observe: "It's not easy to defend his actions because professionals are paid to play and when called upon to do so they should," then added: "It's a selfish situation where they want to do something and then expect the club and me, in my position as one of the leaders of the club, to bow down and accept they are going to get their way."
Tony Pulis, Stoke's manager, was adamant that Asmir Begovic, his Bosnian goalkeeper and the object of a bid from Chelsea, had pulled out of a Carling Cup tie against Shrewsbury. This Begovic denied, and the Professional Footballers' Association's deputy chief executive, Bobby Barnes, explained: "Asmir's take is that he had indicated that his mind was a little bit scrambled by things and that probably, if there was an alternative, it would be best if he didn't play." Mr Justice Wilberforce would have been intrigued by that one.
Throw in Robinho, who did little for Manchester City except confirm that Brazil is where the nuts come from, and it is tempting to wonder whether the freedom of contract hard won all those years ago has now become freedom from contract.
These days agents and anarchy rule.
" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/sep/03/javier-mascherano-freedom-of-contract">Mascherano mocked contract ideals 
Following the rise of Bébé from the streets of Guadalajara to Old Trafford, here are six other rags-to-riches stories
1) Garrincha (Born 28 October 1933, died 20 January 1983)
In football, rags-to-riches stories are 10-a-penny. Consider the tale of one of the world's greatest ever players, Diego Armando Maradona. He grew up in a shanty town where he shared one room with seven siblings. Sanitation facilities were rudimentary and one night, when a toddler, Maradona fell into the family cesspit after losing his way in the dark. Fortunately his Uncle Cirilo was on hand to rescue the youngster, dragging him to safety while screaming "Diegito, keep your head above the shit", a supplication that Maradona made his motto for life. And what about the great Rivaldo, who was so impoverished as a child that he lost his teeth to malnutrition, and remained dangerously thin and muscularly underdeveloped into his teens? Or another Brazilian, the three-times Fifa World Player of the Year Ronaldo, whose first chance to escape the poverty-stricken streets of Rio disappeared when he couldn't raise the bus fare to attend a trial with Flamengo. An even better player than those two, according to many, was Garrincha, whose tribulations were even worse. The Little Bird was born into poverty with an alcoholic father and several birth defects: a deformed spine, and a right leg bent inwards and six inches longer than his left one, which was turned outwards. He began working in the local factory when he was 14, started drinking around the same time, and lost his virginity to a goat. He was married (not to a goat) and a father by the time he became a professional footballer at 19. On his debut for Botafoga he scored a hat-trick. Over the following years and throughout three World Cups and 50 appearances for Brazil (during which the team lost only once) he was a phenomenon, his impudent dribbling, spellbinding control and enflamed shots scalding opponents and thrilling crowds. Four times in his career he scored direct from corners and in one famous match against Fiorentina he beat four defenders and the goalkeeper, stopped short of the line to wait for the defenders to catch up with him and beat them again before rolling the ball into the net. Not for nothing was he nicknamed Alegria do Povo (Joy of the People). Off the field his joy was riddled with agonies, largely because of his alcoholism. If he inherited that problem from his father, he inadvertently caused retribution by knocking the old man down when drunk at the wheel in 1959. Ten years later his mother-in-law was killed when he crashed into a truck. Garrincha died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 49. Perhaps it is more accurate to say his triumphs were amid adversity rather than over it.
2) Hector Castro (Born 29 November 1904, died 15 September 1960)
The onset of a boy's teens brings curious changes. For Hector Castro, turning 13 meant coping not merely with the sudden sprouting of hair and pimples but also the loss of his right forearm. Not a natural part of his evolution obviously, but the painful consequence of botched interaction with an electric saw while cutting wood. "Tis but a flesh wound" Castro seemingly concluded and the aspiring striker strided forward in pursuit of his dream. By the age of 19 he was playing for top Montevideo club Nacional, whom he helped to three league titles, most memorably in 1933 when he scored the goal in a championship-clinching 1-0 triumph over second-place Penarol … after, unbeknown to the referee, the ball rebounded back into play off the Nacional physio's first-aid kit (three Penarol players beat up the ref in protest; the injured official had to be replaced by his assistant, who immediately sent off the aggressors before abandoning the game due to "bad light"). By then, of course, Castro was already a national hero, hailed throughout the land as El Divino Manco after playing a key role in Uruguay's victory in the 1928 Olympics and scoring the trophy-sealing fourth goal in the first ever World Cup final, a 4-2 win over Argentina. Beyond his goals (seventh most prolific scorer in the history of the Uruguayan league and 18 strikes in 25 appearances for his country), Castro was renowned for his dynamism and ferocious will to win on the pitch, and his drinking, smoking, gambling and womanising off it. As if that didn't make him popular enough, he became manager of Nacional after hanging up his boots and guided them to four successive titles between 1940 and 1943, and another one in 1952. He may have had just the one but he was more of a man than most.
3) Paul McGrath (Born 4 December 1959)
It was common knowledge during a brilliant career that won Paul McGrath adoration, the 1993 PFA Player of the Year award and 83 Republic of Ireland caps that he liked a drink. But he didn't. He drank, sure, but not out of fondness but because of loathing, confusion, fear or pain. His drinking was not restricted to drinks – twice he drank bottles of bleach in desperate attempts to end his life. These ordeals, and worse, are detailed in Back from the Brink, surely one of the most harrowing autobiographies in the history of football. In it McGrath recalls, as best he can, the demons, both internal and external, that have assailed him, firstly as a fragile mixed-race child in a succession of Dublin orphanages in the 1960s, then when, as a 19-year-old, he embarked on "a journey of unimaginable strangeness" as he suffered a nervous breakdown, leaving him unable to get out of bed for almost a year, lying with his legs locked so tightly together he would be plagued by knee trouble forever more. He recovered sufficiently to play for St Patrick's Athletic and attract the attention of Manchester United but even after being feted for the excellence of his play at Old Trafford he remained prone to self-doubt and anguish. Alex Ferguson seemed to judge him too difficult to manage and sold him to Villa in 1989. McGrath felt the need to drain a bottle of Southern Comfort before his inaugural press conference but despite that, and his car crashes, disintegrating family life and further attempts to take his life, he consistently showed supreme elegance, intelligence and power on the pitch during his seven seasons at Villa Park, and during one European Championship and two World Cups with his country, both in defence and midfield. Given that he was one of the most accomplished players of his generation despite "the … the … the madness", how good would he have been without those problems? A useless question, probably. Rather than second-guess a career and a life, let us savour it.
4) Ricky Otto (Born 9 November 1967)
Before it became a haven for graphic designers clad in Breton tops riding children's bikes even though they're fully grown men London's Hackney was a rough part of the East End. Otto was raised there and soon came to realise it was a difficult place to grow up – 17 of his friends were killed in an 18-year period. He fell in with the wrong crowd and was sent to prison for armed robbery for four years in 1986, while still a teenager. Following his release, Otto could easily have fallen into a downward spiral of crime and punishment but decided to turn his life around. "Even though I did a four-year sentence I didn't come out and think I was going to carry on down that path," Otto said. "I applied myself and changed my way of thinking so when I came out I elevated myself." Otto started playing for Haringey Borough and his performances were good enough for the Southend manager Barry Fry – admittedly not the most risk-averse man in the world – to fork out £100,000 for him. Otto teamed up with Fry again at Birmingham City in 1994, when he became Blues' then record signing for £800,000. Unfortunately, Otto was more Garry O'Connor than Christophe Dugarry and slowly sank out of favour. He did not forget his start in life though and when he retired in 2001 he became a probation officer and studied for a degree in theology. "It was weird working with prisoners on the wing and in the cells. The memories all came flooding back and it made me realise how far I'd come as I still have friends doing life sentences," he said. "To be honest I'm just glad to be alive."
5) Lauren (Born 19 January 1977)
It is hard enough overcoming a tough start in life when you are a whippersnapper in short trousers armed with nothing more than a catapult. But the former Arsenal full-back was lucky even to be born. His father, Valentin Bisan-Etame, was a politician in Equatorial Guinea and dared to speak out against the country's psychotic dictator, Francisco Macías, in 1977. It was a brave thing to do: Macías impaled his enemies' heads on poles, banned the use of the word "intellectual" and hailed Hitler as "the saviour of Africa". His crimes were so bad he was given 101 death sentences when brought to trial in 1979. Valentin was imprisoned and sentenced to death for his comments but managed to escape to Cameroon with several of his children and his wife, who was pregnant with Lauren. "If our family hadn't escaped, I probably wouldn't have been born," Lauren said. His trials were not over though: his family moved to Spain where he and his 14 siblings had to survive in Seville's tough Montequinto district.
6) Steve Savidan (Born 29 June 1978)
There are plenty of players who went from non-league football to represent their country. Stuart Pearce started out at Wealdstone, Les Ferdinand was at Hayes and Ian Wright was playing Sunday League when he was spotted by Crystal Palace. But all those players had been taken on by big clubs by their early 20s. Savidan, on the other hand, was still playing semi-professional football for non-league French team Angoulême at the age of 26, putting in shifts as a barman and bin-collector to pay the bills. Savidan believed he was ignored when he was younger because his height – 5ft 7in – counted against him. "I am proof that the system doesn't always work," Savidan said. "I was born at the wrong time. I'm from the same generation as Henry and Anelka, and when they were coming through you had to be well over six foot to be picked for youth schemes. I'm quite a bit under." Savidan was also troubled by mental health problems. "It's possible that I destroyed myself. Very possible, in fact," he said. "You could almost say I was suicidal." But when he signed for Valenciennes, Savidan got help from their GP and helped the club move from the third division to Ligue 1. In 2008, at the age of 30, he made his debut for France against Uruguay. Patrick Vieira invited him for dinner after the game but Savidan turned the invitation down, saying he had to train the next morning. In 2009, Savidan appeared to have secured a move that would set him up for life when Monaco came in for him but his career had one last, savage twist: the medical revealed a heart defect and Savidan was forced to retire at the age of 31.
" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/sep/03/joy-six-footballers-humble-beginnings">Joy of Six: Footballers who have overcome humble beginnings | Paul Doyle and Tom Lutz 