Midfielders are not supposed to score 211 goals for one club. Frank Lampard did it at Chelsea, which made him the club's all-time top scorer and the highest-scoring midfielder in Premier League history. Plenty of strikers finish their careers with fewer.
The secret was timing. Lampard arrived late in the box, after the markers had picked their men, and finished with either foot. Defenders lost him constantly, and so did the midfielders meant to track him.
How did Super Frank keep turning up?
He almost never missed a match. Lampard played 164 consecutive Premier League games for Chelsea, a record run for an outfield player. Availability is not glamorous, but it is how a midfielder gets to 211.
The medals followed: three Premier League titles and a Champions League with Chelsea. In 2005 the Football Writers' Association named him Footballer of the Year, and he finished runner-up in the Ballon d'Or voting.
Goals, assists and work rate in the same player is a rare mix in English football, and nobody else from midfield has combined them quite as he did. That 211 may not be matched from the middle of the park for a very long time.
Tomorrow: number 24.
