Jason Kreis, the New York City FC head coach, hopes in time “everybody can forgive and forget” the Frank Lampard saga that occurred owing to Manchester City’s mishandling of the midfielder’s status when the club claimed he had joined on loan from the MLS franchise.
Manchester City’s sister club won their inaugural match on Tuesday against St Mirren, 2-0, at the City Football Academy. Lampard was not there to watch the team he will join in the close season as the 36-year-old was at a hotel with Manuel Pellegrini’s squad preparing for City’s game at Stoke on Wednesday.
Last month City admitted making mistakes regarding Lampard’s status, with the club clarifying he never signed a two-year deal with New York and so had never been on loan from the MLS franchise, as the champions stated last summer. Instead City said Lampard agreed “a head of terms commitment” with New York that began on 1 January.
City and Lampard suffered adverse publicity when this emerged as the former Chelsea player extended his stay at the Etihad Stadium until the end of the season and left fans of New York unhappy at what was viewed as misinformation regarding his status.
Kreis, whose team beat St Mirren through goals from David Villa and Tony Taylor, believes the franchise’s supporters will receive Lampard well when he finally joins.
“I think at the end of it all when everybody is calmed down and settled down a little bit that everybody can forgive and forget,” he said.
“It’s my dream really that at some point very quickly the fans of NYC aren’t talking about the individual players, I’m hopeful they understand that this is about a team, it isn’t about David Villa or Frank Lampard or Jason Kreis. This is about a squad and a club and what we can do for the community.”
Villa said: “It would have been great that he was here now but for City the best thing is for him to stay in Manchester. We are only going to be focused to work hard so that when he joins in July, we can be a team that is really good and he can only improve us.”
Kreis, whose squad have not yet had 20 training sessions together, may take some of the younger City players on loan to New York.
“It’s something that we’re interested in,” he said. “Individually I have a lot of interest in bringing some Man City players over on loan because I think it would be a cool thing. It would be great for a young coach like myself to be involved with the development of a young Manchester City talent. There are some players who we have looked at but it needs to be a good fit. We won’t do it just to do it. Any player we do loan needs to bring something to our team.”
