Frank Lampard has come under serious fire from sections of the Chelsea fanbase this week.

In the opinion of many supporters, the club legend should be peeling a P45 off his desk on the back of a pitiful 3-1 defeat to Manchester City that threatened to be far worse than the scoreline suggests.

You couldn't help thinking that Chelsea might be on the end of a historic thrashing by the time Ilkay Gundogan, Phil Foden and Kevin De Bruyne had fired the visitors into a rapid-fire 3-0 lead.

Lampard under pressure

To their credit, Chelsea did get their act together after the break, but Callum Hudson-Odoi's stoppage-time strike wasn't enough to paper over the cracks of the Blues' woeful league form.

And such is Chelsea's barren run that statistics have identified Lampard as the unhappy owner of the worst Premier League points-per-game ratio of any of the club's managers since 2003.

That very year is, of course, highly significant for ushering in the era of Roman Abramovich, which has seen spending, silverware and sackings swash into Stamford Bridge in abundance.

Ranking Chelsea bosses

But has Lampard's tenure really been as bad as the stats would have you think? Well, that's where we step in as we called upon our beloved medium of Tiermaker to compare the era's 12 coaches.

If you think that sounds like fertile ground for controversy, then you're absolutely spot on, so be sure to give us your opinion on our ranking of Abramovich's Chelsea chiefs down below:

Just why?

Andre Villas-Boas

Ok, we're not going to throw 'AVB' under the bus as much as some would because this is about more than Chelsea getting aroused by all the eerie similarities between him and Mourinho.

That being said, Villas-Boas almost tore an irreparable hole in the Chelsea spine that had won them so many trophies in the 2000s and it was down to his sacking that Munich 2012 ever transpired.

Not up to standard

Luiz Felipe Scolari

Roberto Di Matteo

For all his World Cup-winning pedigree, Scolari always looked like a fish out of water at the Bridge and with murmurings of player-power rearing its head, his sacking felt like a blessing for all parties. 

Are we barking mad putting Di Matteo this low? Look, all the credit in the world for winning the Champions League, but getting sacked six months later and being unemployed for five years suggests, yeh, he wasn't up to the Chelsea standard in the long run.

Middle of the road

Rafael Benitez

Guus Hiddink

Frank Lampard

Maurizio Sarri

Sure, Benitez might have been derided by the fans, but his results were solid enough as Chelsea finished within three points of second place in the league and bagged the Europa League to boot.

As for Hiddink, his first spell, which reaped the FA Cup and just one Premier League defeat, is only deflated by a 2015/16 return that saw the Blues limp over the line to a terrible tenth-place finish.

Meanwhile, Lampard still deserves credit for leading a transfer-banned Chelsea to an FA Cup final and Champions League football off the back of selling Eden Hazard despite the contemporary woes.

And while Sarri's one season in west London must look pretty solid in the record books, lest we forget the manifold teething problems that saw on-pitch spats and constant debates about his philosophy.

Underrated

Avram Grant

Claudio Ranieri

At the end of the day, like him or loath him, Grant led Chelsea to their first-ever Champions League final and boasts the best points-per-game record of any Blues coach in the league since 2003.

Is this generous to Ranieri? Maybe, but consider how tough his job was as the first coach of the new heavy-spending era, so second place behind the 'Invincibles' and a Champions League semi-final was good going.

Elite

Carlo Ancelotti

Antonio Conte

Of course you're deserving of this tier if you've won the Premier League title as Chelsea manager and both Italians, to their credit, won the trophy in record-breaking style.

Ancelotti's side were the first to score more than 100 goals in a Premier League season, while Conte marshalled his Blues outfit to the competition's first-ever 13-game winning streak.

Best of the best

Jose Mourinho

Who else? I mean, seriously, Mourinho has only actually managed at Stamford Bridge for five complete seasons, but still managed to secure three of the five Premier League titles the club has ever won.

That alone is an astonishing record, never mind when you delve deeper into his magnum opus of 2004/05, which saw the Blues concede just 15 goals and dethrone Arsenal's legendary 'Invincibles'.

Full graphic

Should Lampard go?

All in all, Chelsea have actually had a pretty good roster of managers under their Russian billionaire even though success or failure tends to end in the sack regardless at some point down the line.

As far as Lampard is concerned, surely the club legend will be cut a little bit more slack than his predecessors because expecting £200 million-worth of new players to gel immediately is simply unrealistic.

But then again, the last thing you should expect from Abramovich's trigger finger is mercy.