Frank Lampard: I watch the big games back home and think I'd love to be mixing it with Barcelona or Tottenham again... but I won't go out with a whimper at New York City

There is a pool beyond the hotel terrace on which he sits. Palm trees sway a little in the evening breeze. The temperature is in the high 60s and the locals are complaining about the cold. On the other side of Highway 41, an arching causeway leads out to Longboat Key. The warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico stretch beyond. This is pre-season, New York City FC style.

Frank Lampard smiles when he nods towards the pool, reminded that some people said he was coming to play football in America for a holiday.

It was, they said, the kiss-off at the end of a garlanded career with Chelsea and, latterly, Manchester City, and he knows how comfortable this all looks, knows how nice it is to feel the sun on your face in the middle of an English winter.

Frank Lampard spoke to Sportsmail's chief sports writer Oliver Holt ahead of the new MLS season

Lampard will be hoping to fare better this campaign with New York City than he did in their debut term last year

The 37-year-old insists he didn't come to the MLS franchise for a holiday but to enjoy success instead

But to think that Lampard intends to allow his glittering career to end with a whimper while he lives it up in Florida and Manhattan is to misjudge the man. You don't win the Champions League, three Premier League titles, four FA Cups, two League Cups and the Europa League and become the fourth highest scorer in Premier League history - from midfield - by taking the easy option.

Sure, he is happy with his life, newly married to Christine Bleakley and newly installed in an apartment on the Upper East Side. He and his wife walk in Central Park and trawl the city's museums but the man named by Jose Mourinho as the greatest Premier League player of the last decade is not in the mood to put his feet up yet.

The MLS season starts for New York City FC with a visit to Chicago Fire a week on Sunday and Lampard feels he owes the club's fans, whose expansion team endured a mediocre first season in the MLS last year, losing 17 of 34 games.

Lampard arrived late last season after Manchester City extended his stay in the Premier League, a situation which caused much hand-wringing in the States and plenty of discontent. Lampard got injured and returned too late to push his side high enough up the Eastern Conference to make the play-offs.

Lampard (right) missed half of New York City's debut MLS campaign as they lost 17 of their 34 matches

Like Lampard, Andrea Pirlo received by the American media for New York City's disappointing debut season 

New York Red Bulls fans hold a banner mocking Lampard's (left) and Pirlo's age before their clash last season

He and fellow new arrival, Andrea Pirlo, were criticised by the American media. One writer described the Italy great as looking like 'a country visitor trying to figure out a midtown crosswalk'. Lampard started to find form and fitness when the season ended.

'I don't know yet whether this will be my last year as a player,' Lampard says. 'But whether it is or not, I don't want to go out with a whimper. I could rely on the Chelsea thing and think that was great and take the wrong attitude about what this is. I haven't done that. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a real desire. I am very driven to do as well as I can.

'I would hate to go home with the feeling I haven't done it because it was something to do with me. If I didn't give it the right attitude and then came away without being successful, I would hate that.

'I have learnt that the minute I drop my standards - and I have done at times in my career, taking my foot off the pedal in training or getting over-confident - I have always been kicked up the backside somehow.

'I know the minute I drop, that kick up the backside comes. I have got no doubt about it that if I drop at 37, it will come. So I am taking this season full on. I have to adapt. I can't train as hard as I used to. But I will give everything.

'I wouldn't enjoy being here on a holiday. I'm not that kind of bloke. I would feel like I was taking the p***. The people here are very good. The team-mates around you, the club, the supporters, we were getting nearly 30,000 a week as a new franchise. It's a big deal.

'I would hate to know inside I was taking it as a holiday. It would be the beginning of the end. You might as well not be here. I don't need it in terms of my own career. I've had a very good career. I need it because I want it.

'Why do I still want it? Because I still feel I have something left to give. I didn't want to finish playing and think: 'There was an experience to be had there and I didn't take it'. I've always been like that. I could have stopped when I left Chelsea and known that I'd had a really good career and had no regrets but I wanted to push it.'

Lampard and his wife Christine Bleakley (who married in December) are enjoying life together in America

New York, bolstered by the arrival of Patrick Vieira as head coach, have been in Sarasota for more than three weeks, going to and from training at the IMG Academy in Bradenton half an hour away, playing warm-up games and spending the rest of the time in the hotel.

Lampard, who missed Wednesday's friendly defeat by FC Cincinnati with a minor injury, knows he is in the gloaming of his career but it has not dimmed his intensity.

Sometimes, he has flashes of nostalgia for the Premier League. Sometimes, he watches one of the new breed of exciting young English midfielders like Dele Alli coming through and wishes he could play against him.

He still thinks he could hold his own in England but he laughs when he says it. 'I'm sure a lot of people would tell you that about themselves,' he says. He watches English football on TV but is smart and urbane enough to limit the amount he looks back and focuses instead on his new life.

Some things are different. Like tonight, when he requests a quiet table outside on the deck at the hotel bar, the waitress asks for his surname. There are other things, too. 'I'm English,' he says. 'I stand in a lift normally and don't talk to anyone and put my head down. But I've started to say: 'Morning, how are you doing?' It's nice. Some people criticise the American culture for being like that. I don't. I love it.'

Lampard enjoyed 13 trophy-laden years as a Chelsea player during his time at Stamford Bridge

The midfielder holds aloft the Champions League after captaining Chelsea to glory during the 2011-12 final

The Chelsea legend believes he could still hold his own in England's top-flight but is happy at New York City

Maybe some players who leave the Premier League behind spend the rest of their careers feeling as if they have their nose pressed up against the glass. Lampard isn't one of them. He feels content. Sometimes, he might catch a glimpse of his old team-mate, John Terry, ready to lead Chelsea out and feel a pang but he knows he left at the right time.

'It feels good to be here,' he says. 'I had the chance to come to the LA Galaxy two or three years ago before Mourinho came back to Stamford Bridge and Chelsea were letting me go. I spoke with Christine about the Galaxy thing. I wasn't sure. Christine said: 'Jump forward six months to when you are playing out there and will you miss this too much?' The answer was an obvious 'yes'. Now the answer is 'no'. I am very comfortable with what I did in England. I loved every minute. But I appreciate being out of that bubble and that pressure-cooker feel. I watch it with enjoyment now. We get so many English games on TV. If we're not playing on a Saturday, I can get up and watch a game, watch another after breakfast and another at lunchtime.

'I don't have to worry about Chelsea losing and having the hump for the evening. My life is here now. I can hold my hands up and say there have been times where I have watched on the telly and got that little tingle where I thought how much I loved those days and wouldn't mind a taste of that.

'One was Chelsea against City early this season. I was watching them in the tunnel and I saw John puffing his chest out and remembered being there in those moments. Arsenal-Barcelona the other night was the same. It's there for a second but I don't miss it. There's no pining. I know my time there was up. I did bloody well. I left at 36 and a half.

'I watch midfield players a lot. I love watching Dele Alli. He's a fantastic young player. I can say that now about a Tottenham player. I would love to pit my wits against people like him to see if I could still do it. But in the next thought, I think: 'You know what, I did all that'. I'm happy where it ended in England.'

Tottenham's rising midfielder Dele Alli (centre) has caught the eye of Lampard from across the Atlantic

Lampard describes Alli (left) as a 'fantastic young player' who he would love to pit his wits against

Lampard is enthusiastic about the season. He is delighted about the appointment of former Arsenal midfielder Vieira. He knows how important the manager can be. Now and then, the conversation turns to Mourinho. Lampard says he is a 'genius' and uses the same term for Pep Guardiola, soon to take over at Manchester City. He is confident Mourinho will find fresh glories but is less confident about Chelsea's prospects. He sees a club ruled by owner Roman Abramovich, and a technical director, Michael Emenalo, who thirst for a brand of beautiful football but he also sees a club where traditional strengths are being lost, a club caught between two identities.

'What has happened to Chelsea does surprise me,' he says. 'But I do worry about where the real personalities of the team are and to be a big team, you have to have big personalities. I do see a team now where John is the last mainstay of that identity.

'The team have to evolve and whether John leaves now or in a year, it will be a new bunch to what I know. But you have to keep that backbone. You have to have players who can dig in when it gets hard. Arsenal have lacked it for years. That's why they've not won the League.'

The veteran midfielder has hailed former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho (right) as a 'genius'

However, he has concerns over Chelsea's direction under Michael Emenalo (left) and Roman Abramovich

Lampard says Chelsea captain John Terry is the 'last mainstay' of Chelsea's original identity

And he added: 'We had a fantastic spirit at Chelsea. We are kind of famous for it now. People criticised us for it, to try to take away the gloss of what we were doing. Maybe Chelsea are looking for a more beautiful way. Fair play if they get to that beautiful way. Then we will all be happy with it. But that way doesn't come that easily.

'The club have been trying to push it down that route with the players they have recruited. The problem is do you fall in the middle, somewhere between tough and beautiful? It's nice football at times but it's not that nice and it's not really winning games. It's not beautiful, beautiful stuff.

'They're not a million miles away but need to buy two or three big players. Being 12th in the League is ridiculous. A bad year, they should be in the top four. A good year, they should be winning it.'

Lampard takes one last sip of his water. He says he feels 'level-headed' about the nearing of the end of his career. 'Some players say they miss the dressing room,' he says. 'That won't be me. I love the camaraderie but I don't rely on it.'

There will be no regrets, he says, and no more clubs. New York City FC is his last waltz.