2021/22 Frank Lampard

[Little Ralphy]

He's not the problem.

We all know this squad lack the mentality.

But he's contributing to the problem.

He's setting us up to fail - particularly away at home.

He's making us more vulnerable, and he's right;

• “There is only so much you can keep trying to butter someone up to get confidence,

Confidence comes from results and performances - being battered in every away game he's been here for removes whatever he says.

He's making the same mistakes, and he's not being held to account because;

1. Apathy/anger towards players.
2. "We can't keep sacking managers!"

Away from home, he has to be pragmatic. He has to recognise this team's defence is atrocious and this team is vulnerable.

He has to preserve whatever little confidence we have in a relegation fight. If you can't win, don't lose. If you lose, don't lose 5-0, 4-0...

To set us up to press so high up the pitch, with our defence and a midfield which can't tackle is absolute insanity. If he didn't learn that from Southampton or Newcastle, I hoped Spurs would have rammed it home.

Evidently based on Palace, it hasn't.

This isn't after the event cry arsing either - I've been crying it in for ages now.

If he sets us up again like that at Burnley and we lose, I'll lose faith in him.

But the flip side of that is Benitez had the team sit back and concede possession and the results were no better. We don't have the creativity in the side that Carlo had.

For me the way Everton have played against Southampton and Palace especially is similar to how rogers had liverpool playing. They'd win the games in the first 30 minutes and then the game would just play out. They'd take their chances when they blitzed teams at the start and goals change games. The opposition would all but give up, as once they'd got the goals they can be more conservative if need be, as teams would either have to open up to try and get back in the game or shut up shop to keep the score down.

Palace had nothing for Everton in until the injury. They literally couldn't get out of their half, and had to resort to going long, and challenge for second balls. The problem is Everton can't score goals, for all his running Richarlison had good chances for this level, Keane's chance should have been scored as well. If those goals go in it's a completely different game. But because they don't then doubt creeps in to the mentally fragile and some of the players fall apart.

Both Palace and Southampton are able to run with the ball in midfield to advance the play, and Everton seem unable to deal with any side that can out run them, and I'd say 18 other sides can all do this. Hence why he's trying to stop them getting the ball in areas where they could run. He's right it's worked for 20 mins and then without a goal it falls apart.

 

[Little Ralphy]

To be clear, i'm not saying he needs to a pick a formation and stick with it rigidly no matter what, I'm saying that I can understand that if you're a limited player like Kenny then playing left back, right back, centre half, left wing back and right wing back in the space of a month might mean that you struggle to remember exactly what's being asked of you in any given situation and lead to hesitation and confusion. If you're Godfrey then playing full back, then central in a 3 and then central in a 2 in your last 3 games the same might happen. It's not an excuse, if they were really good players it wouldn't matter, but they're NOT really good players, and I can't help thinking that simplifying what we're asking of them might help them. Most of their good performances in recent years have come when keeping it very simple and playing to instruction, i'm not sure that's a coincidence.

You are probably right and if you are right then those players have no place in professional football at this level.

 

[IrishToffee24]

This isn't football manager where you can go on holiday for a few months

And Allardyce kept us up in 2018 so it worked?

If Lampard isn’t willing to wait we can get someone like Potter in the summer but I’d guess Lampard would wait, because he isn’t getting a better job than ours.

 

[MACCA75]

He's not the problem.

We all know this squad lack the mentality.

But he's contributing to the problem.

He's setting us up to fail - particularly away at home.

He's making us more vulnerable, and he's right;

• “There is only so much you can keep trying to butter someone up to get confidence,

Confidence comes from results and performances - being battered in every away game he's been here for removes whatever he says.

He's making the same mistakes, and he's not being held to account because;

1. Apathy/anger towards players.
2. "We can't keep sacking managers!"

Away from home, he has to be pragmatic. He has to recognise this team's defence is atrocious and this team is vulnerable.

He has to preserve whatever little confidence we have in a relegation fight. If you can't win, don't lose. If you lose, don't lose 5-0, 4-0...

To set us up to press so high up the pitch, with our defence and a midfield which can't tackle is absolute insanity. If he didn't learn that from Southampton or Newcastle, I hoped Spurs would have rammed it home.

Evidently based on Palace, it hasn't.

This isn't after the event cry arsing either - I've been crying it in for ages now.

If he sets us up again like that at Burnley and we lose, I'll lose faith in him.

Before we appointed him I read an article about his time at Chelsea and the kamikaze pressing they did, leaving huge spaces in behind. If he was conceding a lot of goals with Kante and Rudiger then it was always going to be a car crash with Gomes and Keane.

Was hoping he’d learnt to adapt but we haven’t seen it yet.

 

[Gilbert..]

And he kept us up


And Allardyce kept us up in 2018 so it worked?

If Lampard isn’t willing to wait we can get someone like Potter in the summer but I’d guess Lampard would wait, because he isn’t getting a better job than ours.

The job is an absolute nightmare fella. Fine if you just want a well paid job to set you up. Not like lampard needs that.
A nightmare. 75%/80% of them need clearing out.
This Everton job is not appealing in the slightest. Even potter distanced himself.

 

[banno]

The midfield needs shoring up and we need to sit slightly deeper. We seem to be able to defend the 18 yd box but any higher and we are vunerable. We may have to sacrifice a winger or 2 to be able to shore things up. The midfield is offering no protection at all and once bypassed we find ourselves out numbered defensively and gaps everywhere. It is a case of condensing so no team can just waltz through. For away games I would even go for 5 in midfield or a 4-4-1-1. Will mean losing either Gray/Gordon and maybe Richie unless one of them took DCLs place for away games. We just have to be solid in the middle and protect that defence as much as possible

 

[Death]

Dono whats scarier. The fact we need a near complete overhaul or the fact we are going to give an unproven manager a few years to try do it.

 

[roy vernon]

The goal yesterday they all turned their backs on the original shot and then watched it hit the post without bothering to chase back. I see that as a shocking lack of effort.

Me too Tim.

 

[banno]

And Allardyce kept us up in 2018 so it worked?

If Lampard isn’t willing to wait we can get someone like Potter in the summer but I’d guess Lampard would wait, because he isn’t getting a better job than ours.

Don't think we were even going down in 2018 so a bit far fetched that Allardyce saved us

 

[Tel001]

He's spot on. He has the example of every manager preceding him back to Martinez being forced to face the music from fans for poor player professionalism. So he's putting the players in the spotlight and the blame back on them because he knows that the fans are the only one's these players are petrified of and will get after.

I dont think this is "dont blame me guv" stuff from Lampard, I think it's a genuine attempt to be brutally honest - and in public - in order to get players to be professional and face up to their responsibilities.

He has my backing 100%.

I agree with every word , think he just can’t bring himself to protect the players after that performance, or the fact that they revert to type every time it looks like we have turned a corner .

 

[roy vernon]

He's spot on. He has the example of every manager preceding him back to Martinez being forced to face the music from fans for poor player professionalism. So he's putting the players in the spotlight and the blame back on them because he knows that the fans are the only one's these players are petrified of and will get after.

I dont think this is "dont blame me guv" stuff from Lampard, I think it's a genuine attempt to be brutally honest - and in public - in order to get players to be professional and face up to their responsibilities.

He has my backing 100%.

Mine too Dave, for once, I'm completely on the same page as you here.

 

[Lowste]

Before we appointed him I read an article about his time at Chelsea and the kamikaze pressing they did, leaving huge spaces in behind. If he was conceding a lot of goals with Kante and Rudiger then it was always going to be a car crash with Gomes and Keane.

Was hoping he’d learnt to adapt but we haven’t seen it yet.

If I am right not sure if Rudiger played that often under Lampard…

 

[Rogue Trader]

Not sure if i have managed to do this correctly and upload the pic of the tweet, but expected goals whilst not a perfect metric is a very good metric all the same and that is frightening. I agree what someone said above that Lampard may not be the whole problem but he is certainly part of the problem, he had a suspect track record before coming into the club and that has not improved. Anybody at Southampton will vouch Everton probably away lightly that day, I really fear for us as we are getting massively out played by midtable teams.

 

[Tel001]

It’s not his fault the side he got given, but he needs to onow how to maximise it.

I’m still firmly in the pro-Lampard side, but it doesn’t mean he got things wrong tactically.

From the tactics I have seen, I have no doubt that it will be a lot better when he brings in his own players, but he needs to pack out the centre of the field, to maximise the input and effectively of the midfield.

Listen, I’m not slagging him off, I just think he’s been a bit naive so far, and that does concern me in a relegation scrap, but I’m glad we’ve got him.

Thing is you pack the midfield because he can’t trust them in a two, but he also can’t trust his back line as it gets pulled apart with ease . They players are crap and that’s the be all and end all of it . We need to survive and then offload all the players we can… even the “good” ones aren’t actually good, they just look better than they are when they’re standing beside Kenny, Keane , gomes and co

 

[4737carlin]

Don't think we were even going down in 2018 so a bit far fetched that Allardyce saved us

But he did do a good job, he did get us 8th, every manager since has been worse, we sacked the last manager we had that actually performed for us