2021/22 Frank Lampard

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Said this the other day, the difference between Coleman and Coady was like night and day, one was being a leader on the pitch and one was Coleman.

Coleman being our worst player means that no one is going to take him seriously when he starts barking orders out on the pitch, because he can’t do the basics of football himself. He’s probably embarrassed to have the armband at this point himself, he is captain because he’s old and been at the club ages. That’s not a valid reason to have the armband.
 

I do agree with those saying about simple changes. I've cried about it for years now. We seem to press, close down and move less than anyone. It's been this way for a long long time. (Except for some of Carlo's time).

You get the basics right to start with. Players stood still offering no support. Players not closing down an attack. No pressure whatsoever.
 
It's cringing even now to look back on the initial Everton TV interviews done with Lampard, Edwards, & Cole.

Not from anything they have said, but from the viewpoint of the absolute colossal gulf in quality that they are used to working within and now are struggling to adapt without.

They would have anticipated that gulf to a degree, but I think you have to experience it first-hand to get an idea of the grim reality. All of the new staff must be shocked to some degree.

It's their job to get us out of this though. They don't bear much responsibility, but it will still be Lampards name on the door if we go down.
 

Everton boss Frank Lampard says he came into a club who were on a "downward trajectory" and explains that such a mentality can't be change immediately.

Everton are 17th in the Premier League table with 22 points, equal with Watford who are in the relegation zone. The Toffees, however, have games in hand on all the sides below them in the table.

Lampard goes on to say that "if you're walking around with fear of" relegation it will only add to the potential of it happening.
Self-preservation mode already.
 
Benitez had 19 prem games, Lampard has had 6 prem games, we have 12 games left so that would put Lampard on near enough the same games as Benitez, we can then compare them.
Worth noting that Benitez had a full pre-season to get the squad playing his style of play.

Lampard has inherited that squad after its had every ounce of confidence knocked out of them, and is trying to convert them to playing a positive attacking style mid season. A tougher task for Frank.

Should we stay up, a closer comparison would be the first 19 games of next season.
 
To be fair it's something that pretty much every manager of every club says, because it's the obvious answer to the question. No manager says 'yeah this is exactly what i'm asking them to do, we're just losing because my tactics are crap'.

It’s different though when you can see a team carrying out a managers tactics but they’re just not working. Like Chelsea under Sarri or Brighton at times under Potter. You know they are doing what the manager is telling them but it’s just not working. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the players carrying out the instructions though.

At Everton I have grace reservations that the players are doing what the manager tells them to do. That’s the difference for me. It’s why I’m reluctant to blame managers after Koeman. I just see players making loads of individual errors, struggling to keep up work rate, being unbelievably sloppy in possession, ballooning crosses and set pieces, and not concentrating in set piece defence. No manager would train any of those things so all that can be judged from that is that the players are either not very good and can’t implement what a manager wants, or just refuse to implement what a manager wants.
 

If he was defensive we wouldn't have been getting snotted 3 goals a game.

It's an utter myth we played defensively under cos we were that disorganised and wide open in most games especially with his constant 2 man midifield. We'd concede possession just to get overran in midfield.

He was completely the opposite to what people think a Bentiez side was/is.
We conceded those goals because our set piece play was atrocious. You can be set up defensively and then get punished by poor marking, which we did.
 
Coleman being our worst player means that no one is going to take him seriously when he starts barking orders out on the pitch, because he can’t do the basics of football himself. He’s probably embarrassed to have the armband at this point himself, he is captain because he’s old and been at the club ages. That’s not a valid reason to have the armband.
He still can't even walk the team onto the pitch at the right time. I'd take the armband off him for that alone.
 
It’s different though when you can see a team carrying out a managers tactics but they’re just not working. Like Chelsea under Sarri or Brighton at times under Potter. You know they are doing what the manager is telling them but it’s just not working. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the players carrying out the instructions though.

At Everton I have grace reservations that the players are doing what the manager tells them to do. That’s the difference for me. It’s why I’m reluctant to blame managers after Koeman. I just see players making loads of individual errors, struggling to keep up work rate, being unbelievably sloppy in possession, ballooning crosses and set pieces, and not concentrating in set piece defence. No manager would train any of those things so all that can be judged from that is that the players are either not very good and can’t implement what a manager wants, or just refuse to implement what a manager wants.
I'm not knocking Lampard, i'm just saying that in 90% of cases at all clubs what he's saying will be true. There's a plan on how to win the game and the players show flashes of being able to do it, but then for whatever reason it doesn't always work out on the pitch.

One of the main reasons for us - in my opinion - is that the players have spent a long time being told they can't be trusted to do things and they should take the easy option etc, and now they're being asked to play proper football. They ARE capable of it (to what level is debatable, but they are) but when things start to go against them they revert to type and start taking the easy option again. I know we all love to claim these are the worst collection of professional footballers there's ever been and not one of them has any redeeming features (apart from St Anthony, obviously) but the fact that we keep changing managers and asking them to do different things and play in different positions etc is clearly going to have an effect on their confidence and belief.

The Leeds, Brentford and City games have shown what the players can do when they're confident and believe in what they're doing, but they're understandably pretty brittle after the run of results they've had and so when things aren't going to plan the plan seems to go out of the window and they get ragged.
 
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