Your Everton morning headlines for Sunday, January 15.
Andy Gray and Richard Keys slam Everton 'scandal'
Andy Gray has admitted he would consider walking away from Everton if he found himself in Frank Lampard's current position.
The Blues' season is quickly spiralling out of control after a prolonged poor run of results, which was extended by Southampton on Saturday after they fought back from a goal down to claim a vital victory in their bid to beat the drop.
Everton, meanwhile, remain in search of a performance to breathe new life into their survival bid as the pressure continues to mount on Frank Lampard. The Blues' boss has struck a defiant tone in recent weeks when quizzed on his future, but the questions over his position will be going nowhere after yet another setback in the season.
Of the view that the Blues' boss may well be out of options at Everton, Gray told beIN SPORTS: "I don't know where they go and I don't know where Frank goes from here." Continuing the conversation, Richards Keys asked his co-host if he would resign if he was in Lampard's shoes and received the following response from Gray.
Tom Cavilla has the full story here.
Everton blame game points to two targets
It was an inevitability that protesting Everton fans who stayed back after the final whistle chanted “sack the board” – they’ve been saying that since the shambolic 4-1 capitulation against Brighton & Hove Albion 11 days earlier – but while calls of “You’re not fit to run the club” followed during the post-match sit-in, they came after a new cry of “You’re not fit to wear the shirt.” The chaos, the heartache and abject misery around the Blues right now is such that nobody can be absolved from blame, particularly the players on the pitch who are ultimately responsible for results and shaping the club’s fortunes.
This wasn’t a ragged display like the horror show against the Seagulls last time out – one tiny crumb of comfort for long-suffering Evertonians at this time of crisis could be seeing that the upwardly mobile Sussex outfit have just beaten their neighbours by the same margin – but the fragility around this team is such that they never looked entirely convincing when defending their lead and so it proved. Sequels might be a handy way for Hollywood film studios to make lots of money but they’re often not as good as the original and so this proved for Everton on the day their fans revived the concept of the passionate Goodison Park coach welcome.
There is only so far that support can take you and this group of players could have all the encouragement in the world – the scenes at Old Trafford last time out when over 9,000 travelling Blues roared them on showed just how very fortunate they are in that respect – but when it comes to the crunch, those 11 young men on the turf are the ones who control Everton’s destiny.
Read Chris Beesley's full post-match analysis here.
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