It's time for your Everton FC morning headlines on Wednesday, May 4.
Everton favourite Tony Hibbert set for emotional return to city
Everton icon Tony Hibbert is to make an emotional return to Liverpool later this month for a tribute night in his honour. One-club man Hibbert was a home-grown hero, making 329 appearances for the Blues between 2001-2016.
Now 41, Hibbert lives in France, where he has resided since buying a 33-acre carp fishery on the outskirts of Reims. Although he is known for shunning the limelight, Hibbert made the headlines earlier this season when over five years after he retired from professional football, he started turning out for his local amateur club ES Louzy.
Former Everton winger Ronny Goodlass, who coached Hibbert as a youngster at the Blues, has organised a tribute night for him at the Hilton Hotel in Liverpool city centre on Friday May 20. Goodlass told the ECHO: “We all know Tony is a quiet and humble lad but once you get to know him he’s great. We’re raising funds for my charity Health Through Sport and he told me: ‘I’d love to do it, Ronny.’
READ MORE: Frank Lampard has faced Rafa Benitez 'fact' just in time for Everton
“It’s great for him to come home for a night like this, his family are coming too and there will be friends he hasn’t seen for a while. He’s certainly looking forward to it and hopefully we can get some of his former team-mates from the FA Youth Cup-winning side back together as well.”
Read the full story HERE.
Everton players must follow Frank Lampard relegation rule even if fans cannot
It's amazing how much the mood around Everton can fluctuate in the space of just 24 hours. And, nothing epitomises that more than the feeling which surrounded this weekend's matches.
Social media was not a positive place for Blues fans in the immediate aftermath of Burnley's comeback against Watford. Hope of the Clarets potentially dropping a crucial few points in this nerve-wracking battle were quickly dashed by two goals in the space of three second half minutes very late in the game.
That left a gap of five points between Everton and potential safety heading into their own vital game against Chelsea this weekend. Before Leeds' resounding defeat to Man City later on Saturday, many couldn't help like feeling they had been punched in the gut. Nothing had essentially changed in the real situation for Frank Lampard's squad, however. Considering they had games in hand on both sides above them, it's still "in their hands" as they say - right?
Fast-forward to the next day and suddenly the mood around Goodison Park was on the up once again. The fans had banded together in incredible fashion to welcome their players, the squad had responded with a victory, and a random crowd-surfing dog was being hailed as a hero.
So, just a normal 24 hours on Everton Twitter, then.
But, Lampard himself was asked about his side being the masters of their own destiny in the immediate aftermath of what could have proven to be one of the most important victories of the season. And his answer showed an interesting insight into the way he wants his side to approach the remaining matches of the term.
The Blues manager responded: "I don't know what is 'in your hands' or not around the bottom of the table. If it's Liverpool or Man City you're probably thinking they're going to win every game, and that is great at that point.
"But with us, are we expecting Burnley to win every game? [Laughing] At the minute maybe, yeah! Are we expecting Leeds to win every game? So I think it's hard to say what's in our hands or not.
"The only thing I can say is that we can control certain things, that's when we play. We can't control Burnley. Over the five games we have to control ourselves well enough to get enough points. We don't know what that [total] is."
Read the full story from Adam Jones, our Everton FC writer, HERE.
