It’s been a very, very bad week for everyone at the football club from Frank Lampard, the players and the fans. Those same supporters have shown huge desire to go down to Bournemouth and back twice in the space of four days with the amount they’ll have spent on fuel and hotels in a cost of living crisis and we just hoped that they’d show a reaction to the Carabao Cup disappointment in the Premier League game.
Frank said after being knocked out of the cup that the squad members who had not been playing but who had been given a chance, had no excuses now but unfortunately, given how badly Saturday went, they could now be back into the mix again!
The post-match exchange between some of Everton’s team and the supporters was not nice to see and I get both sides. I’ve been there as a player where I’ve felt embarrassed and I’d give a quick clap to the fans and just get down the tunnel because I didn’t want the confrontation.
You don’t know what kind of reaction you’re going to get from the fans and like it or lump it, as a player you’ve got to take it on the chin. If you go over to them in such circumstances, you’re liable to opening up a can of worms.
You go over to thank them for their support over the past couple of games but need to realise that you’ve let them down. They’re damned if they do and they’re damned if they don’t.
I think Frank knew the importance of going over and apologising to the fans while thanking them for their support. The display brought back memories of last season and the level of performance that we hoped had now gone.
We started by showing a bit of intent, albeit without quality in crucial moments but everybody’s confidence seemed to take a huge knock from the first goal. We’d hoped that the win at Southampton showed that they could now hit back when they went behind but heads went down and we weren’t playing as a team.
Bournemouth were far too physical for us and that’s how we want to play in possession. Against Crystal Palace we passed the ball with intent and intensity and were direct. That’s what Bournemouth did against us and we couldn’t get anywhere near them.
With just one or two touches, they were cutting through our midfield first time and that’s not the first occasion that our midfield has been overrun. A 7-1 ‘aggregate’ against us in two matches this week does not look good.
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The second goal shouldn’t have counted, James Tarkowski had a head injury and why the referee didn’t blow up straight away is beyond me and it’s an uphill battle from then on. We didn’t deserve anything from the game though and we weren’t even huffing and puffing.
It’s really concerning because Frank and the players need to strike the fine balance of trying to be difficult to beat and going forward and we’ve been quite easy to beat over the past couple of games and all the goals were soft and could have been easily prevented if we’d have defended properly.
A big problem seems to be when we play teams in and around us though, like we think we’re better than them because we’re a bigger club and we’ll roll these teams over but history has proven that we’re struggling against them and why is that? Is it the mentality of the players thinking they don’t have to put in the hard yards to earn the right to win a game of football in the Premier League?
You can set up perfectly but things don’t always go your way in football. That shouldn’t mean you give up though and after we went 2-0 down at Bournemouth it seemed as though our morale plummeted and for the first time under Lampard, the belief had gone.
You can lose football matches – fans accept that as part of the game – but it’s the manner in which we were beaten that is tough to take for Evertonians. The honeymoon period for Frank is over now and while the players have worked hard for him and done things in the right manner, results over the past week have not been good enough.
We seem to take our foot off the gas and somehow Frank and his coaching staff need to find a solution for it. The level of performance was nowhere near good enough and both the manager and Conor Coady have come out and said so.
Something isn’t right away from home. I don’t see that will and desire to go and win a football game that you get at Goodison Park.
Lampard's Carabao Cup selection will have given Bournemouth a boost but Everton still had enough quality to win
Unfortunately, Everton’s 4-1 defeat on Tuesday gave Bournemouth a psychological lift against us which then set the tone for what followed on Saturday and while we know it’s difficult to win the League Cup but we’ve got to have a go. On the one hand it’s a chance of getting to Wembley but I also understand it’s an opportunity to give a chance to the squad players we might have to call upon in the second part of the season.
I’d have still liked to have kept our first choice back five because while Jordan Pickford and Coady are both going to the World Cup, the rest of them have the next six weeks off. It was a huge opportunity for Frank to play a strong side, you should try and get yourself two or three goals up before blooding the youngsters or anyone else who needs to get minutes under their belt. We only just scraped through against Fleetwood in the previous round and now we’ve been embarrassed because if you look at that starting line-up on Tuesday – and 11 changes is massive – it will have given Bournemouth a boost.
There still should have been enough quality on the pitch to have won the tie though. Many of the players out there were the spine of the team last season and both Michael Keane and Yerry Mina are full internationals in front of an experienced international goalkeeper in Asmir Begovic. Anthony Gordon was in there too but each individual out there let Frank down after the manager made a gamble that didn’t pay off.
It baffles every year when we make lots of changes as we’re not a Manchester City or Chelsea who can rest all the regulars and still power through. We’re not in Europe so we can certainly play a few more midweek games and winning matches ensures that you ooze confidence and keep up the momentum.
Maybe it seems to happen more often because we’re obsessed with Everton I don’t know but it appears whenever someone is going through a rough patch, we’re the perfect team to play as we never seem to be able to smell blood and kick a team when they’re down. Bournemouth had been struggling and they didn’t even have a permanent manager in place but they dictated the play and embarrassed us over two games.
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