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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Sport
Michael Ball

Everton's players are conning Frank Lampard as January deals raise questions

My column is a bit to the bone at times - but I can only reflect on what I have witnessed and what I think is going on.

But having had time to reflect on Sunday’s disappointment my thoughts remain as they were when I was leaving Goodison Park at full-time.

And they are one of anger and disappointment. Anger that we produced an abject performance - and disappointment at the current position we find ourselves in.

I bought my lad a snood before the game on Sunday, and if I’m being honest I wish I would have bought myself one to cover my face with it because I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing.

The first-half, on reflection, wasn’t too bad. But the second-half was absolutely atrocious as not for the first time this season we never smelt blood.

Everyone at the football club has to take responsibility for it, and I include Frank Lampard in that, who again opted to play five at the back.

Not for the first time this season, we were crying out for three in midfield in order for us to get a grip on the game.

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But once again we got out played, out muscled and out run. The basics of football are all about winning your own personal battles.

Getting the better of your opposite number and doing your bit for your side. Possibly on Sunday we won two of the 11 battles we faced.

Again, like he always does, Anthony Gordon won his, and Richarlison possibly won his, the rest didn’t, and you aren’t going to win football games with an outcome like that.

But Frank Lampard must also be brought into the conversation because he is tinkering and still trying to find out what his best team and formation is.

Five at the back at home at Goodison Park has never worked. It never worked under Rafa Benitez, it never worked under Ronald Koeman and it never worked under Marco Silva.

And at the end of the day, these are the same players who played under those managers when the system didn’t work.

But it is baffling me that we still can’t recognise that we need three in midfield to build some kind of momentum.

I’m also sick of people coming in and saying they understand what Everton Football Club is all about.

  • Have your say on whether Everton will be relegated

Goodison to me should be intimidating and we should be playing with a high-tempo on the front foot and most of all making it difficult for our own opponents.

But instead on Sunday, Wolves strolled through the game and didn’t even have to get out of second gear to collect all three points.

One of my big frustrations with Everton at the minute is the way we take our goal kicks - and the fact we start them on our own goal line.

We can’t play Frank Lampard Chelsea-style passing out from the back with the type of players we currently have at our disposal.

Some of our players would struggle to play in the Championship and we are trying to play out from the back and pass our way through sides.

If somebody shows me clips of when that way of playing has been successful, when we have passed the ball from a goal kick all the way through and broke a team down then I will hold my hands up.

It might happen one in 20 times we attempt it but those stats aren’t good enough and we certainly aren’t going to get ourselves out of trouble doing that.

But the big thing that really concerns me is why we continue to do the same things week in week out.

Then you think well it must be working in training and that is why we are continuing to do it, but for me the players are conning Frank Lampard.

Because we don’t have the ability to close down and put pressure on opponents like other sides do to us.

But we must be doing it at Finch Farm during training sessions and that is why Frank Lampard believes his players can do it.

And whoever brought Dele Alli and Donny van de Beek to the club during a relegation dogfight needs to give their head a wobble.

We need players who are going to compete, battle and show real desire to move us away from the relegation zone.

Unfortunately for Everton supporters when the going gets tough these players let them down and that is exactly what they did on Sunday.

That was the most frustrating part for me. The effort on the pitch and then the comments by Frank Lampard and Mason Holgate post-match.

Holgate saying he thought the effort and commitment was there. If he thinks that is effort and commitment, then 40,000 Everton supporters would most definitely beg to differ.

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