With every passing hour, Everton’s management search seems to take a new twist.
But in the past 24 hours it appears as though Frank Lampard set to get the nod over Vitor Pereira.
It’s been just over 12 months since Lampard last managed in the Premier League and he’s believed to be eager to take on this new challenge at Goodison Park.
He impressed during his season with Derby, and for most of his 18 months in charge at Chelsea. However, there’s still a sense that Lampard’s true managerial ability is unknown.
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In terms of his management profile, Lampard tended to try and play an open and expansive style of football at both clubs he managed.
He utilised a 4-3-3 formation during his season in charge at Derby with starring roles given to young loanees like Mason Mount and Harry Wilson and a big emphasis placed on good short combination play to build through the thirds.
That year, Lampard’s side finished the campaign with one of the lower averages in terms of long direct passes, but ranked high in terms of average possession share and passes attempted per 90.
They also proved to be one of the more aggressive sides in the league in terms of PPDA, a metric used to measure pressing high up the pitch.
Each of the above culminated in Derby scoring 69 goals and conceding 54, ranking them inside the division’s top eight in each department. That was a good enough return to secure them a top-six playoff finish, although they eventually went on to suffer agonising defeat to Aston Villa in the playoff final.
Although it was an impressive debut managerial campaign for Lampard, there was a case to be made that results didn’t necessarily reflect performances.
Based on Expected Points (xP) which is basically the quality of chances created vs conceded for those not familiar with the metric, Lampard’s Derby ranked 18th in the division that year.
Despite this, a move to Stamford Bridge ensued and with the Londoners, Lampard managed to instil a lot of the same principles that brought him relative success at Pride Park.
He kept his favoured 4-3-3 and built around the club’s exciting young players, though this was more through necessity rather than choice as the club served a transfer ban.
It proved a profitable approach for Lampard. His Chelsea side maintained a place inside the top four for pretty much the entirety of the campaign and eventually qualified for the Champions League.
Interestingly though, in contrast to his campaign at Derby, Lampard's Chelsea actually finished with the second-highest xP in the division.
It was considered that below-par displays in key areas, such as Kepa Arrizabalaga in goal and Timo Werner in attack played a big part in Chelsea not translating more good performances into points.
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Chelsea of course spent heavily in the following summer, and Lampard seemed to struggle to find the right set-up to get the best from his new recruits.
Consequently, form suffered and Lampard was eventually sacked in January of the following season with Chelsea sitting ninth.
With just 18 months of experience in England’s top tier, it’s hard to assess just how good of a manager the former England international is.
However it seems as though Everton are ready to gamble on him being the right man to get them out of trouble and lead the team forward in these pivotal coming years.
