Frank Lampard insists he maintains confidence in his ability to turn around his side’s flagging fortunes after the 2-1 home defeat to bottom club Southampton ensured he has overseen the lowest points total in the first half of a Premier League season from an Everton manager.
Asked if he had a message to Everton’s fans, Lampard said: “I don’t have a message in that point of view. I have to be confident in my coaching ability, I’ve coached at Derby County; I’ve coached at Chelsea in the Champions League; I’ve coached at Everton last season and I’m coaching them now.
“So I have to work with the team that I’ve got and find a way to make us as good as can be. The message to the fans is that I want to create a team that can fight, show passion, I show that myself to be fair.
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“We’re in a tough moment so everything can look tough and feel tough but in terms of my abilities, I always remain confident about that because I know I’m not a miracle worker and I know I’m not the best coach in the world – to proclaim that would be stupid because so many people have got successes behind them – but I know I’ll work as hard as I can to be as good as I can be and that’s it.”
Lampard added: “When you sign up for this job and I take the challenge of managing Everton when we were in the place where we were last year, you have to take that on. I’m fortunate by the fact that I’ve been in the game a long time and you become quite tough to these things and while you need the support around you, you need all these things and it becomes your life.
“The only thing I want to do is to try and bring success to this club, whatever the relative success is, so the challenge of that is always a good thing. Sometimes in management, in life, you have to say, ‘what is the best opportunity here out of this to turn this around?’ If I don’t feel like that then what’s the point?”
Everton now travel to a West Ham United side, who, like themselves and Southampton have 15 points – the lowest tally in the Premier League – for their next fixture on Saturday January 21. Asked how he picked himself and his players up after such a blow, Lampard said: “We have to. It’s one of the hardest things about being in this situation, in a fight, when you lose games, you go again.
“It’s next weekend, we’ve got time and everybody has to lift and the first person who has to do that is me. It’s as simple as that.”
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