Nine months ago Frank Lampard was bouncing on the roof of an executive box at Goodison Park. Now he has been dismissed with only goal difference keeping Everton off the foot of the Premier League. Lampard’s sacking had taken on an air of inevitability. Farhad Moshiri had argued that Everton’s previous managers were dismissed as much by the fans as by him.
Lampard, however, was fired by results: for 11 defeats in 14 games, for the poorest record in the Premier League over the last three months, for the lowest points total in 20 games in their history. He was not hounded out; just dismissed in a bid to preserve their top-flight status.
