Jamie Carragher has explained the major change Everton have made over the past four games and how it can keep them in the Premier League.
The Toffees beat Frank Lampard's former side Chelsea 1-0 on Sunday to move within two points of safety and put the pressure back on Burnley and Leeds United. Richarlison's goal proved to be the difference as goalkeeper Jordan Pickford made a number of key saves.
And Sky Sports pundit Carragher highlighted a switch in style that started four games ago, with the Blues using tactics his old manager Jose Mourinho has implemented in his career.
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"I actually admire what Frank's done in the last four games," Carragher said on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football show. "We’ve all seen Frank, he’s been at Derby, Chelsea and now at Everton. He wants to play football. We put coaches in categories, does he want to play like Pep? Or like Jose? Jose Mourinho’s been a huge influence on his coaching career, but we’ve seen his early stages, he wants to play out the back, he wants to be almost a Pep Guardiola type of manager. What’s happened is, they’ve gone like Jose Mourinho in the past two games. The game that scared Everton that they possibly could go down was the Burnley loss.
Not just using the win over the west London outfit as an example, Carragher used clips going back to his first game in charge of the club in the Premier League and how Everton played out from the back against Newcastle United. The former England international then analysed the build up more recently against Man City, with the team still attempting to play shorter passes to beat the press.
"When Frank first came in, he's trying to get on the ball, making passes even round the back going through midfield that's changed. What's really interesting as you go further down here is that the actual attacking numbers have been pretty similar, even though they are so much down on possession.
"And I think a tell-tale sign for any sort of team, how you want to how they play, is what they do when the goalkeeper gets the ball. I want to go back to Frank Lampard's first game as a Premier League manager for Everton, it was away at Newcastle. This is three minutes in and the ball goes to Jordan Pickford. Now let's not forget it was a pressure game, Newcastle were down there, Eddie Howe's team like to press from the front, Frank will be well aware of that.
"And Newcastle are not dropping off and letting Everton play. There's the front three from Newcastle. They're ready to go and press, they want Everton to play from the back. You see Jordan Pickford. We're playing out from the back. Michael Keane saying: 'Play. Don't worry if there's players there.'
"This is what Frank would have tried to put into them. It was a little bit different under Rafa but that's what Frank Lampard wanted to do. This is against Man City. And the reason I wanted to show this was because similar to show the Chelsea and Liverpool, two of the top teams, one of the best pressing teams as well.
"So you see Jordan Pickford play short. He doesn't go long now tries to make a pass out wide. And again, this is one of the best teams in the world at winning the ball back, but that was the idea of Frank Lampard.
"And I go back to admiring what Frank's done in the last four games because I don't particularly like it when managers say: 'You never change, you always keep the same message and in the ideal world Frank will wanna play from the back and press from the front, but you can't always do that."
