Everton return to action in the Premier League a fortnight today.
With the club’s senior players back in training at Finch Farm and none of the Blues involved at the World Cup having reached the semi-finals, all eyes are now on that Goodison Park clash with Wolverhampton Wanderers. After the disappointment of the final week before the break, which saw defeats to Leicester City and Bournemouth in the league and to Bournemouth, again, in the Carabao Cup, some supporters have found comfort in the break caused by the action in Qatar.
For those tuning back in, the ECHO was the only outlet to travel to Australia to cover Everton’s involvement in the Sydney Super Cup - securing an exclusive interview with Frank Lampard while Down Under. This is what he had to say on a host of topics - from where he believes his squad is currently at, to the club’s plans for the January transfer window.
EXCLUSIVE: Frank Lampard opens up on next stage of plan after Everton 'reality check'
EXCLUSIVE: Everton have January transfer shortlist as Frank Lampard explains 'priority' target
Everton ‘improving’ but still in ‘pretty real position’
Everton endured highs and lows during the first part of the campaign but finished it one place and one point above the relegation zone. Revealing his views on progress at the club, Lampard said: “My feeling is that the team absolutely was improving in terms of we'd beaten [Crystal] Palace, played probably our best game of the season. We drew at Fulham and I wasn't mad on the performance but we showed an element of resilience. But Leicester, in terms of when you look at the basic elements of the game, we could have easily got a draw in different circumstances. So at that point I'm pretty happy with the direction we're going in and then we get two poor performances against Bournemouth and I do feel that's just part of where we're at in reality.”
Lampard described the final week as “a reality check of where we are”, adding: “I think we are in a pretty real position. In terms of what we're trying to do with the squad, what teams around us are doing and have done with their squads, and in a competitive league, there is no right for us to go from the position we were in at the end of last season - staying up against Crystal Palace - to getting to where we really want to be. The process is going to include times where we feel good about ourselves, like we did after Palace and after back-to-back wins against West Ham and Southampton, and then times when we feel not so good about ourselves. I don't see there being any other pathway than that. And that's part of the work. And that's what we have to keep focusing on.”
The Blues boss believes his squad is more balanced than last season - and pointed to the defence as an area of significant improvement. He added: “I think in terms of results after 13 games and going into the Leicester and Bournemouth week, I think we would have been relatively happy in a way, with an expectancy of getting something out of that week. We didn't get that. And obviously that changes perceptions.”
Everton’s January plans
While Lampard believed the final week before the break could not be viewed in isolation from the rest of the season, he accepted the club needed to do everything possible to improve from those performances. He is aware his side have lacked goals - and, at times, attacking threat - and hopes to address this next month. While resources may be limited and an already difficult window made harder by the World Cup, he is hopeful of adding two attackers to his squad and said a shortlist of targets had been drawn up. He explained: “I think we have to react because it's the Premier League and it's crucial that we look at us, now. We can see that we haven't had enough threat at the top end of the pitch in recent weeks. Some of that has to be borne in us, me and the players, and whether we can be better.”
He also said: "The reality is we will try and do the business that we can with an understanding of what we want to do - we want to help the squad in attacking areas, that is clearly the area that we want to help as a priority."
Did Everton start the season a striker short?
Since the transfer window closed, some critics have argued Everton took a risk by being reliant on the fitness of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who struggled with injury last season too. Lampard pointed to his excellent condition in pre-season, the difficulty of signing a talented striker late in a window and his belief other areas of the squad needed more work as factors among those that influenced the decision not to add further to the squad up top. He said: “I know people know that Dominic had his injury problems, and we bring in Neal [Maupay], but the reality is with the transfer market, at the back end of the window, a striker is the hardest position to recruit in because they are very much at a premium. So when the market is difficult in that area of the pitch it's not as simplistic as to say we could bring in a number nine.”
Lampard wanted to be more solid defensively and have more energy in the centre of midfield, so also had those considerations. A new centre back pairing and revamped midfield including three new players have added to the squad’s resilience. That the January window was just 15 games away was also a factor in the club’s summer transfer policy too. He explained: “When you can't fix the world in one window, sometimes you have to take a plan that says: ‘Ok, well, we're happy now with what we did for the window.’ And I think the general consensus is we were pretty happy. And then the reality is you then miss Dom for most of that period.”
The tactical plan and Onana’s most effective position
Amadou Onana appeared to be pushed higher up the pitch in the final league games after initially impressing in a deeper role. To some, this left Everton more vulnerable against Leicester and Bournemouth - particularly after the Belgium international had done so well alongside Idrissa Gueye in previous games. Explaining his thought process for the tactical switch, Lampard said: "What we decided was that if we pushed Alex [Iwobi] higher up the pitch, as we had done before, we felt that we would suffer a little bit more with being able to constantly get pressure on different sides of the pitch, as they changed the play a lot. So to be able to allow Alex to jump and be higher, and allow Amadou to jump and be higher, would allow us to put a more constant kind of pressure on them."
Lampard wants to maintain a 4-3-3 and refrain from pushing Iwobi forward into the role of a number 10 because of what he can provide from midfield. Where Onana fits in between Iwobi and Gueye is a question of about 10 metres and Lampard accepts finding Onana's most effective position is an ongoing process. He said: "I think the question is about trying to get the best out of him when we are in possession. And that's probably a bit of a process for us and him, a case of how high we want him and sometimes how much we want him a little bit deeper. Because against Newcastle, we played him deeper, pretty much next to Gana [Gueye], and it affected our play through the lines, we couldn't be as fluent... So it's trying to search for the right tweaks at the right time. There's maybe some work to be done in trying to find that right combination [in midfield] and I think that's pretty understandable. But this break is also a time of reflection to try and make sure we get the right balance."
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