There’s a renewed sense of vigour at Goodison Park but it goes beyond Everton’s players and fans.
Frank Lampard has now steered the Blues to more home victories in two matches than they’d collected from their previous seven fixtures and while it’s early days, it seems as though ‘The Grand Old Lady’ is quite smitten with her energetic Toy Boy.
Following Carlo Ancelotti’s defection back to Real Madrid last June, this correspondent put forward the case that Everton should have been looking for a younger man to fill the vacancy.
Not only was someone in their 30s or 40s a more natural fit historically in the Goodison dugout, but after a prolonged period of instability at the club, they needed a hungry manager with fresh ideas who could guide them towards the move to the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock in 2024.
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Instead of course, Farhad Moshiri made the most-controversial appointment in the history of England’s most-passionate football city by hiring former Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez, who was the third '60 something' hired by the owner, after previously making a then 53-year-old Ronald Koeman the oldest-ever Blues gaffer with his first choice back in 2016.
While Messrs Allardyce, Ancelotti and Benitez certainly have plenty of experience behind them and varying pedigrees from their storied CVs – back in his more natural habitat of massaging Galacticos’ egos, the Italian currently tops La Liga – for whatever reason these venerable ‘Bus Pass Bosses’ were unable to get Everton teams to play to their full potential.
A lucrative contract dished out by Mr Moshiri might prove to be a timely nest egg to the retirement fund for more senior touchline prowlers but the Blues it seems benefit more from having someone with his greatest managerial achievements ahead of him at the helm.
Lampard fits the bill in this respect.
A huge name in Premier League circles, who many of the current Everton squad will recall as a stellar player in the division from their own time growing up, but also with a point to prove after having his fingers burned somewhat under Roman Abramovich’s cut-throat environment at Chelsea, the club where he remains their all-time leading goalscorer.
Certainly it’s to be hoped that this kind of more youthful boss can galvanise the Blues players in the kind of manner that his older predecessors were unable to.
Like mentioned earlier, although this is still very much the embryonic stage of Lampard’s tenure and there are two distinctly different jobs to be done – the short-term target of Premier League survival after a wretched run of six points from 45 took the Blues perilously close to the relegation zone, followed by what must be the longer-term aim of challenging for Europe – there has already been a significant response, at least in the two home matches.
In a throwback to the days of David Moyes’ tenure, Lampard himself is out on the pitch before matches, keeping a watchful eye on his charges (not the opposition, as is his rival from across Stanley Park, Jurgen Klopp’s penchant), as they go through their warm-up routines.
He’s aided by a large and equally enthusiastic backroom team of coaches and the whole set-up seems to have put a spring back into Everton’s step.
The Goodison Park crowd have responded to such vibrancy and, while he started off as a dark-horse candidate when the search to succeed Benitez began, Lampard joined his former Stamford Bridge boss Ancelotti as only the second Blues manager hired by Mr Moshiri to have his name sung (in a positive manner!) by the club’s supporters as the team defeated Brentford 4-1 in his first match in charge.
Evertonians turned up the dial for the visit of Leeds United, though.
Despite what Lampard had said in his pre-match press conference, long-suffering Goodison patrons knew that given the downwards spiral their team had been on, this was a ‘must-win’ fixture against Marcelo Bielsa’s troops.
The Blues were going to have to find whatever way was possible to grind out the three points against one of the most-durable opponents in the Premier League, but nobody surely expected the kind of emphatic 3-0 success that Lampard’s hard-working players, galvanised by the cauldron of emotion bubbling over from the stands, had generated.
As someone who was present against both Wimbledon in 1994 and Coventry City in 1998, I can concur that despite there still being another 16 Premier League games to go this term for Everton, Saturday possessed a similar primeval feeling of fervour within the ground, and that proved too much even for an outfit like ‘Dirty Leeds’ on their first visit to Goodison in front of fans since they got smashed 4-0 in September 2003 on the day Steve Watson netted a hat-trick.
Lampard not only applauded all four sides of the stadium when the strains of “Super Frank” bellowed out, but celebrated each goal with the same kind of enthusiasm as the players and fans.
It was in sharp contrast to Ancelotti taking a sip from his cup of tea or Benitez scribbling down another note to his pad.
The work that a true tracksuit manager like Lampard is putting in with his team at Finch Farm is bearing fruit as the corner-kick route for Michael Keane’s goal showed.
Captain Seamus Coleman – one man in the squad whose character or bravery could never be questioned – might have provided a nod to the past by getting back on the scoresheet to get the ball rolling.
But the key now for everyone at Everton is to look forwards and hopefully upwards.
