Sport

Everton are sleepwalking towards relegation with Frank Lampard in charge

Everton have become accustomed to the fear of relegation in recent times. Last season, the Toffees looked to be in trouble, but managed to scrape enough points to stay in the Premier League. This season, Frank Lampard’s team are back in trouble and there’s no guarantee they will be able to escape once more.

Boxing Day’s 2-1 defeat at home to Wolves highlighted the difficult situation Everton find themselves in with fans at Goodison Park quick to voice their displeasure at full time. Lampard failed to offer much in the way of an explanation, even hinting that supporters should do more to back his team.

“I think the lads had all the right intentions so for that I’d love the crowd to stick with them,” he said. “We saw what a positive it [Goodison Park] can be last year so let’s not come away from that. I’m in the dressing room with them and I know they want to do the right thing. We have to take it on the chin. We are trying to improve off the back of where we last year and it will be baby steps.”

Under Lampard’s stewardship, Everton are sleepwalking towards the drop. Last season, the former midfielder was able to stop the slide towards the bottom of the Premier League table by organising his team to stay deep and rely on the individual brilliance of Richarlison to produce in the attacking third. This was enough to keep Everton up.

Now, though, Richarlison is gone and Everton don’t have an attacker who can be relied upon to produce something out of nothing as regularly as the Brazilian. Lampard isn’t strong enough as a tactician to set up his team to pass through opposition defences either. By almost every measure, the Toffees are heading for the Championship.

Of course, not all of Everton’s problems are down to Lampard. The club is financially hamstrung by the construction of a new £500m stadium at Bramley Moore Dock with transfer funds expected to be limited in the January window – recent reports claim Everton will primarily look to make loan additions to their squad with Manchester United’s Anthony Elanga a target.

The transfer market has done little to strengthen Everton as a team over the last few years anyway. The Merseyside club has lacked a coherent strategy for making new signings which has resulted in the mess of a squad Lampard currently has. Everton’s group doesn’t lend itself to any single style of play or approach and that has made things difficult for every manager who has taken the job at Goodison Park.

Wolves remain below Everton in the Premier League table following their win on Boxing Day, but the Molineux side has good reason to believe they can pull themselves away from danger with Julen Lopetegui now in charge. The former Real Madrid and Sevilla boss is already making an impression at his new club.

Lampard, on the other hand, is still struggling to mould Everton in his own image, largely because the 44-year-old is a coach with scant tactical identity. Lampard’s greatest strength has always been his message of motivation, so what happens when that message is stopped before it can get through to his players?

Most worrying for Everton is that they haven’t yet bottomed out. The Toffees have an away fixture against Manchester City to finish 2022 before challenging games against Brighton and Manchester United. They will also face Arsenal and Liverpool before mid-February – points will be hard to come by. Everton’s slide towards relegation could soon become a free-fall.