Frank Lampard urges Everton not to be ‘soft touch’ away from home
Everton manager Frank Lampard has weighed in on the Blues’ away form troubles ahead of their trip to Tottenham Hotspur this evening (March 7).
The Toffees sit in 17th in the Premier League, just one point off the drop zone.
Lampard urged his team not to be a “soft touch” away from home with a win tonight lifting Everton up to 16th, above relegation rivals Leeds.
He told Liverpool ECHO: “I suppose I didn’t absolutely study Everton’s away form over the years in a long-term way.
“But I never thought that Everton were a soft touch, it’s one of the things I always actually would have leant the other way on.
“I suppose maybe a lot of that would have been coming to Goodison and feeling a team that were generally aggressive by nature. Fast closing down, closing spaces. Of course the landscape changes a bit when you travel, with that.
“I’m not too concerned about historically, I definitely don’t want to be a soft touch as a team. I answered it in one of the previous questions about the away form, it’s also something that won’t necessarily be changed overnight.
“There are reasons why we’re not getting results, I think some of those are confidence or mentality issues, and when I say mentality it’s not a negative thing, it’s just about how we handle games as a group away from home.”
Urgent change
Everton’s away form has always been ropey but never as bad as this. The team can’t buy a win on their travels this season which is why they are so close to the bottom of the table.
Rafa Benitez’ negative football barely worked at home so when you set up a team how he frequently did away from home, it was never going to end well.
So, a number of losses away from home has shot the Blues’ confidence to bits on their travels which Lampard alludes to when talking about his squad’s confidence and mentality.
Thankfully he put the onus on himself to fix the problem as any good manager would and with the performances he has engineered from the Goodison Park dug out already, it is only a matter of time before the teams form picks up away from home.
It needs to happen sooner rather than later though with the threat of relegation looking more real than ever.
In other Everton news, Richarlison urges his Everton teammates for “more consistency”.
Be sure to follow Goodison News on Facebook for 24/7 updates on Everton plus more exclusive interviews with Kevin Campbell.