Latest Frank Lampard excuse is baffling as ‘incredible’ claim dropped in Everton press conference
Everton are at a crisis point yet manager Frank Lampard deems it acceptable to make excuses about the team’s fixture scheduling this week.
On Sunday afternoon, the Blues played – and lost – at West Ham, on Wednesday night, they travel to Burnley and on Saturday, they welcome Manchester United to Goodison Park in a lunchtime kick-off.
Ahead of the trip to Turf Moor on Wednesday [6 April], Lampard felt as though it was right to moan about the fixture congestion.
However, the congestion is caused by Everton requesting the initial clash with Burnley in December be postponed. As confirmed by the Premier League, via Sky Sports, on 26 December, the Toffees requested the game be rescheduled due to COVID-19 cases and injuries in their squad.
Had the Blues just played that game and coped with the handful of players who would have been missing, we wouldn’t be in this situation, would we?
Still, Lampard had the audacity to moan about the situation in his pre-match press conference ahead of Everton’s short trip to Burnley.
“I’ll have to look at the whole big picture of the team, especially when we’re playing this week – and I don’t know how – when we’ve been asked to play three games from Sunday to Wednesday evening to Saturday morning,” said Lampard, as shown in a video clip on the Football Daily Twitter account on Tuesday afternoon [5 April].
“Incredible schedule, really, when it could’ve easily been Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday or Sunday but not a 12:30 kick-off.
“We’ve got the short straw this week so I have to take that into consideration in terms of fitness and freshness of the players.”
It’s pathetic.
Lampard has done nothing to help the situation of Everton Football Club since his arrival.
His signings haven’t made the tiniest bit of difference and his results have been worse than they were under Rafa Benitez.
It’s loss after loss after loss for the Blues and all the manager wants to do is complain about avoidable fixture congestion.
And while this next point isn’t Lampard’s fault, we do feel as though the former Chelsea and Derby manager needs to educate himself a lot better.
We asked you, Frank, where do Everton make the bulk of their money from?
Broadcasters pay millions and millions to each Premier League club and each Premier League club is happy to take that cash and sign top players for huge prices. As a result, the broadcasters get to dictate when matches are played.
If you’re not happy for broadcasters to choose when games are played, stop taking their money.
And as for £500million-plus spent on players since Farhad Moshiri came in, how on earth do we still have a squad not capable of playing three games in the space of six days?
In other Everton news, Richard Keys has mooted a radical plan that would see the Blues’ training base moved to London.
Be sure to follow Goodison News on Facebook for 24/7 updates on Everton plus more exclusive interviews with Kevin Campbell.