Stan Collymore expects Everton v Burnley ‘death match’, questions Frank Lampard’s future
Stan Collymore says he is expecting a ‘death match’ when Everton travel to take on Burnley on Wednesday and admits relegation would be the ‘biggest catastrophe in their history’.
The Toffees fell to defeat for a sixth time in eight games against West Ham at the weekend and now sit three points above the relegation zone with ten games remaining.
With a trip to Turf Moor this week being tipped as a six-pointer, Collymore wrote in his Mirror column that defeat could see them ‘tailspin’ ferociously and questioned the future of Frank Lampard in management if they were to go down.
“Win it, and they will earn themselves three much-needed points in their battle against relegation from the Premier League and take an equally important confidence boost as well,” he said.
“Lose it, though, and the tailspin they are already in will only get more ferocious, with Everton spiralling towards what would be the biggest catastrophe in their history.
“I do wonder where Lampard would go from there. Certainly, it would be hard to see him getting a big job again unless, of course, he were to bring them straight back up and build from there.
“I’m expecting a death match, not a chess match where it’s about tactics and systems. And hopefully the referee will turn up and say, ‘We’ll let things go as much as possible’, so we get a proper contest.
“After Burnley, though, Everton face Manchester United, Leicester, Liverpool and Chelsea, and I’m not convinced they have the scrap, the bite or the nous to keep themselves out of the relegation zone.
“I do still think they can avoid the drop but it might not be until matchday 37 or 38 at this rate, and no one at the club will want to risk leaving it until then.”
Death match
Death match is a terrific term for this game, because it is essentially a battle to the death in terms of their Premier League status.
As it stands Everton have a small cushion over the three teams below them because they have games in hand, but if they lose to Burnley then they lose some of that breathing room.
As for Lampard, his reputation will have taken a huge hit if he can’t keep Everton from going down and the likelihood is that he won’t stick around in the Championship to try and bring them back up.
Collymore is a brave man to predict that the Toffees will still avoid relegation because right now it’s difficult to see where their next victory is going to come from.
As long as that is the case, especially with their fixture list, they are in deep danger of dropping down to the second tier and that Collymore is right when he says that would be the ‘biggest catastrophe in their history’.
In other Everton news, Wayne Rooney says Everton ‘must win’ v Burnley, drops demand live on air
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