Frank Lampard refuses to confirm whether he will stay at Everton if relegated
Frank Lampard has refused to be drawn on whether he would remain as Everton manager in the event that the club are relegated from the Premier League.
Following defeat in the Merseyside derby last weekend the club sit in the relegation zone, two points behind Burnley with a game in hand.
If the club fall out of the top flight, the well-documented financial concerns will likely necessitate large-scale exits, and in that context the former Chelsea boss refused to be drawn on a commitment that he would be a part of it.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, when asked if he would want to bring the club back up, Lampard said: “I don’t want to get drawn on that question but what I will say is I’ve loved every minute of being at this club.
“Sometimes people from the outside ask me, because of the position we’re in, ‘You enjoying it? Tough is it? All the pressures of it?’
“I absolutely love it. I’ve been welcomed incredibly well by the fans and supported by them, and I will do everything to get this club back to where I want it to be.
“So I’m not going to jump into the future and see what may be, because it’s not worth doing.
“In terms of my dedication to this job, I’ll absolutely give it everything for as long as Everton want me here and I can get them to where I think we can get to.”
Uncertain
It goes without saying that plenty of aspects relating to the future of the club are up in the air at the moment.
But if the answer to whether the 43-year-old would be the Toffees boss in the Championship was “yes” then there would have been little reason to withhold it.
Perhaps he does stay, and he would no doubt claim that he is simply 100% focused on the relegation battle.
But his contract won’t be cheap currently so he may be in the same boat as plenty of the high-earning players, that relegation will force a pay-cut or an exit.
Whether the reticence to commit to next season is driven by Lampard or by the club is another matter.
But having been through an arduous and turbulent manager search in January Farhad Moshiri would surely prefer to keep his man, but Lampard obviously believes he is a Premier League manager after waiting nearly a year for this job after leaving Chelsea.
He, as much as anyone, will be hoping it isn’t a bridge he has to cross in the summer, and he can lead this team to survival in the final weeks.
In other Everton news, two key players are fit again to face Chelsea, while three others remain out.
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