Michael Ball sends major message to Everton players
Former England full-back Michael Ball has urged Everton players to keep their focus on the job at hand despite increasing their chances of survival in the Premier League.
The Toffees secured crucial back-to-back wins against Chelsea and Leicester City to move up to the 16th spot in the league table, a point above Leeds United in 18th with a game in hand as well.
Ball, in a column for Liverpool Echo, wrote that despite having momentum after securing consecutive victories, players must not take things for granted.
“If feels like the tide has turned a little bit,” he wrote. “We’re winning games and while other results went for us, the message from Frank Lampard and his staff will be: ‘Just focus on yourselves’ and get points on the board.
“You don’t want to be relying on favours from other teams. We know football is a strange game, look at Joey Barton’s Bristol Rovers at the weekend, winning 7-0 against Scunthorpe United to get promoted on goals or Manchester City against Real Madrid in the Champions League – they were going through after 90 minutes – crazy things can happen.
“Us as fans can obsess with all the various permutations but the players themselves must focus on the job at hand. We can’t moan about what has happened in the past, we can only deal with what’s in front of us.”
Good run
Everton looked dead and buried a few weeks back after suffering a 2-0 defeat against city rivals Liverpool at Anfield on April 24, especially because Burnley won three consecutive matches for the first time in the season.
However, a couple of unlikely wins against two presumably difficult opponents in Chelsea and Leicester and with the other two relegation contenders in Burnley and Leeds losing their respective matches put Everton in a position where they can see some light at the end of the tunnel.
The next four fixtures for the Blues are against already-relegated Watford, Brentford, Crystal Palace and Arsenal.
Win in two out of the remaining four matches would be good enough for the side to secure another season in England’s top-flight football and manager Frank Lampard would be hoping to keep the players motivated enough for one last push to end a rather disappointing season on a high.
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