Simon Jordan unsure if Frank Lampard has done a good job as Everton manager
Simon Jordan isn’t convinced that Frank Lampard has done a good job as manager of Everton, despite avoiding relegation last season.
The Toffees maintained their Premier League status with one game to spare last season and after losing the first two games of this season are now six games unbeaten in all competitions, sitting in 13th place.
But when asked by a fan if Lampard deserves credit for turning the club’s fortunes around in his One-2-One series for talkSPORT, Jordan admitted that he couldn’t sit there and say that the former England international has done a great job.
“It depends if you’re an Everton fan that thinks that your fortunes have been turned around,” he said.
“You obviously are. You know, I don’t think you’re a great side at this moment in time. I don’t know if Frank Lampard has set the world on fire. You’ve just marginally managed to avoid relegation.
“You haven’t been great this season, you’ve got a couple of results that have perhaps padded where you could have been in the league.
“But on the flip side of it, you haven’t got a great squad of players. You aren’t able to get the investment in, or gift, you say investment as if there’s an opportunity to get a return on it. You haven’t got the gifts that other football clubs have got, where they can buy players to improve and change the direction of travel.
“I suppose that you have to give Frank a degree of credit because he’s kind of half-stabilised it. It’s not great, it’s not what Everton fans would want it to be. But I suppose it could be worse.
“I suppose if you want to look through the glass of it could be worse, then Everton are doing better than perhaps they could be. But I can’t sit here and say Frank Lampard’s done a great job because I’m not sure he has.
“But he also got dealt a not great hand, but he was also responsible for taking Dele Alli in and people like that. That cost the club money that produced absolutely nothing.
“In the here and now, I think the signing of Neal Maupay gives them a new direction and a new opportunity. It stops the argument about the only player they’ve got is the boy up top.
“I don’t want to be too begrudging and too dark. I suppose you give Frank Lampard a degree of credit but I’m not sure you’re on your way to being a particularly good side. You’re on your way to being a side that might not get themselves involved in a relegation battle.
Werhey, if that’s what you want.”
Harsh
Nobody is saying that Everton are the finished product right now or are where they want to be, but Jordan is completely ignoring how far we’ve come in a short time under Lampard.
When he took over in January we had just one league win since August, and he managed to get us to safety with a game to spare. He then lost his best and most important player in the summer window and had to contend with serious interest in Anthony Gordon too.
Yet he kept the players together, added young quality players to the squad, shipped out some deadwood and has implemented a system that is delivering results.
While they’ve won just one game, the games they’ve drawn are games that last season they would have lost and that is a big swing in points and morale that can’t be ignored.
Jordan has been against Lampard’s appointment from the start, and he’s just salty that he’s being proven wrong at this point.