Frank Lampard paying the price for riddled and chaotic Everton squad
Wednesday evening saw Everton suffer another calamitous Carabao Cup campaign, crashing out in a painful 4-1 defeat to Bournemouth.
Lampard was wrong in his decision to start certain players for the cup tie, players that simply haven’t been good enough in a Blue shirt, but this is a squad he’s inherited from mistakes of old.
Daily Mail Northern Football Correspondent Dominic King confessed that Lampard’s criticism for his Bournemouth selections were understandable but the Toffees “riddled” squad isn’t helping matters.
“He was guilty at the Vitality Stadium of making a mistake in his team selection, in putting his trust in players who haven’t been good enough, and for that criticism is understandable,” said King as quoted by Mirror Sport.
“During one of his first press conferences on Merseyside, back in February, Lampard was asked whether he could fully trust this squad. He creased his face at the question, perhaps wondering why it had been asked, but nine months into the job he will understand why.
“Everton’s squad remains riddled with individuals who haven’t been good enough or achieved the required consistency during their time at Goodison Park and when too many of them are bunched together, the consequences are chaotic; Bournemouth took great delight in inflicting misery.”
Goals.
There’s a lot of truth in King’s comments, some Everton personnel haven’t been good enough in a Blue shirt and Lampard needs to be backed to recreate a squad in his vision.
The Bournemouth fixture was a stark reminder of this and a warning sign that the players on the fringe of the Toffees squad can’t be relied upon anymore.
Is this Lampard’s fault? The simple answer is no, he’s inherited a squad formed on bad transfer decisions over the years that haven’t worked out.
The rebuild he faced was never going to be easy and Everton can’t get too downcast over recent results, the club only recently enjoyed their most fruitful spell of form since the 2013-2014 campaign.
However, it’s now time for the Everton hierarchy to fully back Lampard on the transfers he wants, not the ones they think will be best for the Toffees.
The glaring hole in the Blues squad is that they never fully replaced Richarlison this summer, a player who at times single-handedly dragged Everton through games.
Alongside an injury-prone Dominic Calvert-Lewin, this has only added to Everton’s one major issue, scoring goals.
Fix this in January and things will start to look a lot brighter at Goodison Park.