Laura Woods fears for Frank Lampard job at Everton as Gabriel Agbonlahor claims players ‘downed tools’ v Brighton
Laura Woods has admitted that she fears for Frank Lampard’s job as Everton manager after their defeat to Brighton, while Gabriel Agbonlahor feels the players “downed tools”.
The Toffees got battered at Goodison Park by the Seagulls, finding themselves 4-0 down inside an hour before Demarai Gray scored a consolation goal from the penalty spot in injury time.
And reviewing the game on talkSPORT breakfast show (4 January, 6:36am), host Woods admitted that there was “fear” for Lampard’s job while Agbonlahor blasted a host of players but backed the manager.
“There is a lot going on at Everton at the moment, and you do fear for Frank Lampard,” Woods said (6:36am), before Agbonlahor went on a big rant about the problems at the club.
“The pressure is on at home. The pressure is at home games where the fans expect,” he said.
“This game was a perfect chance for these players to bring in that form from the Etihad, Manchester City, and go and put it on Brighton’s toes. But they didn’t, they crumbled.
“Shocking defending, for every single goal. The first goal, it’s one ball, a cross-field ball, that ends up with the winger cutting inside and having a shot from the penalty spot. Just poor defending.
“The players just crumbled. The last one from Idrissa Gueye, just so, so poor.
“Less talk about Frank Lampard for me and more talk about these players who downed tools yesterday.
“It’s a bit scary because we were talking at the start of the season about Coady, Tarkowski and how good they’ve looked, but the left-back for me Mykolenko. You’ve got Patterson, Coleman. They’ve not been up to standard as well.
“To lose 4-1 at home, for me it’s a crisis. It’s January now Laura, we know the transfer window is open. They’re in big danger Everton.
“You look at it and you’re thinking Southampton, Forest, Bournemouth, but it doesn’t always go down like that. That them three are going to go down.
“Teams like Everton and West Ham, if they don’t get their act together, they could easily be in a crisis of going down.
“Frank Lampard will know he needs investment, but I think he’s been told he hasn’t (got any money). They’ve called Simms back from Sunderland. He’s been told probably that they’ve got no money to spend.
“So I don’t see the point in them talking about sacking Lampard. Who are you going to give the job to? That’s going to do a better job with that group of players.”
Woeful
Everton have been bad for a long time this season and are now on a run of just one win in 11 games in all competitions with five defeats in their last seven.
Lampard absolutely has to take some responsibility for the team selection, the tactics and the lack of motivation for games like this, but the problem isn’t all him.
The board and ownership of the club have been abysmal for several years and that is now catching the club up after so much time with wasted spending and poor decisions being made.
Lampard is going to be the one to take the bullet undoubtedly, because ownership isn’t that easy to get rid of and fans aren’t particularly happy with him anyway, but it won’t fix the problems at the club.
If the players have downed tools then they’ll do that to the next manager and the ones after that too, so there are far bigger problems going on than who the manager is, although that needs fixing too.