Tony Scott has urged against Frank Lampard getting Everton to constantly play out from the back despite their wonderful goal last weekend.
Lampard, against the odds, has managed to turn Everton’s fortunes around in recent times having managed to keep them in the Premier League last season by the skin of their teeth and now has the Toffees sitting just outside the top 10 by one point.
However, the style of football has very rarely changed to be good on the eye with Everton having attempted the third most long balls in the league this season (FBRef), however, their second goal vs Crystal Palace saw them play their way out of a situation in their own defensive third before passing up the field and netting at the other end and put on a wonderful team goal.
However, while speaking on the All Together Now podcast, Scott has urged Lampard against making that a regular occurrence, claiming it won’t work with the players Everton have at their disposal:
“It’s getting that middle ground, it’s getting that perfect balance, now if Everton can mix it up with playing good football from the back and getting crosses into the box to DCL, I’m all on board with it, but you can’t just be solely fixated on playing football from the back because it won’t work and that’s what Evertonians want, they want that little bit of a middle ground.”
Have you been surprised by Lampard as manager?
Yes!
No!
TIF Thoughts on Everton’s style of play…
At the end of the day, Lampard will always be judged on results and if he keeps picking up draws and wins then not many people will have much to say about the way Everton are playing, especially given how close they came to dropping out of the league last season.
However, if he can manage to find the perfect blend of playing attractive football and also utilising his big target man striker in the form of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, then this relationship between Lampard and Everton could well be a match made in heaven.
It’s certainly going to take time given the Toffees have only attempted to make 1,949 short passes in the league, which is in fact the fourth-lowest and the only teams to have attempted fewer are the three teams that got promoted, so something does probably need tweaking slightly.