Frank Lampard was a footballer I always feared - with justification. He scored the winning goal when Chelsea came from behind to beat Everton in the 2010 F A Cup final, the nearest Everton has come to a trophy since 1995. I was at a premier league match at Goodison in 2006 when Chelsea came from behind twice to win 3-2, Lampard scoring the second equaliser in the 81st minute. And again at Goodison in 2012 Lampard scored twice after Everton had taken an early lead; Chelsea won 2-1.
So even without the family connection of his dad, Frank Lampard snr, scoring a rare goal - with a diving header - for the winner for West Ham against Everton two minutes from the end of extra time in the 1980 F A Cup semi-final, which he followed by doing a jig around the corner flag, Frank jnr has caused Everton fans plenty of hurt over the years.
But that was his job - and he was very good at it. The nature of those goals and come from behind wins speaks to strong character.
When asked about these events at his unveiling as Everton's new manager he said with a smile: “I have got a lot of making up to do on that front – and I do apologise....I am here to absolutely represent the club and I will try and make up for those moments.”
No need to apologise, Frank, just get us out of the current mess and then onwards and upwards as we go into our new stadium!
Lampard was clearly well prepared for that question and seems to be a bright chap. For a start he can use words like "insinuate" which I remember being impressed by when I heard his call to James O'Brien on LBC way back in 2009. This was after the newspapers had a field day when Lampard split from his then girlfriend. Lampard took the risk of calling in because his sister was distressed by hearing him called a "bit of a rat". Despite his clear anger, Lampard was measured and eloquent. You can read the full transcript here
So Lampard has a bit about him. Even so I wasn't sure I wanted him as manager until Everton fans got softened up by the club's ludicrous pursuit of Vitor Pereira. Yes, he won the league twice at Porto a decade ago but he went there as Andre Vilas-Boas's no 2 and he took over a team that had already won the league. And Porto have won their domestic title 11 times this century already, so he arguably had at least a 50-50 chance of retaining it. Since then his achievements have been few but have included getting 1860 Munich relegated from the German 2nd tier. Pereira has been considered before by Everton. He was interviewed in 2013, which was pre Moshiri so maybe Luvvie Bill is to blame for the fascination with him - Pereira also turned down an approach to speak in 2019 when they had ditched Marco Silva.
After the risk Moshiri took in appointing Benitez (which I thought a risk worth taking) I would dearly love to believe that the Pereira flirtation was a cunning plan to get Everton fans to unite behind someone else, which they did by demonstrating against Pereira and for Lampard. But there is no evidence whatsoever that Moshiri is that clever.
I wish Lampard well but I am nervous. He will need luck as well as skill in sorting out a dysfunctional club and making sense out of the squad he has inherited - and bolstered - through the club's erratic recruitment policy, which would be flattered by the word "scattergun". The scattergun continued to fire in the January transfer window. At least they got bodies in and filled one of the clear unfulfilled needs from the two previous windows, a right back. Time will tell whether Nathan Patterson will prove to be any better than Jonjoe Kenny as a replacement for the ageing Seamus Coleman, who I now always call "Coal-y-man". If it was good enough for Carlo Ancelotti...
But Patterson was a logical acquisition. As was Mike O'Lenko (real name Mykolenko) the Ukrainian left back the club has apparently been tracking for some time, even though the deal had to be done urgently as Benitez had fallen out with Lucas Digne in December - just before being shown the door himself. But then the rationale falters. Offered Al Ghazi in the Digne negotiations with Villa, Everton took the winger on loan even though they already have Gray, Townsend and Gordon. That loan acquisition meant Everton's quota for the season was full so they had to make Dele Alli a permanent transfer, albeit with zero up front fee. They wanted Alli, sometimes described as a no 10, but were already in the process of bringing in Donny van der Beek, also a no 10, on loan from Man United. Which was a curious echo of a previous window when Everton brought in three number 10s at once (Rooney, the disappeared Sigurdsson and the invisible Davy Klassen). Meanwhile the need for a holding midfielder was ignored although there may have been an attempt to bring Idrissa Gana Gueye back from PSG.
I hope I'm wrong (I often am) but I have serious doubts about van der Beek - who seems a nice lad but could prove to be an innocuous Klassen mk2 - and also about Alli. I wish Alli well but my problem with him is that I've had a problem with him for at least 4 years. When he broke into the England team, on the back of stellar statistics for goals and assists in his first two seasons at Tottenham, I couldn't see how he was managing to notch so many goals and assists when his overall performances were, to me, underwhelming. He didn't seem to be "in" matches, even though he often ended up making the odd notable contribution (like scoring). In the last couple of seasons the goals and assists have dropped of a cliff and are more in line with the general contribution to play.
In Alli's second season at Spurs he scored 22 goals in 50 matches, which would be good for a striker let alone someone thought of as a midfield player. In the seasons either side he notched double figures. But since then they have dwindled to two so far this season. I worry that he has lost a yard of pace. I know he's only 25 but at the top level the first two yards are in your head (a Bob Paisley quote) and I suspect it's in his head where the problems lie, i.e. with motivation. I also worry that teams figured out how to keep enough of an eye on him to stop the goals which seemed to come out of nowhere as he ghosted into the box.
It's not just the evidence of my eyes. xG (expected goals) is one of the data metrics in use as football tries to become as statistical as cricket or American Football. It measures the quality of a chance by calculating the likelihood that it will be scored from a particular position on the pitch during a particular phase of play. This value is based on several factors from before the shot was taken. In Alli's pomp at Tottenham his actual goals were very much higher than his expected goals. Now they are in line.
Alli was doing what Jordan Spieth did with his putting when he broke through. Spieth's stats for holing putts from 15 feet were off the scale compared with any of his peers. That couldn't last but Spieth strengthened other parts of his game to compensate.
Arguably Alli has done the same. He certainly works harder than when he first broke into the Spurs and England teams and has gained a reputation for covering ground and putting a foot into challenges. But I suspect Everton are hoping they can rekindle the superstar Alli who was once talked of as being worth £150 million, not some kind of latter day James McCarthy.
Alli's decline is not new. Gary Neville presented this analysis of Alli under different Spurs managers on Sky Sports in October 2019:
Remember Alli's stats have deteriorated a lot since then: he scored 9 goals in 2019-20 and three in the following season. It's not just that Pochettino "understood" him. Alli's stats were in decline long before Poch left Spurs. Since then Jose Mourinho, Nuno espirito Santo and Antonio Conte have all had a go. Oh, how Mourinho tried. Having noted that Alli is "not a good trainer", Mourinho told him:
"There is a huge difference between a player who keeps consistency and a player who has moments. I think one day you will regret if you don't reach what you can reach."
That's not the worst thing Mourinho said to or about Alli by a long way, as you'll see from the reference below, which includes the text "fing lazy". It's also not to say Lampard won't succeed. His first challenge is where to play him. Starting from the bench I imagine, but once on the pitch? I thought perhaps Alli was really a second striker rather than a no 10/midfield player. If so, how does he fit in with Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison? But then I remembered how Spurs lined up when Alli was performing well. They had Kane and Son ahead of Alli and Eriksen. Maybe Lampard thinks he can have Alli and van der Beek behind DCL and Richi with Doucoure and Allan doing the hard yards in midfield behind them in a line up something like this:
Indeed that is pretty much the line up I saw predicted in one outlet. It had Everton fans pointing out that it omits the player of the season so far, Demarai Gray. More worryingly it looks frighteningly open, which was exactly how Lampard's Chelsea played.
But perhaps Lampard is aiming for a squad where players can mix and match in various line ups and with more fluidity, Manchester City style. I like the idea in general but I'm very unsure of it in a relegation dog fight.
Anyway it seems Everton think Dele is a midfield player as that is how they have listed him in the first team squad on the club website. But he is a player who likes to come in from the left as his this position heatmap from Sky shows:
You can see how Alli has drifted deeper over the last five seasons. And, while this would have been very much the area of the field Lampard himself operated in, it is also where Gray and Richarlison like to play.
Whether Everton will get Muhammad Ali or Delhi Belly time will tell. I just hope we get a happy player who does well and we don't see him running down his contract at Everton in 18 months time, with the club paying his wages while not playing him to avoid paying Spurs any more performance related transfer fee. I wouldn't bet on it, but Frank Lampard might be.
Good luck, Frank.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/frank-lampard-s-call-to-lbc-the-full-transcript-1673885.html?r=60028
https://herfootballhub.com/data-metrics-explained-expected-goals-xg/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CExpected%20goals%20(or%20xG),before%20the%20shot%20was%20taken
https://www.skysports.com/app/transfer/news/30778/12529778/dele-alli-everton-sign-spurs-midfielder-permanently-in-a-deal-that-could-cost-40m
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11096/12440640/dele-allis-form-whats-happened-to-tottenham-one-time-boy-wonder
https://www.sportbible.com/football/news-jose-mourinho-called-dele-alli-fing-lazy-in-spurs-team-meeting-20200831
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