Everton manager Frank Lampard was clearly angry as he spoke to television cameras following a 5-0 hammering at Tottenham Hotspur on Monday, but says he has confidence the Toffees will turn it around.
The visitors are clearly in a relegation fight and if they didn’t know before Monday they can’t ignore it now.
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“I’m confident but that doesn’t do anything to help us now,” Lampard said after his team failed to put a shot on target.
Toffees fans won’t be feeling that way and surely some players will be feeling the same as evidenced by a forlorn captain Seamus Coleman’s words following the game.
“That was tough to take,” Coleman said on the USA Network. “It’s a very disappointed dressing room as you can imagine. We’ve had bad away form but that felt like something different.”
But Coleman did his best to back Lampard, who has just one Premier League win and four losses since taking over for the fired Rafa Benitez.
“Frank Lampard since he’s come in has been brilliant but we’re a group of players who’ve been here all season so ultimately it’s down to us,” Coleman said. “It’s not been good enough and of course we believe in what we’re doing on a daily basis but that was really humbling. ... You’ve got to believe.”
Frank Lampard reaction after 5-0 loss at Tottenham
“Well-beaten, obviously,” Lampard said to start his post-match press conference.
Everyone knew that but Lampard said all the right things when it comes to what went wrong and how Everton can fix things to avoid ending the season in the bottom three.
“There are 13 games for us,” Lampard said. “There are teams around us having difficulties. There are issues that are becoming more and more clear every day but we have to have positivity every day.
Lampard also said injuries have stopped him from being able to use a back three in situations where he normally would like to deploy three center backs.
But he’s also been through down patches as a player and coach and is confident he can present the right vibes to the team.
“I’ve got no problem with the challenge because I knew what it was,” Lampard said. “The general feeling around the club has been very good. We’ve gotta keep that. it’ll be hard because people will throw things at us. ... I had 50 or 100 periods like this as a player. Everything’s relative. It’s only important then to stick together, work hard, and make it better.”
