Match Report

Frank Lampard didn’t sugarcoat anything in his post-match press conference to the Sky Sports cameras after another truly horrific Everton performance to add to the 2021-22 catalogue. He blamed the obvious individual mistakes, spoke of players abandoning their positions and singled out Anthony Gordon as the only player who could emerge from this 5-0 humiliation by Spurs with any real credit.

The manager also hinted at how the scale of the problems in the team he inherited are “becoming clear to me more every day” and the fact that only a couple of the other players didn’t just give up gave him “food for thought going forward”. Anyone who watched the match will have an idea of which players he was referring to but, in truth, Lampard was right that only Gordon earned his corn on a desperately poor evening for Everton and one, we can only hope, won’t prove too damaging in the long run.

Because, from the standpoints of morale and goal difference alone, this has the potential to be a costly result. The Blues came into the match with a one-goal edge on Burnley in terms of goal difference and left the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium four goals worse off having failed to even register a shot on target. Indeed, in Lampard’s three away matches so far, the team is averaging one effort on goal every 90 minutes.

Much of that is down to mentality, of course. 3-0 was bad enough at half-time but the game was dead within 40 seconds of the start of the second half when Sergio Reguilon drove the ball past Pickford to make it four. At that point, Everton were well beaten thanks to a combination of fairly naive tactics, calamitous defending, a rare goalkeeping error from Jordan Pickford and the deadly finishing of Son Hueng-Min and Harry Kane.

If Lampard has been keen to impress on his new charges that they are better side than either results of the rhetoric of his predecessor would have led them to believe, that has been reflected in his team’s posture at the start of each of the matches since he took charge five weeks ago. Unfortunately, the manager has to take his share of the blame for a suicidally high line that played into his central-defensive pairing’s key weaknesses and Tottenham’s strengths in transition.

Indeed, the way Spurs picked Everton off in the first half was somewhat embarrassing, although Lampard surely wouldn’t have factored in such poor defending from some very experienced personnel or the clumsy own goal that Michael Keane scored in the 14th minute. It was the nadir of a woeful display by the one-time England international and it was no surprise that he was hauled off at half-time in favour of Jarrad Branthwaite. Seamus Coleman, captain and, therefore, de jure leader of the team wasn’t much better; two of his poor passes led to goals.

Up front, Dominic Calvert-Lewin continues to offer very little, Richarlison and Gordon toiled with little reward while the midfield three of Donny van de Beek, Allan and Abdoulaye Doucourè failed to provide the kind of defensive cover required against this level of opponent. If the defeats at Newcastle and Southampton showed anything, it was the need to revert to more of a compact low block away from home and concentrate on being hard to beat. If anything, Everton were the opposite.

The early signs from Everton had been positive, though, as they took the game to Tottenham but without unduly threatening Antonio Conte's side and the danger inherent with as high a line as the Blues were was signalled after just 10 minutes when Son was played into the clear behind the defence but Gordon had tracked back superbly to take the ball off the South Korean's toes before he could shoot.

The warning wasn't heeded, though, and Everton conceded twice in quick succession leaving them with a mountain to climb. First, Ryan Sessegnon powered beyond Seamus Coleman in the 14th minute and centred hard towards the near post where Keane turned the ball into his net before Kane could try and get a boot on it.

Then, three minutes later, the visitors' were carved open with ease down the centre where Kane's pass to Dejan Kulusevski was knocked through the middle to Son and he swept the ball under Pickford who was stranded but should have done better than to allow it to slide under his arm,

Matt Doherty then found himself in on the goalkeeper in the 28th minute but this time Pickford was more than equal to the task and he parried the shot while Kane's first-time effort on the rebound mercifully bounced wide before the England keeper denied Doherty again in the 34th minute.

It was 3-0 not long afterwards, however. Keane was out-muscled by Kane on the halfway line and when the ball broke to Doherty he knocked it over the top for the striker to beat offside, run into oceans of space behind Everton's absent back line and slot past Pickford.

Lampard moved to try and shore up his shambolic defence at half-time by hooking the hapless Keane and introducing Branthwaite but the young defender had been on the field less than 60 seconds before the Blues were torn apart again.

Coleman sold Gordon short with a poor pass and Son found Kulusevski who rolled a pass across the box to Reguilon and the Spaniard, a half-time substitute himself, converted first time to make it 4-0.

Then, after Calvert-Lewin's sole contribution of note, a shot that he dragged across Hugo Lloris's goal in the 53rd minute, Eric Dier clipped the crossbar with a header before Kane completed the rout. Coleman was again at fault with a dreadful pass straight to a white jersey and when Doherty floated the ball to the back post, Kane volleyed it back across Pickford and inside the far post.

Lampard withdrew Van de Beek and then Calvert-Lewin in favour of Vitalii Mykolenko and Dele Alli but apart from a couple of corners that came to nothing, Everton didn't come close to scoring a consolation goal in the closing stages.

Instead, Pickford saved from Steven Bergwijn and Davinson Sanchez planted a header off a free-kick wide before referee Stuart Attwell put the Toffees out of their misery with the final whistle.

In his time at the club so far, Lampard has tried to channel what he knows are the qualities of an Everton side that the supporters want to see. The sad fact is that he just doesn’t have the players to play front-foot, domination football away from home. That above all is hopefully the lesson the manager will have taken from his first three away games, each of which has been worse than the last.

Psychologically, the margin of this defeat could be the most concerning impact of the night and keeping morale high heading into Sunday’s clash with Wolves could be Lampard’s most important task in the days ahead because he also doesn’t have a lot of options at his disposal when it comes to dropping those players whose commitment he will now have cause to openly question.

The games will start to run out now. There is talent in this squad that was demonstrated in the home wins over Brentford and Leeds but now needs to be harnessed away from home. Goodison Park may yet prove to be the key to survival but there is surely no doubt in Lampard’s mind that he has a huge job on his hands now to keep this team up.

Lyndon Lloyd

Match Preview

Everton head to the Capital for the first time since December as they face Tottenham in the televised Monday night game.

Frank Lampard will be able to include Donny van de Beek and former Spurs man Dele Alli after both were cup-tied for the tie against Boreham Wood on Thursday evening and the manager is hopeful that Dominic Calvert-Lewin will be able to travel with the squad.

The striker has endured a stop-start return to action following his recovery from a serious quad injury that sidelined him for four months from late August until he played the full 90 minutes against Brighton on 2nd January.

Since then, Calvert-Lewin has picked up minor soft-tissue injuries, the latest of which, an adductor strain, kept him out of last weekend's match against Manchester City but he is due to train with the team at Finch Farm on Saturday as he tries to step up his preparations over the weekend.

The game will come too soon, however, for Ben Godfrey who continues to work in individual sessions as he works his way back from a hamstring tear. The manager anticipates that he will rejoin full training in the coming week.

Demarai Gray, who missed the FA Cup win over Boreham Wood through illness, is expected to travel with the party to London but Yerry Mina remains out of action.

Lampard has decisions to make over how to approach this match against a talented but unpredictable Spurs side who beat Manchester City at the Etihad, lost at Burnley and Middlesbrough in the Cup but thrashed Leeds, precipitating the departure from Elland Road of Marcelo Bielsa.

Everton's last League game, the narrow home defeat to City, was illustrative of the importance of the manager finally being able to field a strong midfield three of Van de Beek, Allan and Abdoulaye Doucouré and that will likely dictate a four-man back line and a three-pronged attack.

At the back, the need to make a decision over whether to persist with Jonjoe Kenny at left-back, where he was impressive on his last Premier League outing, was probably removed by the leg injury Vitalii Mykolenko picked up on Thursday

If Calvert-Lewin is passed fit and plays, that would mean Richarlison and one of either Anthony Gordon or Gray joining them in attack.

Antonio Conte, meanwhile, has a strong squad from which to choose, with only Japhet Tangaga and Oliver Skipp ruled out. New signing Rodrigo Bentancur is expected to return from an ankle injury while the dead leg that Lucas Moura sustained recently is unlikely to keep him out.

For Lampard and Everton, the key will be to try and replicate the tenacity, discipline and stubbornness of the performance against City and marry that with more effectiveness and penetration up front. They face a side that can be defensively vulnerable, as both Wolves and Southampton proved in both of Spurs' last two home games which ended in defeat.

As was the case last week, a point would be more than satisfactory but a victory would be huge in the context of the battle to move away from the relegation zone which will be just a point below heading into Monday evening's game.

Kick-off: 8:00 pm GMT, Monday 7 March 2022
Referee: Stuart Attwell
VAR: John Brooks
Last Time: Tottenham Hotspur 0 - 1 Everton

Predicted Line-up: Pickford, Coleman, Holgate, Keane, Kenny, Allan, Doucouré, Van de Beek, Gordon, Gray, Richarlison

Lyndon Lloyd

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