Lampard: “Character is a talent in its own right”

Your key point is the one about having a plan. It feels like we have a coherent one for the first time in years. Circumstances dictate that it’s not yet a sexy one but give us something to believe in for now.

I don't particularly rate Lampard but he seems to have a plan of some kind and now we really need to stick with him for the next few seasons. The constant churn of managers is a huge part of what got us in this mess so for better or worse, we gave to stick with one. There'll be bad days and bad runs but we have to hold our nerve.

I know many don't rate Moyes but every player he purchased for the club had bags of character. It was this and not world class players with bags of skill that gained us top 6 or 7 finishes most years.

I completely agree with Sam's (@3) second paragraph.

I was lucky enough to watch the great 80's side and that side had all of those qualities, characters in the shape of Reid, Gray, Southall, Van den Hauwe, quality in Sheedy, Bracewell, Ratcliffe, Sharp, & quality youth in the form of Steven, Bracewell, Stevens, Heath, Mountfield etc. who developed/displayed those other qualities along the way. Moyes big failing imo was integrating quality youth into his line ups.

Although he gave Rooney, Rodwell, Barkley, Vaughan, Stones their PL debuts, how many did he pick without hesitation & were regulars in his line ups? Even Rooney got frustrated with being continually benched or subbed off. We need to give Lampard a chance (Moyes got 13 years!!) there is a plan, that is clear. He seems to be building a squad sprinkled with quality youth, Onana, Garner, Patterson, Gordon and has added character in the shape of Coady, Tarkovski & Gana and all this in one window.

Hopefully he can add a bit of quality in the next couple of windows also (Finances allowing) & further develope the likes of DCL, Godfrey, Iwobi, Holgate & we just could be onto something? I urge every Evertonianto get behind the manager, he's learning on the job, speaks a lot of sense & represents our club in the best possible way. We have to show a bit of patience, continue get behind the team as we have done. COYB & UTFT.

Defence - Coady and Tarkowski, mentally strong leaders and important additions. Seen both of them cajoling and helping Patterson already, he is benefiting from them being here.

Midfield - Gana, Garner, Onana, I think is fantastic recruiting for the outlay. I’m excited about our midfield now( forgot to mention the other new signing, Iwobi) and it’s a long,long time since that’s been the case.

Dwight McNeill, I’m in the camp that says give him time, he’s been brought in for his excellent crossing stats that will feed DCL, so we need patience. He’s not work shy and will improve.

Forward - Maupay offers something different up front. He is a nuisance player. He’s like a hungry mosquito in a pink-skinned dormitory. Defenders try to swat him and he reappears somewhere else , he will get a useful , but not primary , share of goals. I think he will be a good addition, very interested to see how he plays in tandem with DCL, picking up second balls and knock ons from DCLs aerial prowess. His sharpness to the second ball will help us stay in the oppponent’s half and build possession.

It’s not the finished article but we are have stronger foundations and are going in the right direction.

Frank has made significant changes and now has more personnel loyal to him. He also has recent addition that Anncelotti and Benitez brought in. The one area that still needs additions is the forward positions. Hopefully this all will go someway to end the stranglehold that has prevented progress for so long.

There is still alot of work to do to turn this into a consistent results. pattern. . Frank needs to get things more right tactically. Some of the players brought in may be able to fill in the gaps on their own initiative.

Maybe making no substitution in the last game sent the right message through the Club. You are all going to have to work harder lads.

But we still have a proven unsuccessful Management hierarchy that will put a drag on progress at some stage.

Just have to have the stars aligning and a good manager...

Looking at the mid 80's team, we had a great mixture, blended into a first team squad by Howard. Character and skill, youth and experience, from the back line to the centre forwards.

I think our manager is going to have a hard battle to get the same blend together, but I think it's a great start. I remember Howard bringing in about 7 players all at once and it was a real failure. The players that Frank's brought in, are the makings of a good team. I don't expect it to happen overnight; but over a couple of years.

1st priority, get away from a relegation dogfight and stay away, then bulid on each transfer window. Maybe in a couople of years, we'll have got rid of that bloody unfair and biased Profit and sustainability millstone and can then compete more in the market as well as on the pitch.

I hope that he's given the time by us supporters to carry the task out.

On the Rio F. show, between the lines he comes across as knowing his stuff and explains the 3-4-3 selection against Chelski very well, woth a watch IMO

Link

Our club was a shambles the day he arrived, and now he’s bringing in his own players, I hope we are finally on the right road, but if you are driving to Goodison from town, I’d say we are still at the bottom of “Everton valley” right now, but a win against Liverpool today, could change the mood entirely🤞

He now has some depth in terms of midfield and a back four will be an awful lot better for having Gana patrolling in front of it. Onana will also benefit from having a Gana alongside him. I haven't seen Garner but from what people say he is a box-to-box player with leadership and character and should add more energy and drive.

Frank now has options and Iwobi should thrive with two other central midfielders in support. I can't see us getting anything today but give Frank a month to settle the new boys in and I think we may just have the makings of a decent team.

He is building it around young players with a bit of experience thrown in and thank goodness there is no sign of any more mercenaries.
We must give Frank a chance.

If he can do that with a whole squad …

He's identified the weak areas and is slowly but surely going the right way about putting them right.

I don't think any manager has got all of his signings correct. Even the best like Sir Alex Ferguson got it wrong at times - Kleberson,Djemba Djemba, Veron. I agree with what you are saying about quality and youth and I wasn't suggesting Moyes was a great manager, but in my view he got 90% of his signings right with regards to character.
All I was trying to get at was that if you lack quality and character in your team, you are on a hiding to nothing. If you only have character, you still stand a chance of winning matches.
I also watched the team of the 80's, I'd love to see how they got on now against todays teams.

NASA's unmanned launch was scuppered again today so the idea we can get the whole Everton team to the moon any time soon when even the space shuttle could only carry six people is unlikely. But we are moving in the right direction on the football front.

Frank let out a massive word of expectation from the Everton fans.

The word Frank is 'yet'

Seen the media reviews and they are consistent with their rose-tinted goggles, about the RS.

Fuck the VAR, St van Dijk, should have gone.

Everton can take massive credit today, and no doubt some won't be happy on TW, but this was a statement of intent today.

Arsenal next, but the win will come soon and Everton can take massive heart from today.

UTFTs!

We are looking like a team now instead of a bunch of individuals. The players are looking out for each other and learning to trust each other.

I was critical of Jordan Pickford as captain and although I am still not convinced, he was immense today.

A long way to go but the way forward looks much more positive all of a sudden.

Can't wait for Arsenal to taste the new-found blue steel.

UTFT!

it's early days but the rebuild of the squad is taking shape and all credit to the manager and coaches and the playing squad.

That today is the minimum benchmark Evertonians expect for every game in terms of effort and focus.

Great stature today by all the squad; with some finishing practice, in time the win will come.

Really pleased and today Everton made a point. The RS, don't like any team standing up to them.

Everton made clear-cut chances today, more than the RS, the RS had some good efforts as did Everton, and with both keepers on-form.

UTFTs!

The fact that Frank's openly in effect criticised those still at the club, or out on loan, for a lack of character speaks volumes too.

To me it'll take three seasons minimum, a fair amount of luck, a meaningful amount of currently very unavailable money, and the complete absence of interference from the owner/boardroom if we dare to expect regular top-half finishes.

As a side issue, people think the millionaire clown Walshy personally discovered Vardy, Mahrez, Kante and the rest (and for what it's worth Koeman didn't recruit the plethora of other talent scooped up by Southampton before and during his tenure there).

He didn't, but we signed him up anyway and ignored the scouts who did the spade-work in actually discovering them.

Anyone know what reforms have been done under the Frank/Kevin regime to our relentlessly unsuccessful scouting team?

The general skill level, consistency, energy, pace, decision making, risk taking and leadership has all improved.

With a younger team, there will always be errors and losses of concentration but having more vocal leaders on the pitch, shouting instructions and encouragement can only help.

Arsenal will be a tough test. They are in good form, scoring goals and playing some great football.

Our next manager Arteta is doing a good rebuilding job with them and after 3 full seasons is ahead of Frank. I was interested to hear Utd had Eriksen mark Odegard and wonder if Onana could do a similar job.

He's bigger, stronger, faster and it may help us defend further up the pitch to unsettle them.

With recruitment, you also need players who have the bottle to play well in away fixtures.

Again, if you cannot win the game, then don t lose it.

But what I've also noticed is how much be talks about hard work. That was a hallmark of him as a player, and when I listened to recent interviews with Pickford and Iwobi and Coady, they also talk a lot about hard work. That's come from Frank, I have no doubt.

If someone has all the talent in the world and does not play for or fit into the team, then the team will be less than the sum of their parts. See what Arteta is doing at Arsenal and what Ten Hag looks like he's starting at Man Utd.

Next is talent. As others have said, if all you have is 11 grafters, then your ceiling is very limited. The best teams have players with great talent and those players work very hard and smart and play for the team. Those are the teams that are always greater than the sum of their very good parts.

Great character shown by the players against Liverpool. More of that and we will have a good season...

He appears to me from the outside to be making the exact same mistakes at West Ham now as he did then with us and is still the same tactically niave manager he was.

I personally think Frank and his coaching staff do have all the tools between them to be build a realy good side, in one window we have already an impressive squad which looks like it can compete in a tough competitive league, not only physically but tactically.

I hope results improve quickly for him so he is given time and I'm very keen to see what he can do in the next 3/4 years.

Gana returned and I don't think he was talking crap. Iwobi is probably made up even though he went through some of the worst. And finally, you can feel what Frank alludes to, the simple view of the eleven playing is coherent. What they attempt may not come off but you can see timed and coordinated movement that makes sense in advancing the ball. The collective character is showing up as trust on the pitch and that will create the intangible force that will take Everton to the top.

Ok, I got carried away but we're on our way to better more durable times.