Last week Everton manager Frank Lampard became the sixth Premier League manager to get the sack this season.
Lampard managed just 44 league games during his tenure at Everton which resulted in 24 losses, twelve victories, and eight draws. In their last ten games, Everton lost to relegation contenders such as Bournemouth, Wolves, Leicester, Southampton, and West Ham. Lampard thus leaves his former team sitting at the bottom of the table. However, upon further assessment, while Lampard was not achieving acceptable results, the problems at Everton run deeper than the manager.
As Jamie Carragher remarked on Sky Sports this week, Everton has been poorly run by its owners for many years now. Everton has rifled through six different managers since 2016: Ronald Koeman, Sam Allardyce, Marco Silva, Carlo Ancelotti, Rafael Benitez, and now Lampard. Some of these names are proven winners and are revered in their roles as coaches, however none were successful at Everton.
Everton fans talking to Laura Woods on TalkSport this week also highlighted the problems with the club’s recent recruitment. The Everton squad is not one that should be fighting to merely stay up. Everton has spent millions of pounds on players that have not performed satisfactorily, including Moise Kean and Jean Phillippe Gbamin. Furthermore, they have not signed an adequate replacement for Richarlison, who they sold this summer.
According to Sky Sports News, Everton fans are so incensed by the situation that the club’s owners were advised not to attend their
match against Southampton as they might be in danger. Fans believe that the owners have perpetuated a mentality of accepting mediocrity. The array of world-class managers who have failed to succeed in the role suggests that a restructuring at the top of the club may be necessary.
The recent failings of Steven Gerrard at Aston Villa and Lampard at Everton indicate that new managers with the opportunity to lead
Premier League sides should perhaps question more exhaustively whether they are ready for the role. Lampard may benefit from
managing a smaller team or work under an established manager.
It may be true that it was the correct decision for Everton to sack Lampard and replace him with a better-suited manager. However, the ownership of Everton must be assessed, and their recruitment is in desperate need of improvement. The problems do not go away with Lampard.
Image ‘Chelsea 3 Swansea 1‘ by Debs Coady is licensed under CC BY–SA 2.0.