Kerry Mayodi
Frank Lampard bemoaned Everton’s poor defending as they were beaten 5-0 by Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League on Monday.
Everton were awful in London, and Premier League relegation fears grew significantly following their most recent setback.
Michael Keane’s own goal and goals from Son Heung-min and Harry Kane put the Toffees 3-0 down at the break.
After Sergio Reguilon’s goal 41 seconds into the second half, Harry Kane added a second to further inflict misery on Everton.
With 13 games remaining, Everton are just one point and one position above the relegation zone.
“Food for thought,” said Lampard of his team’s recent performances.
The Everton boss told Sky Sports: “Well beaten. Started already for 15 minutes or so, controlled a bit of possession.
“We had spoken about counter-attack, which is big strength of Tottenham. They play very compact and counter-attack with speed and top-quality players.
“We didn’t deal with it well enough. Simple as that. At 2-0 or 3-0 is horrible for any team to get back into the game because the momentum is completely gone.
“Individual moments of bad mistakes of defending – clear on that point.
“I’ve got no more to say other than that (the first two goals were preventable).
“I know it’s my job to review them and go back but sometimes you do review them, you go: “They leave their area.”
“We don’t tell people to leave their area and go into midfield and leave spaces around. Some of those are mistakes.
“We have to think of the bigger picture and there are 13 games to go – eight of those are at home.
“We have to understand before I came in, there were issues and they’re becoming more clear to me every day.
“The important thing is I lead it and positivity stay – not the stupid positivity, there is nothing positive about tonight other than Anthony Gordon and a couple of performances of credit, people didn’t give up.
“That should be the bare minimum. It gives me a lot of food for thought going forward.”
He added: “There is (a mental problem) but there’s a football side to it. If you give away goals and find yourself two goals down in 25 minutes then that mental side will come into it very quickly
“Football always starts it and if we’re not good enough to deal with situations, that can happen no matter how you set up.
“You set up to play a strong back four. I haven’t got enough centre-backs to play a back three, two of my centre-halves got injured in my first two games.
“We have to play a back four, we want to try to stay compact in midfield. It’s clear if you make errors, they’re going to score goals with that level of players.”
“Anthony Gordon was our standout player because of his attitude and quality.
“Other performances not up to scratch. I won’t name names. The reaction was not good enough. It was the reaction of a team used to losing away from home. We need to sort it out.”
