Lampard sacked as Everton manager
Everton have finally taken the long-awaited decision to relieve Frank Lampard from his position as head coach of the club.
Monday's sacking is coming less than a year into the role following a string of defeats and the club sitting in the relegation zone.
The 44-year-old has overseen just three Premier League wins all season, the worst 20-game sequence of results to start a season in the club’s history, and failed to progress past the third round of either domestic cup competition.
The decision, made by Farhad Moshiri and the club’s Board of Directors, came in the wake of Saturday’s 2-0 defeat to West Ham, Everton’s seventh in eight games in all competitions and the first match that the owner had attended since October 2021.
Moshiri and Chairman Bill Kenwright were non-committal when “door-stepped” by a Sky Sports reporter as they left the stadium after the game at the London Stadium but it was clear that they had to make the seventh sacking of a non-caretaker manager in the British-Iranian’s time at Everton.
The decision comes a year and a week after Rafael Benitez was given his marching orders after just seven months in the post.
Lampard’s departure marks a sad end to a managerial tenure that held so much promise in its early days and which reached its peak on an emotional night at Goodison last May when the Toffees secured their Premier League survival with a stunning come-from-behind win over Crystal Palace.
The former Derby County and Chelsea manager had been commended for the way he had tapped into the passion of the Everton faithful and there were high hopes that he could continue to develop both his management skills but also the Blues’ squad this season.
However, having lost his best player last summer when Richarlison was sold to Tottenham Hotspur, Lampard was dealt a cruel blow just three days before the start of the 2022-23 campaign when Dominic Calvert-Lewin, a big miss for much of the previous season, suffered another serious injury and wasn’t really able to recover full fitness until this month.
The failure on the club’s part not to sign a reliable goalscorer of Calvert-Lewin’s ilk, acquiring instead Neal Maupay from Brighton, further hampered the manager’s attempts to build a winning side, even as it appeared he was making progress when Palace came to Goodison Park again last October and were swept aside with an impressive display that yielded a 3-0 win for Everton.
That was the last time Everton won under his stewardship and they have since dropped from 12th place to 19th, with games running out to arrest their alarming form and mount another bid to avoid what would be a catastrophic drop into the Championship.
Assuming no one has been lined up already, Everton will now embark on the search for their eighth managerial appointment in 10 years, with the likes of Sean Dyche, Nuno Espirito Santo, Wayne Rooney, Marcelo Bielsa and Duncan Ferguson among the names favoured by bookmakers in the latest odds.
However, it was suggested by the Daily Mail's Dominic King that Dyche was not being considered and Espirito Santo is currently locked into a role at Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia with a £7m release clause.
