Paul Merson on Lampard to Everton: “I think it is a great move all round. He’s at a club well below where they should be and he’s come in and got two signings through the door. I really think it could be a good fit for both Lampard and Everton. I can see happier times ahead for them”

Paul Merson : Football Experts & Columnist
In his latest column for skysports.com, Paul Merson says Frank Lampard is the right fit for Everton and he thinks brighter days could be ahead for the Merseyside club with the former Chelsea boss at the helm…

Merson also gives his verdict on Dele Alli’s move to Goodison Park, saying Lampard is the perfect person to guide the former Tottenham star’s career, with the Magic Man backing the 25-year-old for an England re-call in the future.

Frank Lampard to Everton, I think it is a great move all round.

He’s at a club well below where they should be and he’s come in and got two signings through the door in Dele Alli and Donny van de Beek, which shows the way he wants to play. I really think it could be a good fit for both Lampard and Everton. I can see happier times ahead for them.

I like the way Lampard sets his teams up and gets them playing. He was always has a go and that may have actually been his Achilles heel at Chelsea. On a few occasions you watched his Chelsea team play and it was just one of those days at Stamford Bridge where you thought they could play until tomorrow morning and they weren’t going to score. He’d then change things up and try to change the game, but they’d end up losing 1-0.

For me, that’s just what went against him at Chelsea, but it could have quite easily gone the other way. Now, with a little bit more experience, he won’t listen to the people at the back of the stands as much. At Stamford Bridge, when the game is 0-0 and the fans are getting restless, it’s easy to take notice and think that you’ve got to act.

I think he’ll have learnt from that. He’s played the game and taken a step back and thought that sometimes you just get these days, and you don’t lose. A point here or there and they add up, and before you know it people start saying Everton are five games undefeated.

That’s how a run starts and that’s how confidence builds and becomes a good thing in football.

It is a different dimension at Everton to what it was at Chelsea. At Chelsea, he lost someone who was considered the best player in the world at the time in Eden Hazard. He also wasn’t allowed to bring anybody in, he really had to steady the ship and he ended up getting them into the Champions League, which was a major feat, in my opinion.

People will say he had the squad but to take Hazard out of that team, who was 70 per cent of that team, and to still get in the top four was an amazing achievement.

Now the dimensions are different, and he’s got to keep Everton in the Premier League for starters. It’s a simple as that. Everton are on a glass mountain with moccasin slippers on, at the moment. They are sliding and he needs to stop that.

A couple of wins here and there and that goes away quickly. It could even be stopped straight away when they face Newcastle next Tuesday. But if it doesn’t go well against Newcastle then you start to look at Everton, out of every team down at the bottom, as a team that a right up against it.

So, it’s a really big game straight up against Newcastle when the premier league returns, but it’s also a big game against Brentford in the FA Cup. Everton haven’t won anything since the word dot so Lampard really needs to get off to a flier.

I don’t think he’s in any position to start mugging competitions off to save themselves for Newcastle.

Via/ Sky Sports