What should be Everton and Lampard’s priorities now – part 1

Frank Lampard needs to define his football strategy and tactics and seek to bring in players who will fully fit that style of play.

This sounds pretty obvious of course and I’m sure that the Everton boss is doing just that as he looks forward to re-shaping the squad in the summer.

Understandably, Lampard has been entirely focused since taking over on saving the Blues’ from relegation and so everything else has taken a backseat including developing a coherent strategy for the future.

There have been promising indications that the manager wants to move this Toffees’ team in a more modern and competitive direction in terms of style of play and tactics.

He has instituted a more aggresive, pressing approach and his sides have been more willing to try and play on the front foot. It’s not always worked, partly because he doesn’t have the right set of players overall to do so.

However, perhaps not suprisingly given the pressure he was under, Lampard has resorted to a more defensive posture in the last few games to try and stem the goals being conceded and Everton have lapsed back into a negative mindset at times.

I’ve stated more times than I can remember that I think to make real progress the team do need to play a much more aggresive, front-foot type of football and to learn to press high consistently well. Again, I also think a 4-3-3 is the basic formation to go with and make this work.

Looking at the current group of players Lampard has some of the sort of footballers he will need.  In particular, he has two young full-backs who can provide the natural width and attacking outlets on the flanks.

This is especially true of Nathan Patterson. The former Rangers youngster and Scotland international hasn’t had much chance to show what he can do since signing in January and injury has also impeded him as well.

Hopefully, he can put those issues behind him and if he is able to realise his obvious talent then Everton will have a quality right-back to combine with his opposite number Vitalii Mykolenko who has emerged recently as a key player in this team.

Up front Lampard has two forwards who can allow him to play that higher tempo pressing game. Both Richarlison and Anthony Gordon are naturally well-suited to this style of play.

Keeping the Brazil international this summer is going to be difficult, as I’ve previously mentioned, but if Lampard is able to persuade him to stay at Goodison Park, then he can build his more modern attack around them.

If the manager is prepared to move in this direction he needs to focus on trying to bring in those sorts of players in to ensure he can quickly adopt a new style and strategtic approach and hopefully ensure the team hits the ground running next season. Financial constraints will of course make that even harder.

In addition, he has to find a way to move on those who indivdiduals who can’t adjust to what I presume will be a new system, tactics and football style.

That’s a big problem given how poor some of those players have been and for so long too. While some will be natural wastage as their contracts are ending, he and Thelwell will have to find buyers for the others. All in all, a huge task.