'Have you got the b******* to play?' - Frank Lampard unhappy with Everton players in loss to Crystal Palace
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Updated 20/03/2022 at 19:48 GMT
Everton, who are involved in a relegation battle in the Premier League, can now focus on staying in the top flight after being dumped out of the FA Cup at the quarter-final stage by Crystal Palace. It was a performance at Selhurst Park on Sunday afternoon that did not impress Toffees manager Frank Lampard.
Everton manager Frank Lampard
Image credit: Getty Images
Frank Lampard has accused his Everton players of lacking "b*******" in their FA Cup quarter-final loss to Crystal Palace.
Three days after a dramatic win over Newcastle to boost their Premier League survival hopes, Everton passed up a shot at silverware with a 4-0 loss to the Eagles.
The former Chelsea boss said his side conceded two average goals and a fluke goal, and was unimpressed with the mentality of his players.
“There is only so much you can keep trying to butter someone up to get confidence,” Lampard said. “You’re playing at the cut-throat end of football; this is the FA Cup quarter-finals.
"If you haven’t got the confidence to play, you can flip it and say: ‘Have you got the bollocks to play?’ Apologies but that’s the football term.
“We didn’t play that badly today, Palace didn’t play that well. It was a lack of confidence, and a lack of what I just said. It wasn’t tactics. Palace couldn’t get out of their half in the first 20 minutes.”
Lampard took the reins at Everton in January, and suggested the club’s problems are the fault of those who came before him at Goodison Park.
“It’s a challenge because it’s been there quite a long time before I got here,” Lampard said. “I don’t have a magic wand to get inside people’s heads and change the resilience across a whole squad. That’s a work in progress. So we just have to work on that, as frustrating as it is for me and for the 4,000 fans who travelled down.”
Everton now head into the international break, and Lamaprd feels the loss at Selhurst Park will have no bearing on their Premier League survival bid.
“Every time we win people talk about momentum, every time we lose people talk about damage done,” he said. “In reality we need to be bigger and stronger than that.”
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