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Everton manager Frank Lampard has called for his players to answer Jamie Carragher’s criticism on the pitch when they host Newcastle on Thursday.
The Toffees fell to a 15th defeat in 19 Premier League games with a 1-0 defeat to Wolves at home last Sunday, leaving them level on points with 18th-placed Watford, who have played three games more.
Speaking on Sky’s Monday Night Football, Carragher subsequently labelled Everton players a “disgrace”, and branded the Newcastle clash at Goodison Park the club’s biggest fixture in over 20 years.
Lampard may have lost just one of his last 11 top-flight home games against English managers, but Everton have been defeated in 16 of their 26 Premier League games this season – the Toffees last lost more in a single campaign in 2003-04 (17).
However, he believes his team will bounce back on the pitch against Newcastle, who saw their nine-game unbeaten league run end in a 1-0 defeat at Chelsea last time out.
“It’s the players’ job to answer that on the pitch,” Lampard said of Carragher’s comments at Wednesday’s pre-match news conference.
“The Wolves game wasn’t a disgrace, but I understand the analysis because you look at the Tottenham game and on a footballing level, I didn’t like the game at all. I wouldn’t use that language but I didn’t like the game at all.
“But we have to accept that people have opinions, people who care and do their jobs in the media, in many ways, not just Jamie, but the players have to answer it on the pitch, it’s the only way.
“You’ll be in these positions in relative ways so many times in your career, you have to get together – the players individually, collectively, myself of course, and answer it on the pitch.”
One concern for Everton is that Newcastle have won each of their last three league fixtures against the Toffees, including a 3-1 victory in the reverse fixture, and Lampard knows the size of the task at hand.
“It’s not time for lies or to change the story, we know where we’re at,” he continued. “We’ve also seen that this club have stayed up in the league on the last day a couple of times [in 1994 and 1998] so it’s not absolutely new.
“Maybe that’s why the nerves creep in with the players and the fans, that’s human nature, but for us it’s not about having fear of what might be. It’s what can we action, we deal with these 12 games in front of us.
“You look at Newcastle, since Eddie Howe went in there and made great progress but the first games [he only won one game out of first 10], what needed to change, things take time.
“I’m not talking about seasons and seasons, that’s a different kind of thing, about building an idea at a club.
“In terms of changing a club in a difficult position, they take a bit of time and I think Newcastle used January to their credit, financially they were in a position to add well in personnel. We’re not in that position, we can only focus on ourselves.”
