Sacking Frank Lampard would be yet another terrible decision in a long line of Evertonian catastrophes, writes BenchWarmers columnist Michael Alvarado.
When Everton made the decision to dismiss Rafa Benitez and appoint the relatively inexperienced Frank Lampard, they knew exactly what they were signing up for.
In Benitez, they had a manager who, while uninspiring, knew how to squeeze points out of Premier League games. On reflection, Everton fans might consider the job that he did to be better than first perceived.
The Toffees knew that they were dismissing a manager with a proven Premier League track record and replacing him with somewhat of a wildcard, but they did it for all the right reasons.
Lampard is not a seasoned veteran in relegation battles and his inexperience might see them fall down a division, but the Evertonian hierarchy made a positive decision in bringing him into the club.
Lampard did an extremely good job at Derby County and earned himself a move to Chelsea, where he steered the club into the top four while under a transfer ban and without the influential Eden Hazard.
Irrespective of how it ended, and irrespective of how difficult a start to life on Merseyside he has endured, Lampard ranks as one of the most promising up and coming English managers in the business.
Everton elected him to be the man to walk out of the grey cloud which has surrounded them for several years, and x-amount of negative results in the opening stages of his tenure does not mean that was the wrong call.
Everton were losing games before Lampard walked in the door and he has no doubt had a rather sobering realisation of the size of the task which faces him at Goodison, but he is capable of pulling it off.
Those pulling the strings in the boardroom have run the club into financial ruin in recent seasons and have left the manager with limited resources as a result. The squad has stagnated, if not regressed.
Whether it be in preparation for a season in the Premier League or the Championship, they ought to provide Lampard with a healthy transfer budget this summer and allow him to make his mark on the squad.
Giving him his marching orders so prematurely would be yet another backwards step from the club’s hierarchy. They have to back Lampard, for all the reasons which saw them appoint him in the first place.
