SHOTGUN WEDDING

Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’
On this, our weddin’ day
Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’
Wait, wait along

I do not know what fate awaits me
I only know I must be brave
And I must face a man who hates me
Or lie a coward, a craven coward
Or lie a coward in my grave

High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me)

Music: Dimitri Tomkin, Lyrics: Ned Washington, Sung by : Tex Ritter

After another farcical new manager search in which Everton Football Club has again been the laughing stock of the football world, we have our new saviour in the shape of ex Derby County and Chelsea manager Frank Lampard,

First let’s start with the actual incompetent manager search. Many names were linked with the vacant manger post. As usual with Everton all the names linked where a mish mash of different managers with different playing styles and philosophies. This is par for the course from the dim wits who run the club. With the sacking of Satan, there was no vision or plan from the owner and the board. The club have not had any vision or strategy since the brainless billionaire bought into the club. The one person who could set out a vision and style of playing was the Director of Football (DoF). But of course, the medalling billionaire fool and the board members did not allow the DoF to do his job. Marcel Brands was finally dumped once the power battle with Satan came to a head. When soon after his victory over Brands, Satan himself got the bullet, Everton Football Club went into yet another shambolic endless manager search with no vision or plan

Any properly functioning football club would, after sacking their manager, have a vision, plan and strategy in place. The club would have a short list of managerial candidates who it saw fitting the vision for the football club. If a manager was sacked, they would have a plan and short list ready for who might succeed them. This short list would contain mangers who would fit the overall vision of the club. But at the shambles which is Everton Football Club none of this exists, and has never existed under the ruinous ownership of the Monaco based clown. Instead, it is every 18 months, or in the case of Satan and Allardyce 6 months, sack and time for another round of manager roulette.

In the case of the latest crap shoot, although many names were linked, it seemed an undewhelming motley bunch of five names was the real short list. This list consisted of Roberto Martinez, Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, Vitor Pereira and hanging at the back of the room Duncan Ferguson.

The idea of Bobby brown shows, the first to feel the axe of Moshiri, returning to a club he took to court for £10 million in compensation was truly otherworldly. Even more outlandish was the idea he could job share while managing the Belgian National team. The numbskulls who run the club actually thought Everton Football Club could operate with a part time manager!! When the Belgium Football Federation said no to this buffoonish idea, the brown shoes return crashed into the buffers. The Martinez escapade only highlighted the ever increasing incompetence of the people who run Everton Football Club, plus their deep disregard for the supporters.

Wayne Rooney, blue blood Bill Kenwright’s golden dream was next on the list. Rooney has done wonders at Derby County under awful circumstances and a points deduction. In saying this it has to be pointed out that he has only managed the rams for 31 games (at the time of writing). This shows the nonsensical Football Manager approach Moshiri and the board play when it comes to choosing a manger. Complete pick and mix nonsense. “Rooney, oh yeah, big name, doing well in the Championship, even if it is only 31 games, give him a call.” Rooney declined to come to the final round of shotgun wedding interviews on Friday 28 January. (You have to give him credit. He obviously knew that such a poisoned chalice as Everton manager would kill his embryonic management career!).

So, on High Noon Friday Everton ended up, after two rounds of earlier interviews for Frank Lampard and Vitor Pereira (who no one wanted except the brainless billionaire and his agent mate Kia Joorabchian), with a final manager candidate shoot out. A London based High Noon interview gun fight, but with no lead in the Gary Cooper role. Even more ridiculous the tub thumping Duncan Ferguson, who’s abject interim audition against Aston Villa, showed how backword his football is, (see “Yabba Dabba Doo” https://bagfulloftoffees737918539.wordpress.com/2022/01/24/yaba-daba-doo/ ), was summoned to London to make it a three way interview shoot out. (Suppose Gary Cooper had four to kill in the original).

The Guardian newspaper was even reporting that the Monaco based clown was flying in for the interviews along with the (I have no influence at Everton Football Club) other brainless billionaire Alisher Usmanov.  Moshiri’s six year reign at Everton is a clear testament why these two muppets could never get the power they craved in the Arsenal boardroom. And lets not forget football agent Kia Joorabchain, the Grigori Rasputin to the Everton owner and board, also nonsensically added to the mix. Add to this the absolute joke, broadcast to the entire world of Pereira practically pleading for the manager’s job, in a Sky News interview earlier in the week and the whole comedic farce was really was hitting its peak. (Brian Rix where art thou!). The complete total dysfunctional shit show which is Everton Football Club was clear for all to see in this most ridiculous of ridiculous manager searches.

It is with a sigh of relieve that the lunatics who run this asylum actually ended up giving the keys of Goodison and Finch Farm to the one name on the list of five who I would go anywhere near. (To be fair to Rooney he is on the right managerial path, but he still has a way to go). So, it is enter fast gun Frank Lampard, leaving Pereira and Ferguson lying shot dead on the interview floor, as he rides off, as did Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly to his wedding with Moshiri and Kenwright.

The outpouring of support for bringing Frank Lampard to Goodison from blues, leading up to High Noon Friday, was to me quite mystifying. Lampard was being made out to be some sort of football manager deity in the blue tinted eyes of many supporters. This I have to say is completely wrong. Lampard has not exactly set the world alight in his two stints in management so far.

Frank Lampard was appointed manager of Championship Derby County on 31 May 2018. In his one season at Derby, he got them to 6^th place in the Championship and then through to the play off final against Aston Villa. In the Wembley final he was shown to be a tactical novice against the Aston Villa manager Dean Smith, who took his side to the Premier League with a 2-1 win over Lampard and Derby.

After his one season in charge of Derby County, the team he could not refuse, came calling. Lampard became Chelsea  manager in June 2019. On taking the Stamford Bridge hotseat, he had to work under a transfer ban. This saw Lampard make great use of young players who had come through the Chelsea academy. (He had also made use of this academy with loan signings while in charge at Derby). Lampard steered Chelsea to 4^th place in the Premier League and a Champions League spot in his first season. He also reached the FA Cup Final with Chelsea, where they were beaten 2-1 by Arsenal under the stewardship of ex blue Mikel Arteta.

A feature of Lampard’s time, at Derby, and most definitely at Chelsea has been his inability to organise a defence.  He plays 4-3-3 and a pressing game. But once the press is broken, his teams defensive structure are incapable of stopping opposition attacks. With the transfer ban ending in the Summer of 2020, to be fair to Lampard, he had identified it was in defence that he needed reinforcements. Declan Rice at West Ham United was his number one target, along with left back Ben Chilwell at Leicester City plus another Centre Back. This seemed to clash with the aims of the Chelsea hierarchy, who after the transfer ban ended, gave Lampard just Ben Chilwell from his three targets, while stocking up on attackers and midfielders in the shape of Hakim Zeyach, Timo Werner and Kia Havertz plus goalkeeper Edouard Mendy.

Defensive frailties were still evident as Lampard’s 2^nd season at Chelsea progressed.  Results started to spiral downwards around November and December. Rumours he was not happy with the Summer transfer dealings also surfaced.  By the start of 2021 Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich had seen enough. Lampard was sacked in late January. Thomas Tuchel came in, quickly organised the defence and led Chelsea to victory in the Champions League final.

Frank Lampard has had a mixed bag in his two and a half years of management. He was backed at Derby, (This was before the calamitous owner Mel Morris reign had reached its apex), but only managed to get a team, which had been hovering around the play offs in the previous two seasons to 6.^th He was then tactically out thought in the play off final against Dean Smith and Aston Villa. ( Dean Smith also beat him to the Norwich City manager post). His first season at Chelsea was a relative success. The transfer ban showed he has an eye for young players and is willing to give them a chance. But it can be argued that Chelsea over the past decade have built up one of the best academies in the country, and so he had a very good crop of young players to chose from. His second season at Chelsea was a disaster, defensive struggles and clashes with the club hierarchy resulting in his dismissal half way through the season.

Frank Lampard’s record as a manager does not make him the football saviour some blues seem to think he is. He has in my eyes a lot to prove, and tactically to date seems quite naive. The move to Everton is probably seen by him as his chance to resurrect his career after he was burned at Chelsea. He certainly has an eye for a good young player and this can bode well for Everton. With the club financially in a deep hole, someone who can spot players in the academy, and is willing to give them a chance is a great asset.  If he can overcome the stagnant hand of David Unsworth and promote some of the young talent in the academy, (Dobbin, Warrington, Welch and Whitaker), instead of letting them waste valuable football learning time under the dead hand of Unsworth, it will be a big step forward.

It is also to be hoped that in his time out of management, after his sacking at Chelsea, Lampard has had time to reflect on where he has made mistakes in his managerial career to date. It is to be hoped he has learned how to set up a defence for instance, especially when teams break through the press he likes to play.

It would also be good, if when he is joined by his back room staff, he starts to dispense with some of the ridiculous Kenwright favourites littering the club. Starting for me with the totally ineffectual Assistant Manager (and some time interim manager). Early reports claimed Duncan Ferguson would be jettisoned. It now seems he will be given a role under Lampard. Not exactly the best start for Lampard. If he could get rid of academy Czar Unsworth that would be a way of redeeming the Ferguson mistake. Lampard needs to set his own mark on the club quickly, and not be held back by the dead hand of the jobs for the boy’s culture which has been a virus at the club for too long.

If the above happens the gamble on Lampard may end up, and I stress, may end up, as a good appointment. He has a lot to prove and will see Goodison as the perfect place to show how good a manager he is. He will need time, and I hope he has managed to get cast iron guarantees about what he can expect from the billionaire buffoon and the ineffectual board. Including the Monaco based clown keeping well out of the way.

I am a positive sceptic on the appointment of Frank Lampard. I am definitely not won over by his past record, but believe he has to be given a chance and some time to build and mould the team. But will he be able to do this with the dysfunctional leadership in the boardroom, and the clueless owner?  Will the brainless billionaire stop interfering? I doubt it.

If Frank Lampard succeeds at Everton Football Club it will be despite the owner and board at the club. I am, as I say a positive sceptic on Lampard, there were plenty of better candidates out there. I don’t think he has shown anything special in his managerial career so far. But I am willing to give him a chance, and like any blue hope he succeeds. But with the leadership of the club still in place and especially with the clueless owner of the club, his chance of success will be hampered to such an extent, it will be a very, very tall order, if not impossible task. But like all supporters, even with his underwhelming managerial CV, we can but hope. Although as I say, I am very sceptical of his managerial credentials and will need to be convinced he is the person to lead the club forward.

So, fast gun Frankie Rides In to Goodison. He may not hit the right notes singing “Do Not Forsake Me” but surely, he has to belt out “Two Tribes” before the Anfield derby.