Read the key points from Everton manager Frank Lampard's post-match press conference following Tuesday night's 4-1 Carabao Cup defeat to Bournemouth below.
Lampard on his message to Evertonians following the game....
The fans have travelled down and had to endure a poor performance, no doubt. They spend their money, spend their time, to come to support the team. For the players to perform as they did, then you have to hold your hands up and say it's not good enough.
On making 11 changes for the match…
In terms of the set-up of the game, I made changes because I've got to protect players who have got niggles or are playing again with the [short] turnaround for a really important league game on Saturday. But I also made changes because some players have been knocking on my door wanting to play and some players have trained well and made a case for playing. You put them in because they play for Everton and they should be able to come to Bournemouth and compete. Without even going into the nitty gritty details, they should be able to because there's a lot of experience in that team. They didn't do that – it's clear as day. I think the fans saw that.
On his strong belief the team he picked was strong enough to win…
Absolutely – there's no doubt about that. We can go into detail of the game... We should have been winning at half-time. They had one deflected shot, we had two golden chances. That changes the feeling of the game. The second goal is just an incredible goal from our point of view – it can't happen at this level of football, that type of goal, there's no doubt about that. That makes the game difficult.
You chase the game and what happened can happen. There's another mistake on the fourth goal. There are individuals that need to look at themselves and say 'I was absolutely culpable there' and hold their hands up. Generally, this season, one thing I can say about us is that we've been defensively sound, defensively resolute when balls go into the box, and you don't get the feeling that teams are going to score. We've been very good at that and tonight it looked different.
On his quest for improvement at Everton…
I wanted to get through to the next round of the Carabao Cup, but when I look at the squad now, I learn more from them tonight than I do from watching training every day. That’s really interesting to me and we have to understand this season there may be difficult patches as we go forward to get to where we want to be.
It’s not just going to go from where we were at the end of last season – just staying in the league, losing the main source of goals in the team – then trying to build around that with some signings and younger players, loans and free transfers. That road is not a simple one. Tonight was a big example of that.
On the quick turnaround before playing Bournemouth again in the Premier League on Saturday….
That’s the good news. We’ll look different and we’ll play different. I’m not talking about things like the system or shape – I’m just talking about a level of individual performance.
If we get the three points, then I’d be relatively happy with the first part of the season and where we are in the league – you always want more, but it’s a competitive league and we’ve had a lot of challenges. That’s all my focus is on and this game only hones that focus more.
On Mason Holgate’s fitness…
Mason had a small issue with his knee at half-time, and I was aware of that. He seemed to hobble a bit after a pass before the second goal and then the goal happened. I was looking at possible changes early in the second half anyway, so it made sense to take Mason off.
