Frank Lampard has called on Everton to grasp the opportunity to go into the World Cup break on a positive note with victory at Bournemouth on Saturday, adding his team must show “resilience, desire and determination” at Vitality Stadium.
Speaking at his pre-match press conference, the Everton manager also revealed the Club are “certainly considering” bolstering their attacking options in the January transfer window.
The Blues go into Saturday’s clash on the back of a Carabao Cup defeat to Bournemouth – a result Lampard believes will have no bearing on this weekend’s Premier League encounter.
Everton are currently 16th in the league standings, but just two points behind 11th-placed Brentford in a congested table.
“It’s a blank sheet,” said Lampard. “There will be different teams for both of us and it’s a different competition. Of course, we will make changes and Bournemouth will, too.
“In terms of ourselves, we’re going back to a stadium where we didn’t perform well enough [on Tuesday]. We have to take that as a collective and put it right. It would be really nice to go into a big break for the World Cup with a win. There’s no doubt.
“It’s important to be resilient constantly and understand the process of where we want to get to.
“It’s a season where you can get three points and be a point or goal difference away from the top half of the table. We will push to try to get a result at the weekend, then everyone then goes home with a bit of positivity, and the table will look better.
“Bournemouth have a good record at home this season and it will be a tough Premier League away game.
“At times this season, we’ve gone away and got results we maybe wouldn’t have previously – I’m talking about the games at Leeds, Brentford and winning at Southampton. That’s certainly progress, but we want more.”
On the prospect of Everton doing business in the January transfer window, Lampard said: “We’re certainly considering it. The reality is we lost Richarlison, who was a big source of goals, and we haven’t really had Dominic [Calvert-Lewin], who was a big source of goals.
“When we looked at the summer window, the priority was certainly to stop conceding, be more solid, then work through midfield. Maybe the next step is to give us ourselves more options in an attacking sense to help the squad.
“More options can be a good thing because, over the course of the season, you want to change things up and have others to call on who can give you something different in attacking areas. We’re well aware of that.”
While underlining the importance of his team being more clinical in front of goal, Lampard also explained how increasing Everton’s attacking threat is not solely the responsibility of Everton’s forwards.
Discussing the key performance metrics he wants to improve, Lampard said: “It’s not a situation to just isolate the front part of the team.
“We have to look at how much we’re in the opposition half, how many crosses we make, how many shots we have... there are a lot of things we can work on.”
He added: “We were never going to go from where we were last year to become a team fighting for Europe straight away. We understand the process and we have to keep working towards it.”
