Frank Lampard believes there were plenty of positives for Everton to take from Friday night's FA Cup clash with Manchester United. 

The Blues suffered a 3-1 loss in the third round tie but it was a close-fought contest where the away side perhaps could have come away with a positive result if they had a bit more luck.

Lampard on the performance: “No one is happy in defeat, I am the worst, but you can control the performance, you can’t always control the result, but the performance was great, in lots of ways.  

"We can always be better, but the performance was good when you consider this is a Man United team in good form, their strongest team, they score after a few minutes, but then we show resilience, bravery on the ball, defensive organisation and work ethic, a bit like we did against City, but we were much dangerous tonight in the game and we had good chances in the game.   

"Forgetting the last goal because it came so late in the game, but at 2-1, I think we really deserved something out of the game."

Lampard on the spirit shown by his side: “I don’t doubt the character in this squad, sometimes it’s got to translate more onto the pitch and I think Brighton was one of those days, but these sorts of results are happening throughout the Premier League at the minute.   

“We have to get over ourselves as a squad and go ‘okay, what do we have to do to put that right?’.   

“The players showed that it’s not an easy period in between games because people want to talk, we just have to act, I thought the players did that tonight and I am really proud of them. It’s just unfortunate we couldn’t get the result that we maybe deserved."

Lampard on the improved attacking display: "Speed and decision of pass [looked good tonight], we can get better at that as well. It’s a hard one to coach, you can’t always set up the situation [on the training pitch] and say, ‘There’s your pass and that’s what it will look like on game day’, sometimes passes come and we miss it.   

“But today there were a lot of dangerous areas with good support coming very quickly, Seamus is making crosses, and we are joining in from midfield at the right time, so we have got speed in our game.   

“We can always be more clinical because you see what players like the level of [Marcus] Rashford can do, he doesn’t score an open-play goal, but that clinical nature he has, that’s what Demarai is doing for us at the minute but as a team can we get better at it because those things mean points and results." 

Lampard on Demarai Gray’s form: “That’s what he got, you want to see it consistently because he’s got incredible speed and ability on the ball. Now he’s got himself a couple of goals and I think he’s in a really good moment.  

“We saw that today, we got him into really good positions inside their box, going one-against-one with people, so he’s in really good form.   

“Others around him need to push themselves and get up to that sort of form. We have other threats, and it can’t all just be Demarai. We saw bits today where others joined but Demarai certainly deserves credit right now.”  

Lampard on taking tonight’s performance forward: “We have to transmit [this performance] forward. Take confidence from it and treat every game with the same kind of spirit and focus that we did today. We saw what that can do at the back end of last season with some big games people didn’t expect us to win and we won, so we have to take it forward."

Lampard on Iwobi: "We hope it's not too serious. It is an ankle ligament injury, we hope it’s a lesser one. He will have a scan tomorrow to confirm."

Lampard on the Southampton clash: “We will have to manage the game because it will be built up to be an important game because of where they are in the table, what three points would do to us to change the picture and maybe move us two or three spaces higher in the table.   

“They [players] need to focus, we will manage that focus, there have been three big games in a week, two at big clubs. They have given everything, so they need a bit of rest and the build into the game and understand what it means for this club.  

“Every game should be the same as an Everton player, you play at Goodison, and you have to understand what it means and what the fans want to see. If we play like today, you see the fans clapping at the end, play like that at Goodison and you will have 40,000 clapping.   

“In a football sense, the fans are knowledgeable, they know what they want from their team, but they also respect when a team show bravery, show spirit and they saw that tonight. When they see that, they will be happy as a baseline, but we want to win games, of course.”  

“Everyone's going to ask about the fans, will it be positive or not, we need to block that out and think as players about what can we do in the game, we will prepare with all those things in mind in a football sense, then the responsibility is on us to try and win that game."