‘Have you got the b******s to play? – Frank Lampard tears into Everton flops after FA Cup hammering at Crystal Palace
EVERTON boss Frank Lampard has slammed his stars after they were humiliated by Crystal Palace.
The Toffees were thrashed 4-0 at Selhurst Park on Sunday and missed out on a place in the semi-finals of the FA Cup.
Afterwards, the irate manager laid into his flops – asking if they had the “b******* to play.”
Lampard said after the final whistle: “There is only so much you can keep trying to butter someone up to get confidence.
“You’re playing at the cut-throat end of football; this is the FA Cup quarter-finals. If you haven’t got the confidence to play, you can flip it and say: ‘Have you got the bollocks to play?’ Apologies but that’s the football term.
“We didn’t play that badly today, Palace didn’t play that well. It was a lack of confidence, and a lack of what I just said. It wasn’t tactics. Palace couldn’t get out of their half in the first 20 minutes.”
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When quizzed about how Lampard changes the club’s fortune, he pinned the blame on his predecessors.
It’s a challenge because it’s been there quite a long time before I got here,” he said.
“I don’t have a magic wand to get inside people’s heads and change the resilience across a whole squad. That’s a work in progress.
“So we just have to work on that, as frustrating as it is for me and for the 4,000 fans who travelled down.”
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Lampard was appointed Everton boss in January following the sacking of Rafa Benitez.
But he has lost all four of his first away games as manager – equalling the records of Cliff Britton (1948) and Ian Buchan (1956).
In all competitions, he has lost six of his first 10 games since becoming boss.
Everton return to action on April 3, when they play West Ham in a crucial Premier League game.
They currently sit three points above the relegation zone, but have two games in hand over 17th placed Watford.