It’s said that the darkest hour is just before dawn and Everton currently find themselves in a paradoxical situation of short term peril while maintaining long term hope under Frank Lampard.
It’s still less than a month since Lampard first walked through the entrance door at Finch Farm – on transfer deadline day no less – but he and his staff have been a breath of fresh air at Everton ever since.
Although a Londoner who spent the majority of his playing career in the capital, winning multiple honours with Chelsea – including scoring the winner against Everton in the club’s last cup final in 2009 – might at first glance have appeared to be an unlikely unifying force at what just prior to his arrival was a deeply fractured Goodison Park, the 43-year-old now has everyone connected with the Blues, both on and off the pitch, pulling in the same direction.
Even fans’ idol Duncan Ferguson’s presence in the dugout as caretaker manager against Aston Villa could not prevent a fervent post-match sit-in protest against the club’s hierarchy at the ground and the prospect of the circus that could have followed Vitor Pereira’s arrival after the car crash television created by the Portuguese journeyman’s on-air phone call to Sky Sports doesn’t bear thinking about.
The new regime in the Everton dugout – and there’s a highly-accomplished backroom team behind Lampard - have restored pride and passion.
The team are actually attempting to play something that resembles in some sense ‘The School of Science’ or anything that the long-suffering supporters might actually appreciate and put some new life into what some have described as Rafa Benitez’s ‘zombie football’ that got them into this mess in the first place, sleepwalking towards the drop.
Beleaguered Blues have therefore taken Lampard to heart as he was afforded the honour of being just the second manager appointed by Farhad Moshiri to have his name chanted (positively) by the fans, an accolade he shares with his former Chelsea gaffer Carlo Ancelotti.
Those cries from the stands came in the 4-1 win against Brentford where he enjoyed the largest ever margin of victory from an Everton boss in his first game in charge.
Such footnotes will mean nothing though if Lampard becomes the manager to take the club down for the first time since 1951.
The Blues are in a curious spot right now.
The aforementioned emphatic success against Thomas Frank’s Bees was of course in an FA Cup tie.
Providing Everton don’t suffer a huge slip-up at home to non-league Boreham Wood on Thursday night, they should find themselves in the quarter-final draw and just 90 minutes away from a Wembley appearance that could lift spirits going into the spring and the Premier League run-in.
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Roberto Martinez might have left Wigan Athletic a hero when he joined the Blues in 2013 having steered them to FA Cup glory but suffered relegation in the same month and such an outcome could not be tolerated at Goodison, even if it did end the longest trophy drought in the club’s history.
Results in Everton’s bread and butter competition, where points are needed on the board as quickly as possible, have largely not yet been forthcoming.
The 3-0 victory over Leeds United was the Blues’ best display of the season but so far stands alone as an anomaly after reversals against Newcastle United, Southampton and now Manchester City.
It remains Everton’s only Premier League win since December 6 and their Yorkshire opponents’ subsequent defeats (4-2 to Manchester United; 6-0 to Liverpool and 4-0 to Tottenham Hotspur) which have ended Marcelo Bielsa’s reign have also put it into context somewhat.
While the Blues got scant reward for their impressive efforts against Manchester City though and were robbed of the chance to score what would have been a deserved equaliser from the penalty spot after Rodri’s blatant handball was not deemed worthy of a second look for referee Paul Tierney by on duty VAR official Chris Kavanagh, the way they went toe-to-toe with reigning Premier League champions and leaders showed that under Lampard they should not be relegation fodder.
Saturday evening showed that come May, while still not anywhere near where they’d like to be, Everton should at least have moved clear of the danger zone.
But even if the early signs show that Lampard’s rescue mission can prove successful and they avoid drowning, the quirks of the fixture schedule could ensure their heads are dunked below the water before they have the chance to add to their own tally.
With the Blues not kicking off until later, fans were left waiting anxiously in the hope that Burnley wouldn’t find a late winner at Crystal Palace that would have placed them in the relegation zone.
Such ignominy was avoided as the game at Selhurst Park finished 1-1 but if the Clarets take anything at all from their home match against Leicester City on Tuesday night then Sean Dyche’s side will leapfrog Lampard’s men and leave them in the bottom three.
They’ve been that low in the past at the times of Ronald Koeman’s and Marco Silva’s sackings but that was in October and December respectively.
This would be March.
With adjustments for three points for a win taken into consideration, Everton have not been so badly placed this deep into a season since they last went down at a time when King George VI was still on the throne.
You don’t need this correspondent to remind you that this year Queen Elizabeth II – this country’s longest-reigning monarch – celebrates her Platinum Jubilee having worn the crown for 70 years.
In many ways, the Blues only have themselves to blame for such a pickle given that their loss at St James’ Park in Lampard’s first away game allowed Newcastle United – who now sit in the relatively dizzying heights of 14 th but with only three points more than Everton – to spark a revival.
It’s become rather concertinaed towards the foot of the table and cool heads will be needed in the difficult days ahead.
Lampard is acutely aware of that and fortunately appears to possess one.
Things should get better for browbeaten Evertonians under his stewardship but in terms of league position they might, for a time, still get worse before they do.
