Everton manager Frank Lampard has explained what he asked for from his players when they returned to training after the defeat to Minnesota United.
Speaking after the 4-2 win at Blackpool today, Lampard said he re-iterated the need for improvements from his squad after what was a disappointing display to end the club's tour of the US.
And he saw an immediate reaction to his words this afternoon as Dele Alli scored twice and Vitalii Mykolenko and Tom Davies also got on the scoresheet as the Blues beat Championship outfield Blackpool. The seaside trip saw Everton notch their first goals of the summer - the 4-0 loss to Minnesota came after a 2-0 reverse to Arsenal - despite the absence of Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who missed out as a "precaution".
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Lampard insisted there remained room for improvement after a game that Everton largely controlled. But he believed the performance, backed by a sold-out away end, offered signs of a positive step forward.
The Blues boss, who returned to the UK on Thursday and took training on Saturday, said: "My words were we have got to improve. In terms of pre-season, the training was good. I can't complain about any of the effort in training. But in the games I think we were, firstly, short of fitness in terms of both opponents.
"Arsenal were on their third game and we were on our first. Minnesota were in mid-season. The Minnesota one I didn't like because of course we should have performed better, the players treated it a little bit 'lighter' than they should have done, if I am honest. But then I suppose when you look around at other results in pre-season across the board and you see some results that you don't expect."
Lampard said his coaching team went through how the squad could improve following the Minnesota defeat - in terms of both the performance at the Allianz Field and how the players were performing in general.
The comfortable win over Blackpool followed that work and Lampard acknowledged there had been a clear improvement, However, he was under no illusion that the win over the Seasiders meant that all questions of his side had been answered.
He said: "We only have to worry about ourselves and when you do have a result like that it is about reaction. We looked at parts of the Minnesota game, we looked at parts of our general game, what we want to do and how we want to be and today was much better."
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