Frank Lampard is only one game into his reign as Everton manager but already he’s ahead of most of his recent predecessors in one key respect.
Only once since September had the Blues tasted victory at Goodison Park before Saturday and on that occasion, they’d had to come from behind and not gone ahead against Arsenal until two minutes into stoppage time.
As glorious as that isolated Premier League highlight of the previous four months had been for Everton, it had not been a night they could enjoy until the very end.
Lampard’s bow against Brentford in the FA Cup was different though.
Ahead just after the half-hour mark – just the third time after August that the Blues had drawn first blood in a game – they also enjoyed the luxury of a two-goal cushion for almost the last half an hour before substitute Andros Townsend’s stoppage time effort added increased gloss.
Heady days indeed but this isn’t the factor that marks Lampard out from the others.
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He may have made history in terms of the margin of victory – the biggest for an Everton manager from his first game in charge – but getting off to a positive start has become de rigueur for a generation now.
Not since Attilio Lombardo put Crystal Palace on their way to a 2-1 win at Goodison Park back on August 9, 1997, to spoil Howard Kendall’s return for a third spell as Blues boss – a chilling portent to how that season would envelop for the club who would end up requiring a second final day ‘Great Escape’ in four years to avoid relegation on goal difference – has an Everton manager lost the first fixture of his tenure.
Indeed, after that, David Moyes, Sam Allardyce, Carlo Ancelotti and even Rafa Benitez all enjoyed home wins; Walter Smith and Ronald Koeman had 0-0 and 1-1 draws against Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur at Goodison while Roberto Martinez and Marco Silva – both beginning away – got 2-2 draws at Norwich City and Wolverhampton Wanderers respectively.
So this alone is nothing out of the ordinary.
No, when it comes to the six managers that Farhad Moshiri has appointed in less than six years since buying his controlling stake in the club, the area where Lampard already has the edge on all but one of his predecessors, comes from the stands rather than on the pitch.
The ECHO’s Everton correspondent Phil Kirkbride recorded it in his Verdict from Saturday’s game, writing: “It took only 50 minutes for the Gwladys Street, so often the thumping pulse of the Everton fan-base, to sing his name. The rest of Goodison joined in before the tie was over and then, again, after it was done and dusted.”
That in itself is no mean feat.
Indeed, only Ancelotti, the manager with whom Lampard won a Premier League and FA Cup double at Chelsea with in 2010, and whom the new Blues boss declared he will sound out in time over the job, was the only other of those hired by Mr Moshiri to be afforded that honour.
Speaking in his first press conference as Everton manager about the 62-year-old, Lampard revealed he has not made contract with his former gaffer but he will, stating: “Carlo is a gentleman and I will speak to him but I didn’t want any preconceptions.”
As one of the most-decorated coaches in the game, with three Champions Leagues and major honours in all of Europe’s ‘big five’ football nations, there was understandably hardly a dissenting voice when the stars aligned for Ancelotti, a victim of controversial Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis’ capricious nature, to become available at the same time that Silva had been dismissed after the Blues had dropped into the relegation zone.
With a glittering CV that spoke for itself, the Italian enjoyed almost universal approval at Goodison and chants of “Carlo Fantastico, Carlo Magnifico” bellowed out from the 1-0 Boxing Day win at home to Burnley onwards.
Lampard – like almost everyone else on the managerial circuit – does not boast such impeccable credentials though after just two previous posts at Derby County and Chelsea which could perhaps best be described as ‘mixed.’
He took the Rams to sixth place in the Championship in his only season in charge – the same position of the previous year – before losing the play-off final to Aston Villa.
Back at Stamford Bridge, the stage for the greatest achievements of his playing career, he recorded a fourth place finish in the Premier League in his only full campaign while also suffering more Wembley disappointment against Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal in the FA Cup final.
Cautionary notes that he recorded the lowest points-per-game average of any of Roman Abramovich’s managerial recruits at Chelsea can be tempered by the transfer embargo he had to endure at the start of his reign and the progress made by the youngsters he blooded.
Here though was a figure in the home dugout at Goodison who – in managerial stakes at least – remains for now something of an unknown quantity but Evertonians have immediately taken him to their hearts.
There was of course no crucial three points to be garnered from the success over Brentford – that’s what the team requires more than anything right now to stop the rot and increase the gap between themselves and the drop zone – but these players and these Blue fans needed an afternoon like they got on Saturday.
Here is a gifted bunch of individuals, who were second in the table as recently as Boxing Day last season.
While such a lofty status may be above their station, they should at least be safely encamped inside the top half of the Premier League given the talent they possess.
For whatever reason though, they lost their way badly under Lampard’s predecessor, the controversial and deeply-damaging Benitez.
After so much despondency and division under the former Liverpool manager, Evertonians now have a bit of pride, passion and crucially identity back… and under a Londoner whose goal condemned their club to defeat in their only cup final since 1995.
Lampard knows this is just the beginning – Martinez, whose name was sang with gusto early in his Everton reign – bizarrely appeared as the first name sounded out on the recent managerial search but he would have still been a hugely-divisive choice and that’s saying something after Benitez.
The same would have applied for Vitor Pereira, but thankfully on this occasion, those in Goodison’s corridors of power, seem to have listened to the mood music emanating from a browbeaten and long-suffering fanbase.
There are plenty more battles to be fought between now and May, with the hope that better days lie ahead after that, but Lampard now knows that he at least has the backing of those folks he labelled a ‘People’s Club’ in a statement that echoed Moyes’ words almost two decades ago.
