Micah Richards has disagreed with Jamie Carragher’s claims over Everton’s defence but has insisted that the club face a “very tough” task to avoid relegation.
The Blues fell to a narrow 1-0 defeat to Wolves at the weekend to leave themselves level on points with 18th-placed Watford. Although, Frank Lampard’s side do have several games in hand on those clubs around the bottom three.
When discussing Everton’s fortunes after their 5-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur earlier this month, former Liverpool defender Jamie Carrragher highlighted the quality of Everton’s attacking options - but labelled the team’s defence as “a Championship back-four” . However, ex-Manchester City captain Micah Richards has disagreed with Carragher’s assessment, though the former England defender does believe that Blues boss Lampard has a battle on his hands.
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“I know people have said that Everton’s back line is a ‘Championship defence’, I wouldn’t go as strong as that,” Richards told the Monday Night Club on BBC Radio Five Live . “I think there are some good players in there, I don’t know if they’ve found the right rhythm and whether they should play four at the back, five at the back or a three,
“The appointment of Lampard, he likes to play on the front foot. He’s expansive, he wants attacking football. But when you’re in a dogfight you can’t play attacking football because if you concede the first goal, Everton are not scoring enough goals at the moment to get them out of that.
“I still think Everton will stay up. I believe they have enough quality to stay but they’ve got to be careful because it can happen to anyone.”
Richards went on to highlight his own experiences of relegation with Aston Villa. The 33-year-old was captain as Villa dropped out of the top-flight in 2016, having amassed a dismal 17 points.
After his fellow pundits highlighted several of the Blues' high-profile signings in recent years, Richards suggested that this Everton side could be the best team “on paper” to ever be relegated from the Premier League. And though he believes they will survive, he warned the club not to take safety for granted.
“Everton have never been out of the Premier League so they don’t expect to be in this position and that just brings more pressure. They brought in Lampard and we all thought he was going to be a great fit and he might turn out to be if they stay up,” he continued.
“But right now they've got the expectations of a great club, great history, the fans are so passionate and they’ve got an inexperienced manager at the helm. If you look at their fixtures going forward, it is very, very tough.
“No club is too good to go down.”
