Former Everton goalkeeper Neville Southall has called on the players of his old club to create a 'siege mentality' as they aim to avoid Premier League relegation.
The Blues dropped into the bottom three on Sunday after Burnley beat Wolves 1-0 at Turf Moor before they missed the chance to climb immediately back out of it by going down 2-0 at Liverpool.
However, the Merseyside derby defeat was not without controversy. Anthony Gordon went down in the Liverpool box under pressure from Joel Matip early in the second- alf but referee Stuart Attwell dismissed the penalty appeals and VAR did not deem it suitable for intervention and play continued.
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The call left manager Frank Lampard miffed after the game and Everton have now written to the PGMOL over why more consideration was not given to the claim. But the result leaves the Blues fighting for their Premier League survival.
They are currently two points behind Burnley in the table, although they do have a game in hand on their relegation rivals And Southall believes his old club must focus on themselves and use the fact they are being written off by some as motivation to survive.
“That’s all that matters now, playing Chelsea and trying to get a result against them. It doesn't matter what Burnley do, or anybody else does,” he told Sky Sports.
“We will stay in this division by doing what we need to do. Don’t rely on anyone else, rely on yourselves. And you have got to have a siege mentality.
“You have got to go, you know what there’s nobody initially that wants us to stay up, there’s nobody in the media that wants us to stay up.
“You know what we need to do it ourselves and then we can shove it back in their faces at the end of the season. That’s what they need to be thinking about.”
Next up for Everton is a home game against Chelsea at Goodison Park on Sunday. But despite having a difficult run-in on paper, Southall believes there is no reason why Everton can’t pick up points in all their remaining games.
He said: “Why can’t we get them from every one of them? You are always looking at the negatives. Why can’t we beat Chelsea?
“Chelsea can be beaten because they are human. Leicester, Watford and Brentford are all beatable. Arsenal away will be a tough game but they are beatable.
“You see it as a real negative but I don’t see these games as negatives. I don’t see them as negatives. Do I want to play against Chelsea? Yeah, you are right I do because I want to test myself against the best. The middle ones are going to be iffy ones for us, I think.
“They are in and around us and they are not world class teams. I think they will be the dodgy ones. When we play against all the big teams, we have done okay performance wise.
“We just need to grind out results against the others. People have said you have got a hard run-in. Everybody has got a hard run-in, it is the Premier League, the best league in the world.
“There is nothing easy about any game. So don’t worry about any of the other games. Chelsea is the only focus. That’s for the fans and everyone, they all need to focus on one thing and that is a result against Chelsea.”
