This is the first time I`ve ever come onto another teams forum so bear with me !
I just wanted to write a little something about Frank`s time at Everton and try to allay some of the fears that I`ve read about him as a manager.
As every man and his dog knows, we`re a clown show of a club and owned by an absolute clueless lunatic, who was the only person on the planet, to think it would be a good idea to appoint possibly the most hated manager of all time by Everton fans, Rafael Benitez.
Even worse, Benitez was given carte blanche by the idiot owner, to start ripping the club up from the inside out, which included getting rid of back room staff who were part of the fabric of the club and also getting rid of any players who he didn`t fancy or tow the line - James Rodriguez / Luca Digne.
It wasn`t long before the club and fans was tearing itself apart, both on and off the pitch, due to Mr Benitez and eventually the idiot owner woke up and realised that relegation was a very real possibility and a big chunk of his investment with it.
Enter Super Frankie Lampard.
The first thing he did and I really can`t underestimate how quickly he did this, was he got the fans on board with him. Not with platitudes or head patting, but with his genuine desire to do what was best for the team, the fans and the club.
He was like a breath of fresh air compared to Benitez and the fans took to him straight away and the doom and gloom was replaced by a real sense of optimism.
We all knew that there was no magic wand, no money ( PSR ), as the idiot owner had allowed other managers before Frank, to spend a fortune on mediocre players, on long contracts, who either wouldn`t go or no one wanted them. So Frank had to work with what he had.
Benitez favoured a backs to the wall, 4-4-1 formation, where the full backs pretty much never crossed the line and Frank replaced this with his favoured 4-3-3.
The problem with this, due to the mess other managers had got us into with signing duds, we didn`t have the players with the skills necessary to play in this system and things started to go wrong pretty quickly.
However, the fans still backed Frank to the hilt, as he was now one of us and we were in it together.
He showed that when needed to, he could be ruthless, by banishing Abdoulaye Doucoure to the U21`s for not training properly and just being an all round athletic donkey.
Even in the face of countless losses, Frank pretty much stayed loyal to his 4-3-3 system and in the end we just about stayed up with a game to spare and sadly the writng was on the wall for him.
No one rejoiced when Frank was sacked, we all knew it was coming, but we all wanted him to succeed, but to carry on trying to play 4-3-3 with such a set of limited players was only ever going to end one way for him.
He`s still looked upon very fondly at Everton, especially more so, we`ve got the Dycheosaurus at the helm now, who`s turned is into his Burnley side.
I`m hoping that his time out has given him time to reflect on his mistakes at Everton and this time he gets it right with your team.
I`ve no idea what system Robins played and the calibre of your players, as the only one I really know is ex Everton man Ellis Simms.
I wish you all the best with Frank at the helm and I can say with the utmost confidence, no matter what happens, you`ll all come to love the man.
