Everton sack manager Frank Lampard

CHRIS BASCOMBE FROM TELEGRAPH

Frank Lampard has been sacked as Everton manager to become the seventh casualty of the Farhad Moshiri era.

Eleven days after being backed by the majority shareholder, Lampard was informed the club had decided to terminate his contract in an attempt to save the club from relegation.

Everton have slipped to 19th in the Premier League after a catastrophic run of results, Lampard unable to build on the climax to last season when he avoided the drop into the championship in the penultimate game.

The former Chelsea and England midfielder will leave Goodison Park having felt increasingly helpless to stop the downturn.

Last Friday he suggested that if the Premier League game at West Ham was his last as coach, he would leave believing he had ‘given everything’ to help the club.

Those sympathetic to Lampard will point out that he is the latest in a series of Everton managers who have found it impossible to reverse the steady decline towards the foot of the table. Of those Moshiri has appointed since purchasing a majority stake in the Merseyside club, only Carlo Ancelotti has avoided the sack as he left to join Real Madrid.

Everton’s ability to recruit top-class players has been compromised by the expensive mistakes of the past – especially in the early years of Moshiri’s reign – meaning Lampard was increasingly desperate in attempts to add firepower.

He lost last year’s top goalscorer Richarlison last season and was unable to find a like-for-like replacement, investing most of last summer’s funds by trying to steel up his backline with the free signing of James Tarkowski and loan deal for Wolves’ Conor Coady.