Everton: Frank Lampard has lifted the fans, now it's time for the players to step up - Leon Osman analysis

 

Saturday's home game against Leeds is absolutely huge for Everton's season, and their Premier League survival.

I can't help but be worried about my old club because of their dismal form, which is the worst in the top flight. For months now, it has not taken much to out-fight them and it is too easy to score goals against them.

Whichever way you look at it, they are in a relegation battle and, to get themselves out of this mess, Everton need to find a way of becoming Everton again. By that, I mean playing with confidence and freedom but also showing the tenacity and tough tackling that is in the club's DNA.

Everton won four of their first seven league games this season, and lost only one of them. At that stage, they had 13 points more than Norwich, who were bottom of the table

The onus is on new manager Frank Lampard to sort out their problems and stop their slide down the table, and in less than two weeks at the club he has already brought so much positivity back for the fans. Now it is time for the players to step up too.

When I look through this Everton team, I think they lack leaders - that's what they miss when the going gets tough in games, because who does the team turn to?

Seamus Coleman has been that guy for a long time, and he is still there and still captain of course, but every good team has got three or four leaders on the pitch - and the very best have 11 of them.

At the moment, there is only one voice you are hearing during Everton games and, in the situation they are in, they need to find more characters.

Everton have picked up only five points in the past 132 days and are now only two points above Norwich and the relegation zone after losing their past four league matches. They are on the worst run of form of any Premier League side with only one win from their past 15 league games

'Everyone knew we were in it together'

I was a first-team player at Everton for more than 15 years and, there were plenty of different players who stood up during difficult periods and spoke out to the rest of the squad.

When I was on the cusp of the team as a teenager, I saw how Dave Watson would speak to us and operate as captain.

As time went on, it became David Weir, Alan Stubbs and Duncan Ferguson who would maintain standards and make it clear what playing for Everton was all about.

Then I started to become one of those players myself. It was myself, Phil Jagielka, Leighton Baines and Tony Hibbert whose voices started to become louder, and Tim Cahill too.

Osman spent 25 years at Everton after joining them aged 10 in 1991 and 352 of his 433 appearances for the Toffees came in the Premier League. "I was murder to be around for a few days if Everton lost," Osman told the club's programme before the Merseyside derby in October 2020. "I still am."

Sometimes you would just have to remind people that they had their own personal pride to protect by working as hard as they could.

More than anything, though, we made sure that whatever happened, everyone knew that we were in it together.

Get that right and it gives you a real 'us against the world' mentality. It can make you run that extra five yards, or stretch a bit further for that tackle - that kind of thing.

That's what I'm looking for from the Everton players now.

Lampard has got work to do on the training ground, and he needs to get his messages across quickly to the squad about what he wants from them and their playing style, but the team is seriously lacking in confidence at the moment. To change that, the senior players have a role to play as well as the manager.

In my day, it was a case of four or five of us getting together and discussing what we would do the next time something went against us during a match.

That might just have meant making sure we put a lot of tackles in for five minutes or so, or playing the ball forward and getting up behind it to get the crowd going. In some cases it meant - briefly - going against the message the manager was giving us but, however you do it, you need to have a way of making sure the team stays together, and stays in the game.

What difference will the fans make?

Everton 'must not let heads drop' after Newcastle defeat - Lampard

Everton's main issues at the moment are at the back. I feel they've got enough creativity and attacking threat to start winning again, but you can't give the opposition two or three goals a game and expect your forwards to get you out of jail.

On Saturday, Leeds will offer a challenge that's unique to pretty much every other team in the Premier League, with their energetic man-to-man style of play and the way they track you all over the pitch.

So it will be a very different game, but one that probably suits Everton's situation at the moment because their individual players will each have a direct opponent.

If they can each out-work him, out-fight him and out-play him to win their personal battle, and most of their team-mates can do the same, they will come out on top against Leeds as a team.

The fans will feed off that effort too, which will be massive. One of the things that Lampard already has on his side that his predecessor, Rafael Benitez, never enjoyed is the full backing of the Goodison Park crowd.

If you were at the Brentford FA Cup game last weekend, you would have felt it and you would have seen it. It will be the same against Leeds, and everyone will be pulling in the same direction. That makes a huge difference to the Everton players - I know myself how Goodison can drag you through certain games.

When the fans are right behind you, and you are giving them something to cheer about and things are tight in a big game, then it is absolutely the best place to play your football, ever.

But when things are going against you, the team is not playing well and there are a lot of nerves and negativity in the stadium, then it can be a difficult place to play football.

It has been that way for quite a large part of this season for the players. Now, under Frank, we know it will be very different.

Desire, energy... and confidence?

Calvert-Lewin celebrates after scoring against Leeds on 21 August. The 24-year-old England striker found the net in each of Everton's first three Premier League games of 2021-22. Injury has restricted him to three appearances since then, and he is yet to add to his tally. He didn't play in either of Lampard's two games in charge so far

If things are going to get better then Dominic Calvert-Lewin is going to play a big part. Traditionally, Everton are a team and a club that love strikers - we love our number nines.

Calvert-Lewin ticks all the boxes with regards to what we want to see, because he leads the line so well and he scores goals too.

Now they have to create opportunities for him. That is potentially where Lampard's loan signings, Dele Alli and Donny van de Beek come in, but they are also goalscorers themselves.

They both needed a fresh start and both have something to prove. What those two in particular will bring is energy and a willingness to run beyond the ball and without it, to create room for others in the team.

Up until now, Everton have been quite static behind the ball and trying to play on the counter-attack - the Brentford game was different and that game was a good sign of what we can expect under Lampard in terms of desire and energy.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of that on Saturday, and it will hopefully be the time when the team gets its confidence back too, as well as picking up three crucial points.

Leon Osman was speaking to BBC Sport's Chris Bevan.