Everton players and Frank Lampard know what must…

Everton players and Frank Lampard know what must happen to strengthen bond with fans

Love hate relationship - it doesn't really come close to defining the oscillating feelings Evertonians felt towards Everton players last season.

At times in a tumultuous term the team were met with visceral invective after tepid defeats, voids of silence as the prospect of relegation swept over Goodison Park and eventually with wild adulation, as they secured Premier League safety in the most dramatic circumstances.

For fans, it was the equivalent of your child getting in later than planned from their first night out with friends.

You're angry at them for putting you through the anxiety, you've had a sleepless night, but in the end you're glad when they're safe and the fury subsides. After all, you love them really.

While fans have been back and forth in their opinions on a number of players, there's no denying that a bond was forged late last term with this squad. Evertonians poured everything into matchdays both at Goodison Park and away from home in the final throes of a desperate campaign, in what felt like an outside hope of reviving a flat-lining football team.

And to their credit, the players and the manager responded. Regardless of the context, they gave Evertonians some memorable days and nights at the Grand Old Lady as she edges closer to retirement in a couple of years time.

Frank Lampard will want to preserve that bond - something he also played a key role in establishing - for as long as possible this season. All the indications are that the fans want this blue amour fou to persist too, as plans are in place for a bus welcome and blue smoke aplenty when Chelsea rock up to Goodison Park on Saturday.

But that bond still feels brittle, even after the adversity those of royal blue persuasion went through together last season.

A lack of investment in the playing squad to replace departing talisman Richarlison - Dwight McNeil remains the only player Everton have paid a fee for this summer - has left some miffed. Some agitation has also been aimed towards the owners, chairman and board amid a summer of takeover speculation.

That is not the fault of the players, although there is an undeniable undercurrent of angst as another new season approaches. Going through it all again - the whirring pillow thoughts, the frenetic fixture checking and the incessant permutation plotting - is a fear for some.

It's a season in which expectations are low for Lampard and his squad, meaning fans are likely to be willing to show more patience and more perspective. Although it's much easier to say so in August before a ball has been kicked than in the depths of winter after a disappointing midweek loss.

Even so, in the end Evertonians are pretty basic in their demands. If you run hard, put yourself about and remain committed to the cause, you'll be fine regardless of ability. And if these players do those bare minimums, the squad is good enough in terms of talent to avoid another flirtation with relegation.

So want to stay in our good books, lads? Let us all get some kip.

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