‘Have you got the b******* to play?’ – Frank Lampard questions Everton players’ mentality following Crystal Palace defeat as Jamie O’Hara says Chelsea legend right to ‘dig out’ stars

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Frank Lampard has cast doubt over his Everton team by questioning if they have the ‘b*******’ to play.

The Toffees have endured a torrid season so far but showed signed of improvement last Thursday after recording a last-gasp victory over Newcastle United at Goodison Park.

Supporters were hoping that they could follow that result up with a positive display against Crystal Palace in the FA Cup, however Lampard’s side slumped to a heavy 4-0 defeat at Selhurst Park.

With Everton going into the international break on the back of a significant low, Lampard says that he’s facing a battle to get his squad mentally prepared for what’s to come.

He said: “There is only so much you can keep trying to butter someone up to get confidence.

“You’re playing at the cut-throat end of football; this is the FA Cup quarter-finals.

“If you haven’t got the confidence to play, you can flip it and say: ‘Have you got the b******* to play?’ Apologies but that’s the football term.

“We didn’t play that badly today, Palace didn’t play that well. It was a lack of confidence, and a lack of what I just said. It wasn’t tactics. Palace couldn’t get out of their half in the first 20 minutes.”

He added: “It’s a challenge because it’s been there quite a long time before I got here. I don’t have a magic wand to get inside people’s heads and change the resilience across a whole squad.

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“That’s a work in progress. So we just have to work on that, as frustrating as it is for me and for the 4,000 fans who travelled down.

“Every time we win people talk about momentum, every time we lose people talk about damage done,” he said. “In reality we need to be bigger and stronger than that.”

Jamie O’Hara was supportive of Lampard’s comments during his appearance on talkSPORT Breakfast and expressed his belief that Everton don’t have the players to battle their way out of trouble.

He said: “It’s a shocking, shocking result for them off the back of the Newcastle game.

“Lampard is right, he’s digging out the players and there’s only so many times you can put your arms around the lad, it’s like ‘come on’, you’re professional athletes, professional footballers, make it happen. Go and turn up for your team.

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“I know what he’s trying to say. He’s basically saying that there’s too many players in his team that go missing and there’s too many that are hiding.

“When you’re in poor situations you really find out the players who you can rely on.

“You can have players who run around like headless chickens and make tackles, that’s all well and good, well done. But the players who have got the balls to get on the ball in pressurised situations when your back’s against the wall, you need someone to say ‘I will get on the ball and I will make the team play, and make something happen’.

“They’re the players that you want in a dogfight and I don’t think that Everton have got those players.”

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