Lampard puts Everton loss at Burnley down to ‘individual mistakes’

Everton manager Frank Lampard has said his players “certainly know now” that they are in a relegation fight after their defeat at Burnley.

The Toffees were beaten 3-2 at Turf Moor on Wednesday night. The result puts them one point above the Clarets, who are 18th in the Premier League.

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It was a bitterly disappointing result for Lampard’s side who have a tough test against Manchester United this weekend to look forward to.

Lampard told BBC Sport: “It’s the points isn’t it? We’re now a point ahead of Burnley. We knew the rules before the game if you win it you have a nice little gap. That’s the situation.

“It’s football, in three days we have to recover for our next game. We had mistakes for their goals and mistakes in not being clinical enough to take the numerous chances that should have had us clear at that point.

“But 2-1, the way we were playing in the second half was for us to go and score and make it 3-1. We don’t do that. Then we just concede from individual mistakes.”

The former Chelsea boss continued: “I anticipated the atmosphere, because of the league positions, I expected that and I thought we handled it well in the first half, particularly the reaction to going 1-0 down.

“With the first half we could be relatively happy. You have to deal with certain things coming to Burnley, particularly on a night like this. I thought we dealt with them well in the first half. But those crucial moments in the second half changed the game.

“Our players have to keep going, they’re not silly. They know that they have to keep going, we have nine games to go. We’re just above the zone so if we didn’t know we were in a fight before then we certainly know now.

“There are nine