Everton boss Frank Lampard was pleased with Friday night’s friendly win against Dynamo Kyiv.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s early header and a second-half brace from new recruit Dwight McNeil ensured a convincing victory in Everton’s final pre-season fixture – the ‘Match for Peace’ – on Friday evening.
“I thought it was a really good evening,” Lampard told evertontv. “It was a great game – and for the reasons we played it, everyone really respected what it was there for.
“It was good for us, it was a really good start and we got an early goal with good football.
“We wanted to start brightly. Sometimes you have to put your own energy into these pre-season games. There was a big crowd today, which was great for us, but we also needed to inject our own energy and we did with our play. We were purposeful with our passes, playing some longer balls to get up the pitch, staying on the ball, creating some early chances and then the goal came. It was a nice start.
“They are a good technical team and they came into it a little bit at different times, but what we wanted out of the game was more fitness, the feeling of Goodison and working on some combinations with the way we want to play, because pre-season seems to have flown by for everyone.
“There are still a lot of things to improve but there were some good things on show.
“Then, having more than 30,000 inside Goodison was brilliant.
“I’ve got my two older daughters here tonight and they didn’t get a chance to come up at the back end of last season because it was too tense – I told them to stay at home! They were here and they couldn’t believe it.
“I’d told them about the atmosphere and even tonight, albeit a friendly, you feel it. You feel what this club means to the fans. The players certainly appreciate that.
“Our side of the bargain is to show them on the pitch how they feel – we have passion, we play to win, we fight for the team and we always do the basics. That has to be something that is a very clear identity of ours this year – that we’re all together, fighting in the same direction.”
