Seamus Coleman on Everton’s end of season ‘celebrations’

Everton supporters flooded the Goodison Park pitch after their side came from 2-0 down to beat Crystal Palace 3-2.

The win confirmed that the Toffees had avoided relegation from the Premier League, leaving Leeds United and Burnley in danger heading into the final game.

The club had faced criticism from rival fans, with some suggesting Everton were overreacting to the win and were celebrating failure. Club captain Coleman disagrees.

“Yeah, I get what it can look like from the outside,” said Coleman. “You see teams celebrating staying up and at times it can look a bit over the top.

“That was a massive game for us to win. We won’t want to remember the season for obvious reasons, but we’ll remember that game for the way we were galvanised and how we came back.

“I just have to re-emphasise that it was just relief, massive relief. We are a massive football club who shouldn’t have been in that position, but we were. There has to be lessons learnt from the club as a whole and from the players about last season.

“We have to understand where we were last season and people were well within their rights to question us. In the end, the lads showed some great character to get us back out of the situation we were in.”

Coleman believes that the impact made by manager Frank Lampard has had a significant impact on the club, with Sunday night’s 2-1 defeat to Manchester United not denting his belief that Everton have the right man in charge.

“It was tough for us all last season, tough for the manager as well,” claimed Coleman. “He just came in every day with that steely determination that you know he has, he has that desire to do well.

“He really connected with the Everton fans. I’ve not seen a manager connect with the fans in a long, long time. They understand what he is trying to do at the football club.

“We were in a bad place at the time he came in, I’m sure even he didn’t realise how fractured it all was, but he did his utmost to bridge that gap.”