Vitalii Mykolenko: "I worked with Benitez for ten days, and for ten of those days I didn't know where I was"

Everton and Ukraine defender Vitalii Mykolenko told what advice former Toffees coach Frank Lampard gave him.

"I can't compare Lampard with Benitez. I worked with Benitez for ten days, and for ten of them I didn't understand where I was. I worked with Lampard for almost a year. He is a good man who gave me a chance to play at Everton. You don't just play one match and not the next.

There was a moment when there was a pause in the national team's matches, and our matches were postponed. Lampard called me into his office, showed me a cut of my actions in the Champions League matches against Bayern Munich and Barcelona, matches for the national team, and said: "Look, you are a top player. Few people in this team have played at this level. You just need to relax". After this conversation, I came out for the next match in the starting line-up and continued to play in the base. He gave me confidence.

Did Mudryk help you adapt and work with Lampard? When Lampard took over at Chelsea, both teams were not in the best position. So it's a question of who needed to ask for advice from whom. Unless we both asked Zinchenko. However, at that time Arsenal had already dropped to second place. In other words, everyone was not doing very well. Everyone was silent," said Mykolenko.