We’re in a mess. Surely we can all agree on that it’s pretty obvious? As supporters, we tend to agree on general issues when it comes to Everton, but how to fix the mess seems to divide us.
Continuous glimpses at my phone over the last 48 hours hasn’t delivered the news I’ve been hoping for – Marco Silva has been sacked by Everton Football Club. Sacked, left by mutual consent, I don’t care for the particulars at this point, I simply want him moved on.
I’ve felt for some time he isn’t at the calibre required to move us forward, nothing personal, I’m sure he works incredibly hard, of course he wants to be a success, but at this stage in his career he’s evidently out of his depth. I struggle how anyone can defend his position at this stage. In fact it baffles me. A team is always a reflection of the manager.
Murmurs circulating suggest Silva has the West Ham game to either bide him a bit of time or send him down the river. If there’s any truth to this then I worry about the sanity of Everton FC as an entity, specifically the decision-makers. The rationale underpinning this is berserk, even if we win, it’s akin to putting a strip of toilet paper over a gushing arterial bleed. It’s tired, it’s spent, it’s stale and fundamentally its wrong; the manger has to go now.
If we procrastinate on this decision it indicates to me that we haven’t really changed, inaction on important decisions has cost Everton dearly in the past and as I glance again at my phone looks like it could do again.
After Burnley I wanted Everton to show some assertiveness, decisiveness and demonstrate that we’re not going to accept mediocrity anymore, the fact mediocre is enviable at the moment highlights where we are. Inevitably we’ve had silence followed by the West Ham saviour game rumblings, It’s patronising and predictably pathetic.
But aren’t we too accepting of it all? We might like to think we aren’t as we squabble amongst ourselves, but the truth is we are. We allow it to happen. We let Everton get away with it. Maybe we’re pathetic too? The evidence is there, it’s been a quarter of a century since we won anything, as the main fella said we’re Everton aren’t we? We ain’t no Mickey Mouse club.
We accept mediocrity as supporters, in fact there’s a section of us that encourage it, evident now more than ever with the current debacle. Allow me to caveat what’s coming by saying that there’s some great Everton podcasts, Everton dedicated media outlets and individuals in our local press. However, these people have a voice, have influence, they’re supposed to be representative of supporters, an authority and some of them by backing the manger now demonstrates clearly how we encourage this nonsense.
Opinions are the cheapest commodities in the world, everyone’s entitled to them and although sometimes cheap they should be respected. I get that. What I take umbrage to is some of the reasoning telling me why I’m wrong from wanting the manager out now.
This isn’t exhaustive, but apparently I just don’t understand football – I lack education in the intricacies of the game, I’m knee jerk, reactionary, can’t recognise the project, I don’t understand recruitment, I lack the ability to comprehend how injuries are hampering us and the classic who is going to come in? I can sense their arrogance, their belief that they’re so much more cultured by calling for patience, it drives my mad. I don’t want to hear another pretentious hipster aroused by their own intelligence explaining to me why I’m a degenerate for wanting Silva sacked on a podcast ever again. It’s not what I want to read in articles either.
There’s undoubtedly wider problems at Everton but the one staring at us in the face weekly is the manager. It’s not hidden and it’s not subtle. So why are we reluctant to address it head on? No, instead we skirt around the edges and turn our attention to blaming Brands, the wider coaching setup, players mentality, players desire and even Moshiri. There’s merit in these points but fundamentally matters on the pitch are solely the responsibility of the manager. That’s it.
The alarming shouts for the return of Moyes, the bizarre logic of keeping the manager because ‘there’s nobody else’, the cries for stability despite the house burning down, the worry that others will see us as a sacking club and the steadfast insistence of hanging in there with this manager due to the wider picture/the project; these are some of the reasons why it’s our fault, why we don’t progress and why any hope of tangible success seems so far away.
At some point on this bumpy journey we’ve lost our way, we’ve been lulled into acceptance, drained of hope and unforgivably let our standards slip so far adrift we no longer have any reference point. We don’t even know how to define our success as a club anymore. As an Evertonian it’s a tragic thing.
We have to take some collective responsibility ourselves. The resources are there now, let’s set some proper standards ourselves, this shouldn’t be happening we should stop pretending it’s okay, stop turning a blind eye to regression and let’s demand more – we’ve been patient enough.