Is there something wrong with our players?

[billyblue80]

A mish mash of a squad with mentally weak players lacking in mobility and fight.

 

[Alanbileysfeathercut]

Our bravehearts?
How dare you....
All down to antiquated training methods.
Bit of running.
5 a side,then home in time for loose women.

 

[The Penalty Box Dancer]

Square pegs, round holes. Players brought in with no structure or remit in place. Drastic changes in management and personnel. No expectations in place.

 

[tsubaki]

Some of them have had years of failure beaten into them, and it shows.

Also I think we've repeatedly tried to play possession football without ever really making it work, which has added to the failure above. All of our best performances - Martinez' first season, Koeman vs City at home, Silva vs United at home, Carlo vs the RS away, Benitez vs Burnley and Arsenal - have come from quick, counter-attacking style football but we do not in the main sign or play players like that.

Look at @Zeitgeist's list - Klassen was slow, Iceland was slow, Rooney was slow, Iwobi is not fast, Tosun is slow. Rondon is very slow and yet we persist with him rather than trying faster players in that position. Davies was formerly someone who burst forward (as against City and as he threatened to do against United) yet we coached that out of him. We can certainly have one or two slower players in some positions - Allan for example, or one of the CBs when playing against grocks, but we've frequently played way too many which teams find it very easy to defend against.

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Surely Andre gomes coming from Valencia and then Barca should be able to hold onto the ball?

I understand the pace argument but I expect Allan and Gomes and Delph to hold onto the ball well in possession not get pressured into misplacing a pass?

This, for me, is the biggest concern. Just an absolute inability to use the ball. We don't do possession. We don't do rapid transitions to runners between lines / on fast breaks at all well. And it's been a problem for several years and regimes.

 

[ElGato]

6 managers each allowed to sign 2-3 players = squad that doesn't complement eachother in terms of style of play.

Some of those signings are just straight up bad at football (Michael Keane, Iwobi) some of them have the right mentality/quality but are over the hill (Delph, Townsend) and the others need good players around them to develop (Ben God, Nkounkou)

Evidently there is an internal structure which is misaligned with a style of play - and is also preventing youth players from coming through and challenging the quality of the first team.

This in turn is leading to complacency and the acceptance of mediocrity. Other than Jameth and Allan, I can't think of a single other signing who is ambitious enough - most of the team (Sigurdsson, Gomes) are content with mid-table form.

There is a massive squad gulf between first XI and the bench which means the inevitable injuries leaves us horrendously exposed.

Deep fissures all round. Part of me feels like two more transfer windows, if we strengthen in the right place, could go a long way to correcting this, but it feels like we have gone backwards in the last 6 months

 

[Bluewolf]

Yes. They aren't very good and they don't care about losing enough.

Which is why we cannot afford such an inept, divisive manager as well.

We need a young manager to rip this squad apart.

But the issue is that young managers won't get time because as soon as they hit a rough patch they get labelled as "unproven" and old managers get labelled as "past it".

We as a fan base have no patience with managers now and thats mainly down to the fact that the higher ups have been unbelievably incompetent in hiring managers in the first place.

We havent had 1 manager who was what I'd call a everton manager.

 

[Howard's Way]

The players are a disgrace .......overpaid bunch of pansies not fit to lace the boots of Howard Kendall

 

[Bluewolf]

This, for me, is the biggest concern. Just an absolute inability to use the ball. We don't do possession. We don't do rapid transitions to runners between lines / on fast breaks at all well. And it's been a problem for several years and regimes.

One of our biggest issues is none of our players know what their doing with the ball until after they receive it.

Every player goes:
Touch,
Touch again (because the first touch was bad),
Look around,
Touch,
Touch,
Realise nothings on,
Pass backwards.

How are you supposed to break down a team playing like that, hell how are you supposed to keep hold of the damn ball playing like that?

We have zero patterns of play, we don't do any triangles we just get it to the fullbacks and hope they can knock it down the line or pass it back to pickford to hoof it. We really are a pathetic football club. We have had the one owner who doesn't have a clue how football works and now hes managed to get in a new owner who's the only billionaire who doesn't have a clue about football but they both think they do know about football so won't get anyone in to help them.

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

One of our biggest issues is none of our players know what their doing with the ball until after they receive it.

Every player goes:
Touch,
Touch again (because the first touch was bad),
Look around,
Touch,
Touch,
Realise nothings on,
Pass backwards.

How are you supposed to break down a team playing like that, hell how are you supposed to keep hold of the damn ball playing like that?

We have zero patterns of play, we don't do any triangles we just get it to the fullbacks and hope they can knock it down the line or pass it back to pickford to hoof it. We really are a pathetic football club. We have had the one owner who doesn't have a clue how football works and now hes managed to get in a new owner who's the only billionaire who doesn't have a clue about football but they both think they do know about football so won't get anyone in to help them.

Indeed. I think that's the most dissapointing thing about players like Gomes and Allan. I expected more of the 'anticipating play' and making smart passes from them. Delph and Doucoure less so, the latter because he's a high energy runner. Delph because my sense was he was always a 'get possession and keep it simple' player. Useful of course. But collectively it's very bad.

Remember the world of difference Pienaar and Arteta made to our midfield? Well, we've got no one who slots in and can make clever plays. Hell, Darren Gibson made a difference.

 

[NathDogg]

Bar a minor few of them, they just don't care enough about getting humiliated, beaten, out ran, out fought, out thought, out shithoused and the vast majority are here for the payday that we were stupid enough to grant them.

They have been ably assisted by an inept, horrendously incompetent and interfering owner, useless chairman, yes men board of directors, several awful managers (including the current incumbent), terrible scouting and awful coaching by crappy jobs for the boys old players, who all have neither the tools or the inclination to implement an overarching plan or identity of who we are as a club and how we want to play.

The proper Everton has gone, I'm not sure we will ever get it back, and those of us who tried to do something about it on 27mins the other night were abused and shouted down by the happy clappers.

 

[BrendanGOT]

Yes there is. They're a badly assembled unit of mismatched styles and players who just aren't that good. There's some quality in there but not enough. Its why Rafael has been given more time than most but ultimately its on Rafael to get results whether the group of players are bad or not the current run is relegation form and worst in the league, worse than the teams in the actual zone. Injuries or not the team aren't that bad we should be about 6 points better off at the very least so Rafael is underachieving and doesn't look like he knows how to solve it. The new manager will have the same headaches however, roll on January

 

[larbert toffee]

The fact that our squad have been bought and handled by so many managers does not help in the least.

 

[Dykovski200]

This mess is going to take ages to sort out, I don’t even know what the solution is. Nobody wants relegation but that’s where we’re heading. At the minute I can’t see this getting any better as we have a mismatched bunch who are un-coachable. Do we scout the championship for decent gritty players who would love the chance of premier league football so will give it their all or do we stick to this shower of shizzle.

 

[Saint Domingo]

We’ve bought too many slow players with no technique. Makes it difficult for us to do anything correctly with or without the ball. The first step of any attacking move where the centre back passes it to a full back is a problem for us as our centre backs are poor on the ball and our right back can’t control a football.