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2022/23 Kevin Thelwell

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He can make 45 positions behind the scenes which is all well and good but he absolutely ballsed up big time during January and has left us in a position where we should rightly be one of the favourites for the drop due to the sheer negligence of recruiting an attacking player or 3.

For that alone he is a massive underperforming whopper

Still say it's absolutely impossible to claim that, given we don't know what the situation was behind the scenes

How much input did he have into Lampard's sacking, the timing of it and his replacement? What was/is the financial situation at the club? Were loans and/or players who would agree to 50% wage cuts in the event of relegation the only options on the table? Etc

I'm not having that any of us are in a position to say he cocked up. He might have. He might be the worst director of football in the land for all I know and Brands might have been on the same level, but until we know what the parameters are that they've had to work in, the responsibilities they've had and (importantly) haven't had, I tend to think that there's a fair chance that at least some of the blame (and my instinct says the greater part rather than otherwise) for these failings lies not with the successive directors of football we've had, but with the structure they've had to work in.
 
Still say it's absolutely impossible to claim that, given we don't know what the situation was behind the scenes
That one line sums up the problem at Everton.

Zero clarity on roles and responsibilities, therefore zero meaningful accountability.

Just how the board and ownership want it. Keep it murky, so as to divide the dissent and make fans turn on one another.
 
Still say it's absolutely impossible to claim that, given we don't know what the situation was behind the scenes

How much input did he have into Lampard's sacking, the timing of it and his replacement? What was/is the financial situation at the club? Were loans and/or players who would agree to 50% wage cuts in the event of relegation the only options on the table? Etc

I'm not having that any of us are in a position to say he cocked up. He might have. He might be the worst director of football in the land for all I know and Brands might have been on the same level, but until we know what the parameters are that they've had to work in, the responsibilities they've had and (importantly) haven't had, I tend to think that there's a fair chance that at least some of the blame (and my instinct says the greater part rather than otherwise) for these failings lies not with the successive directors of football we've had, but with the structure they've had to work in.

But he's happy to work within the structures/parameters because if he wasn't he'd be looking for another job

Of course the owner and the board take a massive portion of blame but Thelwells job title is Director of Football and that is to oversee everything which include transfers.

We're in the bottom 3 due to gross negligence on all levels so I'd say as an Everton supporter I'm well within my rights to say he's absolutely ballsed up because as of right this moment, we don't have 1 quality striker to call upon when DCL is injured.
 

But he's happy to work within the structures/parameters because if he wasn't he'd be looking for another job

Of course the owner and the board take a massive portion of blame but Thelwells job title is Director of Football and that is to oversee everything which include transfers.

We're in the bottom 3 due to gross negligence on all levels so I'd say as an Everton supporter I'm well within my rights to say he's absolutely ballsed up because as of right this moment, we don't have 1 quality striker to call upon when Dominic Calvert-Lewin is injured.
You're within your rights, of course, but it isn't a statement of fact, it's an assumption.

Thelwell may be happy to work in this structure, despite it potentially not giving him the autonomy he'd ideally like.

Thelwell, in theory, oversees everything. However...

Did he appoint Frank Lampard (statistically the 2nd worst manager in our history)?
Did he decide if/when to sack Lampard?
Did he decide who the new manager should be?
Is he responsible for the budget available for transfers etc?
Is he solely responsible for who we buy/sell?
Is he solely responsible for negotiating deals for who we buy/sell?
Has he had full clarity about the budget available to him in the last transfer window?
Is it remotely possible that Maupay, the striker he did buy in the summer, is actually a reasonable replacement for DCL and it was just that he was massively mis-used by the previous manager who didn't adapt his tactics when DCL was missing?

There's a whole raft of questions that the answers to are simply unknown or blurry. We can't possibly evaluate his performance in the context we have. The same could also be said of Marcel Brands if you want to go down that road. People can make all the assumptions they want, but the irrefutable facts are that the club is appallingly run and as a result of that we are simply in the dark as to where the blame lies for our shortcomings. That in itself is one of the reasons the clowns in charge should be sent packing - for all you or I know, Thelwell might be doing an incredible job, he might also be genuinely useless. It's almost a pointless discussion as things stand.
 
That one line sums up the problem at Everton.

Zero clarity on roles and responsibilities, therefore zero meaningful accountability.

Just how the board and ownership want it. Keep it murky, so as to divide the dissent and make fans turn on one another.

100% - on the one hand, we are told that Thelwell is charge of all footballing operations at the club. On the other, we know for absolute certain that he isn't. We know he isn't solely responsible for all the negotiations with players/agents etc and we know that he doesn't have the autonomy to hire or fire the manager. That's only the stuff we know about - I've no doubt it extends further than that, but how far is anyone's guess.
 
100% - on the one hand, we are told that Thelwell is charge of all footballing operations at the club. On the other, we know for absolute certain that he isn't. We know he isn't solely responsible for all the negotiations with players/agents etc and we know that he doesn't have the autonomy to hire or fire the manager. That's only the stuff we know about - I've no doubt it extends further than that, but how far is anyone's guess.
In the summer btw he was given full remit over recruitment in the sense that Moshiri did not intervene.

Not sure we can say the same for January since we now know Moshiri negotiated the Gordon deal.

Which, given the fact we actually got very good money in, probably works against Thelwell too. But he absolutely should have been involved in it.
 
But he's happy to work within the structures/parameters because if he wasn't he'd be looking for another job

Of course the owner and the board take a massive portion of blame but Thelwells job title is Director of Football and that is to oversee everything which include transfers.

We're in the bottom 3 due to gross negligence on all levels so I'd say as an Everton supporter I'm well within my rights to say he's absolutely ballsed up because as of right this moment, we don't have 1 quality striker to call upon when Dominic Calvert-Lewin is injured.
There's simply no arguing with this from anyone that isn't massively biased.

Everyone knows the ultimate issue sits with the board and owner.

But our DoF failing over two windows to bring in one striker that resembles Calvert-Lewin in playing style, when Calvert-Lewin was actually injured for half of one of those windows(!) is also a problem.

It's negligent.

What's worse is we needed exactly that type of striker for Lampard too so any drivel about how it all changed when Dyche came in is nonsense.
 

You're within your rights, of course, but it isn't a statement of fact, it's an assumption.

Thelwell may be happy to work in this structure, despite it potentially not giving him the autonomy he'd ideally like.

Thelwell, in theory, oversees everything. However...

Did he appoint Frank Lampard (statistically the 2nd worst manager in our history)?
Did he decide if/when to sack Lampard?
Did he decide who the new manager should be?
Is he responsible for the budget available for transfers etc?
Is he solely responsible for who we buy/sell?
Is he solely responsible for negotiating deals for who we buy/sell?
Has he had full clarity about the budget available to him in the last transfer window?
Is it remotely possible that Maupay, the striker he did buy in the summer, is actually a reasonable replacement for Dominic Calvert-Lewin and it was just that he was massively mis-used by the previous manager who didn't adapt his tactics when Dominic Calvert-Lewin was missing?

There's a whole raft of questions that the answers to are simply unknown or blurry. We can't possibly evaluate his performance in the context we have. The same could also be said of Marcel Brands if you want to go down that road. People can make all the assumptions they want, but the irrefutable facts are that the club is appallingly run and as a result of that we are simply in the dark as to where the blame lies for our shortcomings. That in itself is one of the reasons the clowns in charge should be sent packing - for all you or I know, Thelwell might be doing an incredible job, he might also be genuinely useless. It's almost a pointless discussion as things stand.

It is not remotely possible that Maupay is a reasonable replacement for DCL as has been shown on the pitch. He is not a like for like replacement in any way, shape or form.

Might be decent in a 2 playing with a target man but he certainly can't play up top by himself.
 
The Danjuma deal was agreed nearly 2 weeks before deadline day so he definitely had a budget. It's possible to work on more than one target at the same time
Sure wasn't an excuse we should have absolutely brought someone in just saying it's not all on him. Also it was a season loan not a major outlay as most of the players in the last few days we were looking at would have been. Also why not sell Gordon earlier? Or sack Lamps earlier? Why not get the funds in earlier and why not fire the manager before we were joint bottom and more unattractive to players? Then they didn't announce Dyche till a few days before that gives you very little time or scope. The owner and board's delay and mismanagement is a bigger factor in the failure than the DOF for me whilst yes of course he is also responsible.
 
He had one overwhelming priority this window, in a competent target man wig a good fitness record. No one expected a top class striker, just a decent target man capable of holding the ball up and winning some headers to get us up the pitch. The world and his wife know DCL will not play too often and, unless Simms surprises us all, we just have nobody to give us an out ball. There were plenty of players out there who would have filled the bill.
 
He can bring in 50 analysts, scouts, performance gurus - if we go down it's as much down to his gross negligence.

No striker so we write off first 5/6 games.
Brings in striker with no similarity to DCL.
Bottom 3 in Jan + brings in backroom staff.

It's very rare to stay in PL without scoring 40-45 goals.

Seems like everyone knew that apart from this mug.
 

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