Thanks mate!
The problem with the Dyche debate and we are all a bit guilty of this is a preconception and what ever happens good or bad our bias is confirmed and we run with that. I find your first two paragraphs as evidance of that. Saturdays performance is binary its both good and bad. The bad is on Dyche, but the good is despite of him - that's just not accurate and evidential of what i said preceding about bias.
Allow me to reframe perhaps the players posting a good performance despite Dyche, is Dyche actually targeting and working with the DOF to build a side - maybe he picked Tim maybe he picked Ndaiye and all the other new signings to take the side forward and transition from the one dimensional squad of players he inherited and build to compliment and bring the best out of other players - that was on show on Saturday. The result was for the first time in years Everton had another good football playing team pinned back in their own half for 98% of a game - i cant remember the last time we had the ability of players to do that. We moved on from one dimension - get crosses in the box and had threat coming from left, right and centrally - with great penetration through the central channel. Did everyone wake up in the morning and decide for that to happen - no its building and planning like i said. There are green shoots there is you care to see them, they were there on Sat, they will continue to grow and we have other new signings and players returning from injury to compliment the taster we got. People are choosing not so see or ackonwelgde all of that - there is a building process going on and that is boom and bust and a process. Do you get a kick in the gut manageing change - always.
I think Dyche is right to lay some of the blame on the players - the whole group takes collective responsibility including him and he will reflect on what happened. For me its a mentality breakdown and id rocket all of our players on the back of it - he made the point before the game that this group have climbed the mountain of attitude and mentality and then retunred to the bottom of it since the season started - if im critiuqing him i think that has disarmed him and surprised him and he needs to get on top of it - he will - why? Because hes taken some of these surrender monkeys and made them a tough team hard to beat before - when they were wet wipes under previous two managers. He takes some of the blame of course - hes currently the front for the club, he's rolled out in front of media - for everything - so he takes the heat. But hes right id go through a team of U12 on the basics of the game - if they did what happened on Saturday - its park football stuff - so you expect a group of professional footballers to manage a game form the point we were at. We can talk about Subs all you like and hindsight is great, if we made 5 and lost people would be berating him now saying he should have left it - everyone is wiser after. Besides if nothing else this team has proved under him that it can be disciplined and manage a game to get a result and get an outcome - Saturday was a 1 in million fluke prob never to be repeated. Part of management is trusting those you have charged to do a job, if i fail to do that job thats on me - a manager takes some of that heat - but if i haven't performed competently to achieve an outcome - then the manager rightly eat me - that true in all walks of life.
Im not going to lie my sights have been raised, weirdly even more so after Saturday, i spent all year last year - saying we have really poor players and a threadbare squad, i think we have improved that - so if our previous squad can post a points total for 12th i see no reason why we cant par that or better it - my expectations have actually been raised. Realistically though I think that will be incremental progress while transitioning the style of play and managing that change. In terms of expectations and him playing them down - every thing i said in my previous post is true - we aren't a well run - stable club - we have severe limits and competing with the Spurs and Brighton's who are spending many multiples of what we can, even our rivals for 10/12th.
What we are trying to do is recover the footballing side of that and counter the advantages others have by pushing the glass boundary of limits. That is a process of change - we made incredible progress last year from the one before to get a points total for 12th and it needs to take an incremental step again. But its important to acknowledge that the club is still in crisis and the severe limits we are working through - its a really tough job systemically, so expectations need to be realistic. The systemic piece and instability around the club isn't acknowledged enough. I dont think its mentioned once in the Dyche thread - prob bar from me.
If im being very honest, i dont think many people are annoyed with Dyche, they are annoyed with Everton - hes just the figure head now and the lightening rod, there is no Kenwright, no board, no visible owner to vent at - the only one who has fronted for a year and half is Dyche and now hes the conduit - wrongly in my opinion. People aren’t really fed up with Dyche they are fed up with malaise of the club, he’s fronted that with others who deserve more blame hiding behind him and fans are just exercising agency in something they feel the can influence - they are fed up with the lot at Everton.
When people talk of ambition - as i say they talk of the end point - why do we deserve - to be in the top 6, or avoid relegation or not have to earn our place in this league - we absolutely deserve to be in the position we are in - we absolutely messed up the club and we dont deserve anymore. There is nothing in deciding to be ambitious, or in ripping up stability again that going to turn the after burners on and get us right up the table tomorrow - its turning around an oil tanker and a mutli year project, sacking the captain every six weeks just makes the ships journey longer and steers it to rocky waters.
As i evidance above - most cant see the plan and are hazed by three results - let me be illustrative - we have turned over almost all the high earning wasteful players at the club, we have brought in 8 players to transition the play, make the squad deeper, give us variance and give us tools to attack and dominate a game - we saw that on Saturday - change always brings risk and we saw that with the system failure on Saturday, in hindsight could the team and manager have done better - definitely - but that is also an opportunity to process and for reflection reflection and growth. Saturday was the first time for years we brought a good footballing side to Goodision and pinned them back and dominated the game, the first time we have seen flair and threat in years and there was air of change in the air up until the crash.
We need to build on the above, refine make it stronger and better - we know these players can see games out and get results we know he can build resilience - we are seeing a transition now to making us more dangerous - that needs nurturing not ripping up - the last thing this club needs is more instability and the beginning of another - new project.
Again i will say this, ambition is fine everyone has a vision, its a common every day occurrence - very few know what steps, work and risk are involved in selling it and achieving it - i see it in what we are trying to do.
As for expectations and ambition - you get what you deserve, we dont deserve to be anymore then what we are at the moment and i dont know why people think we should - that's not, not having ambition or standard - its realistic appraisal that the performance holistically at the club has been so bad for so long and continues to be- we are actually very lucky to be in the league at all. Acknowledging that isn't not having ambition its an acknowledgement of the ground zero we need to build on to raise standards and show ambition - as i say in my illustration above - we have a plan and we saw it for much of Saturday and you know what - there is more to come, with lads coming back and more players to be integrated. All thats required in patience and as always in football fandom that in short supply.
