I can’t blame him for starting Gbamin when your other options are Davies and Delph.
I warned against this earlier in the season, I said it would derail if at any point one of Doucoure or Allan got injured but especially Doucoure as the drop off is huge. Benitez is now in the boat that Silva and Ancelotti were, rotating midfielders every week to see which one is least crap to go with. Davies will be back in the next game and will again remind us how poor he is.
The squad isn’t good enough. How many managers need to be fired before someone at Everton recognises it and brings in players to fix it. Never mind the squad, the first team isn’t good enough. We need a right back centre back and right winger just to put out a competent 11 when everyone is fit. But when injuries occur we can’t be turning to Davies Kenny Rondon Iwobi Keane etc.
Major repair is needed in January that’s the only solution. New tactics or new manager won’t fix this. There’s no tactical solutions available within this squad, every manager and his dog has tried them.
5 at the back, midfield three, number 10, three upfront, 442, false 9s, 4 centrebacks. Have we not tried every single one of these multiple times over the last few seasons and they’ve all been terrible.
Pressing high, sitting deep, zonal marking, man to man marking, long balls, counter attack, possession game, intercepting channels, overlapping full backs. We’ve done all of these, none worked under different managers who all play different ways.
The root cause is the same. Koeman sold Lukaku Stones Barkley and brought in complete and utter dross to add to the shambles of players Martinez collected giving us a huge FFP problem. This has been exacerbated by poor recruitment and crippling injuries since. There’s been an odd bright spark like Richarlison Gueye or Doucoure but even then the latter struggles to stay fit long enough.
For years it’s been a bottom half squad with a few class players in it (DCL Richarlison Gueye James Doucoure). Take them out with injuries and it’s a bottom half squad. Try them anyway you want, in any formation, there is no scenario they ever trouble the European places. The last time we qualified for Europe we had Lukaku Gueye Barkley Stones in the team and we came 7th. Look at the clubs they’re playing for now and ask yourself who we replaced them with and whether they’re suitably superior to allow us to finish higher than 7th. They’re not they’re massively worse so why anyone expects us to finish higher is an utter mystery to me, the squad smacks of bottom half.
They can’t deal with the basics of pass and move. The combinations around the back and midfield that any other premier league team perform easily are hugely beyond our players. Seriously watching Keane Coleman and Davies try to put together a passing exchange without giving a suicide ball away is laughable, it ends up in complete panic and someone usually hoofing it.
They’re crap. Sorry to say it but it can’t be a surprise to anyone when they’ve been this way since Koeman.
Poor players comfortable at a club that’s run like a holiday camp with a Mickey Mouse medical department.
Yet some people want to get rid of a bloke who might actually have a clue how to fix it.
Any decent manager wouldn’t touch this squad with a barge pole as they know they’ll have them fired within 2 seasons no question. We’ll attract money mercenaries like Ancelotti or hopeful dreamers. We’ve got lucky that there’s a decent manager who wanted a short commute to work.
