With the usual suspects refusing to acknowledge anything and everything obviously negative about Everton due to incredibly thick blue-tinted spectacles, I'll try and summarise exactly why this from Koeman is indefensible...
I've liked Koeman so far. The other day, I said I had very little fault to find with his approach. I've also said obviously Lukaku is gone next summer as he needs to further his career because we're not meeting the standards required for him right now.
So in terms of the general gist of what Koeman has said, there's not much actually factually wrong.
However... he is totally wrong in the tone and wording of what he's said. I've read the full quotes, and here's why he's slipped up and unveiled his own true mindset here.
As a the guy who is paid to manage Everton, he has to be the one who is trying to improve the club in every way. Football is a sport, a competition - therefore, no matter what, you play to win relative to your own status. Nobody is saying Koeman should be expecting to win the league this year, but every season that should be the stretch goal. For Everton, it's about realistic steps in the right direction - the first step should be Europe, then the Champions League, and so on. Failing to progress the club means you haven't managed the club effectively, thereby you've failed.
The issue with what Koeman has said is that it shows clearly he has no long term aims for Everton.
"His potential is greater and higher than Everton as a final destination. If Romelu was to play at Everton until the end of his career I know he has left something behind."
For him to say to a 23 year old footballer that his career would be wasted at Everton basically says he has no plan over the next five or six years to get to a level where we'd be winning trophies. He quite clearly now has no desire whatsoever to succeed at this club over the long term, otherwise he would not be writing off what Everton could be over the next 10 years.
That's the issue. Koeman sees us as nothing more than a short term stepping stone, and his comments regarding Lukaku is projecting his own view of the club onto a player, instead of looking out for the long term interests of the club.
So as said before, instead of aiming to win, Koeman is aiming to win for him in the short term by gaining marginal improvements on his pathetic predecessor over two seasons so his own stock isn't harmed. It completely unveils his own motivation for joining the club.
Despite decades of failure, that's not good enough for a club like ours. We shouldn't just be blindly accepting self-serving interests. The club is much bigger than Koeman and Lukaku combined and we'd do well to remember that.
Can people, for once, please try and not defend something that is clearly indefensible. It's not about whether it's true or not right now, it's about whether the manager of Everton should be writing off the club completely in the medium- to long-term, when it's his actual job to go about getting us to a higher level.
