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The only negative is he wants to go to bigger places after a while, but imo that's only going to spur him on to do better with us - if he wants to go to Barca or whatever in 3 years time, they won't take a manager who took Everton to 10th, would they? They'd want someone with success, so he'll need to be more careful, which can/should be even better for us.
I think it's a realistic opinion
Lemon fking drizzle cake in the player's canteen.Ronald Koeman unravelled: The man behind Everton's best start since 1978
EVERTON had just pulled up at their team base ahead of Ronald Koeman’s first match in charge when the clearest sign arrived that life under him was going to be different.
By PAUL JOYCE
PUBLISHED: 22:00, Mon, Sep 19, 2016
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It was meal time at a hotel outside Barnsley where the pre-season programme was beginning, and the Dutchman expected his squad would be sitting down to eat.
As staff scurried round trying to get food on the table, Koeman’s blood pressure began to boil. He was told the delay would be two minutes. Five then elapsed and the meal still was not ready.
Roberto Martinez was not one for confrontation, preferring to shush those players willing to speak out in the dressing room following a defeat rather than allowing debate to rage.
His successor did little to disguise his unhappiness; making plain his anger and voicing his upset in a manner which confirmed to those in the vicinity the outlook was changing.
The rumpus was not for effect. Koeman is a stickler for timekeeping, insistent everything is done in a certain way, and from that moment on Everton’s players realised they would be conforming to a new set of rules.
Pre-season training had already been brought forward by three days to July 4 and 9am starts, not 10am, at Finch Farm were made compulsory. The school run was out and hard work in.
“Anyone looking for love found out it wasn’t going to be here,” said one staff member.
In isolation, it might seem a trivial episode but it was one which helped embellish the aura that Koeman exudes around Goodison Park.
It is no coincidence that Everton, in EFL Cup action against Norwich on Tuesday, have made their best start to a season since 1978.
The approach is hardline, but underpinned by honesty which ensures his players know exactly where they stand when the dressing room felt there was too much cloak-and-dagger towards the end of Martinez’s reign.
This was not always the case.
When Martinez pushed the responsibility for gym work, and recovery sessions, onto his players it was initially embraced as a manager putting his trust in his charges.
When apathy set in, however, the practice was open to abuse. Corners were cut. There are no such loopholes under Koeman. Everything is done as a group, instilling a sense of team-work rather than promoting the individual.
Everton’s matchday routine has changed markedly.
For a home game, the squad is expected to arrive at 11.30am for a 3pm kick-off and be sitting down together at 12 noon for a meal in the players’ lounge at Goodison Park. Previously they ate at Finch Farm.
An in-depth team meeting then follows for the starting XI and the substitutes. Those not in the 18-man squad are excluded.
The amount of people milling around the tunnel on match-days is also now kept to a minimum which is a theme continued at the training ground. Where previously a dressing room overflowed with support staff, so Koeman has cleared it out ensuring only his technical staff – such as brother, Erwin, Jan Kluitenberg, Duncan Ferguson, David Unsworth, John Ebbrell and goalkeeping coach Patrick Lodewijks – get changed together now.
It may have felt harsh to those who had grown accustomed to life in the bosom of the first team, but it serves merely as a reflection of Koeman’s clinical attitude.
He is a man who keeps conversation to a minimum – lunch is served when he says “buon appetito” and no one eats before then – with Erwin more hands-on during training which is shorter but more intense. Everton look fitter, Koeman has estimated the players have lost around 8lbs on last season, although that may also be due to fitness coach Kluitenberg banning the homemade lemon drizzle cake that was favourite in the canteen.
There is a sense that Koeman is a coach who comes alive on matchday and he is not someone who lives and breathes Everton in the same way as David Moyes and Martinez did.
His Aston Martin is more likely to be found leaving the training ground at nearer to 4pm than 8pm.
Days off are sacrosanct. Last week he went mountain biking with Kluitenberg, but Koeman’s love of golf means he considered staying at Formby Hall, about 30 minutes from Finch Farm, when he first arrived at the club in June only for the venue, popular for weddings, to be deemed too busy. He is now living in Alderley Edge in Cheshire with Erwin, in contrast, residing in Liverpool city centre.
How long Koeman remains at Goodison Park remains to be seen. The ambition fuelled during stellar playing career can be seen in his eyes, yet he is proving to be exactly what Everton needed.
A manager whose tactical acumen and willingness to make changes turns defeats into wins, draws into victories, and whose plain speaking is an antidote to the sunny-side-up appraisals of his predecessor.
The sight of the Premier League table, and the buzz around Goodison, shows Everton are enjoying less words and more action.
@davek
Fining and dropping players won't resolve anything in the situation we were in last season. A change of management would
