2022/23 Sean Dyche

[BlueToff]

As I said we've come a long way without any signs that it'll happen. I mean he had a ton of time at Burnley to slow change it and he chose not to. Now he's come here and done the same. Two games but it is the same. So we think he's going to spend the summer making wholesale changes that'll make it sustainable? Yeah I'm dubious.

Again he's a better manager than Frank but we did this exact thing with Frank. Keep us up and the summer we'll learn to play. It didn't happen. Yeah I'm jumping the gun on Dyche. I'm just really worried that we haven't learned because this stupid club never learns.

Right now I care about staying up. His hand has been forced with Dom. Unfortunately the vast majority of our squad are better suited to Dycheball than anything else.

However, if he's gonna play Maupay then he can't be lumping it up to him. Even Simms, he can't treat it like Dom's there. This is the issue Lampard had too.

But a much bigger mistake than hiring Dyche came in spending between £25m and £30m on McNeil and Maupay in the summer.

 

[ToffeeTim]

Under Dyche it probably does mean longball though. I'd love for it to not, but I'm just not sure he's changing his stripes this far into his career. Against Arsenal was a lot of longball.

Dyche might be a better manager and he still will need to show he can actually make real progress for me to see giving him another year as prudent. Staying up is NOT good enough on its own.

Long ball with aggressive pressing is what we all want to see. Its what will keep us up if done effectively. No one at Goodison wants to see the dull, passive, sideways, slow build up, possession based football that we got in the last month of Lampard's tenure.

Get it forward as quickly as possible, get the crowd involved, and make it very hard to play against us. You play your football off the second ball, not in your own third, when you have average players.

 

[TheBigIguana]

Right now I care about staying up. His hand has been forced with Dom. Unfortunately the vast majority of our squad are better suited to Dycheball than anything else.

However, if he's gonna play Maupay then he can't be lumping it up to him. Even Simms, he can't treat it like Dom's there. This is the issue Lampard had too.

But a much bigger mistake than hiring Dyche came in spending between £25m and £30m on McNeil and Maupay in the summer.

People are so much further down on Maupay, a player who I don't rate at all, than they should be. Yeah he's below average. He's also a guy who has scored a handful of PL goals every season in a real attack. Good management can at least make him playable.

McNeil was terrible and I can't defend that even if I think there is a path to making it work on the right. Why not just buy someone who can play there already?

Anyway I know this is unpopular but I really feel we put ourselves in a position where going down was a major possibility and the better response would have been trying to immediately begin revitalizing the club in a sustainable way where whatever happens happens instead of desperately trying to hang on and putting ourselves in position to do this again next year. We're pursuing the Sunderland model tbh.

 

[TheBigIguana]

Long ball with aggressive pressing is what we all want to see. Its what will keep us up if done effectively. No one at Goodison wants to see the dull, passive, sideways, slow build up, possession based football that we got in the last month of Lampard's tenure.

Get it forward as quickly as possible, get the crowd involved, and make it very hard to play against us. You play your football off the second ball, not in your own third, when you have average players.

There's a nice place in between sideways in your own third and repeated aimless hoofing. We could look to find it.

 

[ToffeeTim]

There's a nice place in between sideways in your own third and repeated aimless hoofing. We could look to find it.

There is, but we need better players.

 

[TheBigIguana]

There is, but we need better players.

I really don't think we do! They aren't that bad guys.

 

[ToffeeTim]

I really don't think we do! They aren't that bad guys.

They are the worst squad we've had in my lifetime following the club, by some margin.

 

[BlueToff]

People are so much further down on Maupay, a player who I don't rate at all, than they should be. Yeah he's below average. He's also a guy who has scored a handful of PL goals every season in a real attack. Good management can at least make him playable.

McNeil was terrible and I can't defend that even if I think there is a path to making it work on the right. Why not just buy someone who can play there already?

Anyway I know this is unpopular but I really feel we put ourselves in a position where going down was a major possibility and the better response would have been trying to immediately begin revitalizing the club in a sustainable way where whatever happens happens instead of desperately trying to hang on and putting ourselves in position to do this again next year. We're pursuing the Sunderland model tbh.

He's a player who's constantly underperformed his xG in this league, but played in a team that created a lot of chances.

He's come into a side that doesn't create a lot of chances where he is a polar opposite to Calvert-Lewin.

If Calvert-Lewin could stay fit it wouldn't be as much of a problem. But as it is, he can't and hasn't been able to for 18 months. They were both just ridiculously poor buys for what was needed at the time.

 

[BlueToff]

They are the worst squad we've had in my lifetime following the club, by some margin.

Easily the worst squad since 03-04 for me.

I don't think people quite grasp how bad it is.

Never have I looked at the start of a season and thought 'our squad is comfortably one of the worst in the league' until this season. And I said it when the Aug window shut, that without reinforcements in January we would be in a scrap right until the end.

 

[Neiler]

It has not been many days since Guardiola sacrificed possession to instead be far more direct, and play more primitively against Arsenal. Why did he do that? Because he considered that it would give the greatest probability of victory, and partly because he had a player in Haaland who gave him the opportunity to do so. So I expect we'll see more of that from Manchester City against teams that are evenly matched - and there aren't many of them.

Here I think Guardiola is about to break with his principle of always sticking to plan a, and sees the need to be more flexible - especially if he wants to win the CL. Mostly, he can stick to plan a because his team is so incredibly much better than every other team. So really all he needs to think about is how to unlock teams that are in balance. Against more equal teams, they have often been severely punished in single matches with this approach.

So where am I going with this, well, there are always two teams on the field. You have your own team, and as Egil Roger Olsen said: "The tactics must be based on existing skills, and not what one could wish for", and secondly, you have the opposing team that you have to take into account. Should e.g. we tried to play the ball a lot through the midfield with Everton's current midfielders, and the defensive line which totally lacks speed against teams that are qualitatively much better, then 9 out of 10 cases it would have been a clear loss.

Then of course you have to think short-term and long-term, and right now the squad is not of very high quality. It also lacks confidence. So here we need a fairly simple strategy, where we minimize the risk, and the players feel that they are succeeding. In the long term, of course, this strategy must become more "complicated", and the degree of difficulty increased. But even then, the basics must be in place. In any case, now is not the time to embark on high-difficulty strategies. The players are like the rest of us, they need to experience success in order to gain self-confidence and motivation.

I actually think he watched our game against Arsenal back and how we caused them problems.

 

[ToffeeTim]

Easily the worst squad since 03-04 for me.

I don't think people quite grasp how bad it is.

Never have I looked at the start of a season and thought 'our squad is comfortably one of the worst in the league' until this season. And I said it when the Aug window shut, that without reinforcements in January we would be in a scrap right until the end.

I've been saying it for a couple of years now. We had a rubbish squad then sold our only quality player, didn't replace them, then sold one of our better players (the deal was fine) but didn't replace them either.

If Dyche keeps us up hes done the best job here since Moyes took the side he inherited to 7th. In my opinion we have the third worst squad in the league and the worst attacking options in the league. It is a disgrace that this was allowed to happen.

 

[Leylo]

Easily the worst squad since 03-04 for me.

I don't think people quite grasp how bad it is.

Never have I looked at the start of a season and thought 'our squad is comfortably one of the worst in the league' until this season. And I said it when the Aug window shut, that without reinforcements in January we would be in a scrap right until the end.

Agreed we are bad but on the plus side how the ell are we still in touch, which says there's a few grim teams around us which gives us hope

 

[BlueToff]

Agreed we are bad but on the plus side how the ell are we still in touch, which says there's a few grim teams around us which gives us hope

Oh yeah I don't think we're dead and gone. We're one of the poorest 5-6 squads but there's not really anything to pick between any of them.

We have a decent defence on paper and midfield. We have nothing going forward. Other teams, Leeds for example, have a decent attack and midfield but nothing at the back.

Our attack is comfortably the poorest in the league along with Southampton's, though.

 

[Leylo]

Oh yeah I don't think we're dead and gone. We're one of the poorest 5-6 squads but there's not really anything to pick between any of them.

We have a decent defence on paper and midfield. We have nothing going forward. Other teams, Leeds for example, have a decent attack and midfield but nothing at the back.

Our attack is comfortably the poorest in the league along with Southampton's, though.

Keep the faith UTFT

 

[Gareth Gibson]

I don’t see it as a pop, I see him as understanding how important we are, atmospheres make a huge difference, hence us having our worst home form and best away form over covid

Goodison always has huge noise against sky 6 clubs but is more nervous against teams we should be beating if we aren’t playing positively.

Arsenal game was great and if the team play like that against Leeds it’ll be fine, but if the team start to fanny around at the back again like they did at times against Liverpool and we’re not winning comfortably, expect discontent.

Spot on.