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The Moment You Knew He Had Failed...

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Drico said:
As an Evertonian of 42 years, I have often looked back at managers and other officials at Everton and tried to pinpoint the moment I realised that they had failed and would not make a success of the role they were in.

In my experience, from my perspective, the club usually acts only later than this moment. For example, I "knew" Marcel Brands would not be a success when Everton signed Alex Iwobi. Sure, he's had three decent months, but he has largely been a disastrous waste of money. Arsenal fans are still laughing...

With Roberto, it was the signing of Aiden McGeady. This summed up the recklessness of Martinez: indulging an indisciplined, flaky, flashy luxury player (well, if you shop for luxury in Aldi). As an Irishman, I knew in my bones that this was a fatal error. Roberto's "flash in the pan" made flesh. Still, at that point, Roberto was still in the ascendancy. A 3-0 hammering at Southampton later that year was my moment of confirmation.

With Moyes, it was the cup defeat to Reading when only Man City - who we regularly schooled at the time - remained a real live threat in the competition. Blew his chance.

The Watford hammering under Benitez shook me. For all the controversy of his appointment, he started well, but the wheels came off spectacularly and, given the atmosphere around the club, I felt, deep down, that there was no coming back from that - even if he simply went on to dig his own grave afterwards.

As for Frank, I never rated him. But he earned his shot at proving me wrong at the very end of last season. He oversaw an escape that Houdini would have been proud of - even if, like Harry, he had tied himself in knots first. And his "moment"? Well, despite my scepticism of his abilities, it was only the 3-0 hiding at Bournemouth that completely convinced me that he had passed the point of return. Matter of time now.

Thelwell, for now, hasn't reached that "point". Here's hoping he doesn't.

When did you think "Such and Such" was a busted flush?
Click to expand...
 
Drico said:
As an Evertonian of 42 years, I have often looked back at managers and other officials at Everton and tried to pinpoint the moment I realised that they had failed and would not make a success of the role they were in.

In my experience, from my perspective, the club usually acts only later than this moment. For example, I "knew" Marcel Brands would not be a success when Everton signed Alex Iwobi. Sure, he's had three decent months, but he has largely been a disastrous waste of money. Arsenal fans are still laughing...

With Roberto, it was the signing of Aiden McGeady. This summed up the recklessness of Martinez: indulging an indisciplined, flaky, flashy luxury player (well, if you shop for luxury in Aldi). As an Irishman, I knew in my bones that this was a fatal error. Roberto's "flash in the pan" made flesh. Still, at that point, Roberto was still in the ascendancy. A 3-0 hammering at Southampton later that year was my moment of confirmation.

With Moyes, it was the cup defeat to Reading when only Man City - who we regularly schooled at the time - remained a real live threat in the competition. Blew his chance.

The Watford hammering under Benitez shook me. For all the controversy of his appointment, he started well, but the wheels came off spectacularly and, given the atmosphere around the club, I felt, deep down, that there was no coming back from that - even if he simply went on to dig his own grave afterwards.

As for Frank, I never rated him. But he earned his shot at proving me wrong at the very end of last season. He oversaw an escape that Houdini would have been proud of - even if, like Harry, he had tied himself in knots first. And his "moment"? Well, despite my scepticism of his abilities, it was only the 3-0 hiding at Bournemouth that completely convinced me that he had passed the point of return. Matter of time now.

Thelwell, for now, hasn't reached that "point". Here's hoping he doesn't.

When did you think "Such and Such" was a busted flush?
Click to expand...

Not so much when I realised it was over for these men but certain games which I look back on as portending their ultimate failure.

Moyes…..the Wigan Cup defeat.

We were all on such a high going into the game that day but it was one of the worst home performances ever.

Martinez….circa 42 minures into a game at Spurs in late November 2014.

We had made a solid start in the league and had breezed through the EL group stages securing top place with a game to go after winning at Wolfsburg in the midweek.

Mirallas had fired us into the lead with a spectacular goal and we were looking good.

After about 42 minutes Seamus had the ball level with their area but instead of crossing or otherwise attacking he played the ball back to the hallfway line where it was then played back to Howard who hoofed it out and a Spurs player got the ball, passed it forward, they equalised and they went on to win the game.

We then entered one of the bleakest December runs I can recall and it was all downhill for Bob after that.

Koeman….the day Oumar rescued the points versus Bournemouth.

The look on Koeman’s face and his hunched shoulders as Big Dunc was dancing with joy confirmed all I thought about him.

Sam….N/A as he was only ever a short term fix anyway.

Marco…..the Pickford derby.

Marco had started solidly enough, we were playing stylishly and we went to The Pit in confident mood.

We were the better team and both Yerry Mina and Andre Gomes missed sitters which would have won us the game.

Then Pickord does his act in injury time and the whole club went on a downer for months afterwards with results to match the mood.

Carlo….A great manager but sadly not with us.

Leading 2-0 going into injury time v Barcodes and still not winning was his most notorious failure IMO.

Benitez….he was doomed to failure the day and hour he was inexplicably given the job.

And so to Frank.

I honestly hope he succeeds here. I have taken the guy to my heart,

If he does walk the plank however I will look to the United game in September as the one which broke him.

We went into the game on the back of a good little unbeaten run and got a great start to the game when Iwobi scored a scorcher.

Then, first Gana and tgen Iwobi gave the ball away and the old ghosts came back to haunt us ?
 
chrismpw said:
Never claimed he was - but he's clearly intelligent and intelligent people learn to do better.

Alec Ferguson was another manager fans wanted out before he came good ... granted these were back in the days before fans had about 1 month of patience before their social media echo chambers whip them into a hysteria.
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Again, SAF was 30 odd years ago. Give me an example from the last 10 years.
 
Bazlar said:
Again, SAF was 30 odd years ago. Give me an example from the last 10 years.
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Being in the past shouldn't make a thing irrelevant.

Just under 1000 year ago a bunch of Norman thugs got lucky in a battle and invaded England. The English people have lived under their repressive land grab ever since while their aristocratic descendants continue to live off the wealth of their land. There have been changes but still the supposedly proud English are still a conquered broken people so used to a feudal system they don't notice it or see this incident as relevant. It very much is.

Ruddy Normans.
 

When people cite the struggles of early Howard Kendall and Alex Ferguson, were they performing so bad that their league status was being threatened and were struggling to have more than three shots on target every three games?

Genuine question, to what extent were they ‘struggling’? Was either ever really threatened with relegation?
 
Hope.im wrong but for lampard I see it as Tuesdays loss to Bournemouth.

Making 11 changes and throwing the game puts you in a position were you have to bounce back and we didn't.
 
nsno-chris said:
The moment we knew that we needed a striker and 2 creative goalscoring wingers, coupled with selling Richarlison…..and coming back with Dwight McNeil.
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Our second top scorer in the league, 2 goals more than Richarlison so far this season, 1 more than Richarlison had scored at this point last season.

I would say Mr Thelwell has played a blinder there by doubling our end product for a third of the price...

(You are right of course but it's funny what stats can do to skew the truth.)
 
Papa Shango said:
Our second top scorer in the league, 2 goals more than Richarlison so far this season, 1 more than Richarlison had scored at this point last season.

I would say Mr Thelwell has played a blinder there by doubling our end product for a third of the price...

(You are right of course but it's funny what stats can do to skew the truth.)
Click to expand...
What would be even more impressive is looking at his goals to minutes ratio.

Young Dwight maybe up there with the best
 

Dymak said:
When people cite the struggles of early Howard Kendall and Alex Ferguson, were they performing so bad that their league status was being threatened and were struggling to have more than three shots on target every three games?

Genuine question, to what extent were they ‘struggling’? Was either ever really threatened with relegation?
Click to expand...
We were in 18th just before the Kevin Brock Oxford United match.
 
I could write a book on how many times over the course of Martinez's second and third seasons I thought he was cooked. The Kyiv annihilation in his second season was pitiful, but his third season incurred several spectaculars:

Liverpool 4-0 Everton
Everton 3-4 Stoke City
Chelsea 3-3 Everton
Bournemouth 3-3 Everton
Everton 2-3 West Ham

Some of those results you could forgive in isolation, but owing to the fact that they all occurred in exactly the same fashion of us throwing leads away late on (with the exception of the Derby where I've never felt so embarrassed about being an Evertonian) it was completely unforgivable.

The fact that he could quite feasibly become Everton manager again if Lampard can't turn this around is absolutely mortifying.
 

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