I believe Everton have lost sight of what it means to be successful over the past 26 years. We have settled for being comfortable rather than being driven. I have no doubt that over the past 26 years every person of influence within the club would say they were trying to win a trophy but they would have caveated that statement with a reason why we weren’t winning something. We seem to have acquired an ethos for “not losing” rather than “winning”. We only seem to react when we have a particularly bad season and are threatened with relegation, we fight not to lose our premiership status. When we are comfortable we we don’t seem to have enough drive to make us winners. I think this attitude has now permeated down to the players, when you look at them passing the ball backwards or sideways rather than forward you see an ethos of safety first rather than taking a chance to win. This acceptance of mediocrity has become ingrained in our club over many years and will be difficult to get rid of.
Hopefully we have started the process of change, hopefully the changes in the boardroom, in management will start to have an effect and we will see a change in the type of players we bring in.
This transfer window can be a defining one for Everton, do we remain plucky Everton or do we go for real success.
As always with Everton, it is the hope that kills you.