Where's the root of Everton's problems?

[Adscum]

It's one of those wanky sporting buzzwords to talk about 'culture' but it's a huge part of our issues as a club imo.

We never won anything under Moyes but players from that era talk about the standards set in training and on the pitch, and that clearly translated into a team that over-achieved and was greater than the sum of its parts. Hard work and honesty became the identity of those teams - but we lacked the quality (and money) to push on.

Subsequent managers have allowed that culture to rot. With new money, we've bought (in the main) a torrent of utter snakes with zero professional pride who won't put the extra yards in because they don't think they need to. And that's not me lazily giving it the 'nOt EnoUGH paShuN' thing that fans are often prone to - it's been admitted by the players in public. Downing tools on managers, needing more commitment on a daily basis, etc. All excerpts from the rallying cry of the month.

The most worrying thing is that we get a bounce when new players come in but before long, the culture swallows them whole and they stop caring too.

Basically the whole culture needs a reset but God knows how you do that with wages and transfer fees as they are.

 

[ForeverEverton]

For me we need to ditch this "Director of Football" nonsense. Since when has it been so bad recruitment wise? Since Walsh came in and continued under Brands.

Let the manager identify the players HE WANTS and let the scouts find the players that fits the managers plans and profile. By all means have a good negotiator in the role but he doesn`t identify the players he just negotiates the best deals for the players the manager wants or doesn`t want ins and outs.

It hasn`t worked since day one and you can track our poor recruitment back to the creation of this role!

 

[tommytowne]

Has anyone blamed the fans yet?

For all our perceived faults, it's definitely not us, this season at least.
In this unusual season it's been well documented that the absence of fans has meant home advantage has disappeared meaning the away sides have been able to plunder points they might never have expected to gain. The best example of this, none other than Everton.
So naturally it's shown our home form has been woeful and by my reckoning thats because we weren't allowed in. So anybody saying its the fans fault is talking out of their hoop.

 

[Little Ralphy]

Everton are in a difficult position to manage really. We’re not at the top table and can’t bring in the top players. But at the same time, we see ourselves as trying to break in to that top group, so we won’t give a chance to youth etc. as we’re desperately trying to push on.



Because of this recruitment has come to the fore, and recruitment has been shocking from Everton for a long, long time. They’re trying to buy a missing piece to the jigsaw to push us in to the top bracket, but in reality, there isn’t one piece missing, we’ve got a whole load of jigsaws mixed together.



They’re buying names, or stats rather than players who can genuinely push us on. We’ve spent big money and have nothing to show for it. For as long as I can remember Everton have been buying average athletes in arguably the quickest league in the World. When was the last time we had a decent midfield? Buying cast offs from ‘bigger’ clubs isn’t going to push us ahead of those ‘bigger’ clubs, if the players were good enough they wouldn’t be selling them.



If we keep buying expensive players, on big contracts who are at the end of their careers, we’ll never get rid of them, and slowly the quality of the squad will decline.



I think Moyes more than outstayed his welcome at Everton, but when he first came in, he built a young side of players who were hungry to achieve something in the game. Players who wanted to be Internationals, or players who had an inner drive to push their careers on. Everton weren’t in the same position they are now in fairness, so it was perhaps easier to take those chances. But that group of players grew together, and pushed Everton up the table. Moyes’ problem was that when he hit that 5/6th spot, he wasn’t able to push the side further to compete with the better sides. He himself didn’t have the skills, or courage. He invented a ‘glass ceiling, and made loads of excuses for his inability to win anything or get regular Champions League football. He basically blamed the club and didn’t take any responsibility for it himself.



Everton now have a manager in CA who can set up a team to compete with the better sides, his record against them has been great. But he has a massive problem with games we are expected to win. Whether that’s his inability to set us up correctly (which has certainly been the case on a number of occasions), does he not put as much detail in to his preparations perhaps for those games? Or is it an inability to motivate the players the same for the ‘lesser games’? Or do we just have a group of players, many of whom are nearing the end of their careers, most know they won’t play higher than Everton, so they can raise themselves for ‘bigger games’ but struggle to achieve the same levels of commitment and concentration for the ‘lesser games’?



Everton should have shipped Brands out (for Iwobi alone) when his contract expired and brought someone in who can put together a younger, hungry side who want to drive the club on, because they know if they do they will be pushing themselves in to Champions League football along with it. Instead of players knowing that if we did push on, they wouldn’t be a part of it anyway.



I know Leicester are the current example everyone uses about recruitment, and they have certainly bought well. Young hungry players, all growing together and eager to push on. A few older heads to guide them. Everton are in danger of becoming West Ham, signing ageing players on big money, who we will be stuck with, as their output declines.



I know everyone likes Allan, and I can see the appeal, and he’s done well for us, but that kind of signing isn’t the answer. Everton should be looking for more signings like Lukaku, DCL, Godfrey. I’ve always said, Didier Drogba wasn’t the finished article at 20, Everton need to be looking to bring in the right players who we can give game time to, who can further their careers while pushing Everton forward. Lukaku did it to an extent, just the club didn’t grow enough to match his ambition. But if we have enough of those players, then the club can grow alongside them. Obviously it’s not an easy task to identify them, but many clubs are bringing them in, we just have to get the right people identifying them.

 

[JLW]

For me we need to ditch this "Director of Football" nonsense. Since when has it been so bad recruitment wise? Since Walsh came in and continued under Brands.

Let the manager identify the players HE WANTS and let the scouts find the players that fits the managers plans and profile. By all means have a good negotiator in the role but he doesn`t identify the players he just negotiates the best deals for the players the manager wants or doesn`t want ins and outs.

It hasn`t worked since day one and you can track our poor recruitment back to the creation of this role!

Im not even sure how a DoF works?
Manager says i need a Attacking midfielder box to box with pace, DoF then sends his scouts who then come back 3 months later with a list of 4-5 players that meet that criteria.
DoF then checks on age/cost/salary etc... and decides who his man is? Or Does the manager say thats the player i want go and make it happen?

 

[EverTheOptimist]

A mish mash of recruitment, which is a case of sacking managers to frequently which leaves us with a set of players bought under multiple managers.

Only manager recently where we had a set style of play was Martinez, it was progressive and modern, then he leaves and bring in a manager with a different mantra, then the next after is different, rinse and repeat and then you're left with a mish mash of a squad.

Brands has had it hard, when at PSV he had a fantastic academy, also all Dutch teams play the same way, easier for him to identify players, his job was so much easier there especially with funds tight, he would have a remit of signing young players then be sold for profit, which is different to our model.

 

[Igrok]

Club is rotten at many levels...no identity, wrong selection and managerial appointments, poor talent development, medical team just to name a few...

 

[thebluebullet]

Kenwright, gradually over his two decades he has run the club with sentiment rather than business sense.Now we are just one big charity that lives and breathes the past,who happen to have a football team.

 

[johnjoeefc]

I think the time has come to stop posting this comment. We have just lost our 9th home game of the season, equalling our worst home season ever. People have the right to question the set-up. My opinion is Moshiri has wasted a load of money with bad decisions. We needed a high profile manager like Ancelotti from day one of his tenure. Pursuing Marco Silva was an awful decision, and getting Steve Walsh in similarly. There was an arrogant attitude at the club that simply having money will get you success. Well we know now that's not true. Once you've made the number of bad, expensive decisions that we have it takes years to undo and start again. I believe we are now moving in the right direction, and that after 3 or 4 new signings we will be better next season and finish in the top 8. Breaking into the top 6 or 4 will take another couple of years of good signings and shifting the last if the bad buys.

We are in 8th currently and you claim next season we will be much improved and finish just in the top 8. Surely the top 6 has to be the minimum expectation considering carlo has hinted at big signings to come

 

[Azza]

For me there's 3 issues, which are not just limited to the first team squad, but can be put on the whole of the club.

Mentality.

Now you can throw all the other words you want into this category, heart, fight, too nice, winning mentality, bottlers, losers, passion etc. This goes throughout the whole of the club, under Kenwright & Elstone they did the bare minimum commercial wise to be successful off the pitch, that seems to be changing now which is great. On the pitch though as highlighted by @GrandOldTeam article it's been a problem for years. Now many of us have probably seen the Spurs documentary and Mourinho telling his players to be "c star star t s" on the pitch, that's what you have to be to be the best and win. The very best elite sports(wo)men are all the same, they're generally horrible to the opposition in their environment.

Now I'm not meaning to pick on anyone in particular or be blase about mental health, particular mens' health as it's a big issue, but we have players who are either mentally weak or have issues. Micheal Keane and Bernard have both publicly talked about their issues, which is great they have spoken out about it. I have a sports science degree, my diss was about early signs of burn out, I know how effective psychologists can be in improving a persons sporting performance. Now if you want to win and be the best, unfortunately you can't have any weakness.

This came up a few weeks ago during / after the Real Madrid - Chelsea Champions League ties.





Toni Kroos doesn't lose sleep out of disrespect, he doesn't lose sleep because hes confident in his own ability and the job he has to do. The very top players have this attitude, James and Allan will probably be the only ones in this team with it. Micheal Keane could be the worlds best defender both physically and technically, but if he's up the night before a game worrying about how Callum Wilson ran him all over the place in November then he's not going to perform at his best when he faces him for the reverse fixture. Which evidently is exactly what happened and unfortunately if you want to be a the top, win leagues or cups that mental weakness will really cause problems. I imagine a large number of our squad are like this, but also there will be some who equally don't lose sleep because they're really not that arsed.



Improvement.

Why do none of our players actually get better? Before anyone lambastes me let's start with the obvious. DCL hasn't improved as a player, he's been told by Ancelotti to stay within the width of the goal posts and try and in the box as much as possible, because his strengths as a player are aerial and one touch finishing. Why hasn't his touch improved, his dribbling or his ability to kick a ball outside of the box? Seamus Coleman has never been able to cross a ball, he's the exact same player as he was in 2010. He runs on the overlap, can run back, puts in a good slide tackle and can shout in a high pitch voice. His fundamental problem has been his crossing of the ball and it's never improved. We had one of the best crosses in the league in Baines on the other side of the pitch and now in Digne, why hasn't he spent hours practicing with them to get better? Holgate was actually looking really good when he first returned from injury but he's been getting worse and worse as the season has gone on, he has over 100 appearances but he's probably worse than when he joined. Tom Davies has nearly 200 appearances and nothing has changed other than he's fitter and runs around a bit more. Richarlison is literally the same player (albeit worse this season) as when he first appeared in the PL for Watford. Not one aspect of his game has improved, he hasn't become a better finisher, passer, dribbler he's just the same.


Footballing intelligence.

In basketball 'basketball IQ' is a massive thing, american football is similar but football it's always used in isolation. A striker has "great movement in the back", a midfielder can "see a pitch forming in their head before others", a defender has "great anticipation to block a shot" etc. Oddly it's never encompassed as a whole for football as 'footballing IQ'. Taking it in the broad sense all of our players apart from James (because he's world class) have just terrible footballing IQ.

A lot will be brought up during a game about Richarlison and his poor decision making when it comes to passes and that's because he has a low footballing iq, he's absolutely brain dead.

We see it so often with Holgate and Keane passing from the back, Godfrey taking that crazy shot from outside the box and Carlo just shouting "why?" at him. Players turning back towards goal to pass, not making forward passes or driving forward with the ball to attack the opposition and put them on the back foot.

Obviously better players would have better intelligence but that's up to Brands and the scouts to recognise it.

 

[hallamblue]

We are in 8th currently and you claim next season we will be much improved and finish just in the top 8. Surely the top 6 has to be the minimum expectation considering carlo has hinted at big signings to come

It's not just about finishing position. If we'd played some great stuff and won or lost 4-3 every week I'd have been ok with a top half finish, and the promise of patching up a leaky defence. However, our whole playing style and most of the personnel need to change, and that means it's going to be difficult to get higher than top 8 for a year or two while we transition. Also, Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea will all strengthen, so I see 3 of the top 4 places stitched up. The rs are quite a way ahead of us, as are Leicester, so that's top 5 unlikely. That only leaves Spurs for us to dislodge, which may be a possibility, but we are still a bit behind them.

 

[moylee]

 

[MarkHollis]

We're just a poorly run club and ultimately it's Moshiri who's responsible for this. It's good thing he's rich because he shows no sign of having any idea on how to run a club with long-term improvement in mind, it's always quick fixes and no cohesive strategy apart from the stadium plans which to his credit seem to be progressing well.

Regardless of who's manager we need to get recruitment right and there's just too much short-term thinking and failed gambles in the transfer market that supposedly are vain attempts to get into the European places. This is why I don't think it's much use blaming Brands or Carlo because our problems are clearly greater than one person's poor judgement, but the only one who has power to make real changes is Moshiri and he just needs to make better decisions, or at least create a structure in which others can help him to do so.

 

[The Legend of Southall]

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record - patience is what is needed.

To me, Ancelotti appears to be attempting to drill us into a defensive unit. When was the last time we conceded more than 2 goals? Unfortunately it's looking like it's going to be at the expense of Europe this season.

We went backwards under Martinez, we treaded water with Koeman and Silva. But we're making progress with Ancelotti.

I'm not worried about Brands either. His transfers are hitting a pattern, rather than the scatter gun approach of his predecessor.

It took Man City time, it took Chelsea time, it's still taking Leicester time. That's what we need to give ourselves.

 

[ForeverEverton]

Im not even sure how a DoF works?
Manager says i need a Attacking midfielder box to box with pace, DoF then sends his scouts who then come back 3 months later with a list of 4-5 players that meet that criteria.
DoF then checks on age/cost/salary etc... and decides who his man is? Or Does the manager say thats the player i want go and make it happen?

The idea is that the DoF signs players inline with the clubs philosophy. But the managers sign off aswell. The DoF role will vary between clubs....

That way the clubs recruitment stays inline even if the managers (Or should we say head coach) changes.

On the continent the DoF identifies and signs the players which the head coach utilises.......