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Without spirit.....

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I had to have a chat with myself yesterday not to expect much from everton with our recent history. Spirit aggression and intensity used to be the base we worked on and the reason I fell in love with everton. It's gone since Moyes. Delighted carlo came in. He offers such experience and pulling power in market. But yesterday summed it up. We are a mid table team that are lacking in spirit.
 
Gilbert.. said:
He said before yesterdays game that he will have to rotate players because of the fixtures. I personaly would leave the back four alone every game. And you're right, the shouts to be more attacking were growing. Theres your end result yesterday. We'll probably do better v leeds going back to it.
Yesterday to many were being carried. If you bring in fullbacks who will be more offensive then the whole midfield has to show up.
They didnt.
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Hit the nail on the head, you need 3 mobile aggressive midfielders to play fullbacks high up the pitch. At least 2, and to this James has to play as part of a front 3. I don’t think we have the personnel to play this way currently. The closest we have to this is the team we played at the start of the season minus Coleman.
 
When our one genuinely brilliant creative is being kicked from pillar to post and the rest of the team just...passively accept it and make no attempt to surround the referee or show their displeasure to the opposition, then that's innate to these players. We're just too soft.

Softness I can take - if the "soft" player is a genius. We have one. And he isn't soft. Just handsome - which plenty seem to think equates with weakness.

The last great team we had - the 1980s side - were technically excellent from goal to attack, but they were also indomitable. If you wanted to play, they would play and outplay you. If you wanted to fight, they would fight you and outfight you. The current side has very little of that. I think Carlo needs to go back to players who give him that (Godfrey, Holgate) and also defensive solidity. We are not good enough to beat teams on technical brilliance alone (as we have just one technically brilliant player), so we need to get back to doing what we have done very well at times this season: defending well, being hard to beat, and getting results. All the old aspirational "playing good football" stuff is pointless if we're losing games.

I'd sooner watch a hard-to-beat spirited Everton featuring the glorious stylings of James Rodriguez getting results than that rabble I saw yesterday. Over time, Carlo can restore the balance in favour of technique and entertainment. But he won't be given that time if results fall off a cliff in the short term.

Italians often talk of players with "personality". That's code for courage and fight. I think Carlo knows many of his current squad lack any. He'll just have to continue to overhaul the squad, which is why we must be active tomorrow.
 
We’re crying out for a midfielder who can attack the box, Sigurdsson never ever makes a run into the box and the only time he has (Shef United and Burnley) scored and nearly scored. Spend half the game screaming at players to sprint, just show some desire, we get the ball and just jog around and hope James does something or a Digne cross finds DCL with no-one else in the box at all. Other than that it’s launch it up to DCL and pray he wins a free kick or wins his own flick on, with no-one having the initiative to run off him.

Saw the goal Villa scored yesterday with Barkley arriving and could only dream of one of our midfielders even making that run at the minute, been the same against West Ham, Wolves, yesterday and Leicester, Shef United etc. Look at the goal West Ham scored against us, Soucek taking a gamble and being 6 yards out. Ancelotti has made us well drilled against good sides and playing that way against them is fine when we’re happy to concede possession, but the mentality needs to change against bottom half sides to take it to them more.
 

Carloblues said:
The players are just scum, they constantly put in performances like that, it shouldn't take for your manager to come out and say basically work harder for you to actually work harder. They just aren't interested when any bitnot pressure is on them
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Good post OP. Spirit is basically code for lack of effort. If you're playing top level football, that's simply unacceptable, you live like kings, while people are scratching for pennies, you get cooks who make meals for you, perfect healthcare, everything is taken care of including your family and extended family. They just have one job - to play football. Sure there are lots of pressure to do well, but you can be sure Carlo knows when they have given enough effort or when they haven't. When I was playing high school and then afterwards socially futsal/indoor, losses killed me - everyone reacts different though. Maybe some of the players just didn't show like they cared enough.

Spirit also extends to a range of other things like trust. Even though it was a very attacking 11, the players selected should have been able to defend. It wasn't just the goal they let through, Newcastle had more corners, and they created more chances. That just means the players were strolling round the pitch. I doubt Carlo wants to put out such an offensive team again. Another thing is heart, these guys are given scouting reports on the opposition, given run downs and number of ways to beat Newcastle, they'd have to at least have 60-90mins of tactics before a game. They're probably also expected to watch tape. They're expected to be able to work out how to beat the opposition on the pitch, especially if you have more quality. If you can't work it out, then you shouldn't be on the pitch. By the looks of things they thought they'd beat Newcastle easily, judging by the complete waste of the 1st half.

And lastly spirit is also about working as a team. They just didn't, buildup play was pathetic, almost zero good chances created, and we saw everybody taking shots except DCL. He must be wondering what he has to do to get the ball so he can do his job.

Now its time for a reaction. Starts with proper training and focus and no BS. The transfer market isn't going to help either. Relying on one or two new guys to get the old squad out of the mess is unreasonable.
 
optatom154 said:
We’re crying out for a midfielder who can attack the box, Sigurdsson never ever makes a run into the box and the only time he has (Shef United and Burnley) scored and nearly scored. Spend half the game screaming at players to sprint, just show some desire, we get the ball and just jog around and hope James does something or a Digne cross finds DCL with no-one else in the box at all. Other than that it’s launch it up to DCL and pray he wins a free kick or wins his own flick on, with no-one having the initiative to run off him.

Saw the goal Villa scored yesterday with Barkley arriving and could only dream of one of our midfielders even making that run at the minute, been the same against West Ham, Wolves, yesterday and Leicester, Shef United etc. Look at the goal West Ham scored against us, Soucek taking a gamble and being 6 yards out. Ancelotti has made us well drilled against good sides and playing that way against them is fine when we’re happy to concede possession, but the mentality needs to change against bottom half sides to take it to them more.
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Gylfi Sigurdsson is like the opposite of Thomas 'mad dog' Gravesen. Incredible they both play midfield. Gylfi just looks like he glides around the pitch like he's trying to play the perfect sideways pass 80% of the time (The other 20% is spent pointing). We need more mad dogs in this team, and less chihuahuas.
 

In todays game, you cant dish out retribution, as per Reidy & Bracewell. But what you can do is get in the refs ear. Most other teams do except us. Yesterday was a prime example, the amount of times James and Richie got taken out. No backbone.
 
arbok said:
Gylfi Sigurdsson is like the opposite of Thomas 'mad dog' Gravesen. Incredible they both play midfield. Gylfi just looks like he glides around the pitch like he's trying to play the perfect sideways pass 80% of the time (The other 20% is spent pointing). We need more mad dogs in this team, and less chihuahuas.
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Just a shame we don’t have Lee Carsley for Real Madrid to mix up again like they did with Gravesen imo, be a sound way of binning Gylfi off
 
Carloblues said:
The players are just scum, they constantly put in performances like that, it shouldn't take for your manager to come out and say basically work harder for you to actually work harder. They just aren't interested when any bitnot pressure is on them
Click to expand...
Haha edgy af this lol
 
In my opinion, the squad is rotten to the core with meek and mild losers who show zero aggression and passion. They pull the expectations on the pitch down for the rest of the players. Coleman, Iwobi, Sigurrdson, Keane, Mina where all on the pitch yesterday who I would throw into this category.
How do we, the fans, expect a rousing response when that group constitute over 50% of the line up?

Put it this way, Godfrey has stood out like a sore thumb for his aggression and passion, as Holgate did the season before.
You can see their personalities and demeanours are, dare I say it, 'redsh€te esque'.

Buy more Godfrey's, less Iwobi's. That's a start.
 

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