Have we lost our passion?

[Gladystweet]

He could be,m just his body not following his head. Main reason for his petulant red cards most of the time, just frustration from him that he couldn't play the way he wanted.



Clubs like chelsea are too far gone in terms of all that now. They sold their soul for a league title and never looked back, would take an absolute collapse for them to rediscover what made chelsea great in their eyes. but yeah, those players don't care one bit but then they can throw money at players to pretend to care long enough before their next big payday.

to be honest yes, i do want players passionate about the cause rather than the club. I am not naive to think that we can get a team of players who all support us or even care about us after they leave. But whilst they wear the blue shirt they just battle for us, they care about results and just have that bit of passion rather than not giving a damn.

Honestly mate, if you want a team of players who once they pull on that blue shirt will give it their all, you need to go back a couple of decades, when money wasn't the number one priority.
As for Chelsea. They didn't have a soul to begin with but they saw an opening and took it. They jumped ahead of the field and are now an established, successful club....I'd bite your hand off for a bit of that like.

 

[MikeH72]

OK. Fair.

Do you think Jeff Hendricks give a hoot about Burnley? He'd move to Everton at the drop of a hat.

Do you think Wayne Rooney gives a crap about Man Utd? He'd move back to Everton at th... hang on

 

[Ashtonian]

OK. Fair.

Do you think Jeff Hendricks give a hoot about Burnley? He'd move to Everton at the drop of a hat.

had to google who he was haha. That is all a little different of the point, i wouldn't be adverse to any player wanting to leave us either. You want to be succesful and win trophies, if we aren't and a team with a better chance wants you, of course anyone would leave. It is the time before it i mean, caring on the pitch not eyeing up their next club if they do play well. I mean Ross loves us to bits, his boyhood club, he would jump if united or chelsea wanted him.

Honestly mate, if you want a team of players who once they pull on that blue shirt will give it their all, you need to go back a couple of decades, when money wasn't the number one priority.
As for Chelsea. They didn't have a soul to begin with but they saw an opening and took it. They jumped ahead of the field and are now an established, successful club....I'd bite your hand off for a bit of that like.

I wouldn't. The cliche answer but i preferably wouldn't want a club who use money alone for success. It may well be the case where success is impossible without it which in that case it is reluctantly following suit as a fan, but in an ideal situation we would do it from our own backs not through money.

 

[ijjysmith]

Do you think Wayne Rooney gives a crap about Man Utd? He'd move back to Everton at th... hang on

I reckon if could pay him what he's on now he would but I get your point!

 

[4737carlin]

I think the passion has been sucked out of us by years of false dawns, middle table mediocrity and wilingness to accept we cant compete.

For me its not about the numbers, its about the silence, fans leaving at City when it was 1 1 with 5 minutes to go, the lack of vocal support, as a set of fans we just dont back the team, we use to, now we just sit there and watch.

 

[Gladystweet]

had to google who he was haha. That is all a little different of the point, i wouldn't be adverse to any player wanting to leave us either. You want to be succesful and win trophies, if we aren't and a team with a better chance wants you, of course anyone would leave. It is the time before it i mean, caring on the pitch not eyeing up their next club if they do play well. I mean Ross loves us to bits, his boyhood club, he would jump if united or chelsea wanted him.



I wouldn't. The cliche answer but i preferably wouldn't want a club who use money alone for success. It may well be the case where success is impossible without it which in that case it is reluctantly following suit as a fan, but in an ideal situation we would do it from our own backs not through money.

It's never going to happen then. Leicester was a freak and won't happen again. The planets aligned while all the other clubs were in a bit of turmoil and took their eye off the ball.
Whether we like it or not, without money, we can't compete. We can't even win the odd cup ffs.
We either move with the times or we fall even further behind...if that's possible.

 

[hallamblue]

I remember Goodison used to turn into a bear pit whenever we got a corner and the ground would shake.

But I think the lack of noise now has something to do with our corners not beating the first man since about 2010

You've forgotten Trevor Steven's corners haven't you lol

 

[Groucho]

I don't think anyone's lost passion, I feel some have channeled it into anger and frustration.

Perfectly understandable.

 

[chrismpw]

I think it can be fixed in theory but the path to do so is not as easy as saying that.

for arguments sake, simplest way around it, sign barton, give him the arm band and get rooney in jan. All of a sudden you will see the players caring more on the pitch straght away. now that isn't going to happen, nor would we want it to in terms of barton, but he would bring that level of passion in there which would rub off to some of the others.

A few individuals could make a massive difference though, and signing belgian fellas who are holding out for others for arguments sake isn't going to solve it, more add to it. but in comparison, if Yarmalenko had turned up, he would have brought a bit more commitment to the club through the fact he is a decent hardworking and was well aware of the level he would have walked into.

Probably rambling there, but you get what i mean. the types of players who are committed and aren't coming here for money, combined with actual players already here who can express just how passionate we are as a club.

You're right. It might just take one signing. Our early 80s team started to come to life, I reckon, when Andy Gray turned up. Imagine him and Reidy in the dressing room - a real catalyst.

 

[Brendan Janus]

It all came together like perfection !

 

[Deleted member 24970]

The world's moved on if you haven't noticed. Protests online are actually a thing, they work and everything. You don't need to stage a sit in because the club has people online looking at public opinion - the online backlash is therefore just as effective as the one in person. For those who want to go old school though, you could also throw in the boycott of the sunderland away game as evidence of the revolt.

I would say 30,000+ plus people are rather unlikely to pay large sums of money to watch a seasons worth of games in a dilapidated ground, knowing that the team is highly unlikely to achieve anything of note, unless they're passionate about it.

Im not doubting the power of social media and such, my point being is that hundreds of thousands kicked up a fuss, but then out of the 38k that attended goodison park, how many stayed behind ? Funny really because of the ones that didn't stay behind probably drove home to their laptop or used their mobile on the way home to voice their discontent again.

Measuring passion is varied I suppose, just because one man goes the game, it doesn't mean he is any more/less passionate than another.
Is passion and anger the same ? Maybe anger is born from passion ?

I just feel that the Martinez era destroyed everything. Im not saying that easily either, but results suffered, fans suffered, players suffered and the whole mood was one of almost despair. Nothing to cling on to IMO, the semi final was a chance for everton to be cut throat and sack Martinez to bring in those like Royal, Unsy and Duncan. Just my opinion of course, I save my passion for the bedroom aye lad are we avin some of that ?!

 

[GwladysPhil]

At the start of the season, I was up for it.

Now, not so much. Nothing to get excited over, can only see us going for the FA cup but after getting beat by Norwich, probably not.

 

[brieverton]

Passion can arise in both the best and worst of circumstances, that's the thing.

It is more than a decent topic this, but passion is one of those words that gets bandied around in football and sport in general, such that its value gets diluted and it loses its genuineness.

There would be plenty of passion I'm sure, if we went down, grown men no different to myself would hold their heads in their hands and cry, some in view of the Sky cameras.

Equally, I would probably shed a tear if and when we won something again, even the League Cup.

By and large, Evertonians are no different to other fans. There was a tweet after the Chelsea game, I think it might have made its way on here along the lines of "I'm sick of being chosen". I'm sure there was anger, hurt, embarrassment, tiredness, apathy, and a whole host of other emotions behind that tweet, and we could identify with them all. To me that wasn't negative at all, it showed somebody who cared. The players, some at least, could learn a thing or two there.

It's probably correct to surmise that a vociferous, chanting, bellicose home support at GP both inspires the players to better things and intimidates the opponent. But players have to meet fans half way in that. There is nothing more manifest on a football pitch than a player giving his all, shirkers and hiders get found out easily, none moreso than at GP. Perhaps of late, our current crop could ask questions of themselves in that respect.

Equally, as much as Everton is central to our lives, it is not our life. I spend, if not waste, considerable amounts of time, money, anticipation, nervous energy, expectation on Everton etc etc for little or no reward usually. Its wrong to reduce it to obsessing about a group of millionaire men running about on grass after a ball but there actually are things that are much more important.

At my age, amongst my family and work-colleagues, letting a poor result get to me for more than a few hours, would not go down well at all and would be seen as terribly immature, and rightly so. This is as it should be, but it wouldn't stop me from ignoring MOTD or the following days papers, for example.

 

[Lanolin]

Im not doubting the power of social media and such, my point being is that hundreds of thousands kicked up a fuss, but then out of the 38k that attended goodison park, how many stayed behind ? Funny really because of the ones that didn't stay behind probably drove home to their laptop or used their mobile on the way home to voice their discontent again.

Measuring passion is varied I suppose, just because one man goes the game, it doesn't mean he is any more/less passionate than another.
Is passion and anger the same ? Maybe anger is born from passion ?

I just feel that the Martinez era destroyed everything. Im not saying that easily either, but results suffered, fans suffered, players suffered and the whole mood was one of almost despair. Nothing to cling on to IMO, the semi final was a chance for everton to be cut throat and sack Martinez to bring in those like Royal, Unsy and Duncan. Just my opinion of course, I save my passion for the bedroom aye lad are we avin some of that ?!

Yeah I agree with that.

Just to be clear, i'm not saying that matchgoing fans are more passionate, simply that going to the game week in week out suggests that you must be reasonably passionate about the club, otherwise you have a weird way of wanting to pass time and spend money.

I think the last couple of years have been a bit of an eye opener for a lot of fans. For all the talk about Moyes being negative etc, I think fans genuinely felt like every game mattered during most of his seasons in charge. We were usually challenging for at least Europe, occasionally the CL, so we wanted the team to fight for everything. The same happened in Martinez's first season but the last 2 were so utterly average that it stopped really mattering whether we got a last minute equaliser or not. There were loads of posts on here last year about how it didn't really matter if we finished 7th or 13th, they were effectively the same thing.

After a lot of excitement in the early summer, I think the reality looks like being another underwhelming season, and it's hard to get really excited by individual games against fellow mid table sides when you know it isn't going to make a huge difference to the overall success/failure of the season.

 

[toffee matt]

The amount of booing the team that happens at goodiosn is embarrassing to be quite frank