Yeah. Is this a problem, I don’t even know anymore. I’ve been excited for almost every signing that has arrived under Brands. Every window we all came out of it buzzing. Allan had dominated in the CL at the highest level, Doucoure was a proven goal scoring box to box prem CM, James was world class, Kean was a brilliant prospect, we all knew how good Richalrison was for Watford. Even all the way back to Schneiderlin I remember thinking he was a good upgrade on Barry at the time and a good solid premier league performer.
Something happens when they get to Everton though where they lose all their pace and all their application for the game and just drift lifelessly through seasons. It’s happened under 5 managers and two DOFs now which is why I’m not as keen to just throw Carlo or Brands under a bus. Even Iwobi, who doesn’t look like a footballer for us, was getting lots of starts under Arsenal Wenger in a team finishing 4th often ahead of every good players. Seeing some of his clips from his Arsenal days and it’s a completely different player. Certainly not one who struggles to trap a ball, run, or driver any end product at all. This was a player who had the most forward passes in Europe or Zoe thing like that behind only Messi at one point.
I do think part of this is our expectation as fans though. We have lost a lot of patience in players, and automtically think players are other teams are the magic answer.
I look at Leicester and that Iheanacho, who they have had to wait 4 years for him to have a 3 month good run from. I'm not sure he'd have been given that time here. That's partially our problem really, the thing we don't do that Leicester and other successful teams do is they have patience. You then get the argument that they are better than us, and we need to change again and in essence show less patience, which just causes an even bigger dilemma down the road.
Even the lads you have mentioned above, and I'm not slaughtering any of them as they represent our best window in a while but;
Allan: I'm not sure he ever dominated, but he put in good performances. He had seen a big decline in the previous 12 months though, and is now 30 coming into a new league.
Doucoure: Always a bit of a hot and cold player for a side who had been relegated
Richarlison: Scored 5 goals in the same side the season we got him
Schneiderlin: Probably a better pedigree, but there was a reason he had hardly played at United the previous 18 months, in that his motivation had gone
James: Great player but very injury prone.Which has sort of been born out this season.
They've all done really well, but I'm not sure any, of them singularly were going to solve all of our problems. What I will say yesterday, and I appreciate people won't want to hear this, but Allan and James werre the best 2 players we had. Not because they necessarily had fantastic games, but when we were struggling they tried to step up. James started demanding the ball more, nearly scored a wonderful goal and put one on a plate for Richarlison from nowhere. Allan tried to go everywhere to win the ball back. You can see the elite attitude both players have.
What worries me, is both will look at that and just think the other 8 or 9 just threw the towel in yesterday and went into their shells and they may well feel that they'd rather go elsewhere.
