Mangala was absolutely average and the fact that was better than some of the other players we’ve had in there shows how poor the squad has been.
Gueye, Garner, Mangala, Davies, Allan, Siggurdson, Barry, Schneiderlin, Delph, Klaasen, Rooney. - not an ounce of pace between any of them and only Gueye and occasionally Allan even had any aggression.
Doucoure Onana McCarthy at least had the legs to cover the ground but their technical skills were limited and even then Onana was snatched off us straight away.
People want technical players, absolutely, we all do, but you cannot dominate teams in possession if you can’t get the ball back when you lose it.
I’m absolutely sick of watching Everton teams chasing shadows against nearly every team in the league because we have no legs upfront, no pace out wide, can’t cover ground in midfield, and have two tug boats at centre back.
It starts in the engine room though. We should be looking at players that can get in the face of top opposition, knock them off their game. There wouldn’t have been any ‘dogs of war’ if the dogs can’t even run quick enough to get a tackle in. We even had a good few quick midfielders in the 90s who could put it about but since McCarthy and Barkley we’ve barely bought anyone with the pace in there to get on top of the opposition.