Kenshin
Player Valuation: £40m
This season has been a long one for us all, one that we will probably like to forget in a hurry. Starting from the summer transfer window, to Europa league failures, to Sam Allardyce. There has been very little positives to take from the season and any we can are going to be clutching at straws let's be honest.
Yet this season, I have never felt so disconnected from Everton as I do now. It is true we are no longer the club that I grew up watching but for all the good and bad moments along the way, things just seem different now.
I suppose it all started with Moshiri coming into the club. I am not knocking the positive effect behind the scenes Moshiri has had or will do in the future. We all have promises of new stadiums, owning the liver birds, debt free etc. Except come Saturday afternoon, none of that means anything. We don't have debt free defending against Arsenal; we don't have a new stadium not even trying against West Brom. The liver birds aren't going to stop conceding against Liverpool either. All we have as a supporter are the team, the manager, the match days. How many times this season though have we been left with such a bad taste in our mouths? From defending at Anfield for 90 minutes, to Europa embarrassments, none of this season has been great but to me it is the way we have gone about it that really disconnected me from the club.
It all started in all honesty back in September, with the now famous 'expected losses' comment that Moshiri made. That for me started ringing alarm bells why anyone with any investment in the club would expect to lose a game, least of all after spending 150 million on players. I know we never expected a title charge this season but expecting a loss? Even when things were bad here we never expected to lose a game. It begs the question as well, how many games this season have been chalked down to expected losses and more importantly, what sort of mentality is that to have? How can we be ambitious when the name of the other team bases on whether we expect to lose or not? As a fan, no matter how much we care or how angry we get, why should we care when the owner doesn't?
Going back the first Arsenal game, most fans had given up on Koeman. Theories aside, it was clear Koeman wasn't going to budge from the failing tactics or performances and we did have to make a change to try and salvage something from the season. Sometimes you do have to be ruthless as the top teams prove every year and now it was our time to do it. However, no matter which way you look at it, that created a whole new mess at the club which glaringly exposed just how weak we actually are. We entrusted a rookie manager on the basis of him 'getting Everton' and won one game in the whole of it. We chased after a manager after being told no, so much that it prevented either club involved a chance to go anywhere this season, before crawling back for the second most unexciting manager in the game (sorry tony Pulis) by the time we were in real danger of faltering at the bottom. Sam's appointment wasn't popular and the defence first approach lasted all of 5 games before the effect of defending so much comes into play as the opposition team can actually score. This again is a disconnect from the fan base for me personally because within 2 games we had saved ourselves, it was that easy to group the team together and start getting results. Then a further 9 games later, it was a flash in the pan, Allardyce solves nothing here and for us to stay up is in spite of him, not to his benefit. To be honest he still doesn't feel like he is our manager even now, and I hope to god that he isn't here next season but like all things Everton, it might not be the case that he plans to walk away. What really gets me is how disconnected these managers are from us the fans. Setting out tactics and game plans that fail only to hear afterwards it's the player's fault. We can all see the players are struggling and some of them need to be moved on, but it seems the definition of insanity that these tactics clearly don't work but we are meant to buy into this idea that we should blame the players only? Koeman did it and now Sam has started, Saturday as a prime example of this. It also raises the question, if Sam is indeed going to leave for a payoff, how much does he really care? How much effort is he really putting into the team knowing he goes back to retirement either way?
there is an awful lot of disconnect when it comes to the players themselves as well this season, with the pictured man a good example of this. But for me personally, it is hard to invest in the team when the same faces are being shoe horned into the side no matter what. At the start of the season Williams played no matter what bad performance he put in. We persist with playing certain tactics and certain players even now, despite the performances and most importantly results being negative. We could excuse Arsenal for Sam as 'getting it wrong', it if wasn't for the fact 4 months ago we sacked a manager for the same result in the same tactics against the same team.
disconnect for me also comes from seeing the likes of Klassen / Sandro / Vlasic / Tosun being dropped and/or frozen out being told they aren't ready for the league yet the players who are ready are losing every week?! How can we get these players ready by playing them in the reserves or not at all? You see teams like Spurs, Southampton, Liverpool, Arsenal to name a few benefit from putting their talent on the pitch and here we are dropping them and convincing fans they just aren't good enough. Klassen alone on paper is far more impressive than quite a few signings we have brought in yet how many times has he genuinely been given a chance? Is Vlasic really that unprepared for the premier league that an unfit Bolasie is better than him? Is Tosun that unprepared coming from champions league football that a 20 year old striker or a player who we were again selling until recently is deemed better? Which is my point, whatever personal opinions are in this, it is disconnecting as a fan that you can see these players frozen out and scapegoated almost ahead of players clearly not up for the task of playing in the first team. It is, for me at least just frustrating that we are to believe what we are told without question and with no element that the people saying it could be wrong. We back the 11 on the pitch through bad times and good but when you can actively see players frozen out without a real chance of proving themselves then it’s hard to really believe in the team getting beat again each week. I am not suggesting any of the players listed are good or would improve us, that being the point of we don't know.
I just feel that the Everton now is becoming a shell of a club almost as we are being led without direction on the pitch matters and there is no accountability throughout the club. There aren’t any repercussions for failing to replace a player, no repercussions if more than one player isn't up for the job. There aren’t any repercussions for communication issues and we still keep going along with the start of a long journey stick. What if this isn't teething issues but this is the club? What if in the summer we sign duds again? What if come next January we get fed more garbage?
It just feels so different now to what it did growing up as a blue. I'll always be a diehard blue and this isn't a dramatic write up of anything significant. Sitting here now, it just feels like bad decision after bad decision is made every single step of the way and there is no change in sight to it all. As stated back at the beginning, when the club don't care about United/City/Spurs beating us then why should we? We pay our money and devote our time to supporting Everton and things probably won't change in that regard, like a marriage there is always a time when things just exist for a while, with nothing happening. but as a fan I want to be able to get behind a bad team, enjoy a good team, believe every year that maybe this bunch of players are the ones to get somewhere at last. However after the game on Saturday it is hard to even feel angry anymore, it is expected and you know there won't be change, there never is anymore.
All I want is performances, not results. Something to believe my club care as much as I do.
Yet this season, I have never felt so disconnected from Everton as I do now. It is true we are no longer the club that I grew up watching but for all the good and bad moments along the way, things just seem different now.
I suppose it all started with Moshiri coming into the club. I am not knocking the positive effect behind the scenes Moshiri has had or will do in the future. We all have promises of new stadiums, owning the liver birds, debt free etc. Except come Saturday afternoon, none of that means anything. We don't have debt free defending against Arsenal; we don't have a new stadium not even trying against West Brom. The liver birds aren't going to stop conceding against Liverpool either. All we have as a supporter are the team, the manager, the match days. How many times this season though have we been left with such a bad taste in our mouths? From defending at Anfield for 90 minutes, to Europa embarrassments, none of this season has been great but to me it is the way we have gone about it that really disconnected me from the club.
It all started in all honesty back in September, with the now famous 'expected losses' comment that Moshiri made. That for me started ringing alarm bells why anyone with any investment in the club would expect to lose a game, least of all after spending 150 million on players. I know we never expected a title charge this season but expecting a loss? Even when things were bad here we never expected to lose a game. It begs the question as well, how many games this season have been chalked down to expected losses and more importantly, what sort of mentality is that to have? How can we be ambitious when the name of the other team bases on whether we expect to lose or not? As a fan, no matter how much we care or how angry we get, why should we care when the owner doesn't?
Going back the first Arsenal game, most fans had given up on Koeman. Theories aside, it was clear Koeman wasn't going to budge from the failing tactics or performances and we did have to make a change to try and salvage something from the season. Sometimes you do have to be ruthless as the top teams prove every year and now it was our time to do it. However, no matter which way you look at it, that created a whole new mess at the club which glaringly exposed just how weak we actually are. We entrusted a rookie manager on the basis of him 'getting Everton' and won one game in the whole of it. We chased after a manager after being told no, so much that it prevented either club involved a chance to go anywhere this season, before crawling back for the second most unexciting manager in the game (sorry tony Pulis) by the time we were in real danger of faltering at the bottom. Sam's appointment wasn't popular and the defence first approach lasted all of 5 games before the effect of defending so much comes into play as the opposition team can actually score. This again is a disconnect from the fan base for me personally because within 2 games we had saved ourselves, it was that easy to group the team together and start getting results. Then a further 9 games later, it was a flash in the pan, Allardyce solves nothing here and for us to stay up is in spite of him, not to his benefit. To be honest he still doesn't feel like he is our manager even now, and I hope to god that he isn't here next season but like all things Everton, it might not be the case that he plans to walk away. What really gets me is how disconnected these managers are from us the fans. Setting out tactics and game plans that fail only to hear afterwards it's the player's fault. We can all see the players are struggling and some of them need to be moved on, but it seems the definition of insanity that these tactics clearly don't work but we are meant to buy into this idea that we should blame the players only? Koeman did it and now Sam has started, Saturday as a prime example of this. It also raises the question, if Sam is indeed going to leave for a payoff, how much does he really care? How much effort is he really putting into the team knowing he goes back to retirement either way?
there is an awful lot of disconnect when it comes to the players themselves as well this season, with the pictured man a good example of this. But for me personally, it is hard to invest in the team when the same faces are being shoe horned into the side no matter what. At the start of the season Williams played no matter what bad performance he put in. We persist with playing certain tactics and certain players even now, despite the performances and most importantly results being negative. We could excuse Arsenal for Sam as 'getting it wrong', it if wasn't for the fact 4 months ago we sacked a manager for the same result in the same tactics against the same team.
disconnect for me also comes from seeing the likes of Klassen / Sandro / Vlasic / Tosun being dropped and/or frozen out being told they aren't ready for the league yet the players who are ready are losing every week?! How can we get these players ready by playing them in the reserves or not at all? You see teams like Spurs, Southampton, Liverpool, Arsenal to name a few benefit from putting their talent on the pitch and here we are dropping them and convincing fans they just aren't good enough. Klassen alone on paper is far more impressive than quite a few signings we have brought in yet how many times has he genuinely been given a chance? Is Vlasic really that unprepared for the premier league that an unfit Bolasie is better than him? Is Tosun that unprepared coming from champions league football that a 20 year old striker or a player who we were again selling until recently is deemed better? Which is my point, whatever personal opinions are in this, it is disconnecting as a fan that you can see these players frozen out and scapegoated almost ahead of players clearly not up for the task of playing in the first team. It is, for me at least just frustrating that we are to believe what we are told without question and with no element that the people saying it could be wrong. We back the 11 on the pitch through bad times and good but when you can actively see players frozen out without a real chance of proving themselves then it’s hard to really believe in the team getting beat again each week. I am not suggesting any of the players listed are good or would improve us, that being the point of we don't know.
I just feel that the Everton now is becoming a shell of a club almost as we are being led without direction on the pitch matters and there is no accountability throughout the club. There aren’t any repercussions for failing to replace a player, no repercussions if more than one player isn't up for the job. There aren’t any repercussions for communication issues and we still keep going along with the start of a long journey stick. What if this isn't teething issues but this is the club? What if in the summer we sign duds again? What if come next January we get fed more garbage?
It just feels so different now to what it did growing up as a blue. I'll always be a diehard blue and this isn't a dramatic write up of anything significant. Sitting here now, it just feels like bad decision after bad decision is made every single step of the way and there is no change in sight to it all. As stated back at the beginning, when the club don't care about United/City/Spurs beating us then why should we? We pay our money and devote our time to supporting Everton and things probably won't change in that regard, like a marriage there is always a time when things just exist for a while, with nothing happening. but as a fan I want to be able to get behind a bad team, enjoy a good team, believe every year that maybe this bunch of players are the ones to get somewhere at last. However after the game on Saturday it is hard to even feel angry anymore, it is expected and you know there won't be change, there never is anymore.
All I want is performances, not results. Something to believe my club care as much as I do.
