Everton Tales: Football Manager.
- Thread starter Disgruntledgoat
- Start date
- Status
Disgruntledgoat
Player Valuation: £50m
January 2016
As introductions go, a home game against Champions League contending Manchester City is a rough first day. We start the day in 5th 5 points behind today's opponents and a win is vital to get me off on a good footing in my rash promise to get Everton in to the European Cup for the first time. The form tells me that we haven't won against City in 10 attempts.
52,000 Evertonians have packed Bramley Moore Dock to welcome this rank outsider to a job he has no right to and react with a combination of guarded enthusiasm and outright incredulity. Even this awkward welcome is better than the blank stares and raised eyebrows that accompanied my first team talk and selection. I've pushed Gareth Bale up from left back to winger (just a hunch, reckon he can he handle it) and given 37 year old Walter Samuel a start at centre back.
One of the wonderful things about Goodison Park was the way you could feel the atmosphere turn in a moment and in the new stadium, with the stands so close to the pitch, I get a familiar feeling as my tenure gets underway with Mohammed Aissaoui putting a bullet header past Begovic after 3 minutes. The groans echo through the stadium and I feel the die is cast for me within 5 minutes. Fortunately, Gareth Bale slips his man and places one into the far corner after 6 minutes to both vindicate my selection and get us back on track. After this, we batter City. Guardado is bossing the game from the centre of midfield pinging balls to the wings and after 37 minutes he finds Denis Dupont in his new right wing role and his cross lands perfectly on the head of Bale to give us the lead.
After this the game descends into a slow, artless slog. City raise themselves in the last 20 minutes but we sit a little deeper and soak up the pressure. I get off to a winning start and we've closed the gap to the champions league to just 2 points.
I get a week to work with the team before our next game, a home draw in a 3rd round FA Cup tie against 1st Division Coventry. Obviously, I do something right as we go in at half time 1-0 up and obviously I do something right at half time because we finish 6-0 up with a hat trick from Jordan O'Conner justifying my decision to make him my main striker ahead of Pereira.
My first away trip is to Fratton Park to take on a decent-mid table Portsmouth. In the first half they stretch us out wide with the pace of Manchester City loanee Graham Scott and frustrate us in attack until, in the 74th minute, substitute Josu Goni pops up with a header from a Gareth Bale cross and we go home with a 1-0 win and 3 points.
Next up are relegation threatened Middlesboro at the Riverside. They take the lead with a thunderbolt from Payet after 5 minutes and we huff and puff, rattling the woodwork 3 times and doing everything except scoring. Just as I'm resigned to my first defeat Denis Dupont bends a free kick into the top corner on 64 minutes and ten minutes later slots home from a Gareth Bale cross and somehow we win again.
It's not all plain sailing however, Walter Samuel comes to me to tell me he wants to retire at the end of the season. I lay the charm on. He may be of advancing years, but he's still my most gifted defender. He goes away promising to think it over. Joseph Yobo is next up and the 34 year old also wants to call it quits. I do not lay on the charm. He's on 140k a week and my weakest defender. He goes away with my thanks. Yet another decrepit some time footballer is waiting in line. This time David Villa tells me he wants to take his 35 year old bones back to Spain. I agree heartily and will try to find him a move in the transfer window.
Back at Goodison Park, we have a tuesday night game with Blackburn Rovers that threatens to descend into farce when Walter Samuel decides to test how serious I am about wanting him to hang about another year by getting sent off for a two footed lunge on a player in the process of controlling a high ball on his chest. This is after just 10 minutes. Bizarrely this seems to galvanise us and Gareth Bale and midfielder Samy Houri both score before half time. After the half, Blackburn have Fernandez sent off for a second yellow card and, I assume, we're cruising to another win. However they respond to that setback by scoring twice in 5 minutes to level the game. I respond by throwing on my last two substitutes and Omar Hazah responds by twanging a hamstring putting him out for 3 weeks and, more immediately, putting us down to 9 men and no forwards with 10 minutes to play. We get out with a draw.
A 5-0 hammering of Rotherham puts us in the hat for the 5th round of the cup before the final game of the month when top of the table Manchester United visit Goodison, captined by former Everton legend Andres Iniesta. Samuel's suspension, injuries to Houry and Hazah and Pereia on international duty mean that even with 2 keepers I can only put 6 on the bench and I see from the pre match stat pack that we have beaten United once in 13 years. I am prepared for a tough afternoon.
However, we defend like lions in the first half, giving United not a sniff. In the second we find a way to combine that with attacking prowess as O'Conner latches on to a diagonal pass from Debuchy at right back and slots past the keeper. He follows up with a free header from a corner 2 minutes later and completes his hat trick on 72 minutes by pouncing on a lazy back pass. He celebrates by stretching a ligament in his knee and four weeks off. Lewandowski pulls one back for the visitors in injury time but its scant consolation.
The win puts us within 6 points of the top of the table and one point behind the Champions League places. My first month as Everton manager has seen 7 games, 6 wins and a draw and is enough to bag me manager of the month.
As introductions go, a home game against Champions League contending Manchester City is a rough first day. We start the day in 5th 5 points behind today's opponents and a win is vital to get me off on a good footing in my rash promise to get Everton in to the European Cup for the first time. The form tells me that we haven't won against City in 10 attempts.
52,000 Evertonians have packed Bramley Moore Dock to welcome this rank outsider to a job he has no right to and react with a combination of guarded enthusiasm and outright incredulity. Even this awkward welcome is better than the blank stares and raised eyebrows that accompanied my first team talk and selection. I've pushed Gareth Bale up from left back to winger (just a hunch, reckon he can he handle it) and given 37 year old Walter Samuel a start at centre back.
One of the wonderful things about Goodison Park was the way you could feel the atmosphere turn in a moment and in the new stadium, with the stands so close to the pitch, I get a familiar feeling as my tenure gets underway with Mohammed Aissaoui putting a bullet header past Begovic after 3 minutes. The groans echo through the stadium and I feel the die is cast for me within 5 minutes. Fortunately, Gareth Bale slips his man and places one into the far corner after 6 minutes to both vindicate my selection and get us back on track. After this, we batter City. Guardado is bossing the game from the centre of midfield pinging balls to the wings and after 37 minutes he finds Denis Dupont in his new right wing role and his cross lands perfectly on the head of Bale to give us the lead.
After this the game descends into a slow, artless slog. City raise themselves in the last 20 minutes but we sit a little deeper and soak up the pressure. I get off to a winning start and we've closed the gap to the champions league to just 2 points.
I get a week to work with the team before our next game, a home draw in a 3rd round FA Cup tie against 1st Division Coventry. Obviously, I do something right as we go in at half time 1-0 up and obviously I do something right at half time because we finish 6-0 up with a hat trick from Jordan O'Conner justifying my decision to make him my main striker ahead of Pereira.
My first away trip is to Fratton Park to take on a decent-mid table Portsmouth. In the first half they stretch us out wide with the pace of Manchester City loanee Graham Scott and frustrate us in attack until, in the 74th minute, substitute Josu Goni pops up with a header from a Gareth Bale cross and we go home with a 1-0 win and 3 points.
Next up are relegation threatened Middlesboro at the Riverside. They take the lead with a thunderbolt from Payet after 5 minutes and we huff and puff, rattling the woodwork 3 times and doing everything except scoring. Just as I'm resigned to my first defeat Denis Dupont bends a free kick into the top corner on 64 minutes and ten minutes later slots home from a Gareth Bale cross and somehow we win again.
It's not all plain sailing however, Walter Samuel comes to me to tell me he wants to retire at the end of the season. I lay the charm on. He may be of advancing years, but he's still my most gifted defender. He goes away promising to think it over. Joseph Yobo is next up and the 34 year old also wants to call it quits. I do not lay on the charm. He's on 140k a week and my weakest defender. He goes away with my thanks. Yet another decrepit some time footballer is waiting in line. This time David Villa tells me he wants to take his 35 year old bones back to Spain. I agree heartily and will try to find him a move in the transfer window.
Back at Goodison Park, we have a tuesday night game with Blackburn Rovers that threatens to descend into farce when Walter Samuel decides to test how serious I am about wanting him to hang about another year by getting sent off for a two footed lunge on a player in the process of controlling a high ball on his chest. This is after just 10 minutes. Bizarrely this seems to galvanise us and Gareth Bale and midfielder Samy Houri both score before half time. After the half, Blackburn have Fernandez sent off for a second yellow card and, I assume, we're cruising to another win. However they respond to that setback by scoring twice in 5 minutes to level the game. I respond by throwing on my last two substitutes and Omar Hazah responds by twanging a hamstring putting him out for 3 weeks and, more immediately, putting us down to 9 men and no forwards with 10 minutes to play. We get out with a draw.
A 5-0 hammering of Rotherham puts us in the hat for the 5th round of the cup before the final game of the month when top of the table Manchester United visit Goodison, captined by former Everton legend Andres Iniesta. Samuel's suspension, injuries to Houry and Hazah and Pereia on international duty mean that even with 2 keepers I can only put 6 on the bench and I see from the pre match stat pack that we have beaten United once in 13 years. I am prepared for a tough afternoon.
However, we defend like lions in the first half, giving United not a sniff. In the second we find a way to combine that with attacking prowess as O'Conner latches on to a diagonal pass from Debuchy at right back and slots past the keeper. He follows up with a free header from a corner 2 minutes later and completes his hat trick on 72 minutes by pouncing on a lazy back pass. He celebrates by stretching a ligament in his knee and four weeks off. Lewandowski pulls one back for the visitors in injury time but its scant consolation.
The win puts us within 6 points of the top of the table and one point behind the Champions League places. My first month as Everton manager has seen 7 games, 6 wins and a draw and is enough to bag me manager of the month.
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