Intimidation - The Missing Ingredient at Everton

[chicoazul]

But my Grandfather is an Australian. How could I possibly be racist against you convict [Poor language removed]?

 

[Deloodid]

But my Grandfather is an Australian. How could I possibly be racist against you convict [Poor language removed]?

How dare BunDz say that, you watched home and away once, how can you be racist!

 

[toffeejack]

We've got the best team in a generation and what worries me is that we won't realise it's potential before it falls apart.

There are not many teams who are better than us in this league and this season seems an absolute gimme with the top teams unable to put runs together. One Champions League qualification could change the whole outlook for the club in the short to near term future.

Here's hoping we realise that potential. It could all go to sh*t but then that's the recent Everton way.

is right. every single team in the league has at least one glaring weakness, anyone can beat anyone and i don't really see one team which you think, they'll be hard to score against so they could win 7/8 on the trot. love sylvain, but he's got it wrong there, we need someone to rile the team up and make sure we grab this season by the scruff of the neck. was hoping felli's champs league comments would do that - here's hoping

 

[Tubey]

Are you referring to stuff like this Tubes?

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/362379?

Exactly that mate. Seems a bit prescient now

It's the reason we sh*t one every time we go up against Liverpool and the major difference between us and those who have a genuine top club mentality.

Sylvain should be coming out and saying, "Yes, it was a good result against City, but it's one we expect. We expect to compete against every side in this league no matter who they are. We can be realistic and say that a draw at City is a "good" result, but drawing so many games against various opposition in this league isn't good enough. We can do better and we will do better."

Saying what he's said in that article is curbing expectations to protect his own limitations and lessen the pressure on himself and a team who have proven time and time again to be averse to handling genuine pressure. Good players raise their game to expectation, and therein is the difference between the journeymen footballers of this world like Sylvain and the genuine class like Marouane.

EDIT: I'm not saying Distin is a bad player. He's technically sound. But something has stopped him reaching the very upper echelons of the game and it's his mentality. I think the time for dampening expectations at Everton is gone, as overall we have a side full of very good players and winning mentalities, like Baines, Fellaini, Mirallas, Jelavic... even Jags and Howard. Quality in this way drives others on if the mentality at the club is right. It's different from, say, 2007/08, because key positions have genuine quality and we're fluent moving forward and, hiccups aside in recent games, we have solid defenders.

The way the mentality is at the moment and these sort of comments from Distin leads me to be a bit cynical and wonder if dampening enthusiasm is a mechanism from Moyes to protect his "safest job in football" position. I hope not.

 

[Elong]

See, I'd argue that that's the mentality that causes us problems. If you think that way, you'll never win anything as you're on a self-perpetuating defeatist mindset and you become afraid of succeeding.

I know that sounds very "Brendan" but it's true nevertheless. I'm not saying we should sing "we're by far the greatest team" and believe it word for word; but we should have the belief that every single game we play at Goodison we are the favourites to win, and that each of the remaining games of this 38 game season we have should be played with the attitude that we're one of the top four or five teams in this league and we should go out and impose ourselves as such.

There's nothing embarrassing about believing you can win.

You're right, there's nothing embarrassing about believing you can win, but it is embarrassing saying you will win and then not backing it up.

Sure, get the self belief going in the team, which I'm sure they try to instill, but don't put it out publicly, you come up short if you can't back your words up.

The quote I always remember is when Tony Greig said he'd make the Windies "grovel" back in the 80s. Not only did he eat his words, he was made to look very silly.

 

[billybinghamsboy]

Behead Kenwright on the pitch before the next game, letting others know we're not going to stand for it anymore and once we've cleaned out the enemy within, they'll be next.

This is what we need a nice bit of bloodletting, gets the crowd revved up.

 

[degsy]

It starts on the pitch and after a time it seeps into the fabric of the club

It starts on the pitch;

Gibbo and Osman are NOT Bracewell and Reid

and they aren't Kendall and Harvey

and the most deffo aren't Gabriel and Kay

It starts on the pitch

 

[Deano]

I wish Jelavic had Duncan Fergusons intimidation factor.

 

[jtl60]

I wish Jelavic had Duncan Fergusons intimidation factor.

If Duncan had Jelavic's finishing ability, now that would be a player!

 

[Seamus Colemole]

Wise words from Mr. Racism there. We need strikers that can come in when the one we have is out of form. We can't rely on the same one to be in form all the time.

I thought we'd signed a player called Mr Racism there for a minute and that was hotlinking to his profile.

But for me the main issue is if you have two teams of exact same ability but one has a weak mentality and one has a winning mentality then the one with the winning mentality will be more succesful.

Like before the semi in April when the 2 captains introduced the teams : gerrard was deadly serious and talked about the team who would win the semi, Neville was joking around and introduced the team who he hoped would try to win the semi.

That sums it up.

Arrogance and delusion it might be, but its also a winning attitude.