Saint Domingo
Player Valuation: £90m
I don't want this article to turn into yet another post match discussion about yesterday's game nor about Koeman as a manager who has made a very good start results wise to his tenure as Everton manager. The way the game panned out in my opinion though was typical of the sort of performance we have seen regularly from Everton in the premier league away at top grounds since the turn of the century. That is, turning up at a 'big' team's stadium regardless of whether it is a City in imperious form (yesterday) or a poor Liverpool or Arsenal side getting beaten easily by other teams, and just being completely unable to even live with the opposition.
All sides can put in bad performance and get beaten by better teams, that has always been true, and there are many occasions in the premier league of poor teams going to big grounds and being utterly annihilated. So I could easily accept that outcome for Everton, getting pasted 4-0 at Anfield or 7-1 at Highbury, if the reverse was also true, that there were games where we went there played well, they didn't, and we came away with a win. After all, other teams in the league do this all the time, over the last decade and a half of premier league football loads of average teams have gone to big stadiums played really well and deservedly taken three points. Sunderland 13/14 in the mire of a relegation battle spring to mind when in the one week they beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and drew with City at the Etihad, both were title chasing teams at the time but Sunderland had been the better teams in both games and deserved the points. Palace have always seemed to play well at Anfield, Swansea have won numerous times at the Emirates, even Villa who then got relegated beat Arsenal there. Roberto Martinez's Wigan went on a great run against the top sides to save themselves from relegation the season before they went down. The top sides of course have also routinely embarrassed and been embarrassed by each other home and away over this period too. United have been beaten 6-1 at home, Chelsea have demolished Arsenal, Arsenal have demolished Liverpool etc. etc. The summary being that sides have been in good form and bad form over these periods and the wins have followed teams playing well.
Then you get Everton. Over this period we've been superior in quality to most of the non moneyed sides in the premier league. We've had good attacking players like Arteta Cahill Yakubu Lukaku Mirallas who are proven performers at this level and we've had very strong defences at one time boasting 3/4 of the England back 4 and two of PFA team of the year full backs. We're clearly a good premier league side, yet not only is our record results wise in big away games absolutely disgraceful, the performance level to go with it has also been shameful.
There are a few exceptions - Oviedo's Old Trafford, maybe Stamford Bridge last season, Pienaar at the Emirates, 4-4 at OT, Vaughan at Stamford Bridge, but these are very few and far between (and we won only one of them against a Moyes United). Most of the performances follow the exact same formula. We turn up and for 90 minutes try and perform some sort of containment exercise to varying degrees of success. Sometimes you get the point like yesterday, most times its a routine narrow win for the opposition, and sometimes we take a complete mauling. The features of the game are exactly the same though, no matter who we field or how well we are playing, or who the opposition fields or how well they're playing, we make it look like men v boys, we're slow, weak, can barely get on the ball at all, can barely get near a player to put a tackle in, and end up doing nothing but retreating deep, every man behind the ball, and punting it long. It happened under Moyes, it happened under Martinez, and it happened yesterday (regardless of whether you think a point is a good result or not).
Why does this keep happening? Liverpool and Arsenal especially have been weak at numerous times over this periods and other teams have repeatedly exploited them. Yet even when we turn up in good solid form and they are injury riven and in a crisis of confidence it has been easy win after easy win for them, and not even in tight affairs, in games where we've barely been able to land a glove on them. Average players struggling against others teams in the division are just waltzing around having the easiest game of the season against us. The next week they'll be back to losing at home to Palace or Swansea and crisis Arsenal or crisis Anfield will be back in full swing.
When did we go from the dogs of war to a team that for the last decade and a half has been probably the easiest home fixture for top sides? How do we change it? Have/do our managers deliberately set up for a point hoping that the points return over time will be greater than a one off win and a load of losses? Why have we seemingly taken a knife to a gunfight for the last decade and a half when worse teams are now taking their guns?
All sides can put in bad performance and get beaten by better teams, that has always been true, and there are many occasions in the premier league of poor teams going to big grounds and being utterly annihilated. So I could easily accept that outcome for Everton, getting pasted 4-0 at Anfield or 7-1 at Highbury, if the reverse was also true, that there were games where we went there played well, they didn't, and we came away with a win. After all, other teams in the league do this all the time, over the last decade and a half of premier league football loads of average teams have gone to big stadiums played really well and deservedly taken three points. Sunderland 13/14 in the mire of a relegation battle spring to mind when in the one week they beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and drew with City at the Etihad, both were title chasing teams at the time but Sunderland had been the better teams in both games and deserved the points. Palace have always seemed to play well at Anfield, Swansea have won numerous times at the Emirates, even Villa who then got relegated beat Arsenal there. Roberto Martinez's Wigan went on a great run against the top sides to save themselves from relegation the season before they went down. The top sides of course have also routinely embarrassed and been embarrassed by each other home and away over this period too. United have been beaten 6-1 at home, Chelsea have demolished Arsenal, Arsenal have demolished Liverpool etc. etc. The summary being that sides have been in good form and bad form over these periods and the wins have followed teams playing well.
Then you get Everton. Over this period we've been superior in quality to most of the non moneyed sides in the premier league. We've had good attacking players like Arteta Cahill Yakubu Lukaku Mirallas who are proven performers at this level and we've had very strong defences at one time boasting 3/4 of the England back 4 and two of PFA team of the year full backs. We're clearly a good premier league side, yet not only is our record results wise in big away games absolutely disgraceful, the performance level to go with it has also been shameful.
There are a few exceptions - Oviedo's Old Trafford, maybe Stamford Bridge last season, Pienaar at the Emirates, 4-4 at OT, Vaughan at Stamford Bridge, but these are very few and far between (and we won only one of them against a Moyes United). Most of the performances follow the exact same formula. We turn up and for 90 minutes try and perform some sort of containment exercise to varying degrees of success. Sometimes you get the point like yesterday, most times its a routine narrow win for the opposition, and sometimes we take a complete mauling. The features of the game are exactly the same though, no matter who we field or how well we are playing, or who the opposition fields or how well they're playing, we make it look like men v boys, we're slow, weak, can barely get on the ball at all, can barely get near a player to put a tackle in, and end up doing nothing but retreating deep, every man behind the ball, and punting it long. It happened under Moyes, it happened under Martinez, and it happened yesterday (regardless of whether you think a point is a good result or not).
Why does this keep happening? Liverpool and Arsenal especially have been weak at numerous times over this periods and other teams have repeatedly exploited them. Yet even when we turn up in good solid form and they are injury riven and in a crisis of confidence it has been easy win after easy win for them, and not even in tight affairs, in games where we've barely been able to land a glove on them. Average players struggling against others teams in the division are just waltzing around having the easiest game of the season against us. The next week they'll be back to losing at home to Palace or Swansea and crisis Arsenal or crisis Anfield will be back in full swing.
When did we go from the dogs of war to a team that for the last decade and a half has been probably the easiest home fixture for top sides? How do we change it? Have/do our managers deliberately set up for a point hoping that the points return over time will be greater than a one off win and a load of losses? Why have we seemingly taken a knife to a gunfight for the last decade and a half when worse teams are now taking their guns?
