2020/21 Marcel Brands

[tim cahill]

Interesting that he name-dropped Anthony Gordon specifically as someone who's development he's been especially pleased with. Says he'll get more opportunities.

Makes me wonder if he thinks Carlo should have used him more.

 

[Toffe3m4n]

Incredible if he signs a new deal in the midst of this malaise.

This club has zero standards.

What 'malasie' is that mate? malasie at the club or at him specifically? because I'm not convinced either actually exist..

We need consistency and, despite what a few have tried to have the rest of us believe, we have begun to improve with him here.

 

[The binman chronicles]

To the promoters of the rip up and start again method this is why we are where we are now. We need stability and build a solid platform. Someone new comes in we will probably be ripping up the scouting network and all the names on file become lost and you go back to step one.

Madness thinking about changing now.

I've always said the only way Brands goes is if the agreed principles of why he took the job are renegaded. If he is happy with a mixture of stars for the future and the older players for the here and now why would he move?

 

[Saint Domingo]

What 'malasie' is that mate? malasie at the club or at him specifically? because I'm not convinced either actually exist..

We need consistency and, despite what a few have tried to have the rest of us believe, we have begun to improve with him here.

This

 

[Carlito]

What 'malasie' is that mate? malasie at the club or at him specifically? because I'm not convinced either actually exist..

We need consistency and, despite what a few have tried to have the rest of us believe, we have begun to improve with him here.

The malaise is being two absences away from not having a full-back on the field, despite there being numerous players struggling to make the squad that are on more money than the top earners at most other clubs in the division.

People on here knew that Coleman had missed 10 or more league games in four of the past five seasons, so why didn't the director of football recognise that this could be an issue? Why is he out buying more reserve centre-backs when the only back-up striker is a fella who has not only struggled to make an impact in England, but is also coming off a serious knee injury?

I've acknowledged numerous times that Brands appears to be working in a chaotic environment, but it doesn't change the fact that the squad is just as limited and unbalanced as it was two years ago. He may not be doing terribly, but he certainly isn't doing well.

 

[Saint Domingo]

Marcel bigging up the development of Gordon. He is hand in glove with Ancelotti. These two are the masters of destiny for the good ship Everton now. Moshiri has his dream team. The architect and the professor. They are going nowhere. Strap in.

 

[Terrarian]

he has to stay, the whole point of him was for continuity so let's give him a chance to totally get the club how he wants. Keep Carlo obviously, keep Brands and let us have some consistency across the board and we might just start to stabilise. Then we can start moving forward with bigger steps than the incremental ones now.

 

[Ragnarok]

What's the news on brands leaving and going elsewhere lads? Brands is the boss here, he does everything.

 

[Martin Alvito]

People on here knew that Coleman had missed 10 or more league games in four of the past five seasons, so why didn't the director of football recognise that this could be an issue? Why is he out buying more reserve centre-backs when the only back-up striker is a fella who has not only struggled to make an impact in England, but is also coming off a serious knee injury?

Unknowable to us, but the answers are probably funds and availability.

I've acknowledged numerous times that Brands appears to be working in a chaotic environment, but it doesn't change the fact that the squad is just as limited and unbalanced as it was two years ago. He may not be doing terribly, but he certainly isn't doing well.

The squad's a lot better than the one he inherited. The only players that he inherited that I know of any group of regular posters wanting to build around are DCL, Keane and Holgate.

To put that another way, he didn't inherit a squad capable of going 7/7 in all competitions.

It may not be where we want the project, and we may not agree with all of the decisions, but it's undeniable that the squad is in better condition than he found it despite working under the constraint of some serious albatross contracts. It's also equally clear that his hit rate is far from 100% and that there have been some expensive misses.

 

[kenada_blue]

Over the last six or seven years the club has had a ridiculous amount of change, every time we make these significant changes I feel we’re often also removing or taking away any positives that had previously been made.

I personally really hope Brands stay and both him and Carlo have the opportunity to work together for several years to truely and finally build a special team.

Steve Walsh absolutely destroyed our squad and wages, we’re still feeling the affects of it. I genuinely think Brands has done a good job with transitioning away from everything Walsh had done but that wasn’t ever going to be a short or quick thing to do.

Until Siggurdson (£100k PW) Bolasie, (£75k PW), Walcott (£100k PW), and Bernard (£120k a week) all go...we aren't going to see the big changes via Carlo.

3 players from the Walsh era still hang like a noose over the club's necks stopping us from taking bigger steps.

 

[Saint Domingo]

What's the news on brands leaving and going elsewhere lads? Brands is the boss here, he does everything.

Exactly, some disciples don’t want to get in line with the world order though. He’s signing Ancelotti’s pay cheques. With him and Carlo in situ we’ve never been in better hands football wise in our prem history and there’s people who would like to see both gone. Amazing.

 

[Lanolin]

Unknowable to us, but the answers are probably funds and availability.



The squad's a lot better than the one he inherited. The only players that he inherited that I know of any group of regular posters wanting to build around are DCL, Keane and Holgate.

To put that another way, he didn't inherit a squad capable of going 7/7 in all competitions.

It may not be where we want the project, and we may not agree with all of the decisions, but it's undeniable that the squad is in better condition than he found it despite working under the constraint of some serious albatross contracts. It's also equally clear that his hit rate is far from 100% and that there have been some expensive misses.

I agree with the basis of this, but as i've said elsewhere, if the squad is a lot better than the one he inherited, then we need to see evidence of it on the pitch. We can't say the squad is better and that the manager is doing well if we haven't actually moved up the table, and yet lots of people seem to want to. The squad he took over had just finished 8th. In the 2 seasons since he's been here we've finished 8th and 12th, and we're now 8th again. If we finish this season higher than 8th then there's plenty of scope to believe things are moving in the right direction. If we don't finish higher than 8th then either the squad isn't a lot better than the one he inherited, or the manager isn't doing a good enough job of getting results out of them. It isn't really debatable I don't think.

 

[Groucho]

Worth reading the Athletic piece, and even subscribing, £1 a month for 12 months currently - best Everton content there is to be honest.

Personally, from reading that, I think Brands should get two more years now that the foundations are in place, no excuses from here.

The line that it took him 4 years to get AZ to champions gave me some faith.

His last five transfers have all been good (Branthwaite, Niels, Doucoure, James and Allan). He may not have got the last two without Carlo, but he did the deals and if James was free and Allan for £20m then its terrific business.

He continues to clear out the dead wood and I think stability for a club that has been rocked by instability over the last 10 years is important.

Willing to roll the dice for 2 more and then make a judgement.

I think once all the dead wood he didn’t sign is gone we’ll see an big improvement.

 

[Carlito]

Until Siggurdson (£100k PW) Bolasie, (£75k PW), Walcott (£100k PW), and Bernard (£120k a week) all go...we aren't going to see the big changes via Carlo.

3 players from the Walsh era still hang like a noose over the club's necks stopping us from taking bigger steps.

Bernard was a Brands signing.

While we're on the subject, I wonder who made the call to block his move to Roma, considering he'll do well to start 10 games this season.

 

[Zatara]

Yes some really interesting points.

I think the big take out is Brands needs to keep recruiting younger gems. I know there were 1 or two others he liked but couldn't finalise. Thats the hope really. The scouting has been slowly getting changed, and he now has his recruit in charge of the academy (from Derby). We have to hope that starts to pay greater dividends.

Even 1 signing a window until 2022 summer gives us 4 new u21s to add to the 4 we have in the squad (bar kean) now.

If another 1 or two come through the u23s we'll almost have half a squad covered...allowing us to use the money available on one or two top players.

Please don't pretend COVID didn't have a huge affect on that deal. Gabriel always choosing arsenal as soon as he heard of their interest as he stated himself. Hardly Brands dithering when nobody knew what was going on in the world.

The others apart from Llenglet I agree on. Llenglet we have no idea what the situation was at all, pure speculation at best. Who wouldn't choose Barca over Everton if that was the choice.

1st in bold = As ive repeated many times since Feb and have been proven correct, there was no effect on summer signings.

2: Gabriel = Again, the deal was wrapped up before we paused it and allowed other clubs time to come in. Common knowledge now i thought?

3: Lenglet was the 1st choice, im pretty sure brands said so himself...he went to barca so we got mina.

4: The point wasnt about players choosing us over other teams, it was that the players we signed after not getting the 1st choices arent even similar 'types'. I mean Mina/Lenglet Delph/Doucoure Godfrey/Gabriel Iwobi/Zaha arent even similar...