2018/19 Marco Silva - New Poll Added

[Lanolin]

Yes i agree. As much as it pains me to say it, Allardyce did better than Silva but with worse tools to do the job. Makes it even more damning.

They had different jobs though, so we're not comparing like for like. Allardyce was tasked with getting us safe from relegation. In my opinion it was unnecessary as we were always going to comfortably stay up, but he was given a short term remit and was allowed to spend a lot of money on short term fixes in order to achieve it. Silva has been given a longer term remit, his job is to make us better in the long run, and unfortunately that may mean taking one step back to take two forward. I'm not saying he'll be successful, or that I like it, but it's not fair to say Allardyce had us 8th so fared better, because Silva could probably do the same with the same remit.

 

[Strikinglyhandsome1]

Is the manager that rubbish though?

I never said he was. I said I would get rid of any manager who was rubbish.

Silva hasn’t done a season of what’s probably a three year plan. Let’s see how he finishes the season.

My own assessment is that it’s been underwhelming so far. Dumped out the cups, struggling to beat anyone, usual abysmal away record, can’t get anything against the top six, no major wins, terrible performances for nearly two months......etc.

Silva and the players can change the narrative. We don’t have to batter teams but need to up performance levels. Give us something we can get behind.

 

[BlueToff]

was we ever "flying" though?

until that point we had won 1 away game all season ( against 10 man Leicester )

the only real good performance up until the derby was Chelsea away and even that we didn't win

up until that point, we had already been knocked out of the cup by dross, dropped points at home against a truly horrible huddersifeld team, beat by west ham who had lost every single game

had disciplinary issues, let a few leads slip through careless defending, conceding stupid set piece goals every week early on

we were playing alrite and the derby and few games prior we were playing very well, but some making out we were barca for 3 months of the season

We had put in good performances.

Cardiff at home, Brighton at home, Fulham at home, Palace at home (we deserved to win even if we weren't clinical), United away, Leicester, Arsenal away etc.

It's a myth we weren't playing well. Maybe not 'flying' in the sense of free-flowing footy, but certainly in terms of confidence and feel-good factor around the club.

Yes, we were iffy at the start of the season, when our best performances came away from home. But in that September-November period we were good. Basically, we were good for as long as we've now been crap.

 

[Timak]

I did a blog on what Marco needs to do around set pieces.
http://stopbunching.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-value-of-set-pieces.html

Text below:
I'm writing this fresh from watching Everton concede three goals from set pieces so it may not be my most rational and well thought through piece.

For those of us with a genuine interest in analytics we know the value of set pieces.

I'm 100% certain that Everton have people within the organisation who know the value of set pieces. I know Everton have a well regarded analytics team. Marcel Brands knows the value of set pieces.

And yet we are conceding a lot of chances from set pieces.

This has huge consequences. The worse you deal with set pieces the more the opposition targets them with you.

The more teams work out how to exploit you weaknesses the more obvious it becomes to opposition scouts and set piece coaches.

It can quickly turn into a negative spiral.

The reason those of us interested in analytics like set pieces are they are one of the few situations in a dynamic game where you can slow everything down. You can easily measure the outcome.

We also all know the examples of where teams have exploited it like Midtjylland.

Everton have set piece specialists in Sigurdsson and Digne.

Yery Mina and Michael Keane are great in the air.

We have the players to be the best team in the league at set pieces and attacking wise we are OK. But defensively we are awful, I make it 14 goals against from set pieces in league and cup.

If we just concentrated on defensive set pieces and reduced them down to league average it would represent reducing that to about 7.

7 goals in the Premier League is roughly 5 points

Bring that to the best in the league level and it could be worth 9 points, increase the attacking output and you are changing midtable into European places.

A goalkeeper that won you 9 points, or a striker that scored 9 goals would be worth an extra £15m to a team.

Yet you could hire a set piece expert, with an assistant, give them a budget for scouting and continual education for, lets be generous, 6 days of Sandro's wages? I know these people, I could put you in touch with someone today who could explain how to fix the problem because they know exactly what the problems are and they've exploited it already to great impact.

Given that why is there not an active market for set piece specialist coaches? It seems, that despite the value of it being clear, that many coaches choose not to exploit it. Why?

When I took a look through the coaching teams operating in the Premier League so many people seem to work with trusted assistants. I can completely see the logic in this, after all you spend a lot of time with these people and if you have succeeded with them in the past why change things?

But I also think if I were a manager with a massive PL budget and the ability to recruit from anywhere in the world I would also think: "What are the chances that the best goalkeeper coach, fitness manager and set piece expert in the world all happened to be the people I first worked with in the second division in Portugal". By all means keep your team of mates together, I think most people would and understand it, but bring in some outside expertise too.

So does this 'special team' expertise exist? Yes, look at the teams that do really well on set pieces, and it isn't coincidence. Liverpool had a poor year last year with set pieces, recruited experts and are now top.

Now logic says that could well just be coincidence, but a look at the expected numbers on Understat shows otherwise.

Any manager not exploiting set pieces to the maximum is failing in their main task, maximising their chances of winning the game.

Thinking of counter arguments the only one I can think of is the opportunity cost of that training time. But really is there really any level of open play training that can add 10 goals a season difference to your performance? I doubt it.

 

[Kurt.]

If you look back on my post history regarding Silva, i have been one the people saying since the appointment that as long as there is forward progress no matter how small it might be, i am fine with giving any Manager as much time as is needed and i didn't expect miracles this season. I will never accept going backwards though from any Manager and that is what we have done. We have been absolutely dire since last November and with every match we are getting worse. I can accept a bad run but this is obviously far more than that and even if we won a couple of matches now i have absolutely zero confidence that this guy can take us forwards consistently. My trust and optimism has been drained completely.

Sometimes you need to go backwards to enable you to progress ... none of us are happy at where we’re currently at but I’m not not gonna call for the managers head this early into his tenure.

 

[Thomasc]

We don’t score many and have a shockingly fragile defence.

Not exactly getting the basics right really is he?

 

[Kurt.]

Absolutely bizzare stuff again. There wasnt a single evertonian I spoke to in the summer after finising 8th and having spent over 100mill in summer that didnt think we wouldnt be challenging for 6th at least. What are you talking about?

It required gradual build on an 8th place finish.

He has made us worse with a tonne of new signings.

The squad that got us eighth last season was an ageing squad managed by a dinosaur who played the most negative football I’ve ever seen.

 

[LouReedwalkonthewildside]

Heard enough of ‘we won’t get stability if we keep changing managers blah blah blah’. We certainly have some gash players but when the manager is so devoid of ideas as to how to use them to eke out a few points, the writing’s on the wall I’m afraid. The Wolves game will surely decide, unless by some miracle we beat Huddersfield. Min 2 points required from these 2. Losses in both and the teams immediately below will start to reel us in.

Min 6 points mate.

 

[Kurt.]

You think we should still be this bad defensively 9 months into his Everton career?

He spent £50m on the defence in the summer, too.

No I don’t ... but surely the players need to take some accountability for that too. You don’t forget how to defend a cross merely the manager sets up the defence a certain way. That milwall winner Saturday was shocking..not one of our players responded to the second ball .... that’s not down to the manager... that’s lazy bad defending

 

[Lanolin]

"Did he lumber the squad with a load of footballers that aren't suited to his style and put them on massive contracts? Do you think he doesn't want to buy players in January?"

I don't get your argument as none of them players are playing

"What's also true is that we've spent a lot of money over the last few seasons. We've wasted a huge amount of that money. That wasn't Brands and Silva. The more we keep on spinning the wheel and changing managers the more of a mess we'll be."

brand and silva spent roughly 100million in the summer so how can you say they haven't spent huge money, the difference is brands has actually recruited well, the manager just doesn't have a clue what to do with a very decent team, as you say in theory I reckon we have around the 7th/8th best squad in the prem

so why are we what 11th? out of both cups against teams WE SHOULD BE WINNING

any half decent manager sees weaknesses in his team and addresses it, why then are we still conceding set piece goals 6 months into his reign, why 2 months after the derby after some horrid games is he still trying the same formation with the same players

did like silva and always wanted him to be given time, but no time in the world can change managers who don't want to change their style, zonal marking doesn't work, he still persists with it given its cost us at least a dozen goals this season

I'm not having a go at Brands because he's supposed to be here for the long haul not to create an overnight turnaround, but you (and many others) are letting him off very lightly here.

Of the players we signed in the summer only 2 have been an unqualified success. Richarlison and Digne have been good, and Richarlison very much appears to be a Silva purchase. Bernard hasn't been bad, but if we're honest he hasn't really looked like a £150k a week player or whatever he is. Mina looks...raw, if we're being kind. Gomes looked good to start with but has been every bit as bad as anyone else over the last couple of months, and Zouma is just alright.

It doesn't mean he's not good - or even great - at his job, but let's not make out like it's certain that all of our recruitment issues have been solved.

 

[evertonarntwe]

We had put in good performances.

Cardiff at home, Brighton at home, Fulham at home, Palace at home (we deserved to win even if we weren't clinical), United away, Leicester, Arsenal away etc.

It's a myth we weren't playing well. Maybe not 'flying' in the sense of free-flowing footy, but certainly in terms of confidence and feel-good factor around the club.

Yes, we were iffy at the start of the season, when our best performances came away from home. But in that September-November period we were good. Basically, we were good for as long as we've now been crap.

firstly I didn't say we wasn't playing well, we was playing half decent to be fair but not as good as some are making out

Cardiff at home, we won 1-0 mate Cardiff are a horrible team, wouldn't call that a good win fat sam wins them games every day of the week easily

brighton at home, played very well in this game to be fair, ( conceded another goal from a set piece tho )

Fulham, don't let the scoreline deceive you, Fulham bummed us in the first half and we should have been a goal or 2 down

palace, overall probably did deserve the win, wasn't a comfortable win like it should have been though ( didn't they miss a pin?

united and arsenal away, we lost them both.

leicetser, they had 10 men, they missed a sitter last kick of the game ( from a set piece surprise suprrise )

 

[evertonarntwe]

I'm not having a go at Brands because he's supposed to be here for the long haul not to create an overnight turnaround, but you (and many others) are letting him off very lightly here.

Of the players we signed in the summer only 2 have been an unqualified success. Richarlison and Digne have been good, and Richarlison very much appears to be a Silva purchase. Bernard hasn't been bad, but if we're honest he hasn't really looked like a £150k a week player or whatever he is. Mina looks...raw, if we're being kind. Gomes looked good to start with but has been every bit as bad as anyone else over the last couple of months, and Zouma is just alright.

It doesn't mean he's not good - or even great - at his job, but let's not make out like it's certain that all of our recruitment issues have been solved.

nah I deffo agree, but it's still early doors, digne and richarlison are obviously sound

gomes and zouma are both loans so even if they was terrible doesn't matter to much ( think they are both decent though )

mina is a weird one, think he can be good but it's pretty obvious silva doesn't know how to organise a defence ( his first 3 games he kept 3 clean sheets barring a pickford derby howler )

Bernard, probably our best football player, just final touch through on goal isn't clicking yet, think he needs a proper striker to work with as well

 

[Neiler]

I don't think it's very sensible to compare Silva to Kendall tbh. Silva could do with striving first for the averageness Moyes brought before we start comparing him to some of our iconic managers.

I hope he turns it round. He's under massive pressure to do so. I have very little hope right now.

Why?

If Kendall in his first season was around in the age social media the thread would have been similar to this.

 

[GinandEvertonic]

The worst possible thing to do would be to sack the manager. The financial costs alone will have severe consequences for many many years to come. Not only in terms of settlement costs, but a new manager also means a new way of playing and thereby new signings. I love new signings, but we really need to get rid of deadwood first and with a new stadium to come we need to stop wasting money ASAP

 

[Neiler]

Yeah, but Moyes inherited an ancient team with not much quality. Marco has a squad with plenty of quality, he just can’t use it.

Sometimes the last thing a team needs is quality.