Mental block

[dannyboy]

Seen this mentioned quite a lot when it comes to the team, especially in big matches.

But I wonder if it applies to the fans as well? Just reading some of the constant negativity - feels like some people are only happy when they can moan about the club and don't know how to get behind the team and be positive.

People seem to have settled on Everton being a has-been, also-ran club.

There needs to be some collective head-pulling from collective arses.

Counters your point though doesn't it? The people who are constantly moaning are the ones who haven't settled on Everton being a has been. They're the ones demanding more.

 

[Deckard2049]

There is deffo something in it.

Any time we are linked with anyone above our "level" you see comments like "why would he come here" etc?

Look at the other lot over the park. I genuinely think we are at least a match for them player for player but they have a belief that we do not have. Obviously they take it a bit too far as every player of theirs is the best player ever but it does help them at times.

This is actually just as unhealthy an attitude as the apparent mental block the original poster refers to. We've done this every year in recent times, particularly in reference to the RS- we claim that on paper our team is just as good as theirs, we do combined XI's where we put in about 7 of our own and begrudingly concede that the RS have a "semi-decent" attack. And then we get spanked again and again. Of course some of this is down to mentality, but the other half of it is simply that the quality of the players is not as high as we think or as we want.

Don't get me wrong, ON PAPER we have some very good personnel, but right now there are big questions about us offensively, given we are missing a quality striker and have about 35 hours to acquire one.

We have a solid enough defence, and with Gana and Schneiderlin a good base in midfield, but our attacking fluidity at the moment is seriously lacking and I'll say it again we have no real tempo or pace. One of footballs idioms is that you build winning sides from the back and it's still early days and players are still gelling, but I just don't see how anyone could think we have a squad capable of getting top 4 right now. I see more 0-0's than 1-0's in our future with our current personnel and set up.

Instead of writing on forums that we're just as good as Arsenal, just as good as Spurs or the RS, why don't we actually prove it on the pitch? We can speculate and compare our players to any other teams, but until they do something tangible for us it's all for nothing. We as fans have had nothing to shout about for decades. We should demand better. We don't want to be just as good as the others (although it'd be a nice start), we want to be the best.

 

[Joey66]

Can't see how having a knees up will help us

Thought the mental block was on here itself - the blues have been always hard to follow with that lot over the park - My late dad used to say the L in Liverpool was for luck!

 

[Paul E]

Kenwright, Moyes and Neville created this culture of 'plucky old Everton'.

We are not plucky, we are not punching above our weight; we are Everton FC, the Mersey Millionaires... we do our scouting in World Cup finals (Alan Ball) and nothing but the best is good enough.

Last win at Anfield was in the last Millenium, one win at Old Trafford since 1992. Haven't won at Stamford Bridge in the Premier League (I think). 2 derbies every year we lie down and die... it disgusts me. I thought Moshiri and Koeman would change that mentality - but this "begging bowl" attempt to get a striker in is absolutely pathetic. koff Everton

This.

 

[dannyboy]

This is actually just as unhealthy an attitude as the apparent mental block the original poster refers to. We've done this every year in recent times, particularly in reference to the RS- we claim that on paper our team is just as good as theirs, we do combined XI's where we put in about 7 of our own and begrudingly concede that the RS have a "semi-decent" attack. And then we get spanked again and again. Of course some of this is down to mentality, but the other half of it is simply that the quality of the players is not as high as we think or as we want.

Don't get me wrong, ON PAPER we have some very good personnel, but right now there are big questions about us offensively, given we are missing a quality striker and have about 35 hours to acquire one.

We have a solid enough defence, and with Gana and Schneiderlin a good base in midfield, but our attacking fluidity at the moment is seriously lacking and I'll say it again we have no real tempo or pace. One of footballs idioms is that you build winning sides from the back and it's still early days and players are still gelling, but I just don't see how anyone could think we have a squad capable of getting top 4 right now. I see more 0-0's than 1-0's in our future with our current personnel and set up.

Instead of writing on forums that we're just as good as Arsenal, just as good as Spurs or the RS, why don't we actually prove it on the pitch? We can speculate and compare our players to any other teams, but until they do something tangible for us it's all for nothing. We as fans have had nothing to shout about for decades. We should demand better. We don't want to be just as good as the others (although it'd be a nice start), we want to be the best.

We (like any other fan base) have a bad habit of overrating our players when we go through a good run of form. I've lost count of the amount of derbies where we were finally going to put the other half in their place. Best example of this being the semi final against them in 2012. The fact is they usually do have better players than us, even that day when they were in terrible form they still had Suaraz, Gerrard etc on the pitch who were real match winners. We had Osman and Gueye on the wings...

 

[msb]

Counters your point though doesn't it? The people who are constantly moaning are the ones who haven't settled on Everton being a has been. They're the ones demanding more.

No they're not, they're just whinging about everything. Every player we sign isn't good enough, every pound we spend isn't real money, Moshiri bad this, Kenwright bad that, Koeman crap this, Walsh rubbish that .... it is endless tiresome negativity.

 

[dannyboy]

No they're not, they're just whinging about everything. Every player we sign isn't good enough, every pound we spend isn't real money, Moshiri bad this, Kenwright bad that, Koeman crap this, Walsh rubbish that .... it is endless tiresome negativity.

But the thing is, every player we've signed over the last 22 years hasn't been good enough to win us a trophy, so are you the one who is settling for us being a second rate club?

I just don't think the mentality of the supporters has any impact. There's plenty of teams whose supporters jump around with positive vibes every game, they're still crap.

 

[Lanolin]

I'm not sure this makes any sense to be honest.

I know I come across pretty negative on here but in reality I'm not at all. I go to the game every week, support as much as I can, never boo, sing if the moment takes me.

Thing is, I just can't get my head round being dead happy with mediocrity. It doesn't eat me up inside on a daily basis, but when I log in and see people saying we've transformed the squad and people are really jealous of the business we've done, I can't help but point out that we're still unlikely to finish higher than 7th. That isn't a success to me, so I'll never be particularly happy for as long as that's what we're doing.

I don't see how that ties in with me being happy that we're also rans, because the whole issue is that I'm not...

 

[Deckard2049]

We (like any other fan base) have a bad habit of overrating our players when we go through a good run of form. I've lost count of the amount of derbies where we were finally going to put the other half in their place. Best example of this being the semi final against them in 2012. The fact is they usually do have better players than us, even that day when they were in terrible form they still had Suaraz, Gerrard etc on the pitch who were real match winners. We had Osman and Gueye on the wings...

This is my point. The quality we believe our players possess unfortunately simply doesn't reflect our performances. Mentality obviously plays a part, as our derby record proves; that goes simply beyond ability. But it's dangerous to lay the blame all upon mentality. We need to recognise that actual improvements are needed. We're not winning trophies and only finishing 7th simply because our players don't have the right mentality.

 

[dannyboy]

I'm not sure this makes any sense to be honest.

I know I come across pretty negative on here but in reality I'm not at all. I go to the game every week, support as much as I can, never boo, sing if the moment takes me.

Thing is, I just can't get my head round being dead happy with mediocrity. It doesn't eat me up inside on a daily basis, but when I log in and see people saying we've transformed the squad and people are really jealous of the business we've done, I can't help but point out that we're still unlikely to finish higher than 7th. That isn't a success to me, so I'll never be particularly happy for as long as that's what we're doing.

I don't see how that ties in with me being happy that we're also rans, because the whole issue is that I'm not...

You get these people floating around on social media all the time. 'Get behind the lads FFS' is a comment I often see on the club's Facebook page. Funny thing is, it's usually these people who are the first to fume when the proverbial hits the fan later on in the season.

As you say, the overwhelming majority go the game and cheer on the team. They must be doing something right because the home form was fantastic last year. I just don't see how you can blame the club's failings on the supporters.

 

[Papa Shango]

This is actually just as unhealthy an attitude as the apparent mental block the original poster refers to. We've done this every year in recent times, particularly in reference to the RS- we claim that on paper our team is just as good as theirs, we do combined XI's where we put in about 7 of our own and begrudingly concede that the RS have a "semi-decent" attack. And then we get spanked again and again. Of course some of this is down to mentality, but the other half of it is simply that the quality of the players is not as high as we think or as we want.

Don't get me wrong, ON PAPER we have some very good personnel, but right now there are big questions about us offensively, given we are missing a quality striker and have about 35 hours to acquire one.

We have a solid enough defence, and with Gana and Schneiderlin a good base in midfield, but our attacking fluidity at the moment is seriously lacking and I'll say it again we have no real tempo or pace. One of footballs idioms is that you build winning sides from the back and it's still early days and players are still gelling, but I just don't see how anyone could think we have a squad capable of getting top 4 right now. I see more 0-0's than 1-0's in our future with our current personnel and set up.

Instead of writing on forums that we're just as good as Arsenal, just as good as Spurs or the RS, why don't we actually prove it on the pitch? We can speculate and compare our players to any other teams, but until they do something tangible for us it's all for nothing. We as fans have had nothing to shout about for decades. We should demand better. We don't want to be just as good as the others (although it'd be a nice start), we want to be the best.

Its not really a case of saying we are better than them etc, more a case of we should be able to match them a lot more often than we do. There is zero excuse for having such a poor record against Liverpool (home and away) Arsenal away etc etc. These are teams who are a couple of places above us in the league, we should at least put up a fight against them and we never do.

 

[dannyboy]

This is my point. The quality we believe our players possess unfortunately simply doesn't reflect our performances. Mentality obviously plays a part, as our derby record proves; that goes simply beyond ability. But it's dangerous to lay the blame all upon mentality. We need to recognise that actual improvements are needed. We're not winning trophies and only finishing 7th simply because our players don't have the right mentality.

The mentality can be very important. Look at our relative success during the 90s against a Liverpool side which was far better in ability. Problem against Liverpool for the last decade is that they've usually had better players but on top of that they've had a brilliant mentality against us. They raise their game for us every year, fair play to them for it really.

Overall though, we just don't have players good enough to get into the top 6. It can happen -just look at Leicester- it's just not very likely. Us all being positive on GOT has absolutely no impact upon it.

 

[dannyboy]

Its not really a case of saying we are better than them etc, more a case of we should be able to match them a lot more often than we do. There is zero excuse for having such a poor record against Liverpool (home and away) Arsenal away etc etc. These are teams who are a couple of places above us in the league, we should at least put up a fight against them and we never do.

I have this debate all the time with people about these away games. You've just gotta face facts that these teams are better than us and as a consequence we usually won't win these games. They've got special players like Sanchez- they've even got players on the bench who can change the game if it is going wrong for them. Often we don't.

Going to these places and winning is definitely the next step. Hopefully it'll happen soon this season. I can think of plenty of occasions where we came pretty close.

 

[msb]

But the thing is, every player we've signed over the last 22 years hasn't been good enough to win us a trophy, so are you the one who is settling for us being a second rate club?

I just don't think the mentality of the supporters has any impact. There's plenty of teams whose supporters jump around with positive vibes every game, they're still crap.

Goodison is absolutely toxic at times, if you don't think that impacts our players, you don't watch the same games as me.

My annoyance is in writing off players after three games of the season .... and in many cases before they had even kicked a ball. I agree to a certain extent that the players are often set up "not to lose" away, but look at last season ....City away, jammy equaliser late on, Utd a jammier equaliser after time was officially up - we got snotted at Chelsea, when we tried to play football against them and despite being outplayed at Spurs, they ended up with a late winner. can't remember Arsenal, can't think about the RS.

Often our game plan is to only draw or perhaps a low loss, I'd rather the attitude of trying to win, but this lowering of the risk is Koeman and Moyes, Bobby didn't have a clue - all out attack and try to outscore the opposition. We have had opportunities to win away against these higher placed teams, ultimately we have drawn or lost - or had some rank bad decisions against us.

We have signed some very good players this year, taking our team nearer to the higher placed ones, but if anyone thinks it is a one window improvement or bust, then where have they been for the last 30 years? We have improved, we are getting nearer the others, but it will be a step by step approach. When we are against teams with the income streams of Utd and Arsenal, or the state sponsorship of Citeh, pact with the devil of the RS or the real model we should emulate at Spurs, we have to consider how long it has taken the latter to be contenders - and they've still won nowt.

The glass is more than half full for me.

 

[Eggs]

..everybody will become more optimistic when we have a very good team.