Mentality

[Kenshin]

Too sentimental
The old boys club routine only works if the old boys are steeped in success, ours aren’t.
From manager down to players, we stink of losing.......
Until we change that, nothing will alter

What we lack my friend is standards.

That's what makes us different from the top teams and any real success, we we don't have standards.

Nothing isn't good enough, there is no level the club adheres to. Crap football is acceptable , 4/5 1 defeats are now acceptable. Players who are past it but won't be replaced for fear of upsetting them, acceptable, no manager for 6 weeks is acceptable. No demand on any new manager to be achieving levels of performance, koemans job wasn't to win the league but take us to 7th, that was deemed acceptable.

The point of the ramble is , as we don't demand success we settle for much lower standards. So where the likes of Chelsea and city can get rich and be succesful despite not really existing 20 years ago, we accept much lower standards, worse players and poorer performances because we believe it's in the clubs mentality.

 

[DualityNSNO]

What we lack my friend is standards.

That's what makes us different from the top teams and any real success, we we don't have standards.

Nothing isn't good enough, there is no level the club adheres to. Crap football is acceptable , 4/5 1 defeats are now acceptable. Players who are past it but won't be replaced for fear of upsetting them, acceptable, no manager for 6 weeks is acceptable. No demand on any new manager to be achieving levels of performance, koemans job wasn't to win the league but take us to 7th, that was deemed acceptable.

The point of the ramble is , as we don't demand success we settle for much lower standards. So where the likes of Chelsea and city can get rich and be succesful despite not really existing 20 years ago, we accept much lower standards, worse players and poorer performances because we believe it's in the clubs mentality.

We don't, and you know what's even worse? Players/managers are deemed okay because "they get the club", not because of ability.

Arsed they do if they're not good enough.

 

[nsno-chris]

We don't, and you know what's even worse? Players/managers are deemed okay because "they get the club", not because of ability.

Arsed they do if they're not good enough.

Drives me mental when people say that. Not arsed one bit, deliver results is all that matters

 

[Kenshin]

We don't, and you know what's even worse? Players/managers are deemed okay because "they get the club", not because of ability.

Arsed they do if they're not good enough.

Even when you look at the team we have all these young players there who obviously aren't good enough for the level we should be playing at yet it's Everton mentality to stick by them no matter what. As I say it's accepting everything as standard, the quality of the team decreases because Kenny/lewen/feeney/begnamine/Davies try hard and keep their places in the squad. That is the bar we set outselves this year, our kids. They may all end up being fantastic one day but these same kids struggled last year to beat league 2 teams in the cup managed by....unsworth. So why they are good enough to make up the first team when the ambition is challenging the top clubs is beyond me. But it's that mentality, just because they are called up they must be good enough. Look at begnamine (I'll learn his name soon enough) , can you compare him to kante, fabregas, matic, drinkwater, xakri, etc there is no comparison. Except we accept him as being good enough simply because the manager called him up. Same as Davies in that regard. But we accept it, and never question whether having these players, the likes of williams and Baines, players who clearly don't have the performance in them, nothing will change and Williams will still be getting games after January instead of being sold to the highest bidder

 

[DualityNSNO]

Drives me mental when people say that. Not arsed one bit, deliver results is all that matters

Same.

Imagine we got Mourinho, as we all wanted before Koeman? "He doesn't get the club" lol Of course he doesn't, he's here to win trophies, not friends.

 

[Yank]

I stopped reading after you said we were awesome against Man City.

Do you remember that game? It was just playing prayers of long balls against a slow, high man city line.

They possessed the ball and had way more opportunities.

 

[lungo]

Honestly stopped reading when you said we were awesome at City.

Our best performance but a very lucky point. But it has gone downhill from there. Since Unsworth is there we have completly forgotten how to play. Even the basics of the basics( like having the back 4 on a line) arent done anymore. Nobody does know what to do on the pitch. No leadership on and off the pitch. The only disiplined half was the first half against Chelsea. 2 rows of 5 and moving the side of the ball making it tide. And then Williams lost his man on a nothing ball...

 

[TraffordBlue]

There has been a shirkers mentality at Everton for years now and this really becomes evident in games like yesterday at half time. Aside from the players, Unsworth, like many of the managers before him was as guilty as anyone of shirking the responsibility to be bold and go for the win, or at least change things to make the opposition worry and get a draw. It's no surprise that we haven't won away since January as we simply very rarely set out with that as our aim.

That first half was pathetic, and only a single moment of brilliance meant that we still remained in the game at half time. It was quite obvious that Southampton, if allowed to attack us in the second half would score at least 1 or 2 more because of our weak defence. So the only way to combat that, and the only way we stood a chance of getting something was by giving Southampton something to fear. To do that we needed to bring on players who would run at them and cause them problems - Lookman and Vlasic. Sigurdsson may have got the goal, but was ineffective once again. So what do we do at half time, with them now on the back foot, stunned by our equaliser? 'Go with what we've got'. Just like our disgraceful mentality in the Summer with the striker situation.

He brings on Lookman at 1-3 down and Vlasic with just 15 minutes to go. The game was then over so we had no chance. If he'd have made those changes earlier the outcome may have been different. The exact same thing happened in the Arsenal demolition at Goodison. We went in at half time 1-1 which was an undeserved scoreline and Arsenal could have had 4 or 5 at that point already. So the 'going with what we've got' mentality was destined for failure as Arsenal were just going to continue to come at us and would eventually find a way past us. We waited until we went 1-3 down in the 74th minute before Koeman decided he may as well throw on Lookman and Niasse. Things will never change at the club while we have this mentality.

Now I understand fully that in certain games there is the need to keep things tight. But you are far better placed to do that with players that can actually carry out that task and we don't at this moment. The 04-05 side with players like Carsley, Kilbane, Cahill, Weir etc in it were a good example of a side that could. This side cannot do that so we have to use the strengths we do have and go at teams that are there for the taking. Southampton yesterday were one of those teams but our cowardly approach once again saw that we've suffered a humiliating defeat to a side lacking in confidence themselves.