mkrudden
Player Valuation: £40m
Dear Mr Unsworth,
It is regret that I inform you that, after the 4 rounds of interviews you recently took part in, you have been unsuccessful in your application to become Everton Football Club’s manager.
As with all our candidates, I’d like to pass on to you the following constructive feedback.
1. Being Everton doesn’t mean anything to any other team in the league
We were concerned as to the reasoning for some of your team selections during the games you’ve looked after the team. By way of an example, you attempted to obtain points away at Leicester – the most counter-attacking side in the league – by playing two wingers in a 4-4-1-1 formation. This is crippling naïve because as the team, seemingly under your instruction, tried to make the pitch as big as possible, you exposed our two centre backs (whose collective age was 68 on the day) because of the expectation of the two centre midfielders to play box to box.
You identified this at half time seemingly but, confusingly, chose to bring both wingers off and then attempt to stagnate the game at 2-0 down.
In addition, today vs Palace, you chose to take on an opposition, who play direct football to their two Olympic sprinters up front, with again two wide players stretching the pitch. At half time, you chose to combat Schneiderlin’s injury by reverting to 4-4-2 with Davies and Gueye who were visibly gassing after 10 minutes of the 2nd half against Palace and their extra man.
Being Everton is great for us Evertonians (in the main) but pretending that we can play however we want regardless of the opposition and their style, particularly in the predicament we are in with morale low, is extremely naïve.
2. You don’t appear to have attempted to teach us how to attack and build pressure
Oumar Niasse and his endeavour up front has very much hidden from plain view the fact that we don’t appear to have any way of creating good opportunities. Our shape on the ball is non-existent which makes possession extremely hard to maintain. May I remind that today against Crystal Palace, we had 31% of the ball. 31%.
Issues include: Morgan Schneiderlin persisting in not assisting with the dictation of a game, you have continued to chop and change your wingers - Lookman, Mirrallas, Lennon, DCL – sometimes in one game leading to a lack of identity and clear idea in the wide positions.
Up front you have done similar, using Rooney, DCL, Niasse, Ramirez, even Sigurdsson away at Lyon in a must-win game.
Whilst it could not be reasonably expected that you would turn around the fortunes of the team completely in just a few games, it seems that you have continued the confusion regularly demonstrated by Ronald Koeman. The result being that we look severely blunt in attack, heaping pressure on our defence.
3. You have ostracised our new signings
Davy Klaassen has not played a single minute under your stewardship. Sandro Ramirez has made one squad and played 14 minutes. Gylfi Sigurdsson was dropped against Leicester. Nikola Vlasic has not made a squad since the trip to Lyon.
Your loyalty has instead been with novice Beni Baningime, JonJo Kenny and even Morgan Feeney with his appearance on the bench against Lyon.
We fail to see what these players, particularly Baningime and Feeney, have done to warrant a place in the Everton first team. We also fail to see why you believe it is a good idea to embarrass our new signings, some from new leagues and all from teams with clear identities of how they play, by removing them from the team / squads. We believe a more experienced manager, perhaps one not so intent on making a statement with their selections (see point 1 above), would have looked to integrate these players, not ostracise them and sought to cajole confidence and performances from them.
Thank you again for your application. You are a good man and an excellent advocate for what it means to be an Evertonian. Perhaps with some more experience, you could apply again in the coming years.
As a gesture of goodwill, I enclose 2 tickets to see Blood Brothers.
Kind regards
Big Billy Kenwright.
It is regret that I inform you that, after the 4 rounds of interviews you recently took part in, you have been unsuccessful in your application to become Everton Football Club’s manager.
As with all our candidates, I’d like to pass on to you the following constructive feedback.
1. Being Everton doesn’t mean anything to any other team in the league
We were concerned as to the reasoning for some of your team selections during the games you’ve looked after the team. By way of an example, you attempted to obtain points away at Leicester – the most counter-attacking side in the league – by playing two wingers in a 4-4-1-1 formation. This is crippling naïve because as the team, seemingly under your instruction, tried to make the pitch as big as possible, you exposed our two centre backs (whose collective age was 68 on the day) because of the expectation of the two centre midfielders to play box to box.
You identified this at half time seemingly but, confusingly, chose to bring both wingers off and then attempt to stagnate the game at 2-0 down.
In addition, today vs Palace, you chose to take on an opposition, who play direct football to their two Olympic sprinters up front, with again two wide players stretching the pitch. At half time, you chose to combat Schneiderlin’s injury by reverting to 4-4-2 with Davies and Gueye who were visibly gassing after 10 minutes of the 2nd half against Palace and their extra man.
Being Everton is great for us Evertonians (in the main) but pretending that we can play however we want regardless of the opposition and their style, particularly in the predicament we are in with morale low, is extremely naïve.
2. You don’t appear to have attempted to teach us how to attack and build pressure
Oumar Niasse and his endeavour up front has very much hidden from plain view the fact that we don’t appear to have any way of creating good opportunities. Our shape on the ball is non-existent which makes possession extremely hard to maintain. May I remind that today against Crystal Palace, we had 31% of the ball. 31%.
Issues include: Morgan Schneiderlin persisting in not assisting with the dictation of a game, you have continued to chop and change your wingers - Lookman, Mirrallas, Lennon, DCL – sometimes in one game leading to a lack of identity and clear idea in the wide positions.
Up front you have done similar, using Rooney, DCL, Niasse, Ramirez, even Sigurdsson away at Lyon in a must-win game.
Whilst it could not be reasonably expected that you would turn around the fortunes of the team completely in just a few games, it seems that you have continued the confusion regularly demonstrated by Ronald Koeman. The result being that we look severely blunt in attack, heaping pressure on our defence.
3. You have ostracised our new signings
Davy Klaassen has not played a single minute under your stewardship. Sandro Ramirez has made one squad and played 14 minutes. Gylfi Sigurdsson was dropped against Leicester. Nikola Vlasic has not made a squad since the trip to Lyon.
Your loyalty has instead been with novice Beni Baningime, JonJo Kenny and even Morgan Feeney with his appearance on the bench against Lyon.
We fail to see what these players, particularly Baningime and Feeney, have done to warrant a place in the Everton first team. We also fail to see why you believe it is a good idea to embarrass our new signings, some from new leagues and all from teams with clear identities of how they play, by removing them from the team / squads. We believe a more experienced manager, perhaps one not so intent on making a statement with their selections (see point 1 above), would have looked to integrate these players, not ostracise them and sought to cajole confidence and performances from them.
Thank you again for your application. You are a good man and an excellent advocate for what it means to be an Evertonian. Perhaps with some more experience, you could apply again in the coming years.
As a gesture of goodwill, I enclose 2 tickets to see Blood Brothers.
Kind regards
Big Billy Kenwright.
