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trueblue10
Player Valuation: £8m
It shows how good he is that he hasn't been snapped up yet by anybody else.
Jim Keoghan submitted an update to GrandOldTeam's homepage
What Did We Expect?
This is what a relegation threatened season looks like. That’s what I told my son when he recently quizzed me about why Everton were so [beep] (I’m paraphrasing here).
When the drop zone exerts its gravitational pull, achieving escape velocity is always difficult. Back in November, prior to the West Ham victory, a time when Everton looked to be truly in the mire, a friend of mine (a Red) pointed out that ‘you only need a few wins and you’ll be clear’. To which I replied ‘True, but sides who are in the bottom eight, don’t just keep winning.’ And that’s just what’s happened. After our Allardyce honeymoon period (three words that should never go together), the club, quite expectedly, has hit a bump in the road.
When you’re down near the bottom, you’re down there for a reason; usually a toxic mix of poor management, poor players and low confidence. A change to one of these elements can bring around an improvement in fortunes. But that side, the one that struggled and seemed unable to get a win, defend competently or forge a coherent attack is still there, lurking. It does not completely go away but merely lies dormant. And it doesn’t take much for it to wake up. A few defeats, a poor run, a slight slide down the table and it emerges once again.
Escaping relegation, and that is exactly what Everton’s season has become about, will likely characterise the remainder of this campaign. At the moment, it might remain only a distant one, but dropping is still a possibility. There are 36 points left on the board at the time of writing and Everton need 12 to be comfortably safe.
While that might sound easily achievable, bear in mind that even good clubs drop points. And Everton are not a good club. Over the remaining months, the Blues will lose games and draws will occur. So we can expect that from those 36 points left, a good chunk will be lost. How many will dictate how uncomfortable the closing weeks of the season will be.
For those confident that safety should be a doddle, Everton have past form when it comes to late season collapses. Take a look back at the 90s, the era that for many fans is most strongly associated with the spectre of relegation, and you can find four examples of the club absolutely ballsing up the final months of the season. In 93/94, 96/97, 97/98, 99/00, Everton’s points haul from the final twelve games, if mirrored this season would be enough to ensure that the club would enter the final week of the campaign in a very precarious position. Death spirals might not be common, but they do happen.
I’d bet good money, that whoever pushed for Allardyce to be appointed (over a manager like Silva) is somebody who has lived through relegation threatened campaigns before. Somebody who recognises that more than anything, such seasons are a grind, where a manager will be constantly trying to stop that dormant, under-performing side from waking up. And that tends to take a manager of a certain ilk, a manager who understands the battle that will be constantly taking place, who appreciates that until you hit that magic forty point mark, you’ll never be free from its threat.
Nobody watching Everton at the moment could be happy with what they see. In terms of the football being played, this is arguably one of the least attractive Everton sides to watch in a generation. Stodgy, uncreative, tentative, conservative and clearly lacking in confidence, the side is currently as far away from the ‘School of Science’ as it’s possible to be.
But should we have expected anything different? When we hired Allardyce, we hired a specialist, a man with a stellar reputation for suppressing those dormant sides that threaten to reawaken when form dips. At Blackburn, Sunderland and Palace, he successfully (if not always attractively) ground out results and made sure that the side that had got those clubs into trouble rarely appeared (even when, inevitably, results did not go their way.)
With half the season remaining when he was appointed, a blip was inevitable. And at the moment Everton are certainly not in a good place. But there are few managers better or more experienced than Allardyce at negotiating such blips and ensuring that the Everton of the late Koeman-era does not return and stay.
Having been hired to save the club, Allardyce will do whatever it takes to do just that, however ugly. We as fans might not like it but it can’t come as any surprise. Our desire to see something more exciting, to see exhilarating football, to watch Everton attack with verve, will be of no concern to a manager whose primary remit is to keep this club in the top flight.
We might not like it but I suspect that with an unbalanced squad, a group of players that possess fragile confidence and a rapidly improving chasing pack beneath us, exhilarating football will be off the menu for some time to come.
Back in November, Everton could have gambled and gone for a manager with a more cavalier approach to the game. But the club didn’t. It played it safe and went with a manager who excels at playing it safe. And as soon as the club did that, it was clear what kind of football we were going to get.
The real problem for Everton will be what happens next season. To use a medical analogy, right now, the club is in intensive care, with Allardyce probably the ideal man to provide treatment. But do you entrust someone skilled at triage to manage your rehabilitation in the longer term? If Everton survive, which most think likely, the club will face a big decision in the summer. Does it initiate yet another regime change, which could yield success or possibly prove destabilising, or hope that Allardyce can change what he has become.
The club and the fans are in for an interesting summer.
Spot on!
My favourite words used here were 'blip' and 'triage'.
Moshiri brings in ‘director of football’.
2 seasons later Everton look the worst team in the league and the worst Everton have looked for ages.
Sack him and either bring in a proper one or don’t have one at all
2 seasons later Everton look the worst team in the league and the worst Everton have looked for ages.
Sack him and either bring in a proper one or don’t have one at all
mkrudden
Player Valuation: £40m
I always see the argument bandied about that the club needs a clear out. We need to start again. I understand and respect such a view but I disagree.
What made us decent under Moyes was the togetherness of the squad. The fact that we had a stable core with Jags, Baines, Howard etc. Before them, Carsley, Kilbane. etc. Some of these players were limited, granted but they "got" Everton. They had a connection with us fans which bought them our affection.
Of course, with these players - supplemented with those with a bit more flair - we had a glass ceiling. Yes we finished 4th but such an achievement should be up there with Leicester's. It was indeed mission impossible. Martinez's first season shows that you can surprise this league with a well thought out strategy but in the following season you need to lift the quality to be able to deal with more games and opponents with 12 months of data to use to counter-act the system.
What Martinez needed was a wage structure and transfer fees to go out and supplement the core - now ageing - with winners. He didn't and his plan collapsed.
Koeman started the process again albeit it with more resources in his first summer. Williams and Bolasie signing were both with a view to extending the reliable core: reliable in the sense that they were PL players.
Last summer, for all intents and purposes, we threw on top of an ageing side a long list of players who either didn't know the league or didn't know how to play regularly for a side with lofty expectations.
Klaassen, Ramirez, Keane, Vlasic, Martina, Sigurdsson. These are all players that needed time to understand the difference between either playing in another country or fighting relegation to playing for Everton. Throw in the fact that we bought Rooney in too and you have the normal issue of blending so many new players together.
We need a far slower build. We needed a manager who had a 5-10 year plan, not one in Koeman who used Moshiri's cheque book as a way of proving he could use cash wisely ready for any future Barcelona gig.
We don't need a clear out. We need a slow, gradual build which relies on the likes of Baines and Jagielka to educate incomers what it means to be an Evertonian. We then need a slow introduction of proven winners. Sprinkle on top your wild cards and youth and you have a squad which is ready to begin gaining on those above.
What we have currently is a bucket load of youngsters / foreigners and sub-standard PL players being mashed together by a chap who hasn't since his Bolton days had a contract which gives an impression he is in a job for a period of time which allows for a more strategic approach.
-Keep Baines, Jagielka, Coleman and Rooney around the club
-Send some of these kids out on loan (Holgate to me has had too much, too soon)
-Slowly integrate foreign imports in small doses
-Add quality gradually.
Basically, don't spunk 200m all at once with no clear plan or strategy and expect you'll catch Man City.
What made us decent under Moyes was the togetherness of the squad. The fact that we had a stable core with Jags, Baines, Howard etc. Before them, Carsley, Kilbane. etc. Some of these players were limited, granted but they "got" Everton. They had a connection with us fans which bought them our affection.
Of course, with these players - supplemented with those with a bit more flair - we had a glass ceiling. Yes we finished 4th but such an achievement should be up there with Leicester's. It was indeed mission impossible. Martinez's first season shows that you can surprise this league with a well thought out strategy but in the following season you need to lift the quality to be able to deal with more games and opponents with 12 months of data to use to counter-act the system.
What Martinez needed was a wage structure and transfer fees to go out and supplement the core - now ageing - with winners. He didn't and his plan collapsed.
Koeman started the process again albeit it with more resources in his first summer. Williams and Bolasie signing were both with a view to extending the reliable core: reliable in the sense that they were PL players.
Last summer, for all intents and purposes, we threw on top of an ageing side a long list of players who either didn't know the league or didn't know how to play regularly for a side with lofty expectations.
Klaassen, Ramirez, Keane, Vlasic, Martina, Sigurdsson. These are all players that needed time to understand the difference between either playing in another country or fighting relegation to playing for Everton. Throw in the fact that we bought Rooney in too and you have the normal issue of blending so many new players together.
We need a far slower build. We needed a manager who had a 5-10 year plan, not one in Koeman who used Moshiri's cheque book as a way of proving he could use cash wisely ready for any future Barcelona gig.
We don't need a clear out. We need a slow, gradual build which relies on the likes of Baines and Jagielka to educate incomers what it means to be an Evertonian. We then need a slow introduction of proven winners. Sprinkle on top your wild cards and youth and you have a squad which is ready to begin gaining on those above.
What we have currently is a bucket load of youngsters / foreigners and sub-standard PL players being mashed together by a chap who hasn't since his Bolton days had a contract which gives an impression he is in a job for a period of time which allows for a more strategic approach.
-Keep Baines, Jagielka, Coleman and Rooney around the club
-Send some of these kids out on loan (Holgate to me has had too much, too soon)
-Slowly integrate foreign imports in small doses
-Add quality gradually.
Basically, don't spunk 200m all at once with no clear plan or strategy and expect you'll catch Man City.
I just don't see how ANY future building plan can include keeping Philip Jagielka and Baines at this club any longer, you lost me there Rudz.
Jim Keoghan submitted an update to GrandOldTeam's homepage
What Did We Expect?
This is what a relegation threatened season looks like. That’s what I told my son when he recently quizzed me about why Everton were so [beep] (I’m paraphrasing here).
When the drop zone exerts its gravitational pull, achieving escape velocity is always difficult. Back in November, prior to the West Ham victory, a time when Everton looked to be truly in the mire, a friend of mine (a Red) pointed out that ‘you only need a few wins and you’ll be clear’. To which I replied ‘True, but sides who are in the bottom eight, don’t just keep winning.’ And that’s just what’s happened. After our Allardyce honeymoon period (three words that should never go together), the club, quite expectedly, has hit a bump in the road.
When you’re down near the bottom, you’re down there for a reason; usually a toxic mix of poor management, poor players and low confidence. A change to one of these elements can bring around an improvement in fortunes. But that side, the one that struggled and seemed unable to get a win, defend competently or forge a coherent attack is still there, lurking. It does not completely go away but merely lies dormant. And it doesn’t take much for it to wake up. A few defeats, a poor run, a slight slide down the table and it emerges once again.
Escaping relegation, and that is exactly what Everton’s season has become about, will likely characterise the remainder of this campaign. At the moment, it might remain only a distant one, but dropping is still a possibility. There are 36 points left on the board at the time of writing and Everton need 12 to be comfortably safe.
While that might sound easily achievable, bear in mind that even good clubs drop points. And Everton are not a good club. Over the remaining months, the Blues will lose games and draws will occur. So we can expect that from those 36 points left, a good chunk will be lost. How many will dictate how uncomfortable the closing weeks of the season will be.
For those confident that safety should be a doddle, Everton have past form when it comes to late season collapses. Take a look back at the 90s, the era that for many fans is most strongly associated with the spectre of relegation, and you can find four examples of the club absolutely ballsing up the final months of the season. In 93/94, 96/97, 97/98, 99/00, Everton’s points haul from the final twelve games, if mirrored this season would be enough to ensure that the club would enter the final week of the campaign in a very precarious position. Death spirals might not be common, but they do happen.
I’d bet good money, that whoever pushed for Allardyce to be appointed (over a manager like Silva) is somebody who has lived through relegation threatened campaigns before. Somebody who recognises that more than anything, such seasons are a grind, where a manager will be constantly trying to stop that dormant, under-performing side from waking up. And that tends to take a manager of a certain ilk, a manager who understands the battle that will be constantly taking place, who appreciates that until you hit that magic forty point mark, you’ll never be free from its threat.
Nobody watching Everton at the moment could be happy with what they see. In terms of the football being played, this is arguably one of the least attractive Everton sides to watch in a generation. Stodgy, uncreative, tentative, conservative and clearly lacking in confidence, the side is currently as far away from the ‘School of Science’ as it’s possible to be.
But should we have expected anything different? When we hired Allardyce, we hired a specialist, a man with a stellar reputation for suppressing those dormant sides that threaten to reawaken when form dips. At Blackburn, Sunderland and Palace, he successfully (if not always attractively) ground out results and made sure that the side that had got those clubs into trouble rarely appeared (even when, inevitably, results did not go their way.)
With half the season remaining when he was appointed, a blip was inevitable. And at the moment Everton are certainly not in a good place. But there are few managers better or more experienced than Allardyce at negotiating such blips and ensuring that the Everton of the late Koeman-era does not return and stay.
Having been hired to save the club, Allardyce will do whatever it takes to do just that, however ugly. We as fans might not like it but it can’t come as any surprise. Our desire to see something more exciting, to see exhilarating football, to watch Everton attack with verve, will be of no concern to a manager whose primary remit is to keep this club in the top flight.
We might not like it but I suspect that with an unbalanced squad, a group of players that possess fragile confidence and a rapidly improving chasing pack beneath us, exhilarating football will be off the menu for some time to come.
Back in November, Everton could have gambled and gone for a manager with a more cavalier approach to the game. But the club didn’t. It played it safe and went with a manager who excels at playing it safe. And as soon as the club did that, it was clear what kind of football we were going to get.
The real problem for Everton will be what happens next season. To use a medical analogy, right now, the club is in intensive care, with Allardyce probably the ideal man to provide treatment. But do you entrust someone skilled at triage to manage your rehabilitation in the longer term? If Everton survive, which most think likely, the club will face a big decision in the summer. Does it initiate yet another regime change, which could yield success or possibly prove destabilising, or hope that Allardyce can change what he has become.
The club and the fans are in for an interesting summer.
Great post. There are 42 points to play for though not 36. So the 12 required is slightly more likely.....maybe
Brighton, Palace, Saints, Barcodes at home.
Huddersfield, Stoke, Watford, Swansea away.
Stone me, if we cannot get 12 points from that lot we deserve to be relegated
Brighton, Palace, Saints, Barcodes at home.
Huddersfield, Stoke, Watford, Swansea away.
Stone me, if we cannot get 12 points from that lot we deserve to be relegated
Agree. I don’t think we will be relegated but the fact that we are talking about it is the measure of what a clusterfack this season has become.
brieverton
Player Valuation: £50m
I agree with what you say to a large degree in that further wholesale and quick change will only be damaging.
The one thing I would insist on is change at manager/DOF level at seasons end. There is an opportunity to start with a clean slate there but the core of our issues are footballing ones.
Appointing a new manager whilst keeping Walsh would seem like particular folly to me.
We do need change at boardroom level too though. At least some sign soon that there is one power source controlling operations on and off the field.
2.5 years into Moshiri's time here and still no new Chairman and CEO. It can't continue like this.
We need a CEO that has recognised leadership experience and commercial/administrative competence, preferably with a football/sports background.
The Chairman should be no more than a figurehead, so I'm not particularly bothered there but it would be a sea-change to have Kenwright removed.
There is no sign of people of the calibre of Bryan Gilvary or David Dein being appointed, despite the talk. Maybe because they wouldn't associate themselves with the calibre, or lack thereof, of our operation.
In a well-run club, Moshiri would need to have no day-to-day involvement whatsoever apart from giving the nod on big decisions when required.
I would like to see Ryazantsev as Chairman with a responsibility for oversight. Then appoint a leading CEO to report to him directly. Give that person control of, and responsibility for, the whole business and football operation. He hires and fires and reports directly upstairs.
I'm beginning to reluctantly agree with those who think a DOF is one layer of complication too much at this stage. Ideally I think we need a sort of hybrid CEO/DOF with scouts underneath, something like the set-up at Dortmund.
So it should be;
Moshiri - Chairman - CEO/DOF - Manager.
Remove superfluous individuals like Kenwright, Elstone,Walsh,Woods, Harris.
Toffeelover
Player Valuation: £80m
Dave I do not think any of those [players would have got into Howie's mid 80's team and not in Jope's FA cup team either, not good enough then and now in my book.
bcblue1878
Player Valuation: £50m
Spot on!!!
Yard dog manager with yard dog tactics.
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