What's the plan? (Part 2)

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That isn't a good idea?

It is, but mainly in the Davies thread. This thread essentially just uses him as a product of his environment, the grim result of poor planning.

If Davies did go this summer, and / or Unsworth, I'd think we were serious about moving forward. But September 2017.
 
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Honestly, that would do me. Even if it was as basic as:

- 4-4-2 as the baseline for every year group at the club

- fast wingers and two DESTROYERS in the middle

- fullbacks who can cross


And we just bought and promoted from the youth on these simple ideas. Youngsters would come up knowing what they need to do, signings would be bought around a profile, we'd know what the team was trying to achieve. It does work elsewhere. Here we try and implement a new "system" every year - the one thing a DoF is supposed to stop - and then buy players who don't fit it. Not one of Koeman, Allardyce, Silva, or Ancelloti have played with a No 10 behind the strikers as their preference, but we've still tried to shoehorn the likes of Rooney, Gylfi, Iwobi, Dowell, Davies, Klaassen into the side, all in four years. That is absolutely bonkers.

That will take time but I support it.

I want to see far fewer players coming in every summer. 3 or 4 max per year.

I want to see a clear plan across the club but I want that plan to come from Ancelotti and only Ancelotti.

We need to remove 2 thirds of our squad from the club so that will take time. We need to lose our reputation as an easy comfortable retirement home for average midtable players.
 
Wolves and Sheffield Utd 10 points ahead of us ffs. The plan is to hang on to their shirt tails. Leeds will overtake us next season so we’ll be battling foe 12th place. Far too many duds for anyone to buy so we’ll be left with them on a massive wage. A truly, dreadful squad of dross.
 
Our players have seen Ancelotti watching them train etc.

Most of our players must know Ancelotti has immediately sussed they are crap.

These crap players have wrapped in knowing they are getting binned as they have realised Ancelotti knows a thing or two about football.

The plan will be a complete overhaul.

I hate the word ‘project’ but I think it’s Carlos project.

This is the belief/hope I'm clinging on to
 


I still maintain that we will go down this decade and this time period will be looked back on as the crucial time period where it all unravelled. We’ve brought terrible personalities in for a while now and got lucky with the odd really good player thats bailed us out. It seems very likely to me that eventually we won’t find enough of those good ones and that will be it.

People will say we’re too good/rich etc but at the end of the day we play and are run more like the teams at the bottom than the ones at the top.
 
I genuinely think our players have forgotten the basics. How to play a simple pass to feet, how to contol a simple pass to feet, how to move into space to receive a simple pass to feet, how to move simple passing forward as a team, how to keep your position, how to communicate to your teammates, how to press the opposition when said opposition have the ball, how to break the oppositions lines with good runs & good passing etc etc.
On top of that our mentality is shot, our energy levels seem shot & anytime they do show a bit of grit it seems they can't control themselves to make constant needless fouls.
One thing i have seen Pep do is quite literally man handle his players in training & put the players exactly where he wants his player to be in any given situation & drills that process into them until perfection. Our current play is so dire that i would like Ancelotti to do the same thing. Move the players around like chess pieces on the training ground after each pass & show them where each player needs to be & what to look out for because they clearly can't work it out themselves. If it ridicules a squad member then so be it. If they feel like children at school then so be it. The players are professionals & should know & do much better. They need humbling & embarrassing & after this we will see who can adapt or step up. Anyone who can't, then simply get shot.
I simply don't believe a normal training session is enough anymore.
 
As has been said above, our issues boil down to poor recruitment exasperated by players bought to fit an ever changing style of play implemented by an ever changing management team.

The only way out is long term stability with Carlo, hopefully pathing a successful style of play that can be emulated by future incumbents.
 
I believe the clubs going to fold, restart under the name afc Everton and enter the semi pro leagues in Liverpool at lest we’l win a few things
 
Hello mein frandels and contributors to leading Everton website frandoldteam.com. It's time for another SERIOUS thread. I hope people start some more long-form threads soon.

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Nearly three years ago I asked in another thread what we thought our playing style plan was following a lacklustre defeat against Chelsea. It's deeply ironic that Tom Davies is the only player who started in each of my snapshot examples on that thread. Perhaps I'm like him too, I've not improved in all that time either.

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We've run out of things to point at now since September 2017. If it was the quality of the manager that was holding us back, and Lord knows it was grim pickings under Koeman, Allardyce, Silva and Unnnnnnnnsy, we've now got one of the all-time greats. Steve "the Passport" Walsh and his profligate spending holding us back? We got rid of him too and replaced him with Brands, he of the Youtube documentary and suits lined with fifties. The pandemic cured the fandemic - we now boo from home so those gentle players can't hear us.

But we are still absolutely rubbish, our captain and manager have just thrown the squad to the wolves on live TV, and we're in the bottom half, having spent the equivalent of the UK's PPE budget on utter, utter tosh. There's nothing to mask it any more; it's the eleven bells strolling / falling / sticking their tongues out all over the pitch that have got us here (and their pals in the wider squad).

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But what's the plan from here? The good people of the world's greatest Everton forum have, with varying degrees of justification, have made the case for the selling, releasing or retiring of nigh-on everyone apart from Richarlison this summer, and yet perversely he's our most coveted asset, and could well be forgiven for looking for a new club. I genuinely believe he would start at every club in the world.

And what's the plan for the club? There's now no real argument that Tait and Unsworth adequately prepare our youngsters for first team football at the top level. Dowell, Pennington, Kenny, Foulds, whoever than ginger kid who came on against Atalanta and was publicly, brutally, sacrificed on the ego of Unsworth playing to the gantry, all have come in and looked utterly lost, not really quite right for the position they played at youth level before finally being shuffled out the door. Sitting at the apex of this failure is Davies, 100 games in, the great survivor, the barnacle clinging leech-like to the listing Good Ship Everton, utterly devoid of talent, form or application. We've extended his contract twice. He's a product of his environment; chaotic, pointless and vapid. He hasn't got a clue where he is supposed to be or what he is supposed to do in this team, but then, who has told him? It's too easy to use an example like Foden, who every time he plays for City plays to a particular style and rhythm, a direct result of a prevalent school of football thought at every level at City under Guardiola. But then you look at Southampton (bummed senseless by Leicester 9-0 just months ago), and everyone who came on or started the match last week knew exactly what they needed to achieve in that system. It took a wondergoal from the best player on the pitch just for our £350m squad to eke out a draw at home. And that from an excellent pass from our second best player.

On the previous "what's the plan?" thread, I said that I couldn't see what we were trying to achieve. I still can't understand why Pickford kicks long to Bernard in the final minute and expects him to win a header. I'm not sure at all why Davies stands out of line of sight of the centre backs when they have the ball, beyond rank cowardice. I don't know why Gyfli still takes freekicks, or in fact takes any kicks in an Everton shirt. I'm not sure what Alex Iwobi considers his strengths as a footballer to be. I don't know why Michael Keane needs the game to start yesterday to get up to speed by half-time. Why did we ever buy Yannick Bolasie?

It's yet another summer where we can sell 11 players just to stand still. It's going to be another summer where I hope that Unsworth et al. are shown the door as our hugely overpaid Director of Football finally looks to build a new culture at the club. Players not just the being able to compete, but instilled with the will to win. The excuses have run out; we've got the money, the brilliant coach, and the support. But do we have the plan?
I can't see a plan merely competing visions that all lead to mediocrity.
 

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