Where does the problem lie?

[Carlito]

Moshiri needs to get rid of Kenwright, Elstone and that other one who's been here for years, and bring in someone in the mould of David Dein. Until that happens, he will continue to be fleeced by the likes of the Brown Envelope Gang that are currently running the show.

 

[Blues Harp]

Kenwright, Elstone, moshiri, Walsh, Martinez, Koeman.....simples

 

[Rudolf Hucker]

So we're far enough into Allardyce's Everton career to have an early poll on who we think is to blame for our current predicament.

I appreciate we've had a couple of wins and picked up points against Liverpool and Chelsea that not many of us would have expected, but we've got what we deserved in the last 2 games and we can have no complaints.

With that said where does the problem lie with the way we're playing? Allardyce sets the team up and selects the tactics, are the players not executing those properly or are they being asked to play a system that invites pressure and inevitably ends in us conceding.

It's clear we need a massive clear out and we have plenty of players that aren't good enough, but there appears to be very little fight in this bunch, something you'd have hoped Allardyce might have instilled.

You’re 4-6 weeks too early. Let’s see what he can do in the window, then judge.

 

[MickA]

It lies in having an extremely poor technical structure at the Club. Without a thorough root-and-branch review, new players and/or coaches will only give periodic ups and downs.

We need expertise throughout instead of the boys club philosophy we currently have. Define a set way of playing and then tailor the squad to suit, binning off those that are unsuitable. This will allow the scouting network to be more focused on what is expected. The medical and fitness side have been average at best for years so improve them all too.

End point has to be a place where changing coaching staff reults in minimal stress and risk but this requires a proper DoF in place and very defined roles and responsibilities. Only coaches that can actually coach the team individually and collectively to be hired. If they don't achieve success bin them off too.

Such a change must be driven by the board.

 

[Rudolf Hucker]

Moshiri needs to get rid of Kenwright, Elstone and that other one who's been here for years, and bring in someone in the mould of David Dein. Until that happens, he will continue to be fleeced by the likes of the Brown Envelope Gang that are currently running the show.

Is that the same David Dein who presided over George Graham’s bung-fest?

 

[Lanolin]

...amazed that Koeman isn’t in the poll. As @davek says, we’ve been left with a very poor group of players. I don’t know where we’ll go from here but I think Allardyce has done brilliantly picking up the points we have with what’s available to him. That might be because of bounce and a degree of luck or it might be that he’s at least making us hard to beat.

The tactics reflect the lack of ability our players possess. The bottom line is accumulating points, folk have quickly forgotten the heavy defeats culminating in the hammering at Southampton not long ago.

Totally disagree.

We have a midtable level side, we're miles off the top 6 but nowhere near as bad as some on here seem to love to make out. Steve Cook, Simon Francis, Adam Smith and Dan Gosling are not better footballers than Keane, Williams, Schneiderlin and Gueye, and yet we set up at Dean Court as if we were playing Barcelona.

Our fans seem to love making out players are much much worse than they actually are. I've seen people suggesting Niasse is the worst striker in the league, despite him having a decent scoring record in Turkey and Russia, and having scored a perfectly respectable 11 goals in 35 games in English football. To add some perspective to this, over the last month we've come up against sides who regularly field Afobe (11 in 60) King (26 in 88) Rodriguez (39 in 148, with only 13 scored since 2014) Ayew (11 in 70) and Andy Carroll (55 in 228). The league also includes players like Berahino who hasn't scored for 2 years, and Shane Long who I believe has now gone 29 games without a goal and has only reached double figures once in 9 years in the Premier League.

Likewise we've got people saying Martina is League One level. He's not great granted, but he's played over 100 games in the Dutch top flight, and now over 50 times for PL sides. He's played in European competition with 3 different clubs. He's nowhere near the level of quality I want to see at Everton, but he's nowhere near as bad as some want to make out.

 

[deipnosophist]

The absence of quality control in spending this summer is the source of all our woes here and now.

There was no attempt to get value for money at all. Some of us said so at the time that the spending last summer was the most irresponsible action we'd seen in a very long time and that we'd regret it bitterly. Well that day arrived much sooner than even the most pessimistic predicted.

Koeman was allowed to squander a once in a generation sale of an asset like Lukaku and another £50M on top of that with zero oversight from officers of the club or the owners. There was a complete abdication of responsibility in the whole process. It was corporate negligence and there should be an inquiry into how this failure to operate along sensible governance lines happened. The green lighting of fees to the tune of £30M a time on unproven PL players, the liberal throwing about of tens of millions of pounds on 'prospects' for the future, and above all the Sigurdsson affair has effectively undermined this club for the next few seasons to operate as a club capable of getting back toward the elite. Last summer's complete waste of a generational opportunity to use spending to make the breakthrough will reverberate for the next decade as we struggle to come to terms with the losses we'll make. And that will be compounded by any go ahead for a stadium which will need to be budgeted for.

The actions of both Koeman and Moshiri conspired to break this club as a force for the foreseeable. They are equally complicit in that summer disaster story. The former has paid for it with his job, the latter will carry that failure to govern forward with him: the "necessity" to hire Allardyce compounding his gross incompetence.

I could not agree more...and I have been banging on about it for some time. The damage that has been wrought on Everton Football Club, by a ragtag bunch of money-grubbing carpetbaggers, remains hugely under-considered by the majority of 'rank and file' Blues.
Me? I'm effin livid.

There is yet to be made, a skip big enough, to accommodate the Everest of organic refuse that has collected at our club.

 

[Agent Blue]

Absolute myth.

England goalkeeper.

Three international centre halfs.

Much lauded U20 World Cup winners in the side.

Gueye, who Blues were putting stats up as one of the most effective tackler in Europe last season.

England's all time record goal scorer.

Siggurdson, who has almost single handedly kept Swansea up and help his tiny nation qualify for major tournaments.

This squad has massively more ability than the last two (permanent) dud coaches have allowed people to believe. They just want another excuse to keep spending in the hope it can cover their own coaching inadequacies.

Pickford......best goalkeeper since Martyn
Two centre halves who's best days are well behind them, add LB also.
Rooney, can be brilliant on his day but won't be playing every minute of every game any more.
Guye has been fantastic at winning back possession but also gives the ball away far too regularly.
Iceland was good for Swansea but hasn't really hit the ground running for us and was mahoosively overpriced.
The youngsters are the saving grace of our club, the energy, attitude and effort displayed by them bodes well for the future.
There are a number of our more seasoned professionals who have been under performing for at least a couple of seasons now and hopefully will be moved on in the near future along with certain members of the board. Not sure about the manager, things have improved lately but the team selection in the last couple of games has been suspect.

 

[Carlito]

Is that the same David Dein who presided over George Graham’s bung-fest?

No idea if he was involved in that - Graham was a bit before my time. I just associate Dein with the early days of Wenger.

Either way, I'm convinced that nothing will change at Everton as long as the only people at the club with any real football experience are dinosaurs.

 

[Rudolf Hucker]

...amazed that Koeman isn’t in the poll. As @davek says, we’ve been left with a very poor group of players. I don’t know where we’ll go from here but I think Allardyce has done brilliantly picking up the points we have with what’s available to him. That might be because of bounce and a degree of luck or it might be that he’s at least making us hard to beat.

The tactics reflect the lack of ability our players possess. The bottom line is accumulating points, folk have quickly forgotten the heavy defeats culminating in the hammering at Southampton not long ago.

Exactly. We’re just carrying too many below parr players. Look at yesterday when Bolasie & Vlasic had a little purple patch & it looked like we’d opened them up. Then the ball finds Holgate on the edge of the box (great prospect CB, but never a FB) & the final ball isn’t good enough. Same on the other flank with Cuco (excelled himself out of position, but zero threat in final third).

2-3 quality players in Jan + Seamus fit, we could improve greatly.

 

[Eggs]

Totally disagree.

We have a midtable level side, we're miles off the top 6 but nowhere near as bad as some on here seem to love to make out. Steve Cook, Simon Francis, Adam Smith and Dan Gosling are not better footballers than Keane, Williams, Schneiderlin and Gueye, and yet we set up at Dean Court as if we were playing Barcelona.

Our fans seem to love making out players are much much worse than they actually are. I've seen people suggesting Niasse is the worst striker in the league, despite him having a decent scoring record in Turkey and Russia, and having scored a perfectly respectable 11 goals in 35 games in English football. To add some perspective to this, over the last month we've come up against sides who regularly field Afobe (11 in 60) King (26 in 88) Rodriguez (39 in 148, with only 13 scored since 2014) Ayew (11 in 70) and Andy Carroll (55 in 228). The league also includes players like Berahino who hasn't scored for 2 years, and Shane Long who I believe has now gone 29 games without a goal and has only reached double figures once in 9 years in the Premier League.

Likewise we've got people saying Martina is League One level. He's not great granted, but he's played over 100 games in the Dutch top flight, and now over 50 times for PL sides. He's played in European competition with 3 different clubs. He's nowhere near the level of quality I want to see at Everton, but he's nowhere near as bad as some want to make out.

...it’s a bit misleading to compare individual players because a team is also about blend. We have very few players who compliment each other plus very little athleticism (pace, power, size, mobility). Southampton have hardly won a game since they thumped us, I think the teams in the bottom half are much of a muchness and we’re amongst that group.

 

[Rudolf Hucker]

No idea if he was involved in that - Graham was a bit before my time. I just associate Dein with the early days of Wenger.

Either way, I'm convinced that nothing will change at Everton as long as the only people at the club with any real football experience are dinosaurs.

Had to google it myself. Graham was manager 1986-95, Dein vice chairman 1983-2007

As someone who believed from the day we got shut of Peter Johnson, that we’d got the booby prize with Kenwright, I agree 100% that we need a clear out. Disagree with the brown envelope statement, because sadly, the top teams are the ones who deal with the big greedy bent agents.

 

[Lanolin]

...it’s a bit misleading to compare individual players because a team is also about blend. We have very few players who compliment each other plus very little athleticism (pace, power, size, mobility).

Yes I agree, but that's not what your post said is it? You said the lack of ability of our players, not the lack of balance in the squad. I also don't really see how we can say that it's misleading to suggest scoring 5 goals and assisting 1 makes you a more effective striker than scoring 0 and assisting 1, it seems like a fairly obvious fact to me.

 

[Harry73]

The absence of quality control in spending this summer is the source of all our woes here and now.

There was no attempt to get value for money at all. Some of us said so at the time that the spending last summer was the most irresponsible action we'd seen in a very long time and that we'd regret it bitterly. Well that day arrived much sooner than even the most pessimistic predicted.

Koeman was allowed to squander a once in a generation sale of an asset like Lukaku and another £50M on top of that with zero oversight from officers of the club or the owners. There was a complete abdication of responsibility in the whole process. It was corporate negligence and there should be an inquiry into how this failure to operate along sensible governance lines happened. The green lighting of fees to the tune of £30M a time on unproven PL players, the liberal throwing about of tens of millions of pounds on 'prospects' for the future, and above all the Sigurdsson affair has effectively undermined this club for the next few seasons to operate as a club capable of getting back toward the elite. Last summer's complete waste of a generational opportunity to use spending to make the breakthrough will reverberate for the next decade as we struggle to come to terms with the losses we'll make. And that will be compounded by any go ahead for a stadium which will need to be budgeted for.

The actions of both Koeman and Moshiri conspired to break this club as a force for the foreseeable. They are equally complicit in that summer disaster story. The former has paid for it with his job, the latter will carry that failure to govern forward with him: the "necessity" to hire Allardyce compounding his gross incompetence.

Interesting angle Dave, and definitely agree with most of it. One thing to add though is that when we bought Pickford, Keane, Klassen, Siggy there were a hell of a lot of people in the game saying we had bought extremely well with top players. Many were saying we were the best players in the transfer market. So if the informed think they were good, and let's face it, all of these are top players - I would be asking the question less on recruitment and a lot more on what was done with the players to destroy them so quickly. Obviously the balance is a massive problem and the biggest tragedy was no striker. Had we have had one yesterday, we could have been 2-0 up at half-time and it's a different game.

 

[Eggs]

Yes I agree, but that's not what your post said is it? You said the lack of ability of our players, not the lack of balance in the squad. I also don't really see how we can say that it's misleading to suggest scoring 5 goals and assisting 1 makes you a more effective striker than scoring 0 and assisting 1, it seems like a fairly obvious fact to me.

..by ability I mean the whole skills and physicality package. As Allardyce says, the team struggle to keep possession, never mind creating chances and scoring goals. We are woeful in those aspects of the game. He played Vlasic yesterday which I was glad to see but when he plays in that wide role he struggles to support his full back and is a defensive liability when he does manage to track back. I don’t think Allardyce can trust certain individuals.

We are suffering from a very poor transfer strategy. As you say, a real lack of balance in the squad.