Where does the problem lie?

[summerisle]

Cheers Bob...consider me appropriately pooh-poohed...I just wish I had your tungsten-clad confidence. Because what I’ve been watching just lately from Everton, inspires in me anything but...

 

[orly]

...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.

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.

 

[Eggsyblueskin]

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.

Correct.

 

[Papa Shango]

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.

Internationals mean nothing these days. Everyone seems to get a cap from somewhere.

Does not really matter anyway, you can have all the talent in the world, if you don't have the application, or more importantly the balance in the team its all pointless anyway.

 

[orly]

Internationals mean nothing these days. Everyone seems to get a cap from somewhere.

Does not really matter anyway, you can have all the talent in the world, if you don't have the application, or more importantly the balance in the team its all pointless anyway.

Balance yes - lacking talent as Eggs said, no, total nonsense.

And these players don't have one or two caps, these have been (or are) regular internationals.

The coaches have been completely unable to put out a balanced side because they are too tactically prehistoric to think of anything beyond iterations of the Moyes one-up-front of yesteryear.

For £6m a year.

 

[MikeH72]

Internationals mean nothing these days. Everyone seems to get a cap from somewhere.

Does not really matter anyway, you can have all the talent in the world, if you don't have the application, or more importantly the balance in the team its all pointless anyway.

Cuco Martina is an established international. He's also one of the worst footballers playing at this level.

 

[Papa Shango]

Balance yes - lacking talent as Eggs said, no, total nonsense.

And these players don't have one or two caps, these have been (or are) regular internationals.

The coaches have been completely unable to put out a balanced side because they are too tactically prehistoric to think of anything beyond iterations of the Moyes one-up-front of yesteryear.

For £6m a year.

The players we have got are absolute fannies. Mentally weak players who always pick the wrong option or crumble at the worst times. Its been like that for years.

Pretty much everyone in the top flight is talented. They kind of have to be, its what goes on between the ears that makes the difference between the good teams and the also rans and we don't seem to have a lot of intelligence in our team.

 

[davek]

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.

 

[LiamG]

Balance yes - lacking talent as Eggs said, no, total nonsense.

And these players don't have one or two caps, these have been (or are) regular internationals.

The coaches have been completely unable to put out a balanced side because they are too tactically prehistoric to think of anything beyond iterations of the Moyes one-up-front of yesteryear.

For £6m a year.

They can't put out a balanced side because with this squad it's impossible.

We are play Martina out of position ffs and Niasse as our CF. Plus all our CBs are dreadful.

 

[Kenshin]

The players we have got are absolute fannies. Mentally weak players who always pick the wrong option or crumble at the worst times. Its been like that for years.

Pretty much everyone in the top flight is talented. They kind of have to be, its what goes on between the ears that makes the difference between the good teams and the also rans and we don't seem to have a lot of intelligence in our team.

Considering how many new ones have came from relegation battles/relegation is that really a surprise ?

 

[Adam-GOTTV]

Sounds simplistic but it's important to remember that we just don't seem to have a lot of very good footballers.

 

[Fansince1988]

I think the problem lies in the players inability to play as a team, Koeman failed in that, so did Unsworth, Sams only had some joy packing them together to grind out points with ugly football. Going back Koeman/Walsh and owners are to blame, Lukaku should have been replaced instantly, Barkley should have been offered somewhere near to what he wanted (we miss him more than I ever thought we would) the signings some were ok, but they weren't balanced signing to many similar players number 10s the biggest problem. If Ross could have been tied down to a new deal we wouldn't have needed Klassen or Sigs, that was Lukaku's money spent. I actually think if we had have bought nobody in the summer we wouldn't be no worse off as we were performing well at the end of last season. Only we could spend a load of money and make things 10x worse. Getting some players out getting some in, in the right areas will sort it imo, but we fail miserably at getting players in to, we are really a disaster of a football club aren't we. ATM we are a million miles of being a top team, but not that far from being half decent imo.

 

[GwladysBlue]

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.

I wish sports journalists would put this to him in a press conference and see what the crook's reaction would be.

 

[Big Fat Sam]

Aside from recruitment, which was have proven to be woeful at, and management which we have tried and failed so far this season with three separate men, then you need to look at the actual make-up of a team.

Goalkeeper - We are sorted in this department
Full backs - Our options are majorly inadequate. I'd go as far as to say easily the worst in the league at this point in time. Baines is finished, Kenny is very raw, and the only other full back in the squad is Coleman, who was apparently training start of December but has since mysteriously vanished.
Centre backs - We spent big on Keane and he's proven to be an absolute horror show. He's played alongside Holgate, Williams and Jagielka and looked awful in virtually every game. Williams has shown a bit of a revival recently, but before next season starts we arguably need to sign two starting centre backs. Mori will have been out for a year and a half and I don't expect him to be here next season in any case. Holgate is average at best, but is young and may improve. Keane, Holgate, Williams plus two new starting centre backs may be ok to get us through next season.
Defensive midfielders - Supposedly Schneiderlin and Gueye. If we look at them individually then we know for a fact that Schneiderlin is the most hated player amongst the fans and with good reason. Nowhere near good enough to be starting and has a terrible attitude. Gueye can tackle, but that's about it. He cannot pass, cannot head, cannot attack (he scored other day, but for every goal he messed up about 20 times as many attacks with his rubbish shooting and decision-making in the final third). We need Schneiderlin booting out and a new DM brought in.
Creative midfielders - Is this where we put Klaassen, Davies and Rooney? We know Klaassen will be sold asap, and Davies has gone massively backwards this season. Rooney is just so-so, and next season his legs will likely have seized up completely. A major concern then, seeing as we literally have nobody we can count on here.
Attacking midfielders - Sigurdsson, who has been poor this season. He's our only number 10 option since it became clear that Klaassen is crap and Rooney doesn't have the legs for it. I think Sigurdsson would come good if he was surrounded by quality, but, well, he is surrounded by trash and perhaps it's no surprise he isn't able to do much.
Wingers - Mirallas, poo. Bolasie, poo. Lennon, works hard but is poo. That's all we have. Shambles.
Strikers - We have Niasse who everybody would love to come good but really knows that he's terrible. DCL may be good in the future, but as of now all he can do is win headers and sometimes hold the ball up. For a striker his shooting and goalscoring is pretty awful. Sandro is just no, and that's the total of our options.

So all that together, we are lacking majorly at full back, centre back, defensive midfield, creative midfield, attacking midfield, wingers and up front. I guess that's where the problems lie. But where do they stem from? Go back to the start of this post... recruiting. Our squad has a value of over 200 million (estimate, but it can't be far off, or maybe even more). I think even a poor manager would get us far higher up the table if that money would have been spent wiser. Instead we've been forced to play half a season with a relegation-material squad.

 

[deipnosophist]

lol lol...it's easy to pooh-pooh such parody as mere comedic bagatelle; but such pooh-poohing can often too easily lend deflection from more immediate attendance regarding pooh i.e. this Everton team is crap