It used to be that “What’s the meaning of life?” was the most impossible question of all time. Now it’s “how the fuck have Everton gone from talk of top 4 this summer to talking about relegation and Sam Allardyce in 2 months?” I’ve seen a lot of crap as an Evertonian but this mess tops the lot right now. And it seems the only saviours the board seek at this moment are Fat Sam and Dyche, even though Thomas Tuchel is available. I’ll try to attempt to answer that here and pick between the two. Which frankly is like asking me which method of death I’d want, my throat slit or having my head blown off.
Source: liverpoolfc.com
So how have we managed to screw up this quickly? Well there’s the summer business we did. £150m spent, and we never replaced Lukaku. Now we knew way back in March when he started moaning about wanting a move that he wanted out, so why did we not get one in straightaway? It should’ve been the first thing we did. A competent Director of Football would’ve got a list of replacements together and run them by Koeman in preparation for going for them in the summer. But no, we have Steve Walsh who decided instead to pop off to Milan for a bit at the start of the window. What did he do over there? It definitely wasn’t scouting that’s for sure. Koeman claimed Giroud was close to signing but changed his mind last minute? Why? Surely that’s on Walsh to get it finalised. Either way our failure to sort the striker situation out has cost us massively. Wayne Rooney and Oumar Niasse are the only players to have scored for us in the Premier League so far this season.
Here’s another question for you. When you spend £150m in a window, should you still have 3 players well over 30 in your defence? Well if you’re Everton, the answer is yes unbelievably. On Leighton Baines, he’s been a great servant for us and a few years ago at his peak was arguably the best left back in the Premier League. But he’s nearly 34. Do we have cover for him? Hardly. He’s well past his best and has been for a while now but we have no cover for him? I saw yesterday that Kieran Tierney signed a new 6 year deal at Celtic, which is a missed opportunity for us because he could’ve been the perfect replacement for Baines. It’s obvious that this window was done with short term results in mind and no long term planning because we’re left with a squad that is massively unbalanced, slow and ageing.
To still be playing Jags and Williams when it’s clear that they’re both finished, really? Why are we playing them still? I mean look at the Leicester game on Sunday as proof. Jamie Vardy and Demarai Gray absolutely destroyed them. Ok we got Keane in this summer and he started off well enough but like most of them now is drained of form and confidence. As for Gray we should’ve looked at him by the way, in fact I’m surprised that no one did go in for him either. We knew that Bolasie was out long term, why not get him in as cover as pace or lack of it was a major problem?
Finally, cramming our squad full of number 10s. Klaassen, Sigurdsson and Rooney. Rooney’s our top scorer so I’m not going to criticise him too much, but his pace has gone let’s be honest. It went years ago. Klaassen? He has struggled massively to adapt to the English game. Signings from Holland are a lottery. You’ll either end up with a Bergkamp, an Eriksen, a Van Persie, a Suarez, or you’ll end up with a Clasie, a De Jong, Janssen. Right now we’re looking at the latter category. Finally, Sigurdsson. Our record signing at £45m. What’s he done? Other than a goal from the halfway line at Split and an assist against Lyon, very little. Koeman played him out on the left, where he had his success at Swansea, to little or no effect, and has barely got a chance in the no 10 role.
Add all that shambles together and we end up with where we are now. 10 games in and we’re in the bottom 3 and practically out of Europe. We are only 4 points off 7th but worryingly it’s hard to see where the next win is coming from right now. David Unsworth hoped that his spell in charge would put him in contention full time, but I think Leicester finished his challenge off. He looked naive and out of his depth tactically. This was the wrong situation for him. If we were in March, comfortably in mid table with nothing to play for, putting him in there would be fine, but to throw him in during a bad run of form in the relegation zone? He’s not ready for it. I’m not doubting him as a coach, his work with the under 23s proves his ability, but this is the wrong situation for him.
So we’re left with Dyche or Allardyce. If we get either one of those two it’s clear that we are back to Moyes era mentality of simply “existing”. At the AGM back in January Farhad Moshiri proclaimed that his era was all about ambition and craving success once again. “It’s not enough to say you are a special club and a great club”, he said, which is what we’ve done for the last 20 years without anything to show for it, “we don’t want to be a museum.” Now it seems that ambitious talk is all out the window again. Let’s be honest here, would a club supposedly aiming for top 4 in the future even be talking about Sean Dyche? No, he’s a Southampton, Leicester, West Brom level manager only. We are not Southampton, we are not Leicester, we are Everton Football Club and we should be aiming for more than just stabilisation. Thomas Tuchel is available. He fought relegation with Mainz on a low budget so he has experience of it. If we don’t even speak to him and just stick Dyche or Sam in there I’ll be far from happy because that’s a total lack of ambition.
“Big Sam has never gone down, he’s done a good job wherever he’s been, imagine what he’d do with money”, claim his defence. So’s Tony Pulis, shall we ring him up? How many trophies has he won? None. How many top 8 finishes has he had in a 25 year career? Not many. It shows how far we’ve fallen that we’re even mentioning him in the same breath as Everton. As for Dyche, I’m not denying he’s done an excellent job with Burnley, but he is not an Everton level manager despite what the media are trying to ram down our throats. If we get him we’re saying to the world “we’re Everton Football Club and we’re happy where we are.”
I want to win. I want us to be ambitious. I want us to win trophies. I’m 22 soon (next week actually hehe) and I’ve seen us win nothing and just 1 top 4 finish (fuck you Collina). I don’t want to just exist. We are Everton. We should be demanding the best. NSNO? If that motto truly means something we would not be going anywhere near those two.
So to finish, Dyche or Allardyce? Erm, can I say Tuchel? Please? Can I? Just get him for Christ’s sake. Throw anything at him.
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Ross Edwards
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