Fans Comment
Paul Coleman

When Your Luck is Down
3 October 2005

The luck of the bounce?

The latest 'setback', as the official site calls it, left me in despair.  Instead of jumping on the 'Moyes out' bandwagon or listening to rumours of Davie having 'lost the dressing room', I decided to review our season so far and consider where it has gone wrong.

To your surprise I am not going to analyze players or tactics; instead I am going to look at two things:  Luck, and team mentality.  Like it or not, I realise that these two influences are just as important as the players you have and the tactics you employ.

The first bit of luck a team needs is when the computer creates the fixture list.  Here came our first bit of bad luck.  We got a tough opening fixture against Manchester United.  At the time this fixture was created, the team, fans and manager must have been quietly confident of beating the Mancs.  Confidence in the camp was at a maximum having staggered across the finishing line in a Champions League position.

The second bit of bad luck was the draw in the Champions League qualifiers.  Villarreal were the tough opponents.

A fair criticism of Moyes was his dithering in the transfer market; however, bad luck played a part in that too.  The collapse of the Forssell transfer and the Sissoko saga are good examples of this.

Already, before a competitive ball had been kicked, Everton found themselves being dealt some really bad luck.  In fact, not only did we have the Manchester United game, but we had some other tough or what you call banana skin fixtures, Arsenal and Wigan to name but two.

But first came the Villarreal game at Goodison.  With the score at 1-1 and Everton with the positive mentality having just bagged an equaliser, there was Josico.  He just stuck his head out and scored what I think was a lucky goal.  There was no way that he placed the ball there. That to me was one of the big deciding moments in our downfall. For the rest of the game, the players never recovered from that sucker punch.

Then we had the United game which we were in with a shout until Yobo had a moment of madness, unlucky for us, very lucky for United and just to add a bit more spice it was traitor Rooney who scored.

After this game confidence in the camp must have taken a big dent. The team then went off to Bolton and got a result against the run of play, this was our only bit of luck this season and we used a lot of it.

Next up was the away leg of the Villareal game. The players were back on a high after the Bolton game.

Then MORE bad luck after a bright start when Villareal scored off David Weir's arse.  I was thinking does someone up there must have it in for us?  The never-say-die attitude was still there from last season and we fought right back to 1-1.  Then the biggest, worst and most damaging bad luck we have had so far this season: Collina denies Ferguson a perfect goal and why???

This was the big one, this was what derailed our season.  We felt cheated and the players felt cheated.  If that goal had been allowed, I am 90% sure we would be in the group stages of the CL and we would also be in the top half of the league.

Last May, most of us never even considered the qualifiers and I think the same went for the players.  The players and the fans were on such a high up until that moment.  It was gone in the blink of an eye.  Everton's dream was gone in the blink of an eye.

Player mentality is a very big part of the game.  I can prove this by just saying look at the magical effect when a team pulls a goal back.  All of a sudden that team has the upper hand and the opposition are on the back foot.

Everton's team mentality after the Villarreal game was crushed.  We went to Fulham, played ok but got beat.  Now a losing mentality was setting into the team and confidence was in short supply.  In contrast last season we had the lucky break at Crystal Palace and we were building up a winning mentality.

Portsmouth could have been the game to turn our season around just like the Palace game last year, but instead it was just another game to erode the confidence.

Somewhere in-between all this we had yet more bad luck in the Uefa Cup drawer.  We got Dinamo Bucharest who were the toughest opposition I think we could have drawn.

We went over to Romania and were destroyed.  Everything went against us in that game.  The commentator said that when Dinamo played Manchester United in the Champions Leauge, they did so in the national stadium.  I wish they had done that for us because that pitch was terrible and was a big factor in us losing by the amount we did.  The ball bobbled, our players slipped and the ground was heavy on the legs.  More unlucky for us was the fact that everything they hit was a wonder goal.  Dinamo were lter made to look the amateur team they really are when they played on the crisp smooth Goodison Park pitch.

After a 5-1 thrashing, confidence must have now hit rock-bottom and has been there ever since.  The mentality in the team is crushed.  Worst was still to come because bad luck was still being dished out to our poor team.

Arsenal beat us fair and square; they were just better than us.

Wigan was a game we all earmarked for us to have a change in fortune.  No such joy, they score a lucky goal and we have another goal disallowed. Had that been allowed then team mentality would have had an advantage Everton and we should have gone on to win it.

In the Dinamo 2nd Leg, we had a goal disallowed again.  If we went in 2-0 up at half time would we have won it 4-0?  The team mentality would have been 'come on lads two goals in 45 minutes, easy, we just did it!'  Instead, 15 minutes into the second half, we and the players began to feel the game was getting away from us and then it might have well just been a friendly game.

That brings us to Man City, another disallowed goal.  If we had of got our noses in front then the game would have been totally different.  When the commentator said that Mills hadn't scored for three years I thought to myself  'The Script is wrote'... and about an hour later, guess who scored?  How many of them do you think he will hit and see go in??  I think he will be waiting another three years myself.  The Everton curse dictated that Mills had to score a demoralising opening goal against Everton.

A fan on Sky Sports said something to the effect of "I just don't know how we can go from fourth to this.  What is it? Is it Moyes has he lost the dressing room, do they not want to play for us any more"?

We are all thinking of logical reasons why.  Just think about this one.  The difference between this season and last season is that we have had awful bad luck from the day that fixture list was made.  I have never seen bad luck like this happen to any other team.  The things that have gone against us have also destroyed morale and given the players a losing mentality.

So get rid of Moyes, go on then.  A fresh manager brings a nice fresh feeling to the club and we will start winning again.  But a year or two down the line and we will be back in the same position.

We have to keep a cool head about this and ride it out. We can't keep changing managers like our underwear so that we have a nice honeymoon period of wins.  We will not get relegated this season.  We might finish badly but if Moyes qualifies in the 2006-07 season for Europe then I will be delighted.  We can hope that one day no matter what bad luck we get, we will have a team of so much quality that we can over-ride that bad luck.

At the moment, fellow Evertonians, we are in the grip of what superstitious folk call a curse.  4-4-2, 4-5-1, 4-3-3; Bent for Beattie, McFadden for Ferguson; whatever... it doesn't matter.  No tactics, shuffling the pack will overcome this.  We must baton down the hatches, whoever is not putting on their lucky underwear before a match needs to do so and we ride this curse, bad luck (or whatever it is!) OUT!!!

Paul  Coleman

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