We've seen it all before

To me it is really very simple. If you take some time to go and look up Opta statistics for Everton FC from this season, last season, the season before..and then compare them to the 'Big 4' and even Spurs, another team who have enjoyed moderate success, you will notice something fairly obvious. The number of passes we play and the percentage of successful passes we make is WAY down on the top sides.

Now, what does this matter, some will say; surely it is results that count!? Well, in my opinion it matters a hell of a lot and the implications of such statistics are massive.

Surely, in any line of work, if there is a proven blueprint for success in your field, if YOU too want to be successful, you follow it, no?? If the top 4 teams in the country, the teams who are CONSISTENTLY the best of the best, play substantially more passes than any other teams, and more successful passes at that, surely it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that, in no small way, a certain 'style' is absolutely key to success??

Despite many Evertonians, starved of even decent football for maybe a decade now, eulogising and going way way OTT with regards the improvement in our style this year, it has long been my view that the basic foundations of our game, ie, simple ball-retention skills and a little composure, are missing completely and will, inevitably, always trip us up come crucial points in a season.

Last year, Manchester United at home, 2-0 ahead. Now, everyone knows how good a side Manchester United are, of course. 2-0 ahead, though, on your own turf, vociferous crowd behind you.... What does a good side do?? You see out the game don't you!!

That has never been a capability of our side in recent years though ? and it isn't now. To 'see out a game' or to 'take the sting' from a game, all you really need is the ability to control the possession to some extent. This doesn't have to be quick, incisive, hot-knife-through-butter Arsenal-esque Champagne football... just the ability to string maybe 10 passes together and shift the ball around, into space, to feet, away from danger will do just fine.

Outside of the top 4 in England, maybe due to the financial pressures of staying in our league, teams don't take chances. If a team tries to play out from the back and loses possession and concedes a goal, their world ends. Maybe because of this mentality, teams, nearly all of them outside the elite, ourselves included, tend to hit the ball from back to front fairly quickly. This is a tactic that we are comfortable defending against and, as much as we surrender possession through poor, unimaginitive, play oursleves, we tend to receive the ball back fairly quickly through the same logic.

When we face a top side however, or, bringing us to Fiorentina, a decent European side, we simply hit a wall. When we punt the ball and don't actually get it punted straight back at us it presents a problem we simply don't know how to deal with. Instead of maybe pressing the ball high up the park and trying to pressure these sides into mistakes, we invariably end up camped in our own final third leaving a 40-yard drift between our midfield and isolated attack. The ball drops to a defender, maybe Joseph Yobo, and he does the only thing he knows....HOOOOOF!!!

Having sat so deep, though, there is now no midfielder, no Timmy Cahill, no Steven Pienaar, no Leon Osman to fight for the inevitable second ball as they are penned 40 yards behind the play. Worse still, the opposition, being used to playing another way, don't immediately hoof the ball back to us...and so the cycle goes on.

Common sense tells you, in the end, more often than not, something will give. It's one big vicious cirlce. The midfield cannot press forward because the defence are not composed or good enough to be trusted to find them with possession and in sitting deep it means that even if the long punt does find a forward it is only a matter of seconds before he is engulfed and loses it again.

It is my opinion, one that I have held for a while, that in mnay ways we have put the cart before the horse in the past. We have signed players fundamentally to get short-term results but at the cost of putting the basic building blocks in place that will allow us to achieve our ultimate goals. This is certainly something that can be put right but to put it right we first need to recognise the problem.

I repeat again, ALL of the successful teams in this division play more passes and more successful passes than any of the other sides, vast amounts more. Quite simply what that tells us is that the style needs to change.

What that then leads onto is another question, a question of bravery and of committment. Clearly these changes need to be made in order to give us a chance of any tangible success at any point in the future. What if the changes come to a short term detriment though, is that something people can handle??

Footballers of worldclass talent who maybe don't base their game around lunging into challenges and running around like headless chickens will need to be integrated to make things work, the likes of Manuel Fernandes for example. If many recent opinions are anything to go by, though, the answer from many blues would seem to be 'no thanks, I'll stick with Lee Carsley'!! That would be the same Lee Carsley who's performance on Wednesday, with all due respect to a great servant and very decent human being, was completely inept.

You then have to look at a couple more of 'the usual suspects', Phil Neville and Tony Hibbert. I must admit, even I myself after some of their occassional decent displays will find myself thinking 'maybe he's ok after all'. No, that is what we need to get out of. We have seen the pair of them produce displays like they offered up the other night so many times.

The time has come, if we are really serious about competeing, to say 'enough is enough'. These guys are never going to make the grade and it is these same players, consistently, lacking the ability and bottle to produce the goods in big games when put under pressure.

Joseph Yobo is another one. I read on 'The Peoples Forum' last week a post that made me chuckle at the time. "Yobo is one of the best in the world" someone said. A few agreed, I was gobsmacked!! Here is another lad who, on his day, can look a world beater. Trouble is he can't master the basics, like passing to a blue shirt, like taking time when you have time and hoofing when you have to. Yobo is now an experienced player, an international captain, he should be leading by example, quite simply he isn't though. Depsite his superior physical talent when compared to the likes of Hibbert and Carsely he is, IMO, equally if not more of a liability than either of those lads when it comes to the crunch.

Every debacle I can think of more or less in recent memory... Bucharest, Kharkiv, Bolton, Aston Villa, West Brom etc...Yobo and one of his numerous clown displays has been at the very hub of it. How many times can we let him off the hook and say 'he's learning' and look to make excuses??

I am sorry but for me his performance in Florence was BY FAR the worst of any of our players and the panic that he creates amongst the rest of our team by absolutely losing his head when we are put under any pressure says to me, beyond any doubt, that he isn't up to the job. Sentiment needs putting aside, do we want to win things or do we not?? You do not win things with a centre half who aims flying slicing kung-fu kicks at aimless punts into your box when put under no pressure whatsoever, simply not good enough.

The problems are there for all to see and if you think it through logically and minus the blue-tinted specs, things are fairly simple I believe. Many of the commentators who cover our games pick up on these things yet blues will happilly label them 'negative' or 'kopites'. It's a fools paradise I'm afraid.

The answer is simple. Get rid of the hoof merchants, the dead wood. Carsley, Neville, Yobo, Hibbert. These players have no place in a successful Everton Football team. If they want to stick around and offer options, fine. If they are first XI picks though we are on the road to nowhere.

On top of that Mr Moyes needs to further refine his strategy and approach. He has improved, no doubt..we are not there yet though. Far too many of our players resort to the hoof as a first option, not a last resort. It is really pushing the boundaries of common sense to think they would continually do this if it resulted in the hairdryer treatment from the manager. What Davie needs to do is look at the best, see how they do it and begin the long hard process of duplicating that.

We have enough good players now to ensure we will not get into any serious trouble in the process and a fundamental change in style is crucial to our development. Let the players be brave. That goes for the fans too. If Manuel Fernandes squanders possession 5 times a game whilst building his match fitness, instead of being so short sighted and naive and getting on his back, try and appreciate that he is the only player in the squad capable of whipping a 40 yard disguised ball into a forwards feet inside the penalty area without a telegram or flapping of arms!!

In a slight adaptation of the words of The Sex Pistols I think there are a lot of people who 'know what I want but don't know how to get it'. I know what I want and I know how to get it.

I just hope David Moyes does too.

Please though, instead of walking around in blind faith and talking up average sides like Fiorentina as 'just too good' or putting these performances down to 'just one of those things' or hiding behind 'we've had a good run' ... have a little think about it in future. NSNO, keep the standards up and keep looking to improve..no excuses required. Let's hope Mr Kenwright will give DM the support he needs in the summer to start replacing the 4 or 5 players that are clearly not going to be coming with us if we are ever to hit the heights we all aspire to and finally get another tin pot on the mantle piece!!

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