Green shoots of revival despite cup defeat at Chelsea

A solid base to build on. Team selection on Sunday will be interesting.

Hopefully that second half performance is something of a turning point but still a long way to go I imagine.

I know we still got beat but there were signs, albeit early and small ones, that things might not get as bad as we all feared. Brian Reade wrote a good column in today's Mirror, summed it up quite well IMO.

We lost because we gave them too much respect.

We lost that respect when Beni sent Ampadu flying.

Let's keep Morgan away and give the Beni dude a chance.

In a way, I am glad we are out of the competition. I think we need to fully concentrate on the Premier League and getting away from the bottom.

Play the U23s in the Europa League, the so-called first team have embarrassed us enough in that competition.

I don't know about green shoots just yet but germination definitely...

Brian (Reade) is entitled to his opinion but is just a football fan like us, albeit a Red one, I enjoy his take on politics and look forward to his political column, but football, I'd rather read your opinion and other football fans, he is a lazy journalist when it comes to football and makes things up as he goes along, and that has nothing to do with him being a Red fan.

I know all the reasons for choosing him, and they are good ones as well, but in a cold light he will want a name, not a Burnley manager, not a wannabe ex-player, Neville or Giggs, I think he will want an experienced winner and that rules out all of the above including Unsy.

Unsy gets Everton and Everton get Unsy. But Everton are not Kenwright's club anymore? If BK has the nod then Unsy will be in; if Moshiri has the say, then he won't I think... Sort of a shame but I get it too...

A tough away at Leicester where he will want to get off to a flier, away at Lyon - I'm sure he'll be desperate to get a win there to try and get a run to an unlikely qualification to the next stages- then the home game on the Sunday he will absolutely crave to win.

It's tough on the guy, but it's why he has put himself forward. Good luck to him, he'll get the support of us all.

I suspect Moshiri wants a high profile manager to run his project, but these guys still win some and lose some. You've got to be lucky and pick one that's on the way up, or wants a new lease of life.

I'd like Unsy to have the job for the rest of the season. Gives him a chance to show what he can do, gives Moshiri the chance to do proper due diligence if he looks elsewhere.

Whoever we choose will be a gamble. Unsy strikes me as a competent coach who gets the best out of his players and instills a good attitude into them. And he knows our young players. Knowing the club and saying the right things will give him the goodwill and time that an outsider might not get.

That being the case, he may just realise he doesn't know the practical side of football management as well as he thought, and might be willing to listen to BK and perhaps the senior players, if they put forward a good case for giving Unsworth a trial period, maybe on a one year deal, to let him show his capabilities.

I'm sure he won't want to repeat his error in appointing Koeman and might be persuaded that Unsworth will be a pair of safe hands to help the club to recover from the disastrous Koeman reign, which he was himself responsible for.

If he gets it wrong again, the fans won't be so forgiving and billions or not, he will be made to feel very uncomfortable on any subsequent visits to Goodison Park. For once, and this is a rarity, I would side with BK if it's true he's in favour of David Unsworth being handed the reins.

As we all know, the decision is out of our hands, so we can only wait and see, but we can also show Moshiri what we think of David Unsworth by throwing our total support behind him and HIS team. Let's hear Goodison rocking again, and let the crowd put the fear of God into the opposition, as we used to. Let's see them raise the rafters with their support for Unsworth if that's what the majority of us want. I'm sure fan power helped in pushing him towards getting rid of Koeman.

By the same token, it might just help in carrying David Unsworth over the line and into the manager's office on a more permanent footing.

My more pragmatic side 'gets' the argument why the club would prefer to recruit a more seasoned, proven manager.

The long and the short of it is, any and every managerial appointment is a punt. Some may give you a better than even chance of being a success, many are just a shot in the dark.

The great unknown in all this is the thinking of Moshiri.

Lest we forget, Bill Kenwright has been on the Everton board since 1989, but he personally has only dismissed one of Everton's NINE full time managers in that time - Walter Smith. That's one manager dismissed by BK in his 28 year association at the club at boardroom level.

Moshiri has dismissed two managers in his 20 month stint at the club as majority shareholder.

Fingers burnt and now reluctant to recruit an 'iconical proven manager' and now happy to stay in-house?

Or more determined than ever to land aforementioned icon to realise his ambition to haul Everton back into the ring as a real contender?

As ever, interesting times at Everton.

Surely motivation and inspiration are major factors in improvement, so it will be very interesting to see how it pans out over the next few games.

My work involves hiring very senior and very specialist people in business and it amazes me that all of the science and learning that has been amassed on this subject since WW2 has never been applied to football and especially to hiring football managers.

Before I start, I will not accept that football teams are any different to high performing teams of traders, nurses, mechanics, marketers, consultants, teachers, dancers, actors (insert your job here) — they just get paid more (in most cases) and we pay to watch them go to work.

So how do you make sure you've got the best boss to make them perform?

There are five key criteria:

1. Horsepower (You've either got it or you haven't; it's measurable.)
2. Values (Are they the same as the business/club? — these don't change much through life...)
3. Motivation (Why are you here? Do you really want it?)
4. Behaviour (This is the bit that upsets people and gets you fired, but past behaviour is a great measure of future behaviour.)
5. Experience (So you've done it before but if you don't get the first 4 right you won't do it again.)

The lesson — assess your candidate in the order above and don't be fooled by gut feel or Number 5 and you've got a fighting chance you'll get it right.

I hope David Unsworth is a massive success just because he's not shiny and new.

There is little evidence of significant horsepower in Koeman's management record. His values I don't know. His motivation, if what was said previously is true, was the Barcelona job - hence we would have been part of the process, not the primary motivation. Behaviour? There was ample easily found evidence that proves him very lacking in that area.

I find it hard to believe the club would've made such a huge appointment without checking his background, even if the interview and assessment process was lacking, and tend to think his previous two seasons at Southampton were just what they were looking for. Thus they took a leap of faith based on his recent history alone.

The passion part I agree with completely.

Two boxes for me.

1) Competence
Can he coach? It's about drilling the players defensively, drilling the passing & moving so the player receiving the ball knows what he's doing before the it reaches him. It's about making the midfielders effective in supporting defence and attack, finding ways of creating space to assist & score.

2) Communication
Can he get his ideas/tactics across to the players? Can he give the players the confidence to do what they think is necessary on the pitch? Can he relate to the fans and be an impressive figurehead for the club?

The last two managers failed on both fronts.
Nothing to do with being a 'Catalan Clown' or 'Fat Dutch Melt'. Unsworth has started well by infectiously saying the right things for our benefit. Time will tell how he fares with the consistentency of his competence and communication. What's sure is that he'll have a bucketload of goodwill from us and the players' joy at the end of what was clearly a stifling regime. I will be regarding Sigurdsson, Klaassen and Sandro as new signings from this point.

I'd give Unsworth the job till the end of the season and see if our 'unknown unproven' is better than someone else's.

Just look at all the winning managers across the P.L. era. A good or great manager is just that, and can generally perform at any club. They get the players to buy into their ethos, which is then reinforced with successful performances. They also need to buy the right players, and be able to identify weaknesses. Tim Howard cost Martinez his job. Weak management.

It's not the 70's or the 80's. Modern managers have a dressing room full of players from every part of the world. Knowledge of history, getting the club, sentimentality, call you what you want, it's all becoming less and less relevant as each year passes.

Unsworth has been clever here, he's 'done a Bill' and tapped into the history facet of Everton the fans cling on to. I hope he can pull it off.

Koeman didn't bring him to Goodison and look what happened.

Now I'm not saying Sammy Lee is the answer. My point is that we probably need to inject some proven winning mentality amongst the coterie of very comfortable Everton la's all enjoying themselves under the teary-eyed "My Boys" regime of Kenwright at Finch Farm

According to other Everton threads Beni or McCarthy gave MotM performances. How come no mention of McCarthy. Curious.

I would start him as our defensive midfielder against Leicester and bench Gana and Schneiderlin. They have been in the team since the start of the season.

I like Unsy's effort to put hunger, width, desire (from Koeman's outcasts) to bring momentum and pride back to the team.

Qualifying for Europe with a manager and football like that in this day and age? I don't think so.

Sigh.