Gravity Taking Hold

A few weeks ago many thought our home fixtures would see us safe.
Recently, well it would be ok because we'll get 3 points against Fulham for sure and a point against Newcastle
Now we're down to a “Cup Final” on Monday.
Brighton and City will really up for it.
Unfortunately gravity is persistant and only goes in one direction for us

But the most worrying thing for me was the game plan from the Manager, who now seems to make major errors at every game. To begin Ben Godfrey should not be playing at the moment, it's clear to me that he has lost his confidence and how he stayed on the pitch I have no idea. He should certainly have gone after loosing his man for the first goal. At half time it was clear that we had no one to either pass or hold up the ball and some sort of change with Garner on for Onana had to be worth a punt.

But as now seems usual, the Manager did nothing and only started tinkering when the game was well and truly lost, and his eventual changes were just embarrassing. Clearly he has inherited an unbalanced squad, and he has to revert to a system which uses the players at his disposal and if that has to be a 5 man defence using wing backs then so be it.

He also needs to pinch the one good idea that Lampard left which was to use I Iwobi in the centre where he can bring a modicum of craft. Currently we are clearly the worst team in the Premiership, and we have failed at very opportunity to save ourselves. As of today the manager, his staff and the players look doomed, we were comprehensively out fought and out played last night God only knows where we go from here.

1st goal, 4 Everton players are drawn into Joelinton - Godfrey gets skinned, Iwobi is prancing about behind him, Gueye comes across to do nothing and Tarks is drawn out to cover. When he shoots, Keane moves forward to try and block the shot meaning that when Pickford saves it - there are 5 Everton players the wrong side of the ball and only Mykolenko the right side. Newcastle had 3 players the right side of the ball.

Same with the second, Godfrey, Iwobi and Gueye do the exact same thing, Keane gets drawn out to cover and Tarks moves towards the front post. The chipped ball goes past them all and there's a load of Newcastle players waiting with just Mykolenko on the line.

And again with the 4th. Gueye moves over to do nothing, Godfrey skinned, Iwobi doesn't even try to get back, this time Doucoure charges into the middle of nowhere and Keane also gets skinned. By the time Isak crosses the ball Tarks has had to close him down and there are 5 Newcastle players against 2 Everton players - two of the Newcastle players are behind both Mykolenko and McNeil.

I coach an U12's girls football team and I wouldn't be happy if so many of them
We're drawn to the ball that easily - this is the Premier league.

For all 3 of them goals Gueye shouldn't have been where he was. Either Onana or Doucoure should have been tracking runners from midfield. Iwobi should have at least attempted a tackle and Godfrey should do better on them all. Under no circumstances should any team in the premier league be left in a situation where, from a short cross or shot, 5 defenders are the wrong side of the ball. It shouldn't happen once - it happened 3 times.

To say that was schoolboy is an insult to schoolboys.

Iwobi, Gueye and Godfrey all need to go for the next game, all 3 were responsible for 3 of their goals.

There has to be some changes though,

no1 is it is suicidal to play Godfrey at right-back. Seamus must come back for us to have the best chance.

no2 Keane is a brave defender but has no poise or class, and can't read the game, serious consideration to be given to putting Mina in there, although he's leaving he's the best CB at the club. Stats show we win more matches with him in the team.

no3 Iwobi isn't brave enough a player for this situation, he should be replaced by Gray, who himself needs to up his game.

Other calls; Mykolenko is very, very ordinary at left back but just keeps his place, as the alternative Godfrey looks shot to pieces after getting totally minced at right back.

Onana did just ok last night, but Garner did slightly better when given his opportunity. I'd be tempted to start Garner ahead of him.

The biggest issue out of them all is right back so we need to pray that our captain is fit, if so we have a chance.

COYBLUES! Leicester have been inconsistent and poor in many matches, they'll be terrified of defeat too, give them nothing. Fight for it!

If/when we go down this fella is going to fill the team with journeyman yard dogs, its what he does.
He has no footballing acumen whatsoever, look at Burnley now under a manager who knows how football is played.
Dyche is a dinosaur in the mould of Allardyce and Warnock. Villa employ Emery, we get Dyche, the table does not lie.
Please god Kenwright and his cronies go, otherwise we will end up with Moyes or Rooney if Dyche gets the bullet.
These are dark days.

What hurts most is the joy this brings to every other club in the league, because we are hated. Had all our enemies combined to hatch a plan to destroy us they couldn't have done it better than Kenwright. It is corruption and ineptitude to an incomprehensible degree.

We fight on, hoping that Dyche can turn donkeys into lions. It will require a miracle.

It says something when the people slagging off Seamus for the last 2 years are desperate for him to return. Dyche clearly doesn't fancy Patterson for some reason, but how many chances does Godfrey get? It looks like he's given up.

I still believe, that will never stop until it's mathematically impossible, but the biggest worry is that it looks like most of the crowd have given up. I stayed till the end last night, like some glutton for punishment, but me and the lad were sitting in a virtually empty stadium, it was weird. We kept the b'stards up last season, but I think we're exhausted, so they're on their own.

As I said yesterday pre match, I won't boo if we get beaten, I won't celebrate if we win. There'll be no standing on stadium roofing, fist punching the clouds when we stay up on the last home game (again). Not this year, not again.

It's not the being beaten, it's how we're too petrified to play, too fragile to fight. It takes something really special to play football this badly. Something extra, some other reason that for one this long-suffering fan cannot fathom.

So after last night I've accepted we're done for this season. Down. Our very last season (is it???) will see Goodison Park hosting lower league football. And after so many years in the top flight of English football, we don't have a club, a culture or the personnel (from boardroom to players) to not just climb straight back up, but to prevent us from going straight on down to League One.

My fears are that deep and that convinced.

My only plea now to Everton the institution - go on, prove me wrong, call me out for being a negative doom merchant, a gloom-laden naysayer. I will heartily punch the very heavens for that.

Or (more likely) go now. And make your parting shot a true gesture, to put OUR club above ALL ELSE. Sell to professionals who will show more heart in seeing their investment succeed than we have witnessed coming out of L4 for the past 30+ years.

Are you just highlighting something that is obvious, or are you suggesting the fans should just stop trying because the players aren't good enough?

I'm getting at the commonly iterated view that a call to arms will make a difference against better teams who are on their game - it doesn't.

Why do I say it?

Because, in my opinion, delusion among our fans (which this "atmosphere thing" is an example of) has added greatly to the mess. The chasing of Allardyce before having the benefit of a summer window probably the most insidious.

I predicted during the Dyche honey moon period that as soon as straight line progression faltered the fickle boys would be out in force and they are.

It's not that Evertonians are any worse than other fans it's just that we're no different despite musings to the contrary.

We will beat Leicester, and we will likely cobble together a point at Wolves or Brighton.

That leaves Bournemouth on the last day, and we will beat them.

Simple.
COYB.

Our problems go well beyond the abilities of individual players. The team as a unit cannot consistently attack teams with genuine hope of gaining an early advantage. Teams like Newcastle and Fulham and Villa and Brighton and Leicester have come to Goodison, absorbed what early pressure we can muster and then attacked the gaping holes in our defensive lines.

Despite their best physical output the players now look riddled with anxiety and tension. Their lack of quality combined with a drop in belief has turned them into cannon fodder for teams in the top half of the table. The early suggestions of increased fitness under Dyche's regime now look like so much hot air. The truth is losing teams will always look unfit. Winning teams play with a freedom, something our players have not experienced in two seasons.

Our issues on the right side of the defence encapsulate the issues with the whole squad. We have had problems on that flank for the last two years whenever Seamus has been unavailable. Patterson is relatively comfortable at wing back but not as one of a back four. Holgate and Godfrey, if they are anything, are right sided central defenders in a back three. Coady is more familiar playing as one of back three. These four players have been signed or developed under previous managers which is in part why we are where we are. It's a shambles.

My one hope, very likely a forlorn one, is that with relegation almost certain our players will rediscover some of the joy of the game and play with more freedom in what remains of this miserable season.

If we apply this stratification to Everton we can get one perspective on where things are failing.

Tactically - this group of players can't pass or shoot or dribble or cross or defend. Pickford is excellent, but then he gets lots of practice.

Strategically - the team appears to go out with a plan which has not bothered to consider what the opposition is likely to do and to have a formation which will be effective against the assets and anticipated approach of the other team. Strategic substitutions, which are a planned method of changing a failing approach, never, ever, occur.

Logistically - this is providing the right players from purchasing, youth training, and making sure the players are fit and well trained in a manner that they are effective when it comes to the match. These factors have proven absolutely absent since Moyes left. The players bought have been almost uniformly terrible and of exceptionally low quality, not a single decent player has emerged from the youth programme (even the best, the inept and disloyal Gordon was flogged of as soon as possible).

Politically - the club has managed to turn itself into the target of the corrupt EPL/UEFA cartel and to alienate a few clubs with genuinely suspicious activities (Burnley?), while failing to make any allies in the press or within the management of other teams.

Basically, this enterprise has been run in the most incompetent manner possible and resemble something like the Home Office or Foreign Office in considering itself a superior organisation when in fact it is a laughing stock festooned with failure and ineptitude.

FUCK OFF KENWRIGHT!

Goodison was up for it and looked like it was having the desired effect on the players. The more the crowd are having to exert themselves on the team the less effect its had on the team. Its nothing special if needed every game. The players should be embarrassed.

Surely the tactic should have been stay in the game, keep the crowd buoyant and try and win the game.
Its OK players coming out all guns blazing, but if after 20mins they are spent, isn't that a bad tactic ? You can do that if you have a player to create decent opportunities or score while you are on top, we don't.
Newcastle knew it, just soaked up the early storm and then stepped up and took a tiring team apart.

It's still not over yet, but I've been saying that since there was 10 games left, then 7, now 5.
Leicester is the one, win it. Its shit or bust now.. do something different we continue to play the same formation same tactics every week even tho its not working. Its the actual definition of madness !!!

The group of players are showing not only that they cannot play Lampard's possession-based game but also Dyche's power game. They lack either basic skills or bottle.

Iwobi is a good example of a young athlete with decent ball skills and ability. He lacks bottle, fight and intelligence. He just doesn't know when to stick or twist.

Onana is a great big beast of a man but is in his football kindergarden. Gana is a shadow of that tacking machine of five years ago.

I could go on but it is clear that this lot are just not very good at football.

Carlo had to revert to counter-attacking because we didn't have the tools to play possession footy and that was when we still had the likes of Richarlison, James and Sigurdsson.

If we are to pull off an unlikely win at the King Power, then I think that Coady needs to return in a back five. Coleman (if fit) or Patterson as wing-back, Mykolenko on the left with Tarkowski and Keane alongside Connor.

The midfield I would keep it tight with Garner, Doucoure, Onana with Gray in the o 10 role behind Calvert-Lewin.

I'm pretty sure that Dyche will stick with the same line-up as before with Coleman coming in and possibly Gray for Iwobi.
Obviously it is highly unlikely that we will win there, but we live in hope.

Sometimes it is better to set up to contain the opposition. For a team of very limited ability defence can be the best form of attack. I know that goes against our normal instincts but it is the pragmatic option used by managers prepared to accept the limitations of their players and acknowledge the strengths of opponents.

Of our recent managers, only Ancelotti felt able to do that and even he got it wrong in home fixtures towards the end of his tenure. It is a surprise to me that, given their previous experience, both Benitez and now Dyche have failed to adopt a more pragmatic approach focused on staying in games.

My mates who are RS – who I was born and brought up with, would do, and have done everything for me as I have done for them, and have never, ever, said anything detrimental to me about my team – are now taking the piss!

Even when I've started off about the team and the Club, they've always diplomatically changed the subject or steered it away to when we all went to see Vernon, Young, Yeats etc in the early sixties.

Game over.

Another thing that pisses me off are all the arsehole newspaper footy writers finally slagging off Kenwright and the Board! If the bastards would have given us more column inches when we wanted them to during our Blue Union days, rather than either fully supporting Kenwright or just ignoring the situation, we may not be where we are today. Because, let's be honest he was as big a lying shithouse those days as he is today.

I was thinking of us clinching the league against Fulham in 63 before the recent Fulham game. Look where we've landed.

Discover a young future captain to learn from Coleman. Recruit a genuine set-piece specialist. Perhaps unfair but Dyche is not for the future.

Sell the club and let genuine quality CEO build a board for great management of the club to generate income and fund a team worthy of the badge.

GK - Pickford
RWB - Coleman or Patterson
LWB - McNeil
CB - Tarkowski
CB - Mina
CB - Coady or Keane
CM - Iwobi
CM - Garner
CM - Onana or Gueye or Doucoure
CF - Calvert-Lewin
CF - Simms

A bit more creativity in midfield with one defensive midfielder. Get the wing backs up whipping crosses in with 2 physical strikers. We're the lowest scores in the Premier League so what's to lose in trying something different? I'd fancy a goal on a set-piece with that team as well.

We do not do well with 3 centre-backs and we are already struggling at full-back on both flanks.

We have done better when we beef up the midfield and play anyone other than Holgate or Godfrey at full-back.

I would give Stanley Mills a run out in front of Seamus if he is fit and Garner deserves a place too.

I personally don't think they will need to, as we fucked ourselves well and truly at the Fulham game. For me, that was when I knew we were gone.

I have been a fan for almost 60 years, a season ticket holder for a lot of them. I have been lucky enough to see us champions and cup winners. Probably the best team in Europe in the mid-'80s.

I honestly never thought I would see us anywhere except the top flight, but I am going to witness my beloved club in a lower league. I am heartbroken. My late dad was a true blue. I am glad he is not around to witness this shambles.

Watching last night, it was obvious we couldn't sustain the way we were playing for 90 minutes or more. Nobody attempted to slow the game down, put their foot on the ball and calm down, draw men out, wait for some movement from their teammates.

Apart from McNeil, none of the players seem to enjoy holding the ball, or go looking for it, or even make a move to find space and be in a position to receive the ball, simple and easy to play.

Last night, it was mostly slapdash football, get rid of the ball as quickly as possible with no thought to the consequences of where the ball was going to finish up.

The players simply don't want the ball and are not enjoying playing; too tense, relax it's the best and easiest game to play. Fear makes it harder, fear of playing football is hard to believe. Most of us would play for nothing, just the sheer joy of having a game.

Thanks for your posts, John and David, and the common sense in both of them.

Don't get me wrong – I'm not pining for him; he only plays one in ten games! But having a quality fit midfield player who can do it changes the way a team plays. Garner may grow into it, hopefully.

One more thing about last night, when Newcastle were firing balls forward, their players always made it stick, by powerfully, physically shielding and a bit of control skill. It's a primary battleground, the building blocks for winning games. Eddie Howe obviously works on this diligently in training.

The ball then ends up in the final third, an attack can be built. Time and time again, our defenders couldn't stop it happening. Even long-ball headers were won far too many times by the Newcastle player, often guided to a teammate too, adding insult to injury. We have to toughen up and make sure this can't happen.

Aggressive centre-forwards need to be absolutely smashed in certain areas of the pitch, especially in games that are as important as last night's.

I saw Michael Keane pass up this opportunity at least a couple of times; when this happens, then those big centre-forwards grow in confidence because they know they have only got to concentrate on the ball.

Yes come out with a purpose, with a tempo & desire to get on the front foot in the game. To be fair it's what we all would have wanted & expected, but if you get no joy then you need a plan B.

Newcastle have beaten better teams than us easily, we were never just going to blow them away in 20mins. How when we struggle to score in every game ? Trying to stay tight and nick one on the counter was our best option and best use of our energy.

The 3 in midfield is supposed to make us solid. We are not.

If we had a creative centre midfielder it may work. We don't.

If we had 2 effective wide players who are capable of getting forward to support the isolated striker it would help We haven't.

We need something else, be it a Mills coming in, or Simms with DCL, or Gray & DCL as a 2 up front, 5 at the back something.

Dyche should get some slack from us imo. He's no Ancelotti, we never expected him to be. But even Carlo would struggle with the bare bones of a team we've been left with.

The thing is, the squad is so thin everyone of them last night will probably know they are playing against Leicester, they have no worries about their place in the team.

To be fair,Dyche doesn't have too many options.

Doing the same again should not be an option.

All I fucking know is I saw enough to rule out them folding like tacos. They've had some really shit luck so who knows? I'm in for another round of suffering. UTFT!

What's more an impartial referee always expects the defender win the ball and the CF to be crushed out of it and more often than not will wave play on. I don't want Keane to start on Monday.

Right now it's very possible, subject to Everton, scoring, holding play, looking after the ball, using the ball, and defending well, but also hoping Leeds, Leicester, Forest all loose their games, to positive impact Everton's survival, in the EPL. It's a massive month, but Everton's future, is at stake.

Dyche, surely must get the Dirty Dozem, Street, tricks instilled, and should have had these mentality qualities, instilled to his Team.

Some times, this season, and last season, being honest, under Rafa, Lampard and Dyche, the Team, have supported each other like a make shift team, on holiday, abroad, total strangers.

That's bugged me for ages. Why don't they play and die for the Everton shirt, on the field of play?

Everton, are still in the fight, and Leicester, is the pivotal game, Everton must win.

UTFTs!

If (when) we we are relegated, filling the team with yard dogs may be the exact thing we need to do. It could prove a decisive move by Dyche.

Attractive football will fly out of the window in favour of a desperate need for dull but inspiring, at the same time wins. No namby, mamby players needed. I'm told it is a hard division. In the circumstances, he might be good at that in the Championship. He has had practice there before and done well twice.

Whatever happens, it is going to be a difficult 2023-24 season. What that?

Oh yeah. And so say All Of Us!!