Catharsis

Everton fans, over the years, have become all too familiar with that losing feeling. We hate it, and we kid ourselves that it doesn't hurt. Behind the apathetic mask, it hurts. A lot.

Inside, we are incredulous with rage that the players seem oblivious to the privilege bestowed upon them to play for this (once??) great club. Yet these players plunge us to deeper depths, devising novel ways of losing, of inflicting the worst kind of pain. They now serve this hurt with a dollop of ridicule.

Everton are like an alcoholic spouse. They hurt you; deceive you. They play mind games, cause you emotional distress. They manipulate and make a fool of you. They promise they’lI change and, with your support, things will get better. And, for a while, you believe them. You see the shoots of recovery, you remember how things used to be and you are hopeful for the future.

And then, they relapse. And it starts all over again. But you love them, you cannot help it. The hope that things might get better is what keeps you together, keeps you giving bits of yourself in the delusion that you will, one day, get back what you put in.

The last couple of weeks have been nothing short of dreadful. We are now a laughing stock, we have become a meme. I'm sure there's a 'Spursy' type adjective for us by now. We live amongst smug Rednoses and we no longer have any comeback lines.

Our team has a soft underbelly. The players who, after years of relegation struggle, chaos off the pitch, points deductions, quite possibly have some form of PTSD. Their mental state has to be questioned, and if we haven't already brought in psychologists, we need to do so quickly.

We have no leader on the pitch. We need a nasty bastard who will roar in the faces of those who are not doing their job, to snap them out of the panic and back to the task at hand.

We have allowed a losing mindset to become ingrained in the club. The now famous 'knife to a gunfight' quote from Moyes, at once set the tone for us. We are inferior. Heroic failure is tolerable. Try your best, but It's okay to lose because we are not your equal. Nil Satis Nisi Mediocris. These days, even that seems a long way away.

I have no answers to this. We could change the manager. This has not worked in the recent past. Get a new set of players in. Again, been done, no difference. How do you change the mindset of a club? Slowly, I guess. It seems we take one step forward and two steps back. Winning streaks, like ones last season, are followed by even longer losing streaks. It is exasperating.

Watching the match against Villa, we effectively swapped a midfield of Onana and Barkley for Gueye and Iroeghunam. Luca Digne for Ashley Young. Players who we thought were part of the problem, are now excelling at another club. We played 5 at the back and still looked narrow, leaving acres of space down our flanks, particularly the right side. We have no collective spirit, no synergy. The team is less than the sum of its parts.

When will this end? As a fanbase we must be nearing the end of our collective tethers. I only hope the players have the professionalism and self-respect to shake themselves out of this mire and bring us something to cheer again.

Until the next calamitous loss. 

Reader Comments (2)

Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer ()

How to get rid of these ads and support TW