Burnley (a) Decisions...decisions Same old, same old....
Hands up who knew exactly what was going to happen today?
I was asked do I think the manager has lost the players.
I don’t think he has, and the reason why is the City performance. The effort was still there and so was the passion and pride in the shirt. The problem is in my opinion the players have lost the manager a bit.
Someone in that dressing room needs to stand up and tell the manger exactly how, where and why his persistence with current tactics, selections, decisions and patterns of play are not working. What’s the point of a captain or senior players if you can’t do this, or the manager isn’t able to have a reasoned discussion with his players in their analysis sessions? The answers have to be found, but equally questions must be asked.
The game itself was awful, bereft of any quality. Two average at best teams trying not to lose as much as trying to win.
Sadly, the two decisive moments of the game magnified two of Everton’s biggest issues. 1) set piece defending, 2) discipline. Everton have had more players sent off in the last two seasons than any other club. Coleman’s dismissal will give Sidibe a chance now, and he has to make the shirt his own. West Ham home, Watford home, Brighton away. Three big games to cement himself as our right back and earn a permanent move in the summer. He has the pedigree, now he has the opportunity.
Burnley did what Burnley do, Everton played right into their hands, preoccupied themselves with stopping their opponents rather than concentrating on hurting their opponents and got hit with the sucker punch of a goal that Sean Dyche will be ecstatic about. A goal of little craft or invention, just a ball into the far post abandoned by poor defensive planning.
Sideways passing, running down blind alley’s and aimless crosses into the box, no penetration through the centre of the pitch have become the hallmark of Everton in possession since the Wolves game. It can’t continue, something has to change or a change will be made.
Mina, Delph, Pickford and Iwobi are the only players to escape today with any sort of credit, whilst the manager puts himself once again on the edge of cliff.
I spent the whole week expecting a performance from Everton today especially after the improvement vs Man City last week, but losing is a habit and a very bad one.
The opening line to the magnificent song ‘Chasing Rainbows’ by Shed Seven is “There are things that I regret” - I think this line could well be Marco Silva’s epitaph at Everton.
Silva now has a losing record as Everton manager, only matched in the Premier League era by Walter Smith. If you are young enough not to have remembered or been around for the Walter Smith era, I truly envy you...
Whether or not the club decide to take the decision to move him on after today time will tell, does he deserve to go? Probably, maybe...
The inevitable truth is that if he doesn’t help himself he will find himself following Allardyce, Koeman and Martinez out of the door, and it will be his own fault.
Stubbornness, rigidity and sheer bloody mindedness in formation, tactics and selection will be the death of this manager at this club.
The continual selection of Schneiderlin, Coleman, Sigurdsson and the inflexible 4-2-3-1 has driven the fan base to distraction.
At 2pm when the team came through and the graphic with the formation popped up on my phone, the overwhelming feeling I had was like one of the dementors from Harry Potter was in front of me trying to drain the life out of me, my energy and enthusiasm levels instantly starting to decrease.
This is where we are at the moment -
- [ ] Same formation week in week out
- [ ] Same players week in week out
- [ ] Problems at set pieces week in week out
- [ ] Continuous selection of out of form players
- [ ] Pointless ineffective substitutions
Mitigating circumstances like missing players and not getting the players he needed in the window are all well and good, and I understand the impact this has. But how much should this actually impact the ability of a Premier League class manager to coach, motivate and come up with a game plan to compete with the bare minimum standard of teams in this league?
Regret is a buzz word for Silva right now. He will never get an opportunity to manage a club of Everton’s stature in this league again. At the moment, he is making a mess of it. He has to change; Martinez couldn’t change, and he was replaced, and this is heading in exactly the same direction as his tenure.
Try and forget it all for a week or so, enjoy the freedom of next weekend not having to go through this again.
We have to keep the faith, however hard it is at the moment.
By Matthew Barry
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