Wolves (a) Apparently nothing
11am. Pickford, Baines, Keane, Mina, Digne, Walcott, Gordon, Sigurdsson, Davies, DCL, Richarlison. How’s that going to work??
For 47mins of a dull, non event of a 1st half it did work. One Pickford save & one Pickford glaring error the only things of note considering we weren’t troubling Patricio. As far as the penalty was concerned it was soft, don’t be surprised if we get the weekly apology from the Premier League match centre, but Digne commits himself & yet another disciple of Clive Thomas is pointing at the spot before Podence reaches the ground. Jiminez does Pickford all ends up from the spot 1-0, and immediately HT.
Mina off, Baines off back to a 4-4-2 of sorts. Branthwaite unluckily gives away a free kick from outwide & Dendoncker who loves to score against us as much as Jiminez makes it 2-0, 58 seconds from the re-start.
Nothing in reply from Everton, nothing at all. The introduction of Kean, Iwobi & Bernard did nothing to ignite a fight back, only Digne performing anywhere near to a remotely acceptable standard.
Talking about acceptable standards, Pickford attempted to out do his 1st half error with a repeat of his Leicester antics & throw the ball in. Whether or not the ‘goal’ would have counted due to an offside does not hide the fact that once again Pickford puts his team at risk out of nothing. Genuinely, he will lose his England place & the sooner the better. Even in an empty stadium he needs to find something to play up to. If Losl has anything about him & want to force himself into starting for Denmark at the Euro’s, he’ll smell blood here.
Neves picks up the ball close to the halfway line & arrows a ball similar to Digne’s to Richarlison vs Southampton for the very good Jota. With Keane & Coleman as company he leaves them both for dead whilst taking the ball down & the ball is passed Pickford at his near post. Astonishingly bad. 3-0.
Wolves continued to keep the ball, Everton continued to look disinterested, disenchanted & undeserving of anything. FT 3-0
You’ll have no doubts have seen the post match interviews from both Ancelotti & Coleman. To have your professionalism questioned regardless of what you do for a living is bad, but only you as an individual can judge whether or not that question is justified & whether it’s true.
Not having the ability is one thing, I believe Tom Davies does not have the ability & it shows, but he will try, every game. I believe Gylfi Sigurdsson has the ability, what he doesn’t have is the willingness to work hard, show guts, dig in, play for the badge, supporters & team mates. 2 different things but the end result is the same. They need replacing, immediately.
Sadly we’ve not been able to make our minds up about Gbamin & to a certain degree Delph, but midfield is killing this team, it’s also killing the patience that the manager needs.
Since 2016 Everton have become what Middlesbrough were hugely guilty of in the early years of the PL, being the retirement home, pension scheme, club of last resort for so many players that were unwanted at ‘bigger clubs’, the ‘best players’ in lower teams or players who wanted the riches the PL could offer but were never going to be picked up by a top 6 club. We lapped it all up because Steve Walsh was going to do what he did at Leicester.. What’s left is this Frankenstein squad that has good players & bad players & nothing in between. You can make your own minds up how many you put in either category, but I’d bet we’d all be within 2 or 3 players of eachother. We’re not daft, we don’t need data to know what’s fit for purpose & what’s not. We also know that we need to trust the manager to make the right decisions.
Over the next 2 months we’ll find out exactly who Ancelotti wants to keep, he’s now seen them in good times when we were winning & now he’s seen them after a few set backs. These players have been fostered into a bottlers culture since 2002, the financial limitations allowed that to be ok & acceptable. That doesn’t wash anymore, this wont be allowed to continue anymore, by the manager or the supporters.
As Coleman said, “we can’t hide behind the managers anymore”
For a nothing game, Thursday is very important for a lot of people.
