UnsyisaRhino wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 9:48 pm
Right, and everyone else invested, or changed managers, or both.
Also, thats a bit rich when you look at every post you make on a match day. I guess it's OK to be unhappy about some things, at some times, but not others if it means it doesn't fit your current boogeyman.
Go figure.
What is the argument here?
Surely we can agree we've completely fell off a cliff?
He hasn't become a bad manager over night but this happens. The message stops working. You change it up or you suffer the consequences. He's incapable of changing it up it seems.
brap2 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 10:15 pm
What is the argument here?
Surely we can agree we've completely fell off a cliff?
He hasn't become a bad manager over night but this happens. The message stops working. You change it up or you suffer the consequences. He's incapable of changing it up it seems.
That using forrest as example of what can happen when you change manager and adopt a different approach is a flawed thought process and doesn't account for other huge important things like how much they spent.
UnsyisaRhino wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 9:48 pm
Right, and everyone else invested, or changed managers, or both.
Also, thats a bit rich when you look at every post you make on a match day. I guess it's OK to be unhappy about some things, at some times, but not others if it means it doesn't fit your current boogeyman.
Go figure.
What are you even on about?!
A match day thread is in the centre of the storm, direct immediate emotional rage.
Minor disagreements between people who can just about tolerate Dyche and people who can't stand him, but all of whom agree that he needs to be gone. The definition of splitting hairs.
And then just random bits of behaviour policing thrown in.
Gary1878 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 2:13 pm
If you want to survive, you have to win games. To do that, you need to score goals.
He has had 2 years now as our manager/coach, and if anything, he has regressed. His record this season is terrible, and the football we are playing is barely even football. It’s as bad as anything I have seen as an Everton fan.
Who knows what the turning point was for Dyche. Was it Bournemouth? Or was it something else? Either way, his time is up, and now is the time for change.
Audrey Horne wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 10:43 pm
What are you even on about?!
A match day thread is in the centre of the storm, direct immediate emotional rage.
2 days later is more logic, more thinking.
You know that though.
Maybe for you,?
I'll take that onboard and wait till a Monday to reply to anything you say just incase then, gives me a buffer so i can wait for you to finish having a knee jerk reaction that's apparently meaningless after wards.
brap2 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 10:15 pm
What is the argument here?
Surely we can agree we've completely fell off a cliff?
He hasn't become a bad manager over night but this happens. The message stops working. You change it up or you suffer the consequences. He's incapable of changing it up it seems.
Every fan is fed up of this football. It has been a war of attrition and needs must given our situation but its now fully run its course and it isn’t working anymore.
Dyche has by no means been the worst manager we have had. His first 18 months were actually pretty decent, even if the football style was difficult to watch.
However, this last few months has been as bad as anything we have seen, results and performance wise. There are no signs he knows how to change it and our next 5 PL fixtures are huge.
I’ve always hated Bournemouth away. Not because of the town itself or even the long trip nearly 200 miles south from Liverpool, but the fact the Vitality Stadium has become something of a house of horrors for Everton.
Last season, a stoppage time own goal from captain Seamus Coleman saw them slump to an agonising late defeat. It was the Premier League and Carabao Cup double-header over five days in November 2022, which Everton lost 7-1 on aggregate, that signalled the beginning of the end for Sean Dyche’s predecessor, Frank Lampard, in the previous campaign.
Michael Keane fractured his skull at Bournemouth, Callum Wilson put Everton to the sword countless times, and I still remember the 98th-minute equaliser scored by Junior Stanislas during Roberto Martinez’s tenure.
The list goes on, but Saturday was probably as low as Everton have been after a game here. This was a 1-0 defeat that could have been even worse but for goalkeeper Jordan Pickford’s saves.
It was the 11th time in just 19 games this season that Dyche’s side have failed to score; the eighth in their last 10. In their last five matches, all of which admittedly came against sides currently in the top seven, they have had just nine shots on target. They managed none at all on Saturday.
The football is stale, dull and predictable. Even previous areas of strength, such as set pieces, have seen significant regression this season. Under sustained pressure on Saturday, Everton clung on for dear life, aided by Pickford, and little else until David Brooks’ 77th-minute winner. They had few answers as they sought a way back after going behind.
So who could blame Bournemouth fans when they started signing “how do you watch this every week?” to the away end 30 minutes into Saturday’s game?
Some of the responses to this writer’s tweet referencing the same moment were not printable, but suffice it to say, a lot of Everton fans have been asking the same question.
It has long felt like a chore watching this side, something to endure not enjoy, and that is a sorry state of affairs.
The lack of investment in the squad has been well documented on these pages and inevitably plays a role, limiting the resources available, but Dyche’s Everton also look directionless and devoid of ideas. Painfully predictable, particularly in possession.
If there is a plan in attack, it looks like an incredibly basic one. Most of it appears to involve approximate punts forward towards an isolated and outnumbered main striker, knockdowns and long passes into the channels.
Whoever plays up top, whether it is Armando Broja, Dominic Calvert-Lewin or Beto, has the same problem. Recent weeks have shown that whichever striker is picked will have to toil largely on his own.
An isolated Broja is chased down (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Iliman Ndiaye, the squad’s most gifted attacker, is often on the periphery, forced to chase back and do the grunt work. He should be the centrepiece of Everton’s attacking play but instead has become just another foot soldier.
Through that prism, it was hard not to look at Bournemouth and their manager Andoni Iraola with envy.
Tactically, they were on a different level to Dyche’s side on Saturday. Their full-backs, especially Milos Kerkez on the left, were granted freedom to push on and take advantage of Everton’s narrow defensive structure.
When the breakthrough goal initially did not come, Iraola brought on an extra striker, ceding some control in midfield, to occupy James Tarkowski and Jarrad Branthwaite and create the kind of space Kerkez and substitute David Brooks exploited for their winner.
The truth is, Everton and Bournemouth are polar opposites right now; the former struggling even to tread water under Dyche, with just three wins in 19, and the latter upwardly mobile and dreaming of Europe. There is no contest between the two in terms of ideas, quality and athleticism.
Everton are the oldest side in the league, with an average age of just over 29, while Bournemouth (26) are one of the youngest. It shows. Everton started the second half with 39-year-old Ashley Young on the right wing, rookie 17-year-old Harrison Armstrong in attacking midfield and a striker, in Calvert-Lewin, who has not scored since mid-September. There was some marginal improvement, but not enough.
The modern Premier League is dynamic, fast-paced and constantly evolving. Dyche and Everton are struggling to keep up.
A troubled Dyche watches his team run aground on the south coast (Robin Jones – AFC Bournemouth/AFC Bournemouth via Getty Images)
The former Burnley manager came into this season with credit in the bank after steering his side through two separate rounds of points deductions last time around, but the regression across the board this season means pressure continues to mount.
“We don’t create enough, that’s the problem,” midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure said afterwards. “And when we had chances, we didn’t finish well. There is quality (in the squad), but the lack of belief is a problem for us.
“The manager came in during a very difficult moment and helped the club a lot, knowing all the difficulties we had financially as well. He’s still the manager to be there for us because he keeps believing in us, fighting and his ideas don’t change. Hopefully, he is going to help us to get over the line.”
The fact remains, though, that Everton are heading for another relegation scrap. Dyche is yet to come up with answers and has overseen a slump so far this campaign. There is scant evidence he is close to putting it right.
It means new owners The Friedkin Group (TFG) face an early challenge just a couple of weeks after the takeover.
It has come much earlier than TFG would have wanted, with key parts of the new hierarchy yet to be installed and a footballing vision still to map out, but the situation on the pitch is pressing and needs addressing in some way.
TFG has backed Dyche publicly so far. How long patience lasts in the face of this barren run, though, remains to be seen
UnsyisaRhino wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 11:54 pm
Maybe for you,?
I'll take that onboard and wait till a Monday to reply to anything you say just incase then, gives me a buffer so i can wait for you to finish having a knee jerk reaction that's apparently meaningless after wards.
He’s still the manager to be there for us because he keeps believing in us, fighting and his ideas don’t change. Hopefully, he is going to help us to get over the line.”
