Ronald Koeman To Replace Setien as Barca Manager

[Devil-Dick Willie]

9 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

The man who helped set Everton back 5 years in the space of three transfer windows and has a CV filled with utter mediocrity elsewhere? The brains trust who thought that Ashley Williams, Morgan Schneiderlin, Yannick Bolasie and Gylfi Sigurdsson were going to turn a mid-table Premier League side into top six contenders? Sounds like the man for the job.

I've heard it said about Valencia that it took them 5 years to recover from him as well but I'm not well versed in La Liga history so I'll leave it to others to elaborate on that or shoot it down as appropriate.

Schneiderlin and Sigurdsson are class. 

[Stan]

11 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

Schneiderlin and Sigurdsson are class. 

*were

[Devil-Dick Willie]

45 minutes ago, Stan said:

*were

I think Everton fans are some of the worst in the world for forgetting a managers triumphs and hating their failures. 

I mean, triumphs is a relative term, but hey it's Everton

[RandoEFC+]

8 hours ago, Spike said:

Those players except for Bolasie were very highly rated at the time, surely you don't forget that in hindsight?

Is this a joke? Williams was 30, Schneiderlin had failed at United and Sigurdsson had failed at Spurs, cost £45m, was about 27 and wasn't even played in his correct position because Rooney played there. Of the four, Bolasie wasn't the worst signing. He wasn't good but was unlucky with his injury.

1 hour ago, The Artful Dodger said:

Everton were actually quite enjoyable to watch in their first season under Koeman, they were certainly 'contenders' for the top 6 too. They lost something like 4 of their last 5, ending up 7th. Not saying Koeman is the right man, but I think he has done reasonable jobs at some clubs. Not sure it'll be enough for Barcelona though, the rot seems deeper than 2009.

Lukaku carried us to 7th that season. Koeman's lack of tactical flexibility and inability to get the best out of any of his attacking players or even play them in position (Calvert-Lewin at right-wing back, Sigurdsson on the left wing) was exposed at the start of the second season. We played about 12 games before he was sacked and we lost about 8 of them by 3 or more goals.

17 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

I think Everton fans are some of the worst in the world for forgetting a managers triumphs and hating their failures. 

I mean, triumphs is a relative term, but hey it's Everton

"Triumphs"? No trophy in 25 years, one cup final appearance in that time, one top six finish in the last 7 seasons. The reason what you describe is correct is because all Everton do is fail, and every manager we've had in our lifetimes has ultimately been a failure, Koeman included. His biggest triumph at Everton was finishing 7th. His solution to rebuilding from the mess left behind by Martinez was to sign a series of £30m 28 year olds on five year contracts, some of whom are still bleeding our wage budget dry, he showed absolutely no interest in developing younger players and couldn't even be bothered to take training most of the time by all accounts. His record throughout his managerial career is bang average. The Holland job was probably ideal for him because he doesn't have to do any coaching of note and can take most of the year off which is what he wanted to do at Everton. Even when he signed, we had to wait several extra weeks because he insisted on finishing his summer holiday before he came back and signed the deal.

Maybe he'll actually be arsed now that he has his dream job but Barcelona have serious problems and if I was one of their fans, I'd be hoping that Koeman isn't the man making too many of the big decisions.

I've admitted that I don't know enough about his "failure" at Valencia and won't pretend to know more than people when I don't. The rest of you needn't pretend you're more qualified to talk about his time at Everton than I am. I'm not exaggerating when I say we're still directly suffering from some of the things he did during his tenure with us and nothing on his managerial CV is enough to convince me that he's anything but a poor to average manager.

[The Artful Dodger]

Not to totally exonerate Koeman, but doesn't Everton's recent transfer activity suggest there is a problem further up? Iwobi is an absolutely abysmal football player, a ladybird could have told you that before 30 odd million was spent on him. Walcott similarly, a busted flush nearly 30, over 20 mill. The signings have continued after Koeman left. 

Everton's issue is that they have a bit of money to spend so think they must, they're not going to attract the very top bracket of player right now but are still spending top player money. 

[RandoEFC+]

39 minutes ago, The Artful Dodger said:

Not to totally exonerate Koeman, but doesn't Everton's recent transfer activity suggest there is a problem further up? Iwobi is an absolutely abysmal football player, a ladybird could have told you that before 30 odd million was spent on him. Walcott similarly, a busted flush nearly 30, over 20 mill. The signings have continued after Koeman left. 

Everton's issue is that they have a bit of money to spend so think they must, they're not going to attract the very top bracket of player right now but are still spending top player money. 

It wasn't just him but the players I named are the ones he was responsible for. Klaassen, Sandro and Tosun were on Steve Walsh. Walcott was Allardyce. Iwobi not sure whether that was Marco Silva or Brands. I'm not saying he's been a great signing but at least he isn't another 28 year old on a five year contract.

The possible saving grace for Koeman at Barcelona is that he doesn't see them as a stepping stone whereas he did with us. When he came to Everton it was no secret he wanted to do 3 years or so then make the step to Barcelona. That's why he tried to sign ready made players at their prime. He wanted to get us into Europe consistently, maybe win a trophy then fuck off to his dream job leaving us with an aging squad and an over inflated wage budget. Sadly he only achieved the latter but he's going to end up with the Barcelona job anyway.

[ScoRoss]

Abidal to leave as well. Quite ridiculous the board are going to cling onto March next year.

What serious sporting director are they going to manage to appoint when they know their bosses are going to be out of there in a few months time?

[Carnivore Chris]

To be fair, Rijkaard had done less than Koeman when he went in, Guardiola had only ever managed a B team and Luis Enrique's time at Roma is better left forgotten.

 

 

 

 

Anyway, that 8-2 the other night is not acceptable for any club who can spend 400 million on 3 players(all of which were flops) should be putting up a fight against anybody. There needs to be better recruitment, and also chances to youth. Ansu and Puig should be starting every week as it stands as they were 2 of the best players by miles under Setien. Whether the scoreline ended up the same doesn't matter as it makes more sense to play younger performing players than old past it ones who are living on what they used to do. If it means going a few seasons without success, that's football and you need to go through transition periods. It's time to rebuild.

 

 

 

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

I know he's a Barca legend, but I'm with @RandoEFC here... strikes me as a weird appointment, taking a guy that was partially responsible for Everton languishing despite heavy investment and putting him at Barca, with all the pressure that entails, seems weird. Not sure I'd want him in charge of a massive rebuild project like Barca have got going for them.

[Panna King]

42 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I know he's a Barca legend, but I'm with @RandoEFC here... strikes me as a weird appointment, taking a guy that was partially responsible for Everton languishing despite heavy investment and putting him at Barca, with all the pressure that entails, seems weird. Not sure I'd want him in charge of a massive rebuild project like Barca have got going for them.

Dont really think you can just judge him on a stint at Everton when he wasn't even in charge of buying the players, plus you mention he had huge investment but alot of that money came from the sale of Lukaku who they never replaced.  The signing of Rooney as well was an issue but the whole situation at Everton is down to Moshiri and the none direction they are going is just spending money, like the last 2 transfer windows buying shit like Iwobi, Kean, Gbamin etc, is that down to Koeman?   

Koeman done a good job before with Southampton, he made them in to a decent team and improved them after Poch, as well as leaving the club in good health,  it was him who got Van Dijk who left for 60 million profit.  The Everton thing was just bad timing for a club that has never had this money before and Koeman was just part of the issue but you cannot judge his whole career on that.  Koeman is being brought in not to buy players at Barca but because he is an icon there who plays a certain style of play when he does have the right players in place which he will do at Barca like he is doing at the moment with the Dutch national team.  When he was at Ajax he put together a great team, he built Feyenoord up from nothing as well more recently.

[Mel81x+]

1 minute ago, SirBalon 69 said:

Koeman is being brought in not to buy players at Barca but because he is an icon there who plays a certain style of play when he does have the right players in place like he is doing at the moment with the Dutch national team.  When he was at Ajax he put together a great team, he built Feyenoord up from nothing as well more recently.

I've heard the Dutch national team is/was doing far better than his predecessors under him too. That's probably one of the bigger guiding influences for the appointment. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

Just now, SirBalon 69 said:

Dont really think you can just judge him on a stint at Everton when he wasn't even in charge of buying the players, plus you mention he had huge investment but alot of that money came from the sale of Lukaku who they never replaced.  The signing of Rooney as well was an issue but the whole situation at Everton is down to Moshiri and the none direction they are going is just spending money, like the last 2 transfer windows buying shit like Iwobi, Kean, Gbamin etc.    

Koeman done a good job before with Southampton, he made them in to a decent team and improved them after Poch, as well as leaving the club in good health and it was him who got Van Dijk who left for 60 million profit.  The Everton thing was just bad timing for a club that has never had this money before and Koeman was just part of the issue but you cannot judge his whole career on that.  Koeman is being brought in not to buy players at Barca but because he is an icon there who plays a certain style of play when he does have the right players in place like he is doing at the moment with the Dutch national team.  When he was at Ajax he put together a great team, he built Feyenoord up from nothing as well more recently.

I think he had less of a say in transfers at Southampton though.

I’m not saying he’s a bad manager. It just strikes me as a weird appointment for a massive job that’s pretty much set up for failure until the next Barca election... where the new president will probably be running on a platform for a new manager and new signings.

[Panna King]

1 minute ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I think he had less of a say in transfers at Southampton though.

I’m not saying he’s a bad manager. It just strikes me as a weird appointment for a massive job that’s pretty much set up for failure until the next Barca election... where the new president will probably be running on a platform for a new manager and new signings.

Well when you look at the past Barcelona coaches, they have been nobodies or coaches with no experience what so ever.  Koeman is probably the most experienced coach they have had in a long time.

[Panna King]

5 minutes ago, Mel81x said:

I've heard the Dutch national team is/was doing far better than his predecessors under him too. That's probably one of the bigger guiding influences for the appointment. 

The Dutch team has flourished under Koeman, it has helped though with the new crop of players coming through but his tactics have been a massive benefit against the big European teams as well as giving the young players a chance at International football.

[Spike]

7 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

Is this a joke? Williams was 30, Schneiderlin had failed at United and Sigurdsson had failed at Spurs, cost £45m, was about 27 and wasn't even played in his correct position because Rooney played there. Of the four, Bolasie wasn't the worst signing. He wasn't good but was unlucky with his injury.

 

Williams was 30? So? the age isn't important, he was performing for Swansea. Schneiderlin was one of the best CMs in England for Southampton. Siggurdson failed at Spurs? But he also succeeded at Swansea. If you can be selective with Schneiderlin, I can be selective with Siggurdson (did he not also score a bunch of important goals for Everton?). Nobody thought they were bad players at the time, the joke is being played on you, I'm afraid.

Everton was never set back five years, because they never had anything to improve on. A floundering club then, a floundering club now; and has been since the 80s. The only good thing that Everton ever done was sign Timmy Cahill and for that I'll be ever grateful.

[Cicero]

I'm surprised Barcelona aren't keen on bringing Thiago back. 

A midfield three of Pjanic, De Jong, and Thiago could fix their midfield issues immediately. 

[Stan]

 

[RandoEFC+]

48 minutes ago, Spike said:

Williams was 30? So? the age isn't important, he was performing for Swansea. Schneiderlin was one of the best CMs in England for Southampton. Siggurdson failed at Spurs? But he also succeeded at Swansea. If you can be selective with Schneiderlin, I can be selective with Siggurdson (did he not also score a bunch of important goals for Everton?). Nobody thought they were bad players at the time, the joke is being played on you, I'm afraid.

Everton was never set back five years, because they never had anything to improve on. A floundering club then, a floundering club now; and has been since the 80s. The only good thing that Everton ever done was sign Timmy Cahill and for that I'll be ever grateful.

I have no idea how to start with how wrong nearly all of this post is. Let's try and take it one point at a time.

Swansea got relegated the season we signed Williams. He was given a 3 year contract on 60k a week. He was on the way down in his career while Koeman's job was to take a team that had finished 11th twice in a row to a consistent top six challenger. Doesn't quite add up does it. He was passable for us for one season if I'm being generous then pure shite. Koeman signed him, bad decision.

If Schneiderlin was one of the best midfielders in England at the time then why did Man Utd sell him when they themselves were struggling to get top four? Decent for the half season he joined for but then betrayed his awful attitude by constantly going missing in games. Had to be disciplined in training when Unsworth was caretaker manager for pissing around. Koeman worked with him at Southampton and should have been a better judge of character. £30m pissed away.

Sigurdsson had 2 decent seasons for us in terms of goals and assists but he's slow and can only play a number 10 role which restricts what we can achieve with the rest of the team. He doesn't work in a team that wants to press well and move up and down the pitch as a unit at pace. For what it's worth, Koeman never got any output from Sigurdsson because he kept playing him left wing. His successors Unsworth, Allardyce and Marco Silva were the ones who actually played him in the right position for him to start doing what he's good at so being tactically inferior to the youth team manager, the Michelin man and a Portuguese idiot can go on Ronald's CV as well.

There's no joke being played on me I'm afraid. Just because all of the managers and other people involved in recruitment at Everton have been a shambles doesn't excuse how much of a shambles he was.

We have been set back five years because we're still paying inflated wages to players we can't get rid of because he and Walsh brought them to the club on 50% more wages than they were worth and because of them going after 28 year olds who are now the wrong side of 30 so even harder to shift. If Bolasie and Sigurdsson were younger or on lower wages we could sell them and reinvest the money in the squad. Players like Iwobi and Mina might never reach the required standard but at least after being signed aged 23 instead of 28 there's a much greater chance someone else will take a punt on them or that they'll take a pay cut to leave because they want to do something with their prime years instead of milking their 30s for as much money as they can. None of this should really need explaining.

Koeman was the best backed and highest paid Everton manager we've ever had and he was a complete and utter failure. The buck can be passed to Walsh, even Moshiri and Kenwright for much of it but that's only the transfer dealings. He failed to take a hands on approach in training, failed to set the team up well tactically, failed to influence matches with his changes, failed to motivate the team and failed to improve the squad. His man management was awful, destroying Barkley's confidence in the media arguably at a crossroads in his career and bragged that Niasse can keep scoring goals for the under 23s if he wants and that he didn't get a locker at the training ground before eventually calling upon him to save his job in a win against Bournemouth. 

The one good thing he did was convince Lukaku to stay for one more season because it increased his value and he carried us to 7th that season.

If you want to continue to think you know better, then fine, but I watched every single game we played while he was manager and followed the news and opinions from people who specifically cover Everton from the Liverpool Echo and the local radio stations on an almost daily basis. This was Koeman at Everton, absolutely dreadful in his own right regardless of how poor we've been as a club before, during and after his tenure. Three years later I'm surprised to see him get the Barcelona job to say the least.

[Spike]

1 hour ago, RandoEFC said:

I have no idea how to start with how wrong nearly all of this post is. Let's try and take it one point at a time.

Swansea got relegated the season we signed Williams. He was given a 3 year contract on 60k a week. He was on the way down in his career while Koeman's job was to take a team that had finished 11th twice in a row to a consistent top six challenger. Doesn't quite add up does it. He was passable for us for one season if I'm being generous then pure shite. Koeman signed him, bad decision.

If Schneiderlin was one of the best midfielders in England at the time then why did Man Utd sell him when they themselves were struggling to get top four? Decent for the half season he joined for but then betrayed his awful attitude by constantly going missing in games. Had to be disciplined in training when Unsworth was caretaker manager for pissing around. Koeman worked with him at Southampton and should have been a better judge of character. £30m pissed away.

Sigurdsson had 2 decent seasons for us in terms of goals and assists but he's slow and can only play a number 10 role which restricts what we can achieve with the rest of the team. He doesn't work in a team that wants to press well and move up and down the pitch as a unit at pace. For what it's worth, Koeman never got any output from Sigurdsson because he kept playing him left wing. His successors Unsworth, Allardyce and Marco Silva were the ones who actually played him in the right position for him to start doing what he's good at so being tactically inferior to the youth team manager, the Michelin man and a Portuguese idiot can go on Ronald's CV as well.

There's no joke being played on me I'm afraid. Just because all of the managers and other people involved in recruitment at Everton have been a shambles doesn't excuse how much of a shambles he was.

We have been set back five years because we're still paying inflated wages to players we can't get rid of because he and Walsh brought them to the club on 50% more wages than they were worth and because of them going after 28 year olds who are now the wrong side of 30 so even harder to shift. If Bolasie and Sigurdsson were younger or on lower wages we could sell them and reinvest the money in the squad. Players like Iwobi and Mina might never reach the required standard but at least after being signed aged 23 instead of 28 there's a much greater chance someone else will take a punt on them or that they'll take a pay cut to leave because they want to do something with their prime years instead of milking their 30s for as much money as they can. None of this should really need explaining.

Koeman was the best backed and highest paid Everton manager we've ever had and he was a complete and utter failure. The buck can be passed to Walsh, even Moshiri and Kenwright for much of it but that's only the transfer dealings. He failed to take a hands on approach in training, failed to set the team up well tactically, failed to influence matches with his changes, failed to motivate the team and failed to improve the squad. His man management was awful, destroying Barkley's confidence in the media arguably at a crossroads in his career and bragged that Niasse can keep scoring goals for the under 23s if he wants and that he didn't get a locker at the training ground before eventually calling upon him to save his job in a win against Bournemouth. 

The one good thing he did was convince Lukaku to stay for one more season because it increased his value and he carried us to 7th that season.

If you want to continue to think you know better, then fine, but I watched every single game we played while he was manager and followed the news and opinions from people who specifically cover Everton from the Liverpool Echo and the local radio stations on an almost daily basis. This was Koeman at Everton, absolutely dreadful in his own right regardless of how poor we've been as a club before, during and after his tenure. Three years later I'm surprised to see him get the Barcelona job to say the least.

nah, I was just trying to wind you up

[Dr. Gonzo]

Ryan Babel to Barca now plz

[Panna King]

Van de beek to Barcelona 

[El Profesor]

1 hour ago, SirBalon 69 said:

Van de beek to Barcelona 

If Koeman comes with the autority to be ruthless and cut the unproductive veterans, then this could work.

Sure, it may burn bridges with Messi but it's impossible to be successful at the highest level with an overweight striker just because he's good friends with Messi.

Shipping Suárez  + cash to Ajax for van de Beek would be a pretty good start for Koeman.

[Panna King]

5 hours ago, El Profesor said:

If Koeman comes with the autority to be ruthless and cut the unproductive veterans, then this could work.

Sure, it may burn bridges with Messi but it's impossible to be successful at the highest level with an overweight striker just because he's good friends with Messi.

Shipping Suárez  + cash to Ajax for van de Beek would be a pretty good start for Koeman.

Its part of Koeman agreement who he wants to bring in. 

[The Artful Dodger]

Messi should really leave, and tbh I think Barcelona might be better, long term, letting him go now. They need a new path, a total change.

[ScoRoss]

Koeman officially announced as first team coach, and Ramon Planes promoted to technical director.