Chelsea 1-1 Everton - Thursday 16th December, 2021

[Cicero]

That's us officially out of the title race. 4 points sure, but our performances up to this point were in no shape sustainable considering how much we were relying on our defence. It was only a matter of time until everything collapsed. Add the fact we can't even beat Everton's U23 team, I think it's safe to say a title challenge is now out of the question. 

I think the last minute or so, where we were embarrassingly trying to move the ball around to create the last chance pretty much sums us up. Clueless. No matter how much we spend, we will always look clueless up top. 

[RandoEFC+]

Pickford did really well again tonight. I'm fed up of trying to fight the lazy established narrative because of a bad run he had about three and a half years ago but he deserves credit. Been consistently good for us after the Van Dijk incident and the short spell out of the team that followed. Going on well over a year ago, probably made no more than a couple of genuine mistakes for us in that time and had a really good tournament for England.

Still gets more stick than praise which goes to show how much most football fans and pundits actually pay attention to players' performances compared to memes, Paddy Power and 'banter pages' posting jokes they think will make them popular.

[RandoEFC+]

I'm also baffled as to how Benitez became one of those managers who's just randomly deemed a genius by the punditry class of football for showing basic competence and getting the occasional result, while they just ignore him losing comfortably to West Ham, Wolves, Watford, Brentford and Palace.

All over Twitter now the pro-Benitez crowd going on about him making his teams hard to beat and well-organised. That's just objectively not true this season is it? We've lost 7 in our last 10 and kept one clean sheet since August.

It isn't rocket science to come to a game like this, surrender possession, get men behind the ball and try and score with a counter attack or a set piece. Then it's over to luck and every once in a while, your opposition will miss their early chances, let you get settled into the game and have something to get on to. On another night, Reece James puts them ahead after 5 minutes and we lose 4-0 or worse. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve credit for identifying the right approach but it's pretty obvious and it depends on some good fortune to get a result. Just because some teams are happy to come to these games and get battered 5-0 in exchange for a pat on the head and a half-drunk gambling addict on Soccer Saturday praising you for "havin' a go" doesn't make you particularly clever for not doing that.

[Bluewolf]

We have gone from being a team that were solid at the back even though our final third play could have been better to flowing football with an end product and a team playing with confidence to a team that looks tired/nervous at times and has become unreliable at the back.. With the likes of Kante and Kovacic missing the midfield is lacking energy and it's putting a greater strain on the back 3 

The likes of Niguez and Barkley are players that could cover in a team with pretty much everyone else fit but in games like this they are showing that they are not anywhere near the levels needed in a title chasing squad.. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

23 minutes ago, RondónEFC said:

I'm also baffled as to how Benitez became one of those managers who's just randomly deemed a genius by the punditry class of football for showing basic competence and getting the occasional result, while they just ignore him losing comfortably to West Ham, Wolves, Watford, Brentford and Palace.

All over Twitter now the pro-Benitez crowd going on about him making his teams hard to beat and well-organised. That's just objectively not true this season is it? We've lost 7 in our last 10 and kept one clean sheet since August.

It isn't rocket science to come to a game like this, surrender possession, get men behind the ball and try and score with a counter attack or a set piece. Then it's over to luck and every once in a while, your opposition will miss their early chances, let you get settled into the game and have something to get on to. On another night, Reece James puts them ahead after 5 minutes and we lose 4-0 or worse. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve credit for identifying the right approach but it's pretty obvious and it depends on some good fortune to get a result. Just because some teams are happy to come to these games and get battered 5-0 in exchange for a pat on the head and a half-drunk gambling addict on Soccer Saturday praising you for "havin' a go" doesn't make you particularly clever for not doing that.

I get your point on that last paragraph but... that's nothing new really, even when teams that have shitloads of money and world class players (Mourinho sides, Simeone's Atletico, etc)... they'll play that dogshite style of football trying to just frustrate a side and steal a win. And they're hailed as tactical geniuses when it happens.

Dunno what you expect Rafa to really do though? Your squad is... at best, not great... and at worst, an expensive load of shite with a handful of good players... and in reality, it's probably realistically somewhere between there. DCL's probably your best player for a Rafa type of system and he's been out for a while with injury (when's he back btw, because I imagine you'll look a lot better without him). Meanwhile the recently sacked DOF and the previous few managers managed to waste millions and millions to put together a side that's: 1.) unbalanced as fuck; 2.) not really able to spend money because of FFP.

With Brands gone, perhaps there's nobody to hide behind anymore and he'll get the brunt of all criticism at Everton. And realistically, I think that was always bound to happen - he's a Liverpool legend and he's hated by a lot of Everton fans. I don't think it's surprising that after decades of rotting away from being at the top, the fanbase of one of the country's biggest sides seems to have finally woken up to the neglect of their board and erosion of their side's ambition and showing some outrage about it... all it took was appointing someone loved by Liverpool fans to be manager.

Would it have been better if he'd made a Roberto Martinez style attempt at swashbuckling football against a far better side and gotten absolutely destroyed?

Regardless, I think Rafa is doomed to fail at Everton. Anywhere he's done well, he's managed to form a genuine bond with large groups of the fans - Valencia, us, Newcastle. He'll never get that at Everton - he might have if the good run at the start of the season continued, but those injuries fucked him and I don't think he'll ever get a chance to form a bond with Everton fans after his recent poor run. He'll likely take the brunt of the blame for the squad being poorly assembled - despite only getting about 10p to add to the side over the summer (and signing two players for that 10p that looked like the only 2 Everton players giving a fuck during the Merseyside derby - Gray and... Rondon ).

[RandoEFC+]

@Dr. Gonzo I never criticised his tactics tonight, in fact I said it was the right approach, and even then you have to be lucky for it to come off. What I'm saying his he's become one of those managers who the press lazily just call a genius for "getting his tactics spot on" when it's not exactly rocket science to play defensively, hope you don't concede and get a smash and grab result when you're massively outclassed like we were tonight. It didn't come off against City or Liverpool who battered us in similar fixtures recently.

The contradiction is how they don't say a word when he can't do the harder part and question why he's unable to put a cohesive game plan together to beat Brentford, Palace, Watford, etc. It's like when Mourinho is in his honeymoon period at whatever club. Gets bummed for the Mourinho master class when he beats City 2-1 because De Gea makes 37 saves for him but the same pundits just shrug for the first six months of him drawing at home to Newcastle and Everton because he doesn't know how to set up a team to dominate a game. It's an essential skill in modern football management and managers like Mourinho and Benitez don't have it.

I know you lot have complicated feelings about him managing Everton but you can't look at our season so far, even with the injuries we've had, and say that he's done a good job overall. There are plenty of tangible mitigating circumstances but it's mid season, we're 14th, out of the League Cup and he's now falling out with key players like Lucas Digne while playing a brand of football that's an absolute eyesore 90% of the time. Honestly the Liverpool connection has very little to do with it.

It doesn't particularly bother me because if we can avoid sacking another manager then we should, and I think as long as we don't get relegated we need to avoid ripping things up again, but it's the double standards from the media. If Marco Silva or Martinez or Koeman were serving this up they'd be getting hounded on a daily basis by the vultures. He's getting a very easy ride from the media in my opinion and I don't think we should all start acting grateful and bend over backwards to praise the tactical genius of going to Chelsea and prioritising defensive shape and basic organisation because it means we've managed to not lose for the third time in ten games, with a fair amount of help from our goalkeeper and them missing good chances. It's the obvious approach and we got the luck tonight for it to translate to a point instead of a 3-0 loss.

His real challenge is to come up with a way of playing that sees us beat teams of a similar ability to us by getting on the front foot, because we can't score against teams who don't attack us and enable our counter attack. I'll be much more likely to praise his tactics if he can show some flexibility and achieve that. That would be an actual endorsement of his tactics, not what we saw tonight which literally anyone could have seen was the right way to approach the game.

[Cicero]

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 minute ago, RondónEFC said:

 

It doesn't particularly bother me because if we can avoid sacking another manager then we should, and I think as long as we don't get relegated we need to avoid ripping things up again, but it's the double standards from the media. If Marco Silva or Martinez or Koeman were serving this up they'd be getting hounded on a daily basis by the vultures.

Yeah but tbf to him... he's only had a tiny fraction of what any of these managers had to spend. And with that incredibly small amount of money, he's made 3 signings I believe - two wingers who basically hit the ground running and have already contributed to the side and that he's been able to slot in easily. And then a past-it journeyman striker who was only meant to be brought in as cover that's been forced to play far more than he probably should because of a bad injury to your main striker (and probably best player).

After his good start, I don't think he's done a good job. But I also don't think he's done a bad job. I think many managers would struggle in Everton's situation right now. It's just an atrociously built squad and there's not a lot of money that can go towards fixing it because of FFP. You'd have to sell deadwood (which there's a lot of at the club) or one of the 3 very good players (Digne, Richarlison, or DCL) - deadwood's going to be hard to sell (at least at fees that'll get in good replacements) and selling very good players is always very shit. And I'm assuming Everton fans are tired of always seeing anyone that looks good get swept up by someone else.

At the start of the season you didn't look like a side that can't control a game. But without certain players, I think your side's just not able to control matches that well. Granted, I think even a depleted Everton should have been able to control a match against Newcastle because they're shite. But matches like that Palace match - I'm not surprised Palace looked very good, honestly they've looked very good all season they've just been unlucky with how they've managed to control games.

I know you're very much on Team Digne with this spat with Rafa - but in the past when Rafa's frozen out a player (and in this case, it seems that Digne was on the verge of starting against Chelsea until he pulled himself out to "illness" - so I don't even know if he's been frozen out), it's because of a shit attitude. And I'm convinced he's not the only one at Everton with a shit attitude. Because getting players to look like they show desire against clubs like Chelsea and Arsenal shouldn't be that difficult for Everton. But these players not looking arsed against Wolves or Newcastle indicates to me a real mentality problem - bceause those are sides that Everton should absolutely be looking to win even with a depleted squad that's poorly built and is missing most of its quality players.

And you're right, to an extent getting the right attitude from his players is a big part of his job. A Merseyside derby where you've got only 2 players looking like they give a shit - and they're both fairly new to the club - is unacceptable. And I'm sure Rafa knows this better than most of the players he's got, honestly.

But I think once DCL was out injured for a long time, Everton were likely going to have a very rough season. I know why he's brought Rondon in - it's a player he trusts, that's familiar with how he plays, and he wanted some experienced cover for DLC... but he's certainly not a player Everton can be relying on & the drop off in quality from Calvert-Lewin to Rondon is absolutely staggering.

And I don't think that's his fault, I think any manager at Everton would struggle right now in the same situation. Expensive squad that's unbalanced as fuck, injury crisis to manage, can only bring in bargain-bin players (and honestly it's a good thing the two wingers brought in hit the ground running because otherwise the season would be looking more bleak), and can't spend without selling due to FFP rules.

Not that I think you shouldn't be beating Newcastle with your current crop of players or that all the poor results are acceptable... I'm just saying, I can understand exactly why the quality of football Rafa is serving up has dropped off massively compared to the beginning of the season. It's not like I'd expect Graham Potter or Eddie Clark to do any better with the current Everton squad.

[Waylander]

Watched most of it.

With our strikers 'AWOL' we struggled to put away chances and Everton though missing their own players didn't panic and kept trying to hit us on the break.

Pickford did well.

Mount scored a decent goal.

Not sure James fouled Gordon yet a very good free kick and decent equaliser.

Never thought we would win the league this season and so for me a point is disappointing yet ok, we could have lost today. 

Learn and move on.

As for Everton a glimmer of light appears.

[carefreeluke]

We're not creating or being clinical enough but the biggest difference recently is that we're just shipping goals which we didn't used to do. Before we could rely on the defence, our mentality and defensive setup to see out games. Now not so much, we're having to score more to win games.

[RandoEFC+]

@Dr. Gonzo I didn't think I'd ever see you go out to bat so hard for an Everton manager. 

Just to be clear, like I said I know there are a lot of mitigating circumstances but my issue is with the media here. This narrative that Everton have a poor squad anyway and what else do they expect is another one that has just been allowed to manifest itself without any critical analysis. It's bizarre. This team is no great shakes but the same players finished 10th last season, and with a points tally that usually would have got them into Europe. At the moment we're 14th, barely on track to surpass 40 points. We've lost to Watford, Brentford, Aston Villa, West Ham, Crystal Palace, QPR and Wolves in this run of about 12-13 games. Even with our injuries, that just isn't good enough.

But my main issue isn't with Benitez' management or tactics (last night). It's the double standards from the media. A younger manager would be getting skewered for this season but because Benitez was good 10-15 years ago he gets a free pass. To prove I'm not just being irrationally angry because he used to manage Liverpool, Ancelotti got very much the same treatment because of his reputation, and Allardyce got the same when he was serving up shite football (though he at least scraped together enough points to get us up to 8th) because he's "in with the media". This run of form is worse than what got any of our other managers sacked. Martinez went for finishing 11th twice, Koeman and Silva were both sacked for bad runs that lasted about 8 games. I don't want us to sack another manager, my point is merely that the punditry class are so utterly poor at objective analysis that they can't look past the fact it's Benitez who has an 'accepted' decent reputation as a manager and is quite convincing at blaming other people and circumstances when his teams aren't doing well. Barely anyone is covering the fans' displeasure at his tactics, team selections, man management and losses to teams that are similar or worse than us. But the second he scrapes a point at Chelsea, who should have finished the game in the first 20 minutes, by coming up with the genius game plan of putting 10 men behind the ball and accepting a rate of 20% possession, they're all weighing in with calling him a tactical genius. Fair enough, he chose the best possible strategy and it yielded us an unlikely point last night, but where were all these experts at the weekend when our team selection and tactics were dreadful and we got completely battered by Crystal Palace? All I ask is some objectivity and consistency but I acknowledge that I'm a fool to expect that from any of the mainstream sports media in this country or online.

[LFCMadLad]

13 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Yeah but tbf to him... he's only had a tiny fraction of what any of these managers had to spend. And with that incredibly small amount of money, he's made 3 signings I believe - two wingers who basically hit the ground running and have already contributed to the side and that he's been able to slot in easily. And then a past-it journeyman striker who was only meant to be brought in as cover that's been forced to play far more than he probably should because of a bad injury to your main striker (and probably best player).

After his good start, I don't think he's done a good job. But I also don't think he's done a bad job. I think many managers would struggle in Everton's situation right now. It's just an atrociously built squad and there's not a lot of money that can go towards fixing it because of FFP. You'd have to sell deadwood (which there's a lot of at the club) or one of the 3 very good players (Digne, Richarlison, or DCL) - deadwood's going to be hard to sell (at least at fees that'll get in good replacements) and selling very good players is always very shit. And I'm assuming Everton fans are tired of always seeing anyone that looks good get swept up by someone else.

At the start of the season you didn't look like a side that can't control a game. But without certain players, I think your side's just not able to control matches that well. Granted, I think even a depleted Everton should have been able to control a match against Newcastle because they're shite. But matches like that Palace match - I'm not surprised Palace looked very good, honestly they've looked very good all season they've just been unlucky with how they've managed to control games.

I know you're very much on Team Digne with this spat with Rafa - but in the past when Rafa's frozen out a player (and in this case, it seems that Digne was on the verge of starting against Chelsea until he pulled himself out to "illness" - so I don't even know if he's been frozen out), it's because of a shit attitude. And I'm convinced he's not the only one at Everton with a shit attitude. Because getting players to look like they show desire against clubs like Chelsea and Arsenal shouldn't be that difficult for Everton. But these players not looking arsed against Wolves or Newcastle indicates to me a real mentality problem - bceause those are sides that Everton should absolutely be looking to win even with a depleted squad that's poorly built and is missing most of its quality players.

And you're right, to an extent getting the right attitude from his players is a big part of his job. A Merseyside derby where you've got only 2 players looking like they give a shit - and they're both fairly new to the club - is unacceptable. And I'm sure Rafa knows this better than most of the players he's got, honestly.

But I think once DCL was out injured for a long time, Everton were likely going to have a very rough season. I know why he's brought Rondon in - it's a player he trusts, that's familiar with how he plays, and he wanted some experienced cover for DLC... but he's certainly not a player Everton can be relying on & the drop off in quality from Calvert-Lewin to Rondon is absolutely staggering.

And I don't think that's his fault, I think any manager at Everton would struggle right now in the same situation. Expensive squad that's unbalanced as fuck, injury crisis to manage, can only bring in bargain-bin players (and honestly it's a good thing the two wingers brought in hit the ground running because otherwise the season would be looking more bleak), and can't spend without selling due to FFP rules.

Not that I think you shouldn't be beating Newcastle with your current crop of players or that all the poor results are acceptable... I'm just saying, I can understand exactly why the quality of football Rafa is serving up has dropped off massively compared to the beginning of the season. It's not like I'd expect Graham Potter or Eddie Clark to do any better with the current Everton squad.

Sir Balon? Is that you?

[Waylander]

2 hours ago, carefreeluke said:

We're not creating or being clinical enough but the biggest difference recently is that we're just shipping goals which we didn't used to do. Before we could rely on the defence, our mentality and defensive setup to see out games. Now not so much, we're having to score more to win games.

I think that without Kante or Kovacic we struggle to go through the middle of the pitch and lack that acceleration in midfield. So we are compensating with Rudiger joining the attack, not pretty and potentially opening us up for the counter. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

52 minutes ago, LFCMadLad said:

Sir Balon? Is that you?

Nah I don’t dress like a weirdo like him

[Inverted]

I think with Benitez it is pretty similar to Mourinho and it more reflects a general trend that once a manager has developed an image with the media, then everything they do will be evaluated through that lens. The short attention span of sports media requires that everything can be assessed with reference to a pre-established narrative. 

Hence the absurdity of Mourinho having his "winner" persona and then the media continuing to call him a winner even when he patently was not winning or likely to win anything anymore. It's too complicated to talk about everything going on. So , to start off you take for granted that Mourinho is a winner, and then you have conveniently narrowed-down the scope of discussion,  and then you ask what other things are going wrong to explain why he's not winning. It makes the discussion simpler and easier to digest.

The overriding memory almost everyone has of Benitez is him taking inferior teams to famous results against stronger opposition with very disciplined tactical approaches. He then largely lived up to that with Newcastle by keeping a pretty poor side comfortably safe once was promoted.

So the media narrative is pretty much only concerned with what he does against the stronger teams. Limping to draws and losses against smaller clubs just doesn't register. To properly talk about what's going wrong with Benitez at Everton, you'd need to get into a whole big discussion about how his style of management and reactive tactical approach is a bit outdated, and how it can create a problem with beating weaker teams.

And who has the time for that?

[RandoEFC+]

4 minutes ago, Inverted said:

I think with Benitez it is pretty similar to Mourinho and it more reflects a general trend that once a manager has developed an image with the media, then everything they do will be evaluated through that lens. The short attention span of sports media requires that everything can be assessed with reference to a pre-established narrative. 

Hence the absurdity of Mourinho having his "winner" persona and then the media continuing to call him a winner even when he patently was not winning or likely to win anything anymore. It's too complicated to talk about everything going on. So , to start off you take for granted that Mourinho is a winner, and then you have conveniently narrowed-down the scope of discussion,  and then you ask what other things are going wrong to explain why he's not winning. It makes the discussion simpler and easier to digest.

The overriding memory almost everyone has of Benitez is him taking inferior teams to famous results against stronger opposition with very disciplined tactical approaches. He then largely lived up to that with Newcastle by keeping a pretty poor side comfortably safe once was promoted.

So the media narrative is pretty much only concerned with what he does against the stronger teams. Limping to draws and losses against smaller clubs just doesn't register. To properly talk about what's going wrong with Benitez at Everton, you'd need to get into a whole big discussion about how his style of management and reactive tactical approach is a bit outdated, and how it can create a problem with beating weaker teams.

And who has the time for that?

Wish I could upvote twice!

[Dr. Gonzo]

4 hours ago, RondónEFC said:

@Dr. Gonzo I didn't think I'd ever see you go out to bat so hard for an Everton manager. 

Just to be clear, like I said I know there are a lot of mitigating circumstances but my issue is with the media here. This narrative that Everton have a poor squad anyway and what else do they expect is another one that has just been allowed to manifest itself without any critical analysis. It's bizarre. This team is no great shakes but the same players finished 10th last season, and with a points tally that usually would have got them into Europe. At the moment we're 14th, barely on track to surpass 40 points. We've lost to Watford, Brentford, Aston Villa, West Ham, Crystal Palace, QPR and Wolves in this run of about 12-13 games. Even with our injuries, that just isn't good enough.

But my main issue isn't with Benitez' management or tactics (last night). It's the double standards from the media. A younger manager would be getting skewered for this season but because Benitez was good 10-15 years ago he gets a free pass. To prove I'm not just being irrationally angry because he used to manage Liverpool, Ancelotti got very much the same treatment because of his reputation, and Allardyce got the same when he was serving up shite football (though he at least scraped together enough points to get us up to 8th) because he's "in with the media". This run of form is worse than what got any of our other managers sacked. Martinez went for finishing 11th twice, Koeman and Silva were both sacked for bad runs that lasted about 8 games. I don't want us to sack another manager, my point is merely that the punditry class are so utterly poor at objective analysis that they can't look past the fact it's Benitez who has an 'accepted' decent reputation as a manager and is quite convincing at blaming other people and circumstances when his teams aren't doing well. Barely anyone is covering the fans' displeasure at his tactics, team selections, man management and losses to teams that are similar or worse than us. But the second he scrapes a point at Chelsea, who should have finished the game in the first 20 minutes, by coming up with the genius game plan of putting 10 men behind the ball and accepting a rate of 20% possession, they're all weighing in with calling him a tactical genius. Fair enough, he chose the best possible strategy and it yielded us an unlikely point last night, but where were all these experts at the weekend when our team selection and tactics were dreadful and we got completely battered by Crystal Palace? All I ask is some objectivity and consistency but I acknowledge that I'm a fool to expect that from any of the mainstream sports media in this country or online.

I think I got hung up on the wrong things in your initial post and thought you were saying the media should criticise him more, rather than you mostly critiquing the media for their lazy takes.

Yeah, the media are a bunch of lazy cunts.

[Cicero]

6 hours ago, carefreeluke said:

We're not creating or being clinical enough but the biggest difference recently is that we're just shipping goals which we didn't used to do. Before we could rely on the defence, our mentality and defensive setup to see out games. Now not so much, we're having to score more to win games.

Injuries haven't helped, but I think the contract situation may be affecting some players. 

Rudiger, Christensen, Silva, and Azpilicueta all out of contract in the summer. 

Jorginho and Kante have 1 year remaining on their current deals in 2022. 

Loftus-Cheek, Barkley, Sarr, and Saul have virtually nothing to play for considering they know they are as good as gone. 

That's 10 players who are uncertain of their futures, and to tell you the truth, I'd be happy to see the back of at least 8 of them. 

 

 

[Guest]

@RondónEFC nice to know your not gonna loose today