Michael Ball tackles the big issues at Hill Dickinson Stadium ahead of Everton's home game with Fulham
David Moyes needs to be braver. Can he surprise the Everton fanbase? Can he play two up front? Can he put someone other than Thierno Barry or Beto up front?
Can he go three at the back? I think Jake O’Brien has been excellent for us, but I think those extra yards each and every game he plays at full-back are catching up with him, because you don’t run as much when playing centre-half. He’s just getting caught out a little bit, here and there and looks a bit leggy.
Moyes said he’d turned to Dwight McNeil ahead of our most expensive summer signing Tyler Dibling because his attitude in training has been spot-on. While I understand that, was that just a safer option, rather than going for the win?
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If Dibling’s training levels are poor, that’s on him. I get it, it might have been a cold call to him to say: “I don’t think you’re ready,” picking someone else ahead of him, out of possession.
But there were numerous team-mates I played with during my career who you’d have never heard of if it was down to their performances in training. When he was at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, they said that Mark Hughes was the worst trainer in history; Duncan Ferguson wasn’t the greatest; Kevin Campbell was very, very poor, when he came in, I thought “Is he actually a footballer?” but when it came to the competitive nature of matchdays, they were the main men, they switched on and became the match-winners.
If Iliman Ndiaye goes away to the Africa Cup of Nations, Dibling is going to have had to play minutes; if Idrissa Gueye goes away, Merlin Rohl is going to have had minutes, otherwise they’re playing catch-up. We need these players to be up and ready.
That last hour at Sunderland was probably the worst hour I’ve seen from Everton since Leeds United in the opening game. We can’t keep going into all these matches with a copy and paste approach.
We can’t try and pass everything on to Jack Grealish as the opposition are afraid of him and put lots of players on him to try and cancel him out. Other players need to step up.
Sunderland displayed that attitude to close down opponents and the crowd responded to that, I thought the atmosphere was brilliant. They were up for the battle and forcing errors, not sitting back and playing chess and I don’t think that suits Everton either or the Everton crowd.
Keep the pressure on, don’t drop back. Michael Keane has probably been our best defender this season but why does James Tarkowski keep dropping? Is he afraid of Keane’s lack of pace?
If the centre-halves move the line forward, then our midfielders can put pressure on the opposition and not get pickpocketed. When teams get on top of us, we’re very easy to play through because the distance between Tarkowski and the striker – whether it’s Thierno Barry or Beto – is often 70 plus yards and that’s ridiculous.
While we’ve seen some good performances – in parts – you’d have expected us to have picked up more points. I don’t think we’re going to be involved in another relegation fight, but if we were to lose to Fulham, then we would be looking over our shoulders and could get sucked into a bad situation.
We don’t want to be having to go back to the Sam Allardyce or Sean Dyche styles to survive, we want to improve and kick-on.
Can Moyes show that he’s not stuck in his ways? We want to see these new players or why else have you brought them in, and also, let’s surprise the opposition.
I think we’ve wanted to see a change for a couple of weeks now, but we know Moyes doesn’t change too much.
It’s not just the starting line-ups where there is a lack of variety, it’s a concern for me that we’re not seeing positive substitution. The only surprise was that he brought Dwight McNeil on rather than someone else.
It’s always like-for-like personnel. There’s never any change of tactics.
Every opponent will now be thinking that Everton are going to throw everything at you but if they don’t go two or three goals up, they’re going to give you an opportunity to get back in.
We’ve seen in recent years that some of these players go hiding for long periods of the season when things get tough. We certainly don’t want to be having to wait until the last game again for them to put a performance in.
We want players who are going to be consistent and stand up week in and week out. Moyes is probably realising that some of these players can’t do that.
It’s up to him as a manager, that’s why you get paid the big dough, to go: “I need to change it.” He needs to find solutions.
We’ve started life pretty well at our new home but after suffering a first defeat at Hill Dickinson Stadium against Tottenham Hotspur, we don’t want the rot to set in.
Everton to face Fulham player who learned what Blues fans wanted
Tyler Dibling and some of the other players who have come to the football club, could speak to Seamus Coleman and learn a bit from Alex Iwobi who returns to face Everton with Fulham. He came here from Arsenal but didn’t really know his place.
Then there was a game where he showed a fantastic attitude by busting a gut to make a run. It got the Evertonians up out of their seats and right behind him.
From that moment on, even though he hadn’t always displayed great quality, he lifted the crowd with his attitude with his enthusiasm and willingness to give everything he had while wearing the royal blue jersey and on the pitch. Maybe nine times out of 10, nothing happened, but his efforts were appreciated by the supporters.
We want to see that from this group of players. This was a forward-thinking rather than defensive player, but he got a reaction from the fans.