Michael Ball tackles the big issues at Hill Dickinson Stadium ahead of Everton's game with Manchester United
liverpoolecho
The big question for David Moyes and this Everton squad going forwards is which way will they go?
Will they be cautious and put the handbrake on? Trying to be solid and play the counter-attack, like they do away, at home.
Or, do they look to the future? That would mean looking at Tyler Dibling, deploying Jarrad Branthwaite and Jake O’Brien as a centre-back partnership.
Can we find a role for Harrison Armstrong in the middle? Do we write this season off and give them time to gel?
What we’re doing right now, we’re not really reaping the benefits at home. David Moyes wants to finish as high as he can, but we’ve got really tough matches coming up against bigger teams at home.
That starts next Monday against a Manchester United side who have turned their season around. These are the easy games when it comes to raising your game, but can you do it for all of the fixtures?
We’re frustrated because after Bournemouth we were walking away from another home match thinking: “what if?” Yes, we had opportunities to put the game to bed, but why do these results keep happening to us?
That stands out to me as another missed opportunity. We’ve seen it with both the League Cup and the FA Cup.
In terms of my own personal experience as a professional footballer, it seems to me like it’s down to the mentality of the players. They showed when they were down to 10 men that they have the attitude, intensity and desire to do it.
They’d show it at Goodison Park, but perhaps only four or five times a season when it really mattered. They’ve got the ability to switch on and step up to the plate in those pivotal moments.
Once more, the difficulty again is being consistent. Why can’t we keep to those levels?
Our away form has been brilliant since David Moyes came back. Look, we didn’t play brilliantly against Fulham, but we came away with the result and that’s all that matters.
If you flip it around and 50,000 Evertonians had witnessed 11 home wins then we’d probably be in a happier place than we are now with just the fantastic 3,000 or so who follow the team around the country, getting to witness all these positive results. We were hoping to be in the top 10, but we weren’t expecting it.
We can raise our game against the bigger teams or when things are on the line, we can perform, but it seems to be one step forward, two steps back. If you want to achieve things, win things, in your career, you’ve got to be able to be consistent.
The top teams can have poor games, but they find a way to get results through that ruthlessness of needing to get over the line. I’ve been there at Rangers and PSV where you need to win football games and while they liked to be victorious in a good manner, ultimately they didn’t really care as long as you got that three points or went through to the next round.
Getting up for the Old Firm was easy, getting up for a game against Ajax with PSV was easy, but can you do the business against the other teams?
There’s a question mark for David Moyes, the owners and the club of how we turn things around in terms of being ruthless. We need to get a winning mentality back with this squad of players.
While I’m really pleased with our position, I keep thinking: “What if?” I don’t care if Newcastle United or Tottenham Hotspur are struggling, I’m worried about Everton Football Club and this is an opportunity that we weren’t expecting, so, let’s grab it.
We’re coming away from Hill Dickinson Stadium underwhelmed and wondering why we can’t get that performance in. You could see by David Moyes’ reaction after the Bournemouth game, that’s probably the most down I’ve seen him since he came back to the football club and seemed very frustrated in his press conference over how things had turned out.
He’s got to take accountability because he’s the manager and he’s getting paid handsomely to fix these issues. When we’re playing against teams who make a lot of substitutions and also have full-backs that push on, we’re really struggling.
Our full-back situation is holding us back. Jake O’Brien has been fantastic, I can’t say a bad word against him, but his sending off reminded me of Jarrad Branthwaite when he first came in and got caught against Brentford. It was an accident waiting to happen because it’s not Jake’s natural position and he got caught out.
However, we also invited trouble and within nine minutes of madness, the game had gone away from us. Bournemouth didn’t want to be there on a cold, Tuesday night and were time-wasting from the start and would have been happy to walk away with a draw, but we let them back into the game.
We got punished for playing safe as it were, rather than trying to push on for a second goal. Imagine if they actually went with two up front, rather than bringing on Michael Keane and sticking him in attack with a minute left to play?
Everton can't give up when it comes to ref justice
I think David Moyes has given up on pushing referees, but you can’t give up.
I was watching the Manchester City game against Fulham and while the referee didn’t see Kenny Tete’s hair-pull on Antoine Semenyo, VAR did. They looked at it but decided to do nothing at all.
That’s the total opposite to what PGMOL chief Howard Webb said when he appeared on Sky Sports television. He told us that the Michael Keane sending off was the appropriate outcome and if they saw it again the next week, it would be the same outcome.
Unfortunately, that was not the case and that just baffles Evertonians. I’ve been told that Webb has been going around to the clubs, including Everton, telling people about the high percentage of decisions that they’re getting right.
However, it’s not 100%. If you’ve got VAR, then it should be 100% right because you’ve got the scope to watch incidents back from a variety of replays and angles.
We all know that referees and their assistants can make wrong decisions, but those on duty at Stockley Park shouldn’t. They’ve got all the tools to get every decision correct.
FOLLOW OUR EVERTON FC FACEBOOK PAGE!Latest EFC news and analysis from via the Liverpool Echo’s dedicated FB page
The people on VAR duty are re-refereeing games when they shouldn’t be and they’re not being consistent, either with the hair-pull or other scenarios in games. In that same Manchester City v Fulham game, Phil Foden made a poor challenge, but he got away with it, but in the past, numerous Everton players such as Phil Jagielka and Allan have been sent off for challenges that were nowhere near as bad and handed suspensions.
Then, this weekend, we had the FA Cup games without the safety net of VAR, and many of the on-field officials seemed incapable of making the right decisions. I believe the standard of refereeing in this country is really poor and they’re not helping themselves.
People like Webb and other former referees, come on the television and they try and support their colleagues by coming up with new wording for situations, but it gets my back up, along with other fans.
We go on about Everton ‘firsts’ but unlike may of Goodison Park’s proud records, these ones have not been positive. Never mind Keane and the hair-pull, it goes back to 2017 when Oumar Niasse became the first player to be hit with a retrospective suspension for supposedly trying to deceive an official, but I can’t remember too many more of those.
Ensure our latest sport headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source.Click here to activate or add us as Preferred Source in your Google search settings