I thought if we were just a bit sharper , we might have made it a game . I thought more importantly there was proof of a plan "B " against Everton . I don't know how many mid range passes that we made into the middle with Everton pressing us & their defenders waiting for a long ball . One of our players would bring it down in around mid circle & there would nobody from Everton anywhere near him . The soft pass up the middle is up for grabs when were being pressed . Rodgers said after the game that this was a learning game , hope he learned lots
OK a bad result but after the previous games this one can be forgiven just this once, we looked good till the free kick went in then a few heads dropped and the vibe wasn`t good. Energy levels seemed lower than the last games with less urgency to fight for it. Watch the video learn from it and crack on . Nows a good time to get good odds on our up coming wins v Liverpool home & Man u away ?
The way I see it is yes poor game today, second to the ball, could have been up for this more than we were, but at the end of the day, it's been a good football month, March has given us 3 wins from 4 games, we'll sort the toffees out next season, at least we have the privilege of saying that! Aswan stop picking on Ivor................
Aswan, I stand 100% behind my comments. We were garbage. This was an abject display of capitulation to a team who decided that they weren't going to stand off and let us play. We offered nothing, absolutely nothing. How many shots did Howard have to save? How many second balls did we win? How often did we string a half dozen passes together? How often were we sliced open so badly it was painful to watch? How many 50/50 balls did we come away with? We were bad against Norwich but this was worse. At least against Norwich we came to life in the last ten minutes and might have levelled things. Today, there was nothing. Body language tells you a lot. The little triangles that we play require players in close proximity moving off the ball to play give and goes. No one got close today or looked like they wanted to. Players were standing off and there was little movement and absolutely no conviction. As the game went on, things got worse and several times when Everton broke through our midfield and defence we gave it up and just watched. We could have shipped 4 or 5 and we would have deserved it. Of course Everton played really well and deserved it but what worries me, is not so much the defeat but the MANNER of it. I had a sinking feeling that I was watching a preview of our "second season syndrome". Everton's game plan was so basic and so easy yet we had absolutely no answer to it and, mark my words, every team in the PL will have noted what went on today so we can expect a lot more of it. Defeats I can take but wimpish displays like today just stick in my craw. This wasn't a bad day at the office, this was a football battering of the first order and we didn't have the faintest idea of how to cope with it. Worse still, it appeared as though we couldn't be bothered to cope with it. Barcelona? More like Ragged School! Now we are safe I wouldn't mind if we lost every game from here on in, so long as we play with a semblance of pride and fight but I never want to see a repeat of such ineptness by our team again. Buck will have realised, I hope, that he still has much to learn. First Lambert and now Moyes have taken him to the cleaners in no uncertain way. We have no plan B. Our subs usually offer more of the same and we all know the lack of quality we have on the bench. To date the team quite rightly has basked in the plaudits of playing great football and achieving a position that we could only dream about pre season. Huge credit to them for that. BUT just as our great display against Spurs was hailed as a positive turning point for us, I'm hoping against hope that this display against Everton isn't another turning point, back the way we came.
Spot on Ivor. There was an acute lack of desire, energy, focus and tempo about us today. Too often we looked inept and non-caring. Pride should have bought a more direct pounding of the Everton box in the last few minutes but there was nothing - we woud rather pass back than cross. Look the reality is this .... We ARE Swansalona. By that I mean we are not your typical Prem team. We are not built like a typical Prem team - not physically, not talent-wise (we have no go to individuals, no guaranteed match winners), not by tactics, nor shape nor game plan. We have to play Our Way, with focus, sharpness, high energy, tempo or we come unglued. We can't play typical Prem football. When we do we get beaten. We have to come to play with Our Way firing on all cylinders or it's choke time. Man City, Arsenal, Fulham - we came to work. Stoke, Blackburn, Norwich, Everton twice - we didn't and it's as clear as can be . BR knows this. Today was not a lesson for him, it was a lesson for the players, and, in part, for us supporters. I haven't heard BRs blarney yet, but whatever he said had better be a diplomatic rendition of the frustration / realization he has inside of the fragility of the squad and our style of play. He has his work cut out because we will not enjoy much success with a squad that either picks the games they want to show up for or don't have the consistency in them to play Our Way at the level necessary to make it work every game. And today we were no where near the level necessary to make it work. Today Everton were nothing special, but they were disciplined and workmanlike and did just enough to win; if they were really clinical they could have killed us in the second half.
Ivor/Yankee, you can't expect a continuing upward spiral from our team in terms of results and performance levels. If that were the case then we would already be the best team on the planet, which we clearly are not. The team is a collection of individuals who have good days and bad days not a machine where you can flick a switch and get a consistent and uniform result. Obviously what the opposition does also has a big impact. We won 3 games in a row, shot up to 8th place and everything in the garden was rosy. Now, after a single defeat to an established prem team with very experienced players I'm reading words and phrases like 'appaling doesn't even begin to describe it', 'disgrace', 'garbage', 'abject display of capitulation', 'they[Swansea] stunk the place out'. In my opinion these are over-the-top statements and rather insulting. Ivor, you've stated you stand by your comments 100% and of course that's your prerogative but I think you're out on a limb. For what it's worth my take on the game and the manner of defeat is as follows: 1) For 60 minutes it was an even, hard-fought contest with neither team creating many, if any, clear-cut chances. 0-0 looked on the cards. 2) Everton take the lead from a superb free-kick. 3) By 75 minutes we don't look like pegging it back. Rodgers implements plan B (yes, there is one). Remove the wingers and go 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 however you want to look at it. 4) It doesn't work. The shape goes to pot. Everton score again. 5) We push for a goal, get caught on the break, are lucky not to concede more. It happens a lot. Learn and move on is a more constructive outcome than slagging the team off (in my opinion). Well, while we're at it, it seems to me we now come across 3 types of opposition. 1) The top teams who don't seem to pay much attention to how we play and think they will win by imposing their own game. This is dangerous as Arsenal and Man City found out. 2) The 'physical' mid-table teams who have worked out that in order to beat us they have to push 3 players to the edge of our box to stop us playing out from the back and get up our back-sides in general. I'm thinking Stoke, Sunderland, Norwich, Everton and possibly Blackburn. 3) The relegation-threatened teams and ball-playing mid-table teams like WBA and Fulham. We seem to be able to put them to the sword. I'm certainly in agreement with many that if more teams use the type-2 approach we could be in for a tough second season and Buck needs to work very hard on this before the start of next season.
Aswan, I think Ivor's point and my own is not that we lost, but the manner in which we lost, the bad habits, lazy, sloppy, effortless elements that appeared in our play. We are going to lose our fair share of games, to teams above us in the table, teams below us, teams around us; it's the nature of football - on any given day, any team can raise its game. My point is that the style we play is extremely demanding mentally and physically - it's hard work, and to be successful we must come into each game and play at a high level of focus, sharpness, energy and tempo or we are going to let teams execute their plan. Every team we play is going to have a plan. Man City had a plan and it didn't work. They changed it after 30 minutes, it worked a little better but not enough. Even Fulham had a plan, they couldn't make it happen at all - because we executed at the level we needed to to make our style work. It's up to us to execute our style at the level it takes to make it work. We beat teams not because they have an off-day, but because we have a good day, because we make it work. Even Barca just doesn't show up and flick a switch and it happens; those guys execute every game, every minute of every game (more or less) and are fully focused on what they do. They make it look automatic, like its clockwork but it isn't; they put in a shift mentally and physically, especially mentally. Barca has their off days too. They were not at their best this past weekend against RCD Mallorca, but they didn't get sloppy, they didn't stop working for each other, they didn't lose possession and then not bother to chase back. Throughout the whole game we were not on the boil, we were subpar and below our usual level of focus, sharpness and energy - OK that will happen from time to time. However, in the second half, once Everton went ahead, there were numerous break outs by Everton where too many of our lot failed to chase back and exposed Caulker in particular to many N-on-1 situations. The kid did very well under the circumstances, but if Everton had been more clinical in those situations they would have run amok. That lack of execution is just not acceptable. Now if we were applying tremendous pressure and pounding Everton in their box, then OK, I can see how an unlucky bounce or a big hoof clearance could put Everton at an advantage on a break away, but that's not what happened. Time after time, even the TV commentators noted, that we failed to work to support each other off the ball, we made weak passes, easily intercepted and then most critically failed to make any effort to recover - almost like we'd given up on the play and took a ****-it attitude. This didn't get any better after the second goal and the subs were made. There's having an off-day and then there's doing things that just shouldn't be happening at this level - we slipped into that in the second half. We were lucky we were not hammered by Everton. I don't mind off-days, I don't mind being beat, I don't mind being out played, I don't mind a Plan B going to pot. I do mind sloppy, lazy, bad habits, bad effort, bad attitude - elements of that appeared in the second half. BR commented that we have been fantastic (true), but today was a lesson .... it was not taught to us by Everton, it was self-inflicted, I hope they learn it.
Buck is riding the same guys to much of late . Before we were healthy like we are now & before we had Sig , we built an early foundation with guys like Gower , Monk & Jazz & Routledge stepping in to the unknown . They should be making cameo appearances to rest players & to keep the regulars hungry instead of when there's no one left to play because of injury . Just a thought !
Yankee, good post, you got my thought process spot on. We were in the game first half but when Everton held on and started playing themselves, too many of our players just shrugged their shoulders and let them get on with it. Not on!! Everything that we are noted for just went to the wall and to me we looked like an average Championship team trying to compete with a strong, experienced PL side in that second half. Players don't lose ability but they do lose motivation, the will to work, the will to fight, pride and passion. For me, that was how it was for us. We were sloppy; we were lazy; we were slipshod and lacked energy. Everton played well but our attitude was their biggest weapon. For the sake of next season, I hope Buck seizes this problem by the scruff of the neck and demand that we see no more of it. Yes, we are going to lose more games this season and I have no problem with that. It is to be expected BUT let's lose giving it our all, trying to play our game and competing to the end. We did not do that on Saturday.
