Welcome to this week’s Talking the Blues Podcast with George and Andy Costigan. For the whole podcast we reflect back on what was a traumatic occasion for fans, players, and manager alike.
The Talking the Blues Podcast is available, as always, free of charge and advertising on all major podcast platforms, links to which can be found here
As ever thanks for listening – or reading, the written transcript is now also available here.
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THERE’S STILL A JOB TO BE DONE
Hi fellas, I’m going to limit my comments to Mr Dyche. The players, the performance, the tactics are all down to him.
I would describe his post match press conference and interviews at “tetchy”. He had a touch of Sam Allardyche about him. An arrogance about his own stated abilities and qualifications and an evident disregard for the fanbase. To bemoan the fans leaving early (I’m sad to say it because it is very rare but I was one of them), and to suggest that’s the way it is when we don’t win or play well was appalling. He’s been around for 2 minutes, we’ve been witnessing this demise for more than a decade. Its one thing being realistic – I’m all for that, it’s one thing being pragmatic, I can see why he would want to be so, but to use the excuses he did, in the way he did was extremely disappointing.
How does a player get PL experience if you don’t play them? There is no logical way of answering that without accepting that you have to play them some time – surely to God he knows that.
How about having some confidence in your own work and that of the recruitment team to bring in these very promising players to the first team squad. How about showing them why they have been brought in. We have heard so many times that we won’t do it unless it improves us.
So when Dacoure and McNeil in particular have a very poor day – get those new lads on – isn’t that why we have them.
Instead we see Harrison hooked and replaced by Holgate – a player we have repeatedly tried to get rid of without success. So the boos followed his introduction – not for Holgate – it’s not his fault – for Dyche for making that ridiculous decision.
Paul is right, the connection Dyche has is not what we would want, it feels somewhat manufactured. If his recent attitude is because of the club then it’s showing on the pitch and in his interviews and press conferences. He now feels entitled to have a go, he wears a grimace and a smirk when he speaks of his day to day business almost in the 3rd person as if he’s commenting on some other club. He feels comfortable to have a pop at everything because he’s somehow caught up in it and the press are buying that. It’s becoming an easy excuse, it’s his fall back position, his go to excuse.
We don’t expect to win, we are not in that space at the moment. What we expect is to see what the club has done in the closed season to close that gap. He failed miserably.
Had he put all of those players on the pitch with 60 mins gone, whatever the outcome, I wouldn’t be writing this.
Finally, we still have to get through this season and it will be a long, long season if we continue along this path. It would be the final, final nail in the EFC coffin if, after everything that has gone before us to date, if EFC are relegated just as the doors to BMD are opened.
The irony, the sustained fan support, the efforts of the players and employees at the club would all be so typical, so predictable and in the case of Moshiri – so deserved.
He learnt the hard way last season when he eventually introduced Branthwaite, he hasn’t learnt from that decision. He has to change, use the resources available to him and lose the Big Sam attitude pronto!!
Regards
Keith.
I’m not going to comment on the Brighton game – it is covered in the podcast better than I could do.
My comment is about the malaise running through the whole Everton FC structure, evidenced by the appalling quality of the Adult Official Member “gift pack” I received last week.
If they are going to give a pack as a “thank you” for renewing a membership, at least make it of some quality as in previous years.
My 2024\2025 pack contained :-
An Everton FC retractable pen – ok.
4 beer mats showing the Clubs playing colours – ok.
A bottle opener spanner with the Official Member logo – ok
An Official Member coat pin – ok
And
A pack of playing cards – ( this has no Everton logo on it ) – of which the 7 and 8 of Hearts are missing, as is the 6 of Clubs, ( the 5 of Clubs is torn ), the 4 of Diamonds ( the Everton tower ) also missing.
Quality control obviously doesn’t exist in the Everton Marketing department and as Andy said in the podcast, it doesn’t exist in the Events Promotion department either.
Another Club failure.
My detailed email complaint to the Club has had no response – so far.
Spencer
COYB’s
That’s awful Spencer but sadly comes as no surprise at all
Could it be some kind of coded message to the fans expressed via a deck of cards?
The torn 5 of clubs perhaps an acknowledgement of the pain of being stuck on 5 FA Cup wins?
I write this on Monday because I was still so angry on Sunday, words failed me! Being an Evertonian is constantly like the child who was promised a bike for their birthday, but gets just a bell! I just wish my dad hadn’t taken me to see Everton in 1957, I’d have been spared years of disappointment and humiliation from successive players who don’t give their all for the blue’s, and now a manager who is clueless. Great podcast guy’s, seems we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet…but Mr Dyche!
ps…I didn’t mean the 1957 thing really! just frustrated.
Cheerio Maxwell
I could go on for hours about Dyche’s terrible team selection, woeful in-game management, and disdain for Everton FC and its fans, but I won’t as it’s been covered elsewhere. Quite simply, we need to part company with him and bring in a fresh approach as soon as possible. Otherwise, we will go down, and it will be a thoroughly miserable nine months ahead. This cannot be allowed to happen.