Manager strengths and weaknesses

[Cornish Steve]

We've had five managers in a comparatively short space of time. As we all hope for a sixth before too long, I thought it might be worth looking back to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each. Maybe this would allow us to assess more accurately the relative merits of managerial candidates.

David Moyes

Strengths: Brought in solid players on a limited budget. Built a solid defence. Consistently kept Everton in the top half of the table.
Weaknesses: Would park the bus to defend a one-goal lead. Was reluctant to give youth a chance. Never believed we could win against the big clubs.

Roberto Martinez

Strengths: Introduced a genuinely exciting brand of football. Focused on bringing in youth and giving them a chance. Took us to the knockout rounds of the Europa.
Weaknesses: Inconsistent defence that never improved. Would never park the bus, which meant we often lost the lead. Optimistic rather than realistic.

Ronald Koeman

Strengths: Built a solid defence. Believed we could beat the big teams.
Weaknesses: Stubborn and would not respond to a failing system. Brought in completely the wrong players. Arrogant by all accounts.

David Unsworth

Strengths: Truly passionate about the club. Gave youth a chance. Excellent man-manager.
Weaknesses: Unwilling to make necessary changes. Unwilling to put his stamp on the team.

Sam Allardyce

Strengths: Still looking...
Weaknesses: No ambition. Boring brand of football. Arrogant. Tone deaf to fans.
 

[Wiggytop]

So we do t want another Sam type then?

Roberto Unsworth would be good for me

[Cornish Steve]

3 hours ago, Wiggytop said:

So we do t want another Sam type then?

Roberto Unsworth would be good for me

Me too, but maybe that's because they are the two who focused on offense; the others focused on defence. I confess to being a sucker for exciting, free-flowing football where we score a lot of goals. The price with those two, though, was that we also leaked goals. How do we combine the flair of Martinez with the defensive solidity of Moyes? We asked this three years ago, and it remains a good question.

[StevO]

How do we know Unsworth is an excellent man manager?

the team looked no more motivated to me. 

[Quinn31]

Moyes: Was more successful than any of those listed because he was able to either bring in or win over a core element of the dressing room who were able to buy into his plan, which he clearly had. Stubborn? Yes, for sure. It will be interesting thing to see how he does going forward, because I don't think he is a tactical dinosaur and I think when given funds, he is good in recruitment (Sunderland promised him funds that never came, so he bought what he knew and could get cheap), but I think his totalitarian/tough guy man management doesn't always work in this day in age, especially with millennials.

His tactics were often negative away from home, but we also played some great stuff under him. The problem under Moyes was that we were never able to get a consistent goal scorer/#9 who we could rely on to finish the chances we created (One could argue that he whiffed on a few signings, others would say we never had the money to buy a truly proven striker). When we had a striker blowing hot, Moyes was willing to play with some flair, when he felt we didn't, we tightened up and scraped out low scoring matches. 

All in, some would say that things went stale under him, though we did have a pretty great final season under him. I wish Moshiri had bought the club in 2010, because we would've gotten that goalscorer. Also, is it just me, or is Moyes the only manager where I felt like the squad would be consistently fit and able to maintain a high work rate for most matches for most of the season? Hugely underrated because under both Martinez and Koeman, some times it felt like the team either had 1) low energy or 2) the feeling that they didn't need to commit to a high work rate.

 

Roberto Martinez: Kicked on immediately from Moyes, introduced some great passing and movement to be combined with finally getting a reliable goal scorer in Lukaku, a maestro in Gareth Barry, and also James McCarthy - these three signings immediately and drastically improved us. 

Completely stubborn (I think most managers are) in his belief that our results lived and died with our ability to pass and move and create chances and he completely disregarded 1) set pieces 2) poor positional play defensively 3) not committing enough men to defense either by letting fullbacks both push up the pitch all the time and also with wingers and not having them track back at all.

He also missed more than he hit on a lot of his signings after the first season and he never got the true apple of his eye, Andriy Yarmolenko. Maybe with Moshiri's money, we would've been able to buy some true quality players who could play in Martinez's style. He had a plan, but it either had fundamental flaws or we were never able to execute it due to not having the right players.

We all liked Roberto - he's clearly a lovely man who would be a joy to spend time with, but it was obvious to see his naivety and romanticism and it wore tiring when performances had been worse consistently for two years and clear issues weren't be addressed. I don't care how many nice things you say when things aren't being fixed.

 

Ronald Koeman: Immediately sorted out the defensive issues under Martinez and instituted some pressing tactics that I thought were effective. He clearly had short term fixes to Evertonident problems but didn't have a plan, or wasn't entirely in control of it due to the new director of football - in addition, we pulled a 20+ a year goal man out of the club, so it was always going to be a struggle to find the right balance given the loss of Lukaku, though that doesn't dismiss the rest of the squad being poorly balanced (Completely short at fullback beyond Coleman and Baines, no backup goalscorer we were confident in, too many no 10s and not a few pacey wingers with real quality).

His man management tactics appeared to leave a lot to be desired, though if he had a personality slightly better than a bath towel, may've been appreciated more by the fans, but in a disciplinarian sense. "We" vs "Everton" or how a manager celebrates goals is the type of nonsensical issues fans create when things aren't going well. Martinez and Moyes were given time to sort out bad runs, Koeman wasn't to be honest - we looked like absolute relegation fodder, so I understand the move to sack him, but it looks like more of a panic each and every day, especially since relegation this year will likely be in the low 30's for a points total - Oh, and given the crap we've had to watch under Allardyce.

 

David Unsworth: Not much to say about him since I don't really consider him an Everton manager and don't think he has any real track record to analyze. Definitely a nice guy and he brought in Baningime and solidified Kenny's place as the #2 rightback. It would be a waste of time to write anything further on him.

 

Sam Allardyce: The good, the bad, and the Allardyce. Results wise, he's not been horrible. Stylistically and how he's handled the job has been beyond atrocious. Not setting up with enough guys in midfield against passing sides like Spurs, Arsenal, and City was suicide and then to blame the players is an absolute joke. He's been taking the piss out of us and been nothing short of a dickhead since he's gotten here. His tactics are nonexistent yet he gloats about himself like he's fucking Cruyff any time he gets a positive result. Things go negative? He absolves himself of ALL blame. 

He took over a crap heap that was never going to be a good or pretty side, but it has been awful to watch. I will be happy when he's gone. Not fit for the shirt.

[Hafnia]

It's about time we stop looking backwards.  The last manager to deliver silverware was Joe Royle.

Moyes was all about tapping into the highly paid - low transfer fee market.  Pienaar, arteta, lescott, jags, but he did it well.  He focused on players who had character and needed someone to believe in them in exchange for hard work and obedience. 

That only gets you so far though. It gets you to dominate the lesser teams in the league  but against the better teams where you needed that bit of risk/adventure he just couldn't let us express ourselves. Fa cup final vs Chelsea, semi final vs Liverpool. Numerous examples. 

It got boring under moyes.... far better than what we are seeing now but I will take all this upheaval as part of a process to get us where we want to be.   Man city went through a fair bit of this and so have Liverpool.

 

Let's just get the right manager in. Ship out all the clowns running the club... including those in the corridors of power.

[duncanmckenzieismagic]

20 hours ago, Quinn31 said:

Moyes: Was more successful than any of those listed because he was able to either bring in or win over a core element of the dressing room who were able to buy into his plan, which he clearly had. Stubborn? Yes, for sure. It will be interesting thing to see how he does going forward, because I don't think he is a tactical dinosaur and I think when given funds, he is good in recruitment (Sunderland promised him funds that never came, so he bought what he knew and could get cheap), but I think his totalitarian/tough guy man management doesn't always work in this day in age, especially with millennials.

His tactics were often negative away from home, but we also played some great stuff under him. The problem under Moyes was that we were never able to get a consistent goal scorer/#9 who we could rely on to finish the chances we created (One could argue that he whiffed on a few signings, others would say we never had the money to buy a truly proven striker). When we had a striker blowing hot, Moyes was willing to play with some flair, when he felt we didn't, we tightened up and scraped out low scoring matches. 

All in, some would say that things went stale under him, though we did have a pretty great final season under him. I wish Moshiri had bought the club in 2010, because we would've gotten that goalscorer. Also, is it just me, or is Moyes the only manager where I felt like the squad would be consistently fit and able to maintain a high work rate for most matches for most of the season? Hugely underrated because under both Martinez and Koeman, some times it felt like the team either had 1) low energy or 2) the feeling that they didn't need to commit to a high work rate.

 

Roberto Martinez: Kicked on immediately from Moyes, introduced some great passing and movement to be combined with finally getting a reliable goal scorer in Lukaku, a maestro in Gareth Barry, and also James McCarthy - these three signings immediately and drastically improved us. 

Completely stubborn (I think most managers are) in his belief that our results lived and died with our ability to pass and move and create chances and he completely disregarded 1) set pieces 2) poor positional play defensively 3) not committing enough men to defense either by letting fullbacks both push up the pitch all the time and also with wingers and not having them track back at all.

He also missed more than he hit on a lot of his signings after the first season and he never got the true apple of his eye, Andriy Yarmolenko. Maybe with Moshiri's money, we would've been able to buy some true quality players who could play in Martinez's style. He had a plan, but it either had fundamental flaws or we were never able to execute it due to not having the right players.

We all liked Roberto - he's clearly a lovely man who would be a joy to spend time with, but it was obvious to see his naivety and romanticism and it wore tiring when performances had been worse consistently for two years and clear issues weren't be addressed. I don't care how many nice things you say when things aren't being fixed.

 

Ronald Koeman: Immediately sorted out the defensive issues under Martinez and instituted some pressing tactics that I thought were effective. He clearly had short term fixes to Evertonident problems but didn't have a plan, or wasn't entirely in control of it due to the new director of football - in addition, we pulled a 20+ a year goal man out of the club, so it was always going to be a struggle to find the right balance given the loss of Lukaku, though that doesn't dismiss the rest of the squad being poorly balanced (Completely short at fullback beyond Coleman and Baines, no backup goalscorer we were confident in, too many no 10s and not a few pacey wingers with real quality).

His man management tactics appeared to leave a lot to be desired, though if he had a personality slightly better than a bath towel, may've been appreciated more by the fans, but in a disciplinarian sense. "We" vs "Everton" or how a manager celebrates goals is the type of nonsensical issues fans create when things aren't going well. Martinez and Moyes were given time to sort out bad runs, Koeman wasn't to be honest - we looked like absolute relegation fodder, so I understand the move to sack him, but it looks like more of a panic each and every day, especially since relegation this year will likely be in the low 30's for a points total - Oh, and given the crap we've had to watch under Allardyce.

 

David Unsworth: Not much to say about him since I don't really consider him an Everton manager and don't think he has any real track record to analyze. Definitely a nice guy and he brought in Baningime and solidified Kenny's place as the #2 rightback. It would be a waste of time to write anything further on him.

 

Sam Allardyce: The good, the bad, and the Allardyce. Results wise, he's not been horrible. Stylistically and how he's handled the job has been beyond atrocious. Not setting up with enough guys in midfield against passing sides like Spurs, Arsenal, and City was suicide and then to blame the players is an absolute joke. He's been taking the piss out of us and been nothing short of a dickhead since he's gotten here. His tactics are nonexistent yet he gloats about himself like he's fucking Cruyff any time he gets a positive result. Things go negative? He absolves himself of ALL blame. 

He took over a crap heap that was never going to be a good or pretty side, but it has been awful to watch. I will be happy when he's gone. Not fit for the shirt.

I agree on Moyes.      

Its an absolute fallacy that he could only park the bus, we played some of the best football ive seen since the 80's under him but people conveniently forget that. Its also an absolutely ridiculous notion that he wouldn't give kids a chance , go and lookup the top 20 youngest goal scoreres in the Premiership. His teams always had desire and spirit , every player would fight for the jersey ,some things that have  been badly missing ever since he left

If his last season in charge was boring fuck knows what some of the drivel we've seen this season or in Martiez last season is

If he had have had the luxury of a player like Lukaku , I firmly believe he would have won silverware

 

 

[Bailey]

59 minutes ago, duncanmckenzieismagic said:

I agree on Moyes.      

Its an absolute fallacy that he could only park the bus, we played some of the best football ive seen since the 80's under him but people conveniently forget that. Its also an absolutely ridiculous notion that he wouldn't give kids a chance , go and lookup the top 20 youngest goal scoreres in the Premiership. His teams always had desire and spirit , every player would fight for the jersey ,some things that have  been badly missing ever since he left

If his last season in charge was boring fuck knows what some of the drivel we've seen this season or in Martiez last season is

If he had have had the luxury of a player like Lukaku , I firmly believe he would have won silverware

 

 

He did have Saha and Yakubu, both easily as capable of scoring as many goals. In fact you would argue that Saha was a far better footballer than Lukaku.

He had the chance to take a punt on Lukaku... He was £10mil (plus add ons) when Chelsea signed him. That was the Arteta money

I would also add that Martinez should get huge credit for improving Rom to the player he is now. Yes he could always score goals but his all round game improved dramatically in the 3 years under him. I doubt you would have seen that improvement under Moyes or whether he would have even signed at all.

Moyes also produced some of the biggest dross I have ever seen (bar this season). We definitely did go through spells of playing decent football but it never lasted long, so yes whilst there were some games were it looked like we were turning the corner and evolving into a team that could really compete, we always reverted to type with negative, unadventurous football and ultimately that is all he has been able to do since at other clubs.

[Hafnia]

1 hour ago, duncanmckenzieismagic said:

I agree on Moyes.      

Its an absolute fallacy that he could only park the bus, we played some of the best football ive seen since the 80's under him but people conveniently forget that. Its also an absolutely ridiculous notion that he wouldn't give kids a chance , go and lookup the top 20 youngest goal scoreres in the Premiership. His teams always had desire and spirit , every player would fight for the jersey ,some things that have  been badly missing ever since he left

If his last season in charge was boring fuck knows what some of the drivel we've seen this season or in Martiez last season is

If he had have had the luxury of a player like Lukaku , I firmly believe he would have won silverware

 

 

Well that's the thing about Mr Moyes.... a striker with great finishing ability - albeit a luxury player due to his inability to defend from the front, run the channels, hold up the ball or retain possession. 

Lukaku and Moyes? No chance.  Moyes and RVP never got much in the way of goals or performances. 

Tosun would have been the type of striker moyes would like. 

Moyes didnt need a striker to win silverware... He needed bottle to go out in big games and throw caution to the wind. The Chelsea final was a huge chance and he froze... some managers are great at cups - Wenger was one, klopp looks to be another.. they let their team play with freedom and go for it. 

[Quinn31]

5 hours ago, Bailey said:

He did have Saha and Yakubu, both easily as capable of scoring as many goals. In fact you would argue that Saha was a far better footballer than Lukaku.

He had the chance to take a punt on Lukaku... He was £10mil (plus add ons) when Chelsea signed him. That was the Arteta money

I would also add that Martinez should get huge credit for improving Rom to the player he is now. Yes he could always score goals but his all round game improved dramatically in the 3 years under him. I doubt you would have seen that improvement under Moyes or whether he would have even signed at all.

Moyes also produced some of the biggest dross I have ever seen (bar this season). We definitely did go through spells of playing decent football but it never lasted long, so yes whilst there were some games were it looked like we were turning the corner and evolving into a team that could really compete, we always reverted to type with negative, unadventurous football and ultimately that is all he has been able to do since at other clubs.

Saha is one of the best footballers I have ever watched - absolutely brilliant and overloaded with talent. A total damn shame that he was injured for what seemed to be at least half his time with us, and grossly out of form or playing in an out of form team half the time he played. When the team was on and he was on, it was unreal. Would've been Man U's number 9 for sure had he been able to stay fit.

The Yak blew hot and cold, but he certainly new where the back of the net was. A lot like Lukaku, minus Lukaku's pace.

[Hafnia]

17 minutes ago, Quinn31 said:

Saha is one of the best footballers I have ever watched - absolutely brilliant and overloaded with talent. A total damn shame that he was injured for what seemed to be at least half his time with us, and grossly out of form or playing in an out of form team half the time he played. When the team was on and he was on, it was unreal. Would've been Man U's number 9 for sure had he been able to stay fit.

The Yak blew hot and cold, but he certainly new where the back of the net was. A lot like Lukaku, minus Lukaku's pace.

Yep agree with that.

Saha had huge amounts of ability.  Unreal player. We never seen the best of him but had glimpses as to what he should have been.  Yakubu was lukaku swap ability to control the ball with athleticism. 

[Btay]

Before his Achilles injury Yak was no slouch. Haven’t seen someone so composed in front of goal. Saha is just a natural footballer, absolute freak.

[rubecula]

Moyes, Martinez, Koeman, Unsworth, Allardyce.  who out of these five, if pushed, would you vote to take the club forward?

I know it is a hypothetical question but there is a reason I asked it.

[Hafnia]

4 hours ago, rubecula said:

Moyes, Martinez, Koeman, Unsworth, Allardyce.  who out of these five, if pushed, would you vote to take the club forward?

I know it is a hypothetical question but there is a reason I asked it.

None. None can take the club forward. Martinez for closest to it.  His ideology was just far too much, reaped some amazing results and performances though. Defensively we were abysmal. 

[Aidan]

4 hours ago, rubecula said:

Moyes, Martinez, Koeman, Unsworth, Allardyce.  who out of these five, if pushed, would you vote to take the club forward?

I know it is a hypothetical question but there is a reason I asked it.

Martinez.

Things got really bad with him, and I haven't forgot that. However, with a healthy transfer budget and better offensive players, he is the only manager out of all the mentioned who can play that attractive brand and win games with attacking, free flowing football.

Moyes hasn't got that big club mindset, although he would be my second option. Koeman turned out to be a fraud, Unsworth hasnt got experience and is pretty much untested, although could some day be an accomplished manager if he decides to go down that route. Lets just not talk about Sam.

 

Good question though Rubs

[Bailey]

10 hours ago, rubecula said:

Moyes, Martinez, Koeman, Unsworth, Allardyce.  who out of these five, if pushed, would you vote to take the club forward?

I know it is a hypothetical question but there is a reason I asked it.

I'd go Martinez too. Unsy is an unknown but the other 3 would be solid but never get any further. 

We created more chances under him than any other manager and whilst we shipped more than Moyes (probably the same as Koeman and Allardyce!), I felt as though we could beat anyone and both win or lose a game in the last 10 mins. 

I also think he had the right idea about building a young hungry squad with fringe players of experience. The others relied on more senior pros, their tried and trusted.

[duncanmckenzieismagic]

On 21/04/2018 at 18:47, Quinn31 said:

Saha is one of the best footballers I have ever watched - absolutely brilliant and overloaded with talent. A total damn shame that he was injured for what seemed to be at least half his time with us, and grossly out of form or playing in an out of form team half the time he played. When the team was on and he was on, it was unreal. Would've been Man U's number 9 for sure had he been able to stay fit.

The Yak blew hot and cold, but he certainly new where the back of the net was. A lot like Lukaku, minus Lukaku's pace.

Saha and the Yak were by far the best 2 forwards Moyes had at his disposal but he couldn’t get Saha on the pitch often enough vacates of his chronic injury record and the Yak did exactly what he did at every club he played for, was devastating for the first 12-18 months then wrapped his tits in and was nothing more than an oxygen thief 

[rubecula]

do you think we have proper coaching staff for each position then  all under the governance of a head coach?

[Shukes]

I think we are struggling as far as coaching staff go. 

The manager can pick a team and a strategy, but it’s the coach who should be doing the details and getting the players to play to their strengths.

[rubecula]

51 minutes ago, Shukes said:

I think we are struggling as far as coaching staff go. 

The manager can pick a team and a strategy, but it’s the coach who should be doing the details and getting the players to play to their strengths.

always was that way  but now the manager and DoF  seem to do it all.