Everton FC - The View From My Seat
The Season So Far - Played 10
Usually we hear managers and pundits suggesting we judge what start to the season we've had after 10 matches. Well 10 games in we sit in 11th spot having won 3, drawn 4 and lost 3. The stats tell us that we're a mixed bag, no consistency and for a team of our calibre have had a very below average start.
#
|
Team
|
GP
|
W
|
D
|
L
|
GF
|
GA
|
GD
|
PTS
| |
9
|
10
|
3
|
5
|
2
|
9
|
11
|
-2
|
14
| ||
10
|
10
|
4
|
2
|
4
|
8
|
11
|
-3
|
14
| ||
11
|
10
|
3
|
4
|
3
|
13
|
13
|
0
|
13
| ||
12
|
10
|
3
|
4
|
3
|
12
|
12
|
0
|
13
| ||
13
|
10
|
3
|
4
|
3
|
8
|
10
|
-2
|
13
| ||
I like to think of myself as a realist and like to not lean towards being biased, however, I'm having non of that! I'll tell you why.... In our first 10 fixtures we've played last years top 7 teams. That's the toughest start you could have isn't it? I will agree that we should be beating Watford especially at home, but I will say that playing a newly promoted team on the opening day isn't as easy as you'd think. They still have the buzz of being promoted and the opening day on the premier league where most of the players haven't played before who all have something to prove is tough to compete against and shouldn't be snubbed at.
Away at Swansea 0-0 was also a game I would like us to have won. If we have targets of qualifying for European football I think you have to beat Swansea, even away. I believe there are no easy games anymore in the Premier League, even the likes of Stoke have ex Barca, PSV and Milan players in their ranks and where other teams lack credible footballers the tactics nowadays mean you can get results working as a team even against the big teams.
So other than the Watford and Swansea matches looking at it realistically what were we expecting from this period of fixtures? We hammered Southampton who were excellent last season, we beat Chelsea convincingly, whether everyone else is now or not is irrelevant, it's still a massive 3 points. A draw at White Hart Lane is a good result and I'd say most teams would take that. We showed some steel against West Brom and got a well deserved victory. For me we can't include the Derby game against "That lot", form is out of the window and some mental block seems to gloom over us whenever we meet them, I can though see a turn in the tides, our city is BLUE!
That leaves us with the L's we've accumulated already. Man City, Man Utd and Arsenal. This is where my realist side rears it's ugly opinion. Do we honestly "Expect" to beat these teams, on a regular basis I mean. Don't get me wrong I'm more and more confident every year during the last few that we can more than hold our own against these teams but if you ask yourself honestly, given the spending power these teams have can we really "Expect" to beat these teams other than on the odd occasion? I've highlighted the word "Expect" because when I'm talking to other football fans we all have teams we "Expect" our team to beat, for example, Watford, Bournemouth, Sunderland etc... Without offending anyone I "Expect" us to beat these teams but surely we don't feel the same way about City, Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea?
I feel justified in my opinion on that due to the fact out of the 4 games against the usual top 4, we have got a win against Chelsea but couldn't manage it against the other 3, hence the odd win I mention. It shows we are capable of beating them but it's a big ask to beat all of them within the opening 8 weeks or so of the season.
My conclusion is that we could and maybe should be 4/5 points better off. Wins against Watford and Swansea and change 1 of the losses for a draw.
Let me know what you think..... My next blog will be the positives so far who are wearing Royal Blue.
Get in touch on Social Media
No comments:
Post a Comment