If we’d have been in this position three or four years ago then there might have been pressure on the Everton manager but the fans have seen the total difference from last season in terms of how we’re playing football and how we’re implementing our game. To get that first win was absolutely massive because winning football games – whether playing well or playing poorly – does breed confidence.
You start believing more in yourself and along with Frank Lampard and his coaching staff. It shows you that what they’re bringing to the table is correct because if you don’t get the wins then you might start questioning whether what you’re doing is the right thing to do.
We’ve already had a lot of bad luck this season in terms of injuries and some VAR decisions and if some of them had gone our way then the table might be looking a bit rosier for us but credit to the lads, they haven’t sat back and have had a game plan and tried to implement it. I’m very pleased with the start to the season so far but we just need to try and get a run of games going to give the players that extra confidence they need.
We’ve got a group of defenders who are making it difficult for the opposition and that gives us a base to win football games. In the Premier League you’re only ever a week away from a disappointing column from myself!
Already, both last season and this season, Frank Lampard has made some very brave decisions that other managers in the past probably wouldn’t have done. Dominic Calvert-Lewin was apparently due to play against West Ham United but after he picked up a niggle in the groin, Frank kyboshed that straight away and said no.
The manager was still after his first win at the time and could have said ‘get on that pitch’ and I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d have said that but he’s looking at the bigger picture like he did with putting his arm around Nathan Patterson last season and being patient with Calvert-Lewin at times. People are going to question Frank’s game-management all the time – they always do in these roles – but I don’t think anyone is going to ever question his man-management as already he’s made very brave decisions that benefit his players rather than himself, taking care of the man he feels he needs to look after.
The potential of short-term gains have been sacrificed for the bigger picture because Frank wants the likes of Calvert-Lewin to be fit later on because he needs him to be a key player for the majority of the season.
Injuries also seem to be something of an Everton curse over the years with international players going away. It’s great having internationals among your squad because you want top players at your football club but you just cross your fingers and toes that they come back fit to Finch Farm.
Unfortunately, like we’ve seen from the likes of Seamus Coleman and Yerry Mina in the past, Patterson seemed to pick up a very awkward injury after a fall and it looked a sore one. Having to go and see a specialist doesn’t sound good so he might be facing a couple of months on the sidelines.
This is a big season for Nathan. He came to the football club under a different manager and that all changed within a few days of him arriving.
Lampard came in at a time when the club was all over the place and didn’t want to throw him in at the deep end, probably wanting to know a bit more about Nathan himself as both a player and a man before he gave him a go. I think Frank protecting him earlier on has probably helped him and after then picking up an injury that kept him out for the rest of last season he’s had a summer to get himself fit.
Coleman suffered a knock in pre-season and Nathan has grabbed that opportunity with both hands, showing all Evertonians the reason why we brought him to the football club with his defending against top quality wingers week-in, week-out while getting up and down, implementing a lot of the play going forward.
He got a crucial touch on a Maxwel Cornet effort in the West Ham United game to keep us 1-0 up and I’d have probably given him man-of-the-match alongside Alex Iwobi for that performance. He’s doing everything we wanted and can go on to grow and grow but injuries are part of football.
Nathan has already shown that grit and determination to get himself fit over the summer and prove why he’s here so his mentality is spot-on and he’ll bounce back. I believe he can be a key player for Everton going forward and we’ll see a lot more of him in the next few years but it’s frustrating for both the player and the manager that he could now be out of some big games before the World Cup break.
Frank has got a couple of options. Every player wants to play in their preferred position and Stanley Mills isn’t really right-back but he did well as a wing-back over the summer and when you’re a youngster, you play anywhere.
I played right-back, I played centre-half, I played central midfield, left midfield, left wing-back, you just want to play and if the manager wants to pick you, Stanley Mills will do a job for you. He’s shown that he can do it and he’s head and shoulders above the rest in the Under-21s at this time but it’s also a chance for Coleman to bounce straight back in.
Nathan’s performances have ensured that we haven’t had to rush Seamus back and he’s been able to recover at the right pace. He showed what he could do with his performances at the end of last season and he can still do that job on a short-term basis which is fantastic.
Often during the international breaks I – like many Evertonians – am left twiddling my thumbs with nothing to look forward to – but fortunately we had a Merseyside Derby to look forward to on this occasion. Everton Women did an absolutely fantastic job and dictated the game from start to finish.
They showed quality at the right moments and to beat your local rivals 3-0 away deserves huge congratulations. Playing in front of a decent-sized crowd will also help with their confidence and bring their game on like we saw from the Lionesses during their European Championship success in the summer.
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Derby delight but football needs big changes in three areas
I love to see an Everton Merseyside Derby victory in whatever form it comes, even if it’s me beating my mate at Subbuteo! It took the Blues’ men a long time to win at Anfield but now then women have done it again and seeing the celebrations from the away fans at the end showed how much it meant to them all.
Also, the absence of Premier League football over the weekend also got me thinking about areas in which I think our national sport could be improved and they concern VAR and how funds are distributed within the game in terms of Financial Fair Play and our grassroots teams. The introduction of VAR and Financial Fair Play were supposed to improve football and because it’s our sport, the national game, we want to do that in any way we can but you can seriously question if either actually do that.
I was watching rugby league’s Super League Grand Final on Saturday and it embarrassed me that football cannot communicate with their officials in a similar manner. When you listen to the match officials’ communication, what they’re looking for, how they do it and their reasons why, I learn something.
Maybe when we’re getting frustrated with referees and their assistants in football, it’s because we don’t understand their interpretation of the laws of the game? If we were able to hear why they were making certain decisions, I think it might educate us. We might not agree with the decision but at least we would understand why it was being made.
We’re reviewing these procedures every season and to me that proves that something is wrong and we need to get it right. We’re actually having more conversations now in the pub afterwards than we thought we would have anymore because referees are seeing the same footage as ourselves but coming up with decisions that are the total opposite of what we’re thinking.
I think it would also help the managers from getting frustrated and picking up fines while also helping the fans – and even players – to understand the game a lot more. We need more transparency over decisions across the board.
I understand why FFP was brought in because we don’t want people coming in, stripping assets and it wasn’t nice to see when football clubs who had been going for over a century were folding due to greedy owners. We still need to be able to give clubs across the football pyramid – that we’re apparently proud of – to have the opportunity to dream.
Under FFP, potential investors are going to be put off though because it’s now so difficult to break the stranglehold on power that the elite clubs have. If they’re going to pump their own money into the club to be ambitious then I think that should be allowed.
Like the government and their policies, FFP seems to just be protecting a small elite at the top, enabling them to keep their monopoly and buy the best players from the teams below. While all that money is being kept at the top of the game, it’s not filtering down to grassroots either and junior teams are often paying ridiculous fees to pay on poor pitches so as the funds at the elite level are just going up and up but our grassroots game is declining.
When I played in the Netherlands for PSV I lived in a little village outside of Eindhoven but the sporting facilities in their community were excellent – better than at some Football League clubs – and they were so proud of them. I knew this was common for Dutch people as I spoke to Michael Mols and Arhur Numan when I was at Ibrox but Rangers didn’t even have a training ground before I got there and just went out to a field to train which was commonplace across Scottish football back then.
The Premier League is awash with money but it’s not filtering down and for me that’s got to be down to greed. Our grassy areas are declining and many of the pitches now are 3G and privately owned so parents are being priced out of playing and boys and girls from the poorer areas across the UK, including here in Liverpool, aren’t going to get those same opportunities to express themselves that youngsters had in the past.
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