The BBC had their cameras at Hull City for a reason, they were expecting an upset.
I think the only upset was that Everton won!
My seven-year-old boy keeps saying to me after every Everton game, ‘why do we always start so badly?’
Once again we’ve had to react. I’m sure Rafa Benitez will say he’s pleased with the players’ reaction in coming back to win a difficult game but the fans are sick and tired of starting slowly
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Week after week it’s the same issue. Players need to stand up and be accountable but the manager also needs to be more positive.
If you look at that team sheet, we had five at the back against a team who are struggling in the Championship.
That shows no confidence in his squad and would have given the opponents a bit of a boost.
They’ll have been thinking that Everton were prepared to sit back.
The main thing of course is to win the game and get yourself into the next round, which they did, but once again it wasn’t a performance that you’d be pretty pleased about.
Again we made it too easy for our opponents in a set-piece situation.
It’s getting really frustrating being a Blue because you’re hearing the manager’s comments before the game saying ‘if you analyse my teams, we play on the front foot, we press high’ - and that’s what the fans want but what he’s saying and what we’re actually witnessing are two polar opposites.
FA Cup games are difficult, I know, I’ve been there myself, it’s the lower division team’s ‘final’ and they’re up for a fight but our inability to start games well shows a lack of mentality.
We need to be more positive and show our opponents why we’re a Premier League side, going out there and bullying them, dictating the game, but we don’t do that.
I won’t even say that we get dragged down to their level, I think that is our level right now.
Hull showed a lot more hunger and fight whereas our style of play doesn’t seem to be sitting right with the players - they don’t seem to know what Plan B or Plan C is.
It’s not a good watch but at the end of the day it’s a win, we’re through and we got away with it, but that game really highlighted the discontent between the fans and the club right now with the banners about Rafa.
The fans are turning up in huge numbers and they’re getting behind the team but we need to start playing games in a more positive manner.
We’ve only outplayed one team all season in terms of possession and that was only 52-48% - that’s not good enough.
Football is not just about possession but we make it a lot more difficult for ourselves.
Not having the ball means you have to work a lot harder to get it and contain your opponents’ possession.
We don’t seem to have enough composure on the ball, we put ourselves under pressure with the decision-making of our passes and it all seems to be off the cuff with no rhythm - we don’t seem to have a style of play or identity.
They just get it up to the final third then rely on one of the boys to come up with a bit of magic.
Whether that’s down to the players not being good enough to play a certain style or they don’t suit the manager’s style, it’s an issue that needs to be resolved sooner rather than later.
I know we’ve got players missing and both Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison weren’t on the field but we seem to have played this way for quite a while.
Before Demarai Gray it was, ‘let’s give it to Richarlison and see what he can do.’
It doesn’t seem to be working for us. If it wasn’t for Gray and Anthony Gordon, how many chances would we have created?
Accountability needed for Everton's set-piece defending
I don’t get how there’s not more of an upheaval about Everton’s record defending set-pieces.
The leaders within the side have accountability here to make sure everybody is switched on.
It was the first minute, Hull City wanted to start fast and get their fans up.
We should have identified their danger man and been marking him.
We’re always too nice in these situations and seem to get sucked in. If we had a bit more determination and hunger to do the dirty work and cover the hard yards, we’d be stopping these set-pieces.
Last year we were good at it under Carlo Ancelotti but this season we seem to have switched off like we don’t feel we need to do those things anymore.
*Vote for your Everton man of the match in FA Cup win:
If someone is going to win a header, we need to put in a challenge to put him off but time and time again, opponents are getting free headers in the box and the ball is going into the net.
It’s not down to a lack of numbers, we’ve got players in the box, but we’re not smelling the danger.
I’d have thought that Rafa would have been stubborn over this situation with his zonal marking but that has changed.
He’s gone from zonal to part zonal/part man marking. But now I think he needs to look at the players and consider ‘who can I trust?’ because we’re ball watching.
If the opponents get a flick-on we’re finding that they’ve got three players in the box to put the ball into the net.
Second Leicester postponement is frustrating but could prove a blessing in disguise
The Leicester City game has been postponed for a second time – which is really frustrating as a fan – but as a club it might suit us in that it gives our players a bit more time to recover and a chance for the new boys to get more work done at Finch Farm, getting used to being here.
It’s a strange one that Leicester could field a team at the weekend but all of a sudden they can’t on the Tuesday but I think it could be a blessing in disguise.
The Covid situation has been another puzzle for the managers to get used to.
Rafa rested Calvert-Lewin at Hull because he thought he’d have enough to win the game and didn’t want to burn him out after his injury lay-off and instead gave him the opportunity to be ready and sharp for a big game on Tuesday.
It could have backfired on us if we’d been beaten by Hull, but every manager is in the same boat in that it’s difficult to plan ahead.
One of the players who will benefit from another full week on the training ground is new signing Vitalii Mykolenko, who made his debut in my old position in a difficult game at Hull.
FA Cup matches are different to those in the Premier League, they’re fast and furious. Even some senior Everton players struggled to perform to the best of their ability.
It’s a game under his belt and he might have been nervous as it was his debut.
There are going to be moments in matches that you’d like to see him improve on but he’s had a couple of weeks without training.
It’s going to take him time to adapt to English football and a new manager at a club who are really struggling but hopefully there’s going to be plenty of improvement to come from him.
