Five major lessons learned from Everton defeat

 

By CandH blogger Allen Cummings

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and as football fans we are all massively wiser after events!

When we’ve seen what’s gone wrong – and can’t wait to announce how we would have played it differently and always assume that would have brought about a different conclusion.

It’s what we do. It’s very much part of why we love this game so much.

On Saturday Manuel Pellegrini made a couple of calls on his team sheet that had us all scratching our heads before the game – clenching our fists half way through it – and shaking our heads at the end.

The fact that he made half time changes which saw the kind of team the majority of us would have picked in the first place, didn’t seem to quell our anger and frustration.

We drew the second half 0-0, but it was the first half that did for us. As a result the manager has come in for plenty of criticism, and that’s fair enough. It goes with his job.

The buck stops at his door. But just as we all feel let down – he was badly let down, too, and it clearly showed in his post-match comments.

So what was the reason for his team choice? While we’ve all been twiddling our thumbs over the past 14 days, Pellegrini and his coaching staff were still at work – with whatever squad players he had at his disposal.

Once the returning internationals joined the fold, and the manager sat down to choose his team for Saturday, he had a number of things to consider – based on what he’d seen for himself  regarding fitness and mindset.  Facts we could only guess at.

Based on that, he clearly picked a team and formulated a plan he felt would work but for any plan to work effectively, you need the full application and co-operation of the players.

It was abundantly clear he didn’t get that from certain individuals. They let him down badly. He was furious! We were furious. He reacted mid-game, but it wasn’t enough to save the day.

So with hindsight (that word again), what have we learned?

O That Perez and Obiang are finally finished in claret and blue.

O That despite his critics Noble is still an influential ingredient of this side.

O Anderson may be frustrating at times, but it definitely shows when he’s absent.

O Lanzini is still a jewel in our crown, but it’s unrealistic for us to expect after his long absence he can step straight back into the fold as if he’d never been away.

O And that Manuel Pellegrini is still a vastly experienced and capable manager that we’re extremely lucky to have at our club.

Like us all he is fallible  and gets it wrong sometimes.

But to calls for his head,which I’ve seen in a couple of places, are the height of absurdity.