Why are Everton only going after out-of-work managers? They should poach Postecoglou…

An Evertonian bemoans the state of his club as they shamble through their manager search. Also in the Mailbox: Chelsea through Boehly’s eyes; Arteta; and Goldbridge…

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…

Everton shambles
It’s been a while since I wrote to the Mailbox, purely because I was sick of writing the same thing over and over again. Everton are crap, the players don’t have the right mentality, etc etc. However with Frank’s departure I find myself increasingly irritated by the two front-runners for the managerial vacancy.

Bielsa and Dyche are two managers who are free agents. That’s the criteria they seem to have met to be considered for the vacancy. I have to wonder – what does director of football Kevin Thelwell do? I don’t want to blame him because under Marcel Brands things were no different, but it seems to me that there’s no identifiable style or plan for how the club should play. A DoF should implement a style and ethos from the academy teams to the first team, play a specific way, and hire players and managers to fit that style. Everton don’t do that. It’s like we’ve seen other top teams having DoFs and Sporting Directors and gone ‘ooh, us too!’. As with everything else at the club, it’s a shambles.

Bielsa’s style is good, but I have severe doubts about it being able to be implemented mid-season. Dyche’s brand of gritty pragmatism might fare better in the short term, but what would we be hoping to achieve long term? We would be facing another revamp two years down the line, or else resign ourselves to being a middling also-ran team for the foreseeable future. Neither fill me with confidence. Everton should decide on a style and ethos of how they want to play, identify a manager who can implement it (Postecoglou anyone?) and then work accordingly. The farcical circus isn’t over yet folks. I can’t even muster the strength to get angry about it any more. Bring on Luton away on a Tuesday night.
Joe, EFC

PE lesson
We probably need to view Chelsea through the lens of their Private Equity owners.

Firstly, Private Equity funds back management teams. They would have “approved” of Tuchel, but once he went rogue he was gone. Backing Potter was an obvious decision. With his Masters in Leadership, success at Brighton, and obvious man-management capabilities, he can talk the talk. Buying his support team in full is also very much in the playbook. US PE guys would have very little time for PFM’s, or being told to butt out.

In terms of cash, they bought an under-valued club for £2.5bn, and probably would have paid £3.0bn, expecting to be able to sell it in 5 odd years for £5-6bn.

Investment-wise, spending an additional £500m on players only brings the capital spend up to £3bn. In reality, they could easily go to $1bn if that would eek the value out to £6bn at sale time.

At the same time, they would want the operating costs to be under control and the club to make an operating profit, as that increases the sale value. Long contracts for staff obviously help amortise the big fees, but I would also expect them to be less keen on big weekly wage bills.

What next?
Potter will be given time unless he catastrophically fails. More money will be spent…and those that don’t fit will be ruthlessly sold. So Sterling, Kouliby, Aubameyang could all easily be flicked without a second’s thought. Job lot sales of Loftus Cheek, Galagher, et al to Newcastle are all very much on the cards as well.

We haven’t seen a pure Private Equity play yet in the Premier League – mainly rich guys and now sovereign wealth funds. It may look chaotic at the moment, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Matthew (ITFC)

Not for me
I laughed at the article regarding hating Arteta and I wonder if the Arsenal fans have misunderstood the intent (or maybe I have). I too am an Arteta hater, it’s an irrational dislike and not based on his success/failure etc, nor his touchline antics etc in the same way as Klopp or Fergie or Mourinho etc were hated. Arteta seems like a nice man, good manager, great player, pleasant enough……..but I just don’t like him and I’m not completely sure why. I had the same feeling when Chelsea signed Werner, he (apart from being a bit shit) annoys the feck out of me. I’m a Spurs fan so maybe it’s a bit of bias, but I feel the same about Hojbjerg, nice player, nice bloke.

Harvey Elliot, Rodri, Steve Cooper, Anton Ferdinand, Robben and loads more I can’t remember, really inoffensive and seemingly nice people but just annoy the feck out of me for no particular reason.
Steve (THFC)

Read more: I really, really don’t like Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and I don’t really know why

Spurs fan defends Arteta
As one of the mailbox’s resident Spurs “fans” (it’s becoming more about obligation than enjoyment of late) I’d figure I’d offer my illustrious take on the apparent dislike of Arteta.

I don’t get it. At all. I’ve often written in about how the players are frustratingly likeable yet never really mentioned Arteta because he’s just felt rather inoffensive. And even if he is a prick, I fucking love managers losing their heads at a goal/win. Take Conte, the miserable fuck that he is, going mad whenever we get a goal. Love it.
Jon, Lincoln

God speed, Will Ford
Questioning the divinity of their leader? Their Messiah! What was Will Ford thinking? Surely such brazen heresy hasn’t been known since the time of Galileo. Hasn’t Will read the gospel? How a little known humble man raised a football club to the heavens through sheer belief and determination and certainly not with hundreds of millions of pounds. How he cast out demons to purify the squad and that his struggles with form and identity were only part of his great plan.

Only devotees of Hubbard and Klopp can rival the capricious zealots now descending upon brave Mr Ford. Hopefully he will not recant under the persecution of the Holy Artetian Church but instead remember the famous defiant words of the Italian astronomer “and yet he’s still a knob”.
Dave, Manchester

Back in your box
Al – LFC – Nothing to do with me, I don’t know why I care really .. but I do…. You might recall Klopp running on the pitch after Origi’s goal against Everton to hug Allison.

I’m a Liverpool supporter too, but if Arteta annoys you for going outside the technical area, you really should check out what our boss does. It’s gonna really annoy you.
Rob, Worthing.

Jealousy and Arsenal
A lot being shared the last couple of days around the dislike of Arteta. For my part, I’m a bit ‘meh’. He’s irritating as a touchline character, but no more so than most opposition managers. As a Liverpool fan, I am 100% aware that we are the only ones who enjoy watching Klopp gesticulate wildly (and often aggresively). If football is not us vs them then what is it?

My main point though here is, are the people spending 100s of words trying to justify their dislike just a bit, well, jealous? Jealousy is not something to be admired, or admitted if possible. It’s not a nice look. So we seem to be turning ourselves inside out to convince it’s something else.

This season Liverpool have been poor, and I’ve watched us slip out of the conversation so quickly. We are, for this premier league season, irrelevant. It’s frustrating, and in previous years we’ve been the focus of conversation. City vs Liverpool, Guardiola vs Klopp, Salah vs, well no-one he’s been peerless (let me have it). This season, we, like fans of Spurs, Chelsea, United are irrelevant to the top table chat, and it’s irksome.

Arsenal are shining at the moment with some great young players and a seemingly good manager. For me the last 19 games have been very good, but nothing is won yet. They could fall of a cliff any time. I also just can’t see the form of some of the players we know to be performing well above their mean lasting forever.

However, ultimately, Arteta is the figurehead of something we would like to be doing – challenging for the title. It’s ok to be jealous of Arsenal being up there. Admit it and you’ll probably feel much better.

Cheers,
Marc

Medals on the table, Mikel
Do arsenal fans really believe the only reason people might dislike arteta is because he’s having a sunbathe for while?

Usually fans only believe their manager/team/players are hated because of their success. Arsenal fans seem to be implying that doing (admittedly) very good for half a season but actually winning nothing provokes jealousy in rival fans. Nobody can be jealous of arteta yet because he hasn’t won anything to be jealous of yet.

Personally I grew a dislike of arteta in his first few years because of his awful burnley style all out defense and hoof it to a speedy winger tactics. Arsenal Liverpool games were actually my least favourite match of the season. Those tactics earned arteta the somewhat childish nickname of paelladyce. I’ve watched arsenal this year and they don’t play that way now so I don’t have any issues with arteta at all – though him thinking playing a small stereo of crowd noise from anfield is even remotely similar to the real thing was pretty funny.

Perhaps the reason rival fans have a dislike of arsenal right now might be because of the crowing of arsenal fans about how good they are and how <insert player> is the best in the league when they haven’t actually won anything yet. Played well definitely, been the best team for sure but as of yet… No trophies.

If you learned anything from Brazil at the world cup it should be – save the dancing for when you come home with a trophy.

A similar thing happened to Liverpool during Rogers title tilt when Gerrard was caught doing that stupid huddle on camera and suddenly everyone hated Liverpool…why? Because it looked like we were cockily dancing before we won anything.
Lee

Iconic pairings
Aidan asks ‘Who are the iconic pairings of the modern game?’

McFred anyone?

Although I guess even they are redundant now…
Chris (on a hill, somewhere)

…”Whatever happened to strike partnerships?” asked Aiden. Pretty simple. People stopped playing 4-4-2. That’s basically it. In general, teams play some version of 3 up front or 1 up front. It’s pretty rare to see 4-4-2 in this day and age. We’ve had some memorable 3s like Messi, Suarez, Neymar and Salah, Firmino, Salah. But playing 2 strikers just isn’t really a thing anymore.
Mike, LFC, London

Pure Gold
I was somewhat confused by the dismissal of Mark Goldbridge as a football commentator in a Mailbox reply as this is exactly what he is. Why? Because a You Tuber football content creator has no credibility? Because he supports Manchester United?

Goldbridge comments of the Premier League in general and whilst being an unabashed United supporter has more than enough neutral credibility and wit to have amassed 887,000 subscribers, much like Terry Flewers another United supporter. The growth of such You Tubers over the last several years is because they are natural, charismatic presenters, who patently have as much insight and smarts about the game as those ex-players/professionals that pepper the national and international legacy media. Half of which as pundits have a blatant bias and chip on their shoulder regarding left-overs of their careers.

Finally, when attempting to make a ‘drop the mike’ comment, it’s a little silly to admit you saw the name Mark Goldbridge and promptly dismissed/did not read the post. It concerned the future Player Of The Year Awards. However, I’d bet the neighbours first born you actually read the post but were so determined to strike a pose against Goldbridge – the personal vendetta a little mystifying- you claimed otherwise.

But, if you are then going to lecture Football365 they should do better, then perhaps you could do better by actually reading the content of said post and replying to the matter discussed therein.

regards
Dom