Unlike José Mourinho at Manchester United, the manager at Goodison Park will not define his new arrival by his limitations – and that may reap rewardsRoy Keane was not spouting hooey. Not completely. His denunciation of Everton in November, when he blithely chucked scorn at the club’s complaints about the strain being placed on their Republic of Ireland internationals, was more than a touch garbled and wholly undiplomatic but it happened to allude to a home truth about Everton. “Maybe their players need to toughen up a bit,” he said. Related: Everton v Manchester City: match preview Continue reading...
The Manchester City and Everton managers confirm that mastering English football and the emphasis on second balls is making life more difficult than they imagined it to beEnglish football. Is it any good or not? Do we have the game we desire, a contest with extra dimensions such as aggression and bravery, or is our version just a primitive ancestor of what everyone else is playing, a throwback revelling in the physical aspects of confrontation that more cerebral exponents bypassed years ago?In some form or other the question has been debated for decades. The reason for asking it now is that on Tuesday 13 December 2016 both Pep Guardiola and Ronald Koeman made the same point about English football. They...
The Old Trafford manager admits to liking trips to Goodison Park and this visit may be perfectly timed as his improving side face one stutteringJosé Mourinho enjoys going to Everton. “Always difficult, always beautiful,” he says. The Manchester United manager’s reasons include old-fashioned stadium architecture, passionate fans and the fact that Goodison Park was the setting for some of Portugal’s most famous victories in the 1966 World Cup. Mourinho was only three at the time Eusébio was banging in the goals against Brazil and North Korea, but he will not find it too difficult to re-imagine the atmosphere as the ground has hardly changed since.A more pragmatic reason for Mourinho to look forward to Sunday’s kick-off is that it breaks...
Ronald Koeman’s comments about Romelu Lukaku and Liverpool’s title chances were not diplomatic but Evertonians should not pine for the failed romanticism of Roberto MartínezWelcome back to club football, the sort that does not have to apologise for forcing viewers to wait an extra day for I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!. Events have been unfolding during the international break and it transpires that some Everton supporters think Ronald Koeman should be gagged. They do not care for the tone of some of the manager’s recent remarks and believe club officials should step in to shut him up next time he starts saying Romelu Lukaku probably will have to move somewhere else to fulfil his potential, or...
Impressive start to the season has been tempered by a run of five without a win but there is enough talent out wide to arrest their run against West HamWayne Rooney heading back to Everton makes a great story but let’s face it, Ronald Koeman was only answering a question. Probably as keen as anyone else to change the subject after five winless games, the Everton manager was not about to turn down the invitation to wax lyrical about a Goodison old boy, though he has enough problems at the front of his own team without importing an extra enigma from Manchester United.Another Everton old boy is on Merseyside on Sunday, and Slaven Bilic returns in charge of a side...