Perhaps we can now escape the dark shadow of Anfield?

If (massive 'if') I wasn't absolutely obsessed with Everton, I wouldn't bother at all with the Premier League.

And it's mid-August – no football should start until September. I've quoted in part Bobby there and I have to say, I agree with every word he says.

I came up with a working title but let me know if you think of something better.

It's 5 weeks until we play them and I hadn't given it a moments thought until now as, like most of us, I'm more focused on us dismantling Leeds tomorrow night.

In fairness to Bobby, I kind of get what he's saying. It's one of the reasons why we need to retire that ‘Grand Old Team' song as even that references them.

The rot started in the early 70’s with the mental decline of Harry Catterick, continued with the hopeless Billy Bingham, had a short lived up tick with the gormless Gordon Lee. A bright, brilliant moment under Howard and ever since, just a slow, steady decline.

I don’t know if TFG will get us back to where we belong. It’s not just splashing the cash, as Moshiri found out, but changing the mentality at everyone at BMD.

But perhaps we need to use those 5 weeks to totally change the mindset in the club and go there on the back of a fantastic start to the season! Yeh!!!

I shall send this to David Moyes so he can pin t up in the changing room…

It was an off the cuff post in which I threw out a handful of many Everton related frustations that have been rattling around in my head for a while. The post may or may not adequately convey my thoughts.

In the main, I feel there has been a fairly obvious decades-long cultural malaise at Everton. The derby is the best example of it.

Your first paragraph is juvenile and utterly deluded, by the way. Check our post-Shankly record in the fixture.

The problem of rank defeatism and an inherent loser culture is undeniable. The evidence is irrefutable. It exists in respect of all fixtures. In relation to everything. We have become a club that when the pressure is on, we fold. We are "Spursy". In fact, we are way more Spursy than Spurs.

What I want to do is highlight it and establish how we can change it.

Until we accept how far we have fallen, how deep the rot is, we can never recover. It's better than people deluding themselves that the malaise is only "supposed" to exist and everything is ok, a la Kenwright.

Historically, it is generally the arrival of one man with immense the drive and zeal who changes things. (Busby Shankly,Clough, Pep, Jose etc and yes I know they all had money as well).

People who are genuinely going to be leaders in their craft. Medical excellence, talent spotters, academy coaches, coaches that tactically see the game differently and are able to squeeze every last drop out of the players.

Delivering this on a long term basis is also the challenge. Brighton have signed brilliantly, but post the inevitable sale of Mitoma, Mintah & Baleba, I think they're done. Similar with Brentford losing Wissa, Mbeumo & Toney. You can outperform for a period, but someone richer will always copy or steel that IP at some point.

Credit therefore is probably looking at Forest and Villa. I won't be a lonely in disliking the Greek owner, but he's recruited top people in the background and on the pitch. Villa have also done well, but they seemingly lack top sparkle after missing on champions league and psr issues. Both will remain in the top 10, challenging the so called top 6 with Newcastle.

For Everton it will be years before we see real change. The player quality scouted has been improved. Getting them over the line has been a challenge, but let's be honest, evertons name has been mud after the financial mismanagement, psr issues, brushes with organisations like 777, dyer football from poor players & coaches. Selling on the back of thst is not an overnight thing.

12 months time the new structure will be in place & settled. Moyes will have them comfortably mid table, playing better football than we've seen in person since early Silva. The academy is now begining to pick up promising kids, with the offer that there is a pathway for the best. Thats a long time since that's been in place. Ive told the story before of the academy telling the parents that evertons biggest success was selling their players. Hopefully that's now cone to an end, and that mentality has been shown the door.

Patience is short at Everton, and its hard to ask fans for more. But if we can give it 3 years to allow green shoots to form, I do think we can break the cycle of the last 10 years. Whether that means ever challenging and winning titles is impossible to know. But it's a start.

New badge. Don't even ask the fans. Just do it.

Hammer Elton John's I Guess That's Why We Call it the Blues. Which we should sing. A lot. We won't, of course, as many of our fans are obsessed with "kopite behaviour".

This is the point. We have become so spooked by them, so determined to only define ourselves as the opposite of them, that we have lost our identity and become...nothing.

In the 90's When Skies are Grey -which I used to love btw - even used to discourage the wearing of colours and a "kopite-esque show of wool" (scarfs ffs). In other words, supporting!

We turned in on ourselves. We became insular and perverse. Weird and quite honestly small time. We drove ourselves into a cul de sac from which we are yet to escape.

Bobby, I'm 53, approaching 54 and have witnessed more derby defeats than victories. Ironically, a lot of my best derby memories have come at Anfield, not Goodison.

It has become a mentality thing, but for some strange reason, it's never got to me. I don't go into any derby fearing them or being submissive. Why should we?

I will comment on them as much as I will any other team, but tend to leave the derby in the build up to the match itself.

Players always talked about how difficult it was coming to Goodison and how loud and intimidating the crowd was. Dan Meis even made much noise about trying to replicate that at Bramley Moore. I must admit that such comments always surprised me as my own experiences are that our support is quite brittle. We start out loud but swiftly go quiet if things aren’t going our way, often being outsung by visiting fans.

I remember Sylvester Stallone trying to whip the fans up at half-time (against Coventry, I think) so that he could record it and use it in one of the Creed movies. In typical Evertonian style, we weren’t having any of it cos we’d been shite in the first half, and the resultant ‘cheers’ were half-arsed and quite embarrassing really.

Colin too, apart from these words

" not the fans who have accepted continued mediocrity".

Here I'd have to disagree. Its clear that the vast majority were not bothered about anything other than Premiership status for way too long.

Long gone were the expectations for silverware. Long gone any knowledge of european football. Long gone any hope of any challange other than struggle.

Acceptance that the crooks in charge, right back to our most successful era, took cash out via their holdings, failing to put cash in or an input that wasnt free, season after season.

The lowering of acceptable performance off the pitch and most certainly on it. Reducing quality of players everywhere. Selling assets off to recruit dross (via certain favoured self interested agents) bred mediocrity and mindsets. Fans were enshrined into a programme where success was never going to happen. Because of falsely inflated hardship, lies and self centred power mongering, deceiving the blue world into believing he was looking for investment year after year, decade after decade. To the detriment of everything Everton. Without a care, cutting off communication to those who asked. That fat false smugness. The worst owner, chairman, in the clubs history. Best narcissist. When open wounds fester without treatment or being completely severed all that is inevitable is death.

So many trusted. So many accepted. And the rot started years before that dreadful man. He just took advantage.

Recovery ?

So long as the past 4 decades + are held up as a continual reminder of the sickness and disease that those with power infected the club with.

Its tougher than ever to recover.

There is a hardcore caucus of clubs that have gripped the domestic and european golden goose for that long no one can get past their shields of unfairness and inequality.

Rules have changed everywhere to benefit them

Fifa, uefa, PL all want the same thing. A league of elite.

Everton are not considered and any thought that we might be, evaporated way before several generation of incredible blues fans were even born.

Our only way to the top is usurping the barbed wire bureaucracy designed to keep us well away, by reinventing the game of football. Smash the indoctrinated coaching badge way. And for that we need a regime change from grass roots where the failings are still endemic, up to and including the players, manager and TFG.

This will take time.

Whether it will be done, we shall see.

COYB

Busby developed his academy players. Shanks drilled into his team a winner’s mentality and Cloughie, well he won the title with Derby bloody County and Nottingham sodding Forest. Two footballing nobodies.

Yes they spent money in later years but they all started from a very low base and it was shrewd buying and selling and player development which made them successful.

Plus hard bastard discipline and a simple approach.

I've no idea how decent a player Ben Doak is. He's being touted for £25M. He played once or maybe twice for Celtic, the same for that lot. Decent spell at Boro in the Championship. £25M.... if I didn't dislike them so much, I'd applaud them.

Still, we may get a Lucky Bag and a bottle of Tizer as a sell-on fee for Broadhead going to Wrexham.

It's an incredible, and extremely unlikely achievement to have been such a poorly run club over a period of 35 years and remain at the top table; no one else has come close! Unfortunately, our unlikely survival served only to maintain the status quo.

We can only hope that our new ownership will finally break the cycle; too early to tell yet. I can't see how they can fail to be an improvement on what has come before, though.

It's not about psychology and mindset, it's about professionalism at all levels of the club that has been sadly lacking for decades. Songs and badges are as irrelevant as our neighbours.

Why? Because we had people within the club who wanted to emulate them, and because these people had been winners themselves in their playing career, they knew just how to do it.

The only other time we have got under their skin was in the mid-nineties. Why? Because we had a scouse manager who also knew how to win, and more importantly he knew them better than they knew themselves.

Fuck Liverpool — concentrate on Everton, which is why Tarkowski's "ask no fucking questions" tackle on Mac Alister is hopefully going to be the start of us having a completely different attitude against whoever we play in the future.

Whilst I would never want to be them, it doesn't mean that they are not the yardstick, because anyone who knows anything about winning knows that you don't get anywhere if you haven't got the desire and an attitude that means that you don't give a fuck for anyone who is going to try and stop you winning.

A great post, Bobby, and also one that didn't really need to mention those bastards, because football is just like life and the most important thing we can do is get our own house in order first before we can hopefully (my predictive text just wrote hopelessly🤷‍♂️) move on to better things.

Evertonians have been complicit, Colin (the acceptance of Kenwright, that allegedly transparent vote, where the majority voted to go to Kirkby) and we are a completely different set of fans from the ones that used to throw the cushions onto the pitch when I first started attending Goodison Park.

We accept not being ready for the start of the Premier League season as if it's normal, even though it's totally unprofessional and not befitting of the club we once were. No wonder we don't win anymore.

TFG appear shrewd business people, running the club on a sound operating model. Bottom line will be key for any owner. Your in business to be profitable. Whether they share the same views as us fans wanting to win trophies, remains to be seen.

Going back to cultural and mindset changes, that is something that TFG will need to install over time.

To date, and just in my opinion, only the Moores family have set the bar high in the time i've supported this club, but no surprises they also had involvement across the park as well in that time. Vested interest in both club perhaps.

Anyone born post 1990 has never experienced a successful Everton team (and I'm not talking a measly FA Cup win) so of course they have been accustomed to mediocrity.

I honestly believe this generation are our most loyal fans. Who else would put up with this crap? Hats off to any and every Everton fan under the age of 30.

If I was 5 again today, I don't know if I would choose Everton to be my team.

All the other posters have mentioned things I would have done. However, only two things to note.

In this para 'No one appears to have twigged that the '09 defeat appears to have irreparably damaged morale regarding the fixture. We have barely won one since, even at home where we are 10 years without a win.'

Is that the 2012 semi-final defeat?

Didn't we win 2-0 at Goodison in 2024?

We need to at least celebrate some victories.

I think Everton have missed a trick by not employing some of these winners in some capacity in the past, a la Reid, Southall and, in modern times, Rooney.

Talking about Rooney, he may be painful to watch as a TV Pundit but he had a winning mentality. Although his managerial career is suspect, surely his experience as an attacker could be put to use as a Specialist Attacking Coach.

I think it has to start on the field.

Careful, strategic recruitment and tons of patience required. I just hope this is not another false dawn.

Like Bobby says, it's in the fabric of this club and the we appoint a “knives to a gunfight” loser Moyes mentality again to this club. I had hoped he'd be gone in the summer but here we go again with another loser.

West Ham European Conference League win apart, he's won fuck all for us or any other club he was with. He got lucky once… never to be repeated.

I should have stated that, “by those who should have known better”, with regards William, and it's why I try and educate as many young people as possible about the dangers of a government that wants to do away with cash and have total control with digital currency!

I often think that Wayne Rooney is a waste to football by taking the easy option and earning his money by talking about rather than still being involved in the grind of day-to-day football, Steve.

Rooney hasn't been a very good manager, but neither was one of his earliest mentors, Colin Harvey. Harvey was by all accounts an outstanding football coach, something I think Rooney would also be if he still had the desire and the inclination.

If I was David Moyes, I'd have been on the phone to Rooney the minute I got the Everton job because he his a born winner and also an Evertonian who comes from a family of Evertonians.

Our manager got us the whole-season equivalent of 62 points last year and (in my view) we played much more attacking football. All this was managed with the same players (plus Alcaraz) that Dyche had. How about a bit of positivity for once and actually getting behind our manager and players (whoever they are)?

You never know, we might actually win on Monday night and our new players may perform. We may also sign a few more players before the window closes and make some progress up the table this season. Glass half-full for me at this stage! Let's see if it is still the case on Monday night.

Derby days I can't relax. I hate the Red Shite with a venomous passion. I need help!!

I shook my head and told a Liverpudlian that he didn't know much about football when he gave me that standard bollocks about the Premier League needing Everton. Barring injury to Branthwaite, I think we are a mid-table team, and I think Moyes has already proved this since he took the job.

Can we go higher? With the right signings, then I'm confident the answer will be Yes.

Some great posts on here from Everton fans who love Everton, but a fighting Everton who believe they are going out to win not just there as fodder for their opponents.

Winners, managers and players who truly who have the guts to get out there and have a professional attitude in trying to win in every game not just against Liverpool, fuck them, who are they! should be the attitude which the way it was under Catterick, Kendall/ Harvey and Royle who took great pleasure in winding the bastards up, before, during and definitely after the game.

It will take a few years, which has already been said, but it can happen —if we have the winning personnel on and off field let’s see how these owners shape—- they are here to make money — I hope they make brewsters while making us happy following a team that fears no one.

As for Moyes, he has 2 years left on his contract. I expect that he will stabilise us more on the pitch and we will be knocking on the door of Europe, if not qualifying, in that time.

I would think by then we will be a much more attractive proposition and we will get a new manager then. We could (and should) be doing far better than this, though, and I fully expect us to do so in the next few years.

I want my two lads to see us win something soon – both in their mid-twenties and never seen the glory years!

That post sits well with me, Dave @33. We shouldn't be afraid of anyone and they are just another team we have to face in a league of 20. Increased rivalry? Yes, but I leave that for derby day.

We won't win every game, but the is no excuse for going out with a desire to win, whoever the opposition are.

I don't think most of us have a losers mentality, but wishing for something doesn't make it happen — it takes much more than that.

I think we all know why the Reds' squad is better than ours so I won't go into all the historic and recent reasons.

Suffice to say it's very very difficult to come from where we are now to reach the top and stay there.

Funny, this thread is practically entirely anti-Moyes. Yet, the reason Martinez was sacked for the 'lowly position of 12th' was because it was so far below the standards that Moyes had achieved with no backing whatsoever.

We beat the RS 2-0 in April 2024 under Sean Dyche.