I'd say it's the Everton fans who need a rest if they'd take Gibson and 45 year old Barry over him.
Its a legitimate question I'm asking though. By all accounts he didnt play well last year, he was generally disappointing at the Euros and looked tired. Burn out is a real possibility with him.
Barry was Evertons player of the season last year and Koemans first major move when he came to Goodison was to renew Gibsons contract.
Burnout might be an issue but I'd say it's more constant injury. No player is going to look good when he's struggling to string a few games together.
Gibson signed the contract a few days before Koeman was announcedOriginally Posted by SkStu
Gibson contract extended (9th June): http://www.evertonfc.com/news/2016/0...-pens-new-deal
Blues appoint Koeman (14th June): http://www.evertonfc.com/news/2016/0...appoint-koeman
ok - got my timelines wrong on that. Fair to assume it wouldn't have happened without some sort of input from Koeman and sanction from Moshiri?
Anyway, more concerned with their evaluation of McCarthy and trying to figure out what may be the cause of his lethargy over the last couple of seasons.
He has been playing first team professional football for 10 seasons now. According to Wikipedia here are his appearance numbers (league games only) for each of those seasons.
06/07 - 23
07/08 - 35
08/09 - 37
09-10 - 20
10/11 - 24
11/12 - 33
12/13 - 38
13/14 - 39
14/15 - 28
15/16 - 29
Including all domestic appearances hes had an average of 35.6 games per season. In addition he has 39 international caps since 2010.
The guy has played a lot of football for a 25 year old. Maybe he needs a rest.
No way that contract was signed off without Koeman being aware of & in favour of it IMO.
It would be great to see James fully fit and given a chance with Koeman . I hope it all goes well for him.
I don't think he's been lethargic at all over the past couple of seasons. As Charlie says, the injuries this past year look to have taken their toll in the last month or two. Everton had a really poor season generally but I think they completely lost any sort of motivation to turn things around once they were knocked out of both cup competitions. Very few came out of this period with their reputations unscathed.
I've read through that message board in the past a few times and they're a pretty fickle bunch at the best of times and do like their scapegoats. Whether he'll be a Koeman favourite or not remains to be seen but I wouldn't place much faith in what those guys have to say.
This was an article from February which seemed very accurate at the time and I think it may have even represented the general consensus on that same forum at the time, although I can't say for sure off the top of my head.
He's not too dissimilar to Morgan Schneiderlin, who was a very important player for Southampton in Koeman's first season there, so hopefully he can blossom under him. He's been mollycoddled by Martinez for a long time now and, although he's been a brilliant influence on his career, he may not have done him any favours in terms of dragging him out of his comfort zone. Koeman certainly won't wrap him in cotton wool anyway, so he'll either sink or swim pretty fast I'd imagine.
Here's his thread on Grand Old Team from around that time, worth reading a few pages to see how quickly perceptions can change on there. Although to be fair, I can't speak for individuals, just the general transformation in the comments about him. He's basically gone from being one of their most important players to a guy they should sell, in the space of three months of club football. And reading some of the most recent pages, a lot of them really are clueless.
Last edited by DeLorean; 20/07/2016 at 10:08 PM.
Main problem with McCarthy for me is a lack of confidence. He doesn't make himself available for the ball, especially going forward. I think he could benefit from playing under a different manager. Gibson, for all his faults, is always looking for the ball
His stats are shocking, but in good way. I must say I have never been overly impressed with him but I am with those stats.
Everton are a different team with or without McCarty (ah ha I can't live... with or with out you).
Stats don't lie!
But it is a role where a lot of the work goes unseen.
Everton’s Record with and Without James McCarthy
This season
Record with McCarthy (starting appearances only)
W9, D7, L3
Without McCarthy
W4, D5 L4
Last Season
With McCarthy
W16, D8, L10
Without McCarthy
W2, D7, L8
2013/14
With McCarthy
W21, D6, L10
Without McCarthy
W3, D4, L1
I did work out the points ratios but forgot to write them sown.
OK for last season without 1.3 with 1.78, diff 0.48 points per game, that is a LOT!
18 points over the season, it might be less in other years though or more!
IF every player gave you 18 extra points you would have 693.12 points in a season!
Last edited by tricky_colour; 21/07/2016 at 3:07 AM.
Interesting stats TC.
I'm not saying he's a bad player either lads. I'm merely pointing out that, aside from his first season, he hasn't impressed a lot of the fans that have watched him week in week out over the last three years. He struggles to impress quite a lot of the regular posters on here when he dons the green jersey. His performances against Belgium and to a lesser extent Sweden and France looked like he had nothing left in the tank. He was running on empty.
Now, all I'm really saying - and I think it's a fair question - is could his general downward curve over the last season and a half to two seasons be down to having played a hell of a lot of professional football for a 25 year old. Would his career benefit from a rest? I don't think it's that controversial and I'm not implying he's a bad player. I'm a fan and have been one of his most vociferous advocates on here over the years. In fact, almost none of the Everton fans say he's a bad player, just that, in performance terms, as Evertons went, so did McCarthys.
Last edited by SkStu; 21/07/2016 at 4:19 AM.
I think DeLorean makes a good case that he's impressed them well beyond his first season. He signed a five-year deal a year ago and it was widely viewed among fans as a great deal.
I'd still say his troubles maintaining the level of three years ago is down to injuries for the most part. I think we got roughly 150 pages of this thread solely from his injury-enforced withdrawals from Irish squads. Overwork is probably part of it too though - injury recovery, especially when it's niggly ones like James had had rather than a broken bone or whatever, mean very little time for proper rest.
Yeah I know you're a fan. It's just a difficult question to answer unless you agree that his performances have been on a downward curve for nearly two years. He's had an underwhelming couple of months and that could certainly have been down to fatigue. For a guy with so many injury problems over the past year he played an awful lot of football in the last couple of months of the season, maybe it took it's toll and his Euro preparation was disrupted further after that. He had played a serious amount of high level football for a 25 year old and it's likely to catch up with him at some point, but I wouldn't think he'd have reached that stage yet. I hope not anyway.
wrote this about McCarthy's influence on the results at Everton a little over a year ago: http://irish-abroad.appspot.com/Blog...58226553370010
McCarthy and O'Shea playing in unfamiliar positions this weekend, but at least they were playing. Gueye and Barry the chosen two in midfield, with plenty of other options in reserve.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport...uture-11747638
According to Koeman as of a week ago, Gibson isn't fit enough to be considered.
I have to think that his contract extension was agreed without Koeman's input. Very strange considering the options they already have, and the finances they now have in place to attract overrated players like Yannick Bolasie for grossly inflated fees.
Is Gibson injured or just generally unfit? Pretty bad if it's the latter.
Weird article overall, lots of baseless assumptions (it seems to me anyway), such as:
What is Koeman's opinion of him? Just because Koeman thought he was the best option for right wing back doesn't necessarily mean he wouldn't be the best option for central midfield had Coleman been available. He was hardly going to stick Gareth Barry there!Now the Republic of Ireland international has the job of changing Koeman’s opinion of him.
I heard Koeman's interview after the match and he mentioned that Barkley and one or two others will have to work harder. If working hard is the name of the game you'd have to think that McCarthy has every chance of succeeding under him, depending on transfer activity of course. Barry turns 36 this season as well.
What shackles? If anything the lack of shackles throughout the team was what cost Martinez his job.Playing as a right wing-back against Spurs, the ‘old’ McCarthy shone through again. Releasing the shackles of the Martinez era already looks to be taking effect.
the train of thought amongst Everton fans is that Gueye (who was excellent by the way, I watched the entire game) will carry out the defensive holding duties that McCarthy had been doing under Martinez so to that extent he was being "shackled" and that there is a need for a more box-to-box midfielder. Witsel or Carvalho were supposed to be that signing but those deals have both fallen through for now so it remains to be seen whether McCarthy can prove to RK that he can carry out that role. He certainly wont get the chance to prove it if he is being asked to play RWB when RK shifts to 3 at the back. Barry doesn't have the legs for that role anymore but a lot seem to think that Barkley could do that quite well (I disagree, I think he gives the ball away way too cheaply).
I certainly feel more positive about McCarthy's prospects at Everton than I did a few weeks ago but all signs point to the fact that Everton are still in the market for a midfielder or two so it is a weakness in RKs eyes. Plus the rumours about Stoke wanting to sign McCarthy are not going away.
TOWK re Bolasie. 20-25m is the figure I have seen bandied about for that one and while I agree it is on the high side you have to look at the market as a whole and how inflated that is this year. Its ridiculous. Given the massive TV money that has been received it seems clubs want other clubs to spend it. It is an issue of economics and market etc as opposed to an Everton issue. I think Mane for 35m, Stones for 50m and Pogba for 90m are obscene sums.
I saw clips of Gueye alright. He kind of reminded me of Kante, who is a box-to-box type but maybe Gueye is more defensive.
.
Afaiu the writer was referring to Martinez' system having a negative effect on McCarthy's natural game.
"His commitment was never in question, but the system Martinez was playing didn’t suit him for the majority of fixtures and didn’t let him put in the energetic and assured performances to which Blues fans had become accustomed. Playing as a right wing-back against Spurs, the ‘old’ McCarthy shone through again. Releasing the shackles of the Martinez era already looks to be taking effect."
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