6 overreactions after the Everton defeat

When you pay for a ticket for a football game you’re also paying for the right to complain if you’re unhappy about what you see. Some fans will support their team regardless of the results, others will see their opportunity to criticise their team as a consumer right that they’ve paid good money for.

I personally stand somewhere in the middle of this argument, maybe slightly leaning towards the “enjoy the ride” crowd. While it’s silly to say you should never make a critical comment about your club, it’s important that fans vocally back their team. The success of last season and our remarkable home form in the Premier League is evidence that positivity in the stands spreads out onto the pitch.

Anyway, this article isn’t having a go about critical fans in general. It’s about the specific things some fans have said after the Everton defeat which, to me at least, seem pretty silly. Here are some of the things I’ve seen online or heard in the stands.

“Wagner Out, Pulis in”

I’ve seen someone make this point ironically, but I also saw a heartfelt post about the merits of bringing in someone with the Premier League knowhow of Pulis because Wagner doesn’t have the required experience.

While both managers like to wear a baseball cap in the dugout, they couldn’t be more different in every other way you’d judge a manager. Wagner has a philosophy that involves playing football the right way and fighting hard. Pulis puts out teams that will try to grind results out and strangle the joy out of the game.

Not every Town fan will agree with me on this, but I’d rather we got relegated doing things the right way with Wagner than stay up by switching to a negative style with a manager like Tony Pulis.

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“Tom Ince is dog sh*t”

I’ve seen a lot of critical comments about Ince after the Everton game, and in my Everton player ratings article I gave him a fairly poor score. However, to write him off entirely is silly. He’s in a bad patch of form right now, but has shown earlier in the season that he can offer a lot to the team.

He’s also shown at Derby that he can be a prolific goalscorer and had a tendency to score important goals for them. He might not yet have scored for Town but once he finds some form I think he could be our top-scorer this season (feel free to remind me I said this in May 2018).

“We should be beating teams like Everton”

Everton have had a miserable start to their season and have looked very poor at times. However, their squad is packed with top quality players, including over £140m last summer on new recruits.

It fair to say we had a chance against Everton, they aren’t at their best (or as it happens, maybe just getting there). But we’re not in a position to be expecting victory in any Premier League game. We’re still the underdogs in virtually every match. We have to stay humble and remember that every point we get this season will have to be earned.

“I’d rather we were back in the Championship”

I believe that Town’s natural position in the pecking order is somewhere between the middle and the bottom of the Championship. The years we spent in Leagues One and Two felt like we were operating below our natural position, the Premier League isn’t our home either.

But while we’re in the Premier League I want to enjoy every single minute of it. I can’t understand the logic that being in the second tier is better, despite hearing a few fans grumble this whenever Town lose. I’d rather we get beaten 2-0 by Everton in the top flight than win against teams like Burton Albion in the Championship.

“Our away priority system is the reason we’re struggling away from home”

The away priority system continues to be a sore point for many fans, and it’s clearly something to club will want to improve upon if we get another year in the Premier League. But it’s not the reason we’re struggling away from home. We’re struggling away from home because we don’t score enough goals.

I was at Everton away last weekend and the support from Town fans was excellent until we went 2-0 down. We sang loud and proud and couldn’t have done more to push the team forward. There were pockets of fans that seemed to turn on the team a bit when we went 2-0 down, but it’s natural that some fans will want to vent their frustration after another game without a goal.

The priority system might change which fans get to go to games, but the bulk of those that turn up are backing the team 100%.
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“None of our players from last season are good enough”

Every promoted team has players that lift themselves and rise to the challenge of playing better teams. Then there are players that find the step up harder to manage.

Town have players that fit into both these camps. Schindler, and van La Parra have all got better this season despite playing far superior opposition than they did last year. Smith and Kachunga are still finding their feet. That doesn’t mean they’re not good enough, it’s just an adjustment.

Last January there were rumours that Everton were considering an £8m bid for Kachunga. While it was just a rumour, it goes to show that it wasn’t that long ago that top-half Premier League clubs could see potential in him. Tommy Smith was also rumoured to be scouted by bigger clubs prior to our promotion.

It’s easy to get on the players’ backs when results aren’t going our way. But the players that got us promoted last season have earned the right to play for Town in the Premier League. I’ll keep on supporting them as long as David Wagner keeps picking them.