After a season where Everton – and Roberto Martinez – were widely criticised by the media for lacking ruthlessness, new boss Ronald Koeman has admitted the squad is ‘too nice’.
Koeman has been speaking about the acquisition of Idrissa ‘Gana’ Gueye, who the manager has said is a ‘different player’ who can press with more intensity, and he wishes that this mentality will rub off on the rest of the squad. The Senegalese midfielder enjoyed a very successful debut for the Blues on Saturday.
The manager has also been speaking about the changing of mentality from the Martinez era and has admitted it may take time to ‘unlearn’ the Spaniard’s system.
He [Gueye] is a different player and he can bring that to the team and that’s the reason why we signed Idrissa for Everton because he is a different midfield player than most of them. But also the rest of players need to be more aggressive. It is sometimes too nice.
We have to show the players what we want and that is still difficult because if you play three seasons on your guitar and then one day you need to play piano it is difficult because maybe it is not your quality but it is also a mental question.
As for the coming season, Koeman wishes to adapt Everton’s high-energy players and implement a high-pressing, ultra-intensive system and has emphasised that off-the-ball movement is key to success in modern Football, something which he believes his side is lacking.
Football is not anymore the game when you have the ball, it is also the game when you don’t have the ball and we need to improve much more than we did so far.
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