A gloomy start to 2020

I had intended that my first post of 2020 should be optimistic. That one's on hold while, like all Everton fans, I ponder our team's feeble second half performance in Sunday's F A Cup derby as what wasn't far off Liverpool's youth team made Bill Shankly's jibe from over 50 years ago, that the two best teams on Merseyside are Liverpool and Liverpool reserves, come palpably true, probably for the first time.

Sure, Everton made several good chances in the first half and Curtis Jones's strike for the winner, reminiscent of Wayne Rooney's announcement on the scene against Arsenal all those years ago, was a screamer. But it was hardly against the run of play as Liverpool had 57% possession and bossed the midfield. I'm not sure which was the more galling feature - that Liverpool should have been so comfortable in the closing stages with a teenage centre back and debutant right back or that Adam Lallana and two players with barely a handful of first team appearances between them should dominate Everton's midfield so easily. I've been quite critical of Gylfi Sigurdsson and very critical of Morgan Schneiderlin in their time wearing a blue shirt. But they were made to look ponderous and slow-witted yesterday, and an extremely poor return for around £70 million in transfer fees.

Liverpool, of course, had almost literally nothing to lose but this was still an awful defeat for the blues. The gap between the clubs now feels permanently unbridgeable, which is very hard to swallow for someone old enough to remember Everton being considered, by common consent, very much the bigger club. I wouldn't bet much on Moshiri's financial backing and the new stadium project  gradually rebalancing the situation the way the game is set up now.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the players for whom it mattered most gave the best performances. Evidently they were mainly wearing Liverpool shirts as their youngsters had plenty to prove. They weren't all teenagers: Pedro Chrivella and Nat Phillips are 22. Spaniard Chrivella has been at Liverpool for 6 years, Phillips was signed from Bolton 3 years ago. But in the blue ranks it was predictably Mason Holgate and Dominic Calvert Lewin who at least looked as if they wanted to win. Sigurdsson and Schneiderlin looked as if they didn't care while Walcott looked, as usual, like he didn't have a clue: Liverpool had teenagers in their team, we had a 30 year old who still plays like one.

An equally worrying aspect was Carlo Ancelotti's tactics and failure to address the obvious issues on the pitch during the match. His team selection and tactical shape was too aggressive and ceded control to Liverpool. Why not play, or at least bring on, Tom Davies, who would be guaranteed to care and to try hard?

Indeed, given that Liverpool were always going to play some fringe players, why not play one or two of our U23s? At least they've had the experience of beating Liverpool teams containing some of the players Liverpool fielded on Sunday. In the second half  Everton looked as psychologically cowed by Liverpool as ever even though the occupants of the red shirts were unfamiliar and lacking in experience.

Team talks can be over-rated in terms of impact, but also I wonder what the two managers said to their teams at half time. Klopp's talk would have been easier to give. Maybe something on the lines of "They've thrown everything they've got at you and you're still level. They're never going to score today. Now it's your turn to play. Show them what you've got and they'll fold".

For Ancelotti it would have been tempting to say "you're playing well, just keep going as you are and you'll score" which is very much the modern philosophy in football. But such words always, in my experience, lead to complacency. The best manager I ever played for wouldn't have said anything like that. Brian Scott was a construction labourer who had never played organised football before some of his work mates brought him to training. He was already a bit old for the team, but was keen and enjoyed getting fit. We had no-one to run our reserve team at the time and Brian was persuaded to give it a go. He was a revelation, a natural man manager and very observant about what was happening in front of him, despite his lack of playing experience. I lost count of the times he'd say to me "why are you (or aren't you) doing such and such today? That's not like you" about something I hadn't realised for myself. Brian would have recognised how dangerous it always is when you've made several good chances but not scored. In his characteristic sharp style he would have warned the whole team that we'd now made life hard for ourselves as the opposition would have gained encouragement from our failures and would almost certainly come out and play much better in the second half. Basically, he'd have given us a well aimed rocket, telling us we'd have to try much harder and play much smarter if we wanted to win.

Brian was perceptive and tough. I still remember the rocket he gave the back four after we'd won 14-2 for losing concentration and letting such weak opposition score twice! He accused us of all wanting to get on the score sheet, which was probably correct. The good habits he instilled turned us into a very effective team. Although he'd never played at the (modest) standard we competed in he improved us as individual players and as a team. He was our Mourinho.

I wish Brian could have given the half time talk to Everton on Sunday. He wouldn't have been happy at that stage, let alone by the end. I suspect half the team would have tried to escape the ground without going back into the changing room.

At the moment I'd be quite happy for some of them to stay away permanently.

My new year message saying why the 2020s could be a good decade will have to wait until the steam dissipates.