Everton: A collapse of organisation and professionalism

Everton looked as bad as they have at any point this season in succumbing to a 4-0 capitulation at Wembley against Tottenham Hotspur, and manager Sam Allardyce did not shy away from blaming the players for the collapse.

“It’s out of order. [You have to] play your way back into the game and be professional about it. It shocked me. I haven’t seen it since I got here. I’ve got to cut it out, starting tomorrow.

”Tottenham can beat anybody by a lot of goals but they should have had to work a lot harder than they did.

”When you go two goals down after half-time and basically relinquish all the gameplan, Tottenham will cut through you and punish you.

”That is what it was -- a collapse of organisation and professionalism.”

Everton looked to have scored a goal that was ruled out for offside, while Harry Kane’s second also looked like the forward was leaning offside.

“The disappointing thing for us is, what would the game have finished like had we scored the first goal when Wayne’s got disallowed?

”Or what would the game have gone like if Harry’s goal would have been disallowed -- because I think it’s offside looking on the laptop.

”What I can’t excuse is out capitulation after we went 2-0 down. But for Jordan Pickford they would have had more goals today and I’m hugely disappointed in the professionalism of my players.”

This promises to a rough week of training for the players who can expect to be shown video after video of this embarrassment.

“You can’t argue with a visual, certainly with the angles that we can show.

“We can clip all the clips out and show all the players in the analysis room where and why they went wrong to make sure that doesn’t occur yet again.

“Unfortunately, there will be so many of them to show it will be difficult watching for all the players.

“There’s the good and take the applause and then there’s the bad and you have to take it on your chin and learn from it.”

Allardyce went on to say that he felt he’d named too attacking a side for this game.

“But then again I reverted back to our Liverpool performance... If you can play like that at Liverpool and just at the death get beat, surely you can come here to Tottenham and deliver the same performance and maybe get a result.

”Maybe I have a bit of responsibility by playing too much attacking-minded players and not as many defending-minded players. I should have got back to being a bit more boring and a bit less adventurous.”

Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images

Speaking to evertontv, Allardyce again looked to absolve himself from blame.

“I am shocked and surprised that we performed as we did. We think the second goal was offside but we cannot control whether the referee gives it or not.

“We should have defended better to not let ourselves get in that position. But what happened after that was the most shocking part of what I have seen since I have been here.

“I did not expect to see that and maybe it is traits [recurring] from what was happening with the team before I arrived.

“I thought we had cut that out, so for me it is about making the players understand that it has happened once, in the second half – it cannot happen again.

“I will tell them why and how it happened and hope they learn from that to make sure they do not put themselves in that position again.

“You can lose a game of football but not lose like we did today.”

The Blues have now had three straight Premier League losses that bring them closer to the relegation zone than the top six spots.

“We are still waiting for Yannick Bolaise and James McCarthy to pick up their match fitness, so they are probably playing longer than they should with the injuries they have had. But it is a necessity at the minute.

“Hopefully we will get better in the near future. I am a bit worried about the run we are on at the moment and West Brom [at Goodison Park] becomes a massive game next Saturday.

“After a wonderful, wonderful start we are back on dangerous ground. It is our responsibility to get results to stay away from that [relegation zone].

“We can take all the clips out and show the players in the analysis room where they went wrong, so it does not happen again.

“Unfortunately, there are so many to show, so it will be difficult watching for the players. But it is a necessity for me and always has been.

“You have the good when you take the applause – and the bad, which you have to take on the chin and learn from.”

Frustrating performance, both from the manager and the players.